Dear
Aspirant...
"What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we
are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for
the moment realizes itself."
- Anonymous
As more and more engineers are churned out every year from the
scores of colleges in the country, the one name that commands
immediate attention and respect is that of the IITs, which
represent the dreams and ambitions of thousands of young students,
who hope to be one of the select few to pass out with the tag of an
'IITian'.
But what is it that makes the IITs so special? And why is
there, this frenzied rush to get into IIT?
The IITs were established with the goal of providing quality
education in engineering and the sciences - an education that would
train its engineers and scientists to be innovative and inventive
and rank among the best in the world. As the premier technological
institutes of the country, the IITs have always endeavoured to keep
our country at the forefront of technical advancement and have
contributed richly to research and development. The education at
the IITs compares with none other - and this possibly explains why
so many youngsters dream of being an 'IITian'. And to choose the
best among these many thousands of aspirants, is an intensely
competitive selection procedure, held each year - the JEE and for
B.Tech., GATE for M.Tech. and individual subject entrance tests for
M.Sc. admissions.
JEE - the Joint Entrance Examination for admission
to the B.Tech. programme, is held annually in two stages - a
screening test in December and the main examination in May.
Students are tested in three subjects - Physics, Mathematics and
Chemistry. JEE enjoys the reputation of being one of the most
fairly conducted examinations in the world and is extremely
competitive as well, attracting over 1,50,000 candidates every
year. Its papers are famed for their 'difficulty' levels -
questions in JEE are not run-of-the-mill, seeking mere plugging in
of values into formula. What the JEE paper looks for in an examinee
is a thorough understanding of the fundamentals coupled with the
ability to think laterally, a powerful combination that can subdue
even the most ominous -looking problem with an elegant
solution.
And yet, all this doesn't mean you need an IQ of 200+ to make it
through JEE! These skills are the result of plain hard work and are
developed over time; tempered and honed by diligent, determined and
concentrated effort. Not all the 4200 students who make it to the
IITs every year get in by virtue of their 'brilliance' or 'genius';
it is by sheer dint of hard work that JEE can be tackled and
without this dedicated effort, even the best minds can meet with
failure. Of course, such work needs guidance and coaching and that
is probably why there has been this proliferation of countless
coaching classes, tuition centres and correspondence courses ,
vying with one another to train their students to make it through
the JEE! But the most popular and time-tested method is to seek the
help of teachers who can train you to adopt the line of thinking
necessary to attack JEE questions. This personalised form of
teaching has been found to work the best; the numbers of such
students who have made it to the IITs year after year is proof
enough. So, check with your friends and relatives about such
teachers in your city, who train candidates for the JEE.
You may be wondering if the IITs themselves provide any coaching.
The answer to your question is a qualified "yes". IIT does not
provide any instructions as coaching for students who will be
taking JEE. Students belonging to the reserved category are urged
to take advantage of this preparatory course.
The IITs organise JEE jointly and publish notices in leading
newspapers, calling for applicants. They also send brochures to
hundreds of schools and institutes, to increase
awareness about the examination. Of course, your friends,
schoolmates and relatives will also be of assistance to you in this
regard, sharing with you the knowledge that they possess about IIT
and the JEE. And the best source would probably be an ex-IITian who
has experienced it all himself/herself! It has been observed,
however, that such sources of information are not always accessible
to students from the rural areas. Statistics show that a majority of
students who join the IITs are from metropolitan areas; the number
of students from rural areas is very small, mainly because of the
lack of information.
IITs have a very low acceptance ratio; (Ratio of number of students
selected and number of students applied) nearly one and a half lakh
students sit for IIT JEE every year & merely 3000 can make it
to IIT, but this doesn't make it a very tough competition to crack.
Try to understand me, to quote figures, in JEE 2003 my total was
92/180 in the mains & I got AIR (All India Rank) 406 where as
my roommate having total of 95 got AIR 235 (JEE gave individual
marks in 2003) that means getting marks nearly 55% will give you a
good rank in JEE. Think a while you have to solve just half a paper
to get through JEE!
