[fedora-india] National Institute of Technology workshop report

[Shakthi Kannan]

Hi,

My thoughts below:

--- On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 7:56 PM, susmit shannigrahi
<thinklinux.ssh at gmail.com> wrote:
| Hmm, just a thought, If someone isn't a CS or EC student or isn't
\--

The separation of departments is for easier administration.
Unfortunately, in many colleges in India (that I have seen), there is
hardly any inter-department *knowledge sharing*. Only thing that is
inter-departmental is college cultural activities, or, hanging out
with friends, outside college.

There were times, when I did two separate workshops for two different
departments in the same college, and they didn't know that each other
were using FOSS tools, and that they could get help from each other --
the very essence of FOSS! Ego, politics between departments and
professors does no good as well.

When we work in embedded, for example, we have to interact with people
from varying backgrounds (electrical, hardware, software), and
everyone should be able to understand each others' terminology,
otherwise, communication just doesn't happen! Similarly, students in
different departments can learn, work together, and FOSS can be a
bridge to unite them.

In reality, students choose a department not because they like the
subject. Usually, it is forced on to them. So, a person doing CS,
could still be interested in electronics, and might be interested in
pursuing a career towards it, and FOSS tools give them an opportunity
to do so.

There are still semester courses that are common amongst departments.
Students like a particular subject, because they like the way a
particular author has expressed the content in a book, or because the
professor has presented it in a nice manner -- and that, IMO, is what
brings interest to a student in a particular field.

In short, one needs to have a broadminded outlook, than be confined to
*administrative* divisions.

SK

-- 
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com