I completed Master of Science in Software Systems from BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan in the year 2013.
For all those who want to pursue higher education and are or aren’t working, following are a few tips from my side.
In the busy life within IT sector, one can hardly make out time or rather invest time on themselves. But still there are few(rather many!!) who inspite of having a hectic schedule, pull out some quality time for their self growth. One of the reason is higher studies. There could be various reasons which would have stopped them from continuing to pursue their Master degree, but nowadays we have flexible options to do the same. For example, BITS Pilani offers WILP (Work Integrated Learning Programme), Manipal (Distance Studies), Symbiosis (Well known for Distance MBA).. etc.
I pursued Master of Science from BITS Pilani in 2013. Many people(colleagues, peers, sub-ordinates and students) asks me, that why I opted for BITS Pilani, over others.
Following is a brief comparison that why I opted for BITS.
Now coming to the point that how to manage time and use of this master degree:
Most of all, its upto you, how well you can make use of this degree further(in corporate life and other places).
Also, checkout how well can you manage time etc. Am not saying its impossible, because I have seen people bringing their kids(around 3–4 years) to examination premises. So if they can manage, then most of us can.
My personal experience:
Nothing is easy, as it seems to be initially. Every path has its own turns and twists and so did I experienced.
During the first semester it was hard to even write(because it was a long time writing some stuff after engineering days. Ya I know that might be hilarious to many :)).
Following are few of the problems I faced and also how I was able to manage them:
1) Time : The biggest problem is how to manage time. Usually the working hours would be anytime between 9am to 5/6pm + 2 hours minimum of commuting so total of 11 working hours. Hardly you can make out time after coming to home. If you are commuting in Bus/Cab, then that’s the best time which could be utilized. Also, morning time is the best time to study. Studying in bus may not be easy for all, especially if its a bumpy ride on city roads :). But this is how I managed, 2.5 hours of study in bus and 1 hour at home. And always, weekends you have extra time. Also, you might have to skip those family gatherings and functions, friend’s get together, mini parties, movies, bowling etc etc, as the list goes on and on.
2) Office chores: Yes, you got it right. Work load varies across people and that small time which you spend chatting or roaming etc, could be managed very effectively and efficiently. Few companies also provide you special infrastructural support for watching those lectures. And when you have the soft copies of the lectures, VOILA!!, what more you want!!… you can access them in your smartphones also. One can also watch the videos in their Tabs/ Smart phones. Still to make it simple.. Convert the video to audio, and listen as if its some music(I know, not as easy as I said .. ;)).
3) Exam time: Huff!!. The D-Day.. As the exam nears, the heat increases. Many blow the extra dust covered on books on the previous week of exams and believe me, these last minute readers also perform very well and also scores good :).. Coming to the main point, exams are usually conducted on weekends or on govt holidays. Yes, you got it right, it could be during Diwali/Eid/Christmas also :).. So you might not enjoy your festival, but still you need not apply leaves(other than your study leaves that depends) for your exams.
There would be two exams per day(as per BITS). Initially this would seem hectic, but compared to other universities which plan for the whole month(one weekend each), this would just end in one week and not dragging the lion too much so tat it kills the poor students :)…
I used to apply leaves as per my preparation, sometimes one whole week prior to exam and sometimes 2–3days.
4) Exam Pattern: In BITS, there