First general funda is... Don't suffer with excusitis (cf.
appendicitis). Don't give arguments like I m a Gujarat board
student, belonging to a city from where no one has got selected in
this particular exam till date... So how can I think of?
Trust me you are unique; every one is unique, it is matter of fact
that we can't compare people. Imagine a situation, you aspire to
become CEO of a company like 'Infosys', if you will tell this
ambition to your friends imagine what their reaction will be? I
don't think any of them will give you a sound suggestion to achieve
this goal, rather it is possible some of them may laugh on you. But
if you ask any company CEO, he will tell you the way to achieve
that, certainly he won't laugh on you.
Just a second! you remain the same when you ask the same question
to your friend or from CEO but one time you got appreciation with
suggestion and once you got laugh on you. Why? Simply because your
friend can't think as ambitiously as you can. Believe me you can do
every thing, JEE is just a thing.
To clear IIT JEE you need a conceptual approach I think you might
have heard this sentence hazzar times. But what does this
conceptual approach means?
Conceptual means you have to know how you actually proceed while
solving a problem, you must know why you have adopted a particular
approach while solving and why not one you had just learned. JEE is
not going to be eat & vomit examination. You can't crack the
examination just by cramming the formula.
You will find some students in IIT who started there preparation
for JEE right from there class 9th, some preparing since 11th and
to your surprise you will find some who actually never prepared for
JEE. Confused? The reason of this ambiguity is word 'preparation'.
Preparing for JEE doesn't mean joining coaching classes nor it
means reading bulky books containing plethora
of information for 10 hours or so, but it means reading whatever
you read with a purpose in mind, purpose being how this information
can be useful, purpose being how they can ask this in JEE, in short
using your time most efficiently, thinking of JEE also apart from
your class XIth or XIIth preparation.
After spending one year at IIT, I found there is not a 100% rigid
formula for success in JEE. So to make any rule about way of study
or numbers of hours to study for JEE will be worthless, but the
thing which is certain is hard work only culminates in success.
I Believe that people have there own learning speed for a
particular topic. Time taken by one person to learn some thing is
very special to that person.
I mean, if student 'A' takes 2 hours to grasp the concepts of one
chapter, student 'B' may take 3, on the other hand I wish to add it
is also quite possible while reading another chapter 'A' may take 3
hours where as 'B' could take 2. So it is unfair to compare study
time of any to students, rather I suggest you to compete with
yourself, after all it's your own career and you have taken
challenge to be a part of a family which has world recognition and
where every member is determine to blaze somewhere.
So the conclusion is you have to do your best, I remind you, your
best means giving your full efforts for doing hard work every day
till JEE.
The best policy is being steady with studies. So the smoothest way
(Note that I haven't used phrases like best or easiest) will be to
study topics simultaneously for JEE and your class XIth &
XIIth. Whenever you think you have finished a particular portion
then solve JEE level questions on that topics and surely do further
reading to make clear concepts. Remember you are aiming for the
best, so your understanding for each topics should be best, you
shouldn't compromise on quality of understanding. There shouldn't
be any doubt about how you will proceed in a particular type of
problem. So we have concluded some of the crucial ingredients for
your success for JEE
The admission to the IITs is however, only the first step that a
student takes towards becoming a good engineer. Getting here is in
itself an achievement, but what is more challenging is to sustain
the academic excellence thereafter. Considering you are now in the
company of the 'cream of bright young talent' from all over the
country, it is critical that the sincerity and enthusiasm that
brought you here must not wane. Many students heave a sigh of
relief when they make it to the IITs, with an attitude of 'thus far
and no further', wrongly believing that they have accomplished
their ultimate goal. It is ironical that the academic
responsibilities do not hold even a fraction of the interest that
they once evinced to get here. As a consequence, they do not
utilize completely, the wonderful opportunity given to them to
become a master in their field of study. The IITs represent the
finest contribution of our country towards meaningful technical
education. You too belong here - but you
may have to run a small race to get to this place!
Source: http://www.ee.iitm.ac.in/
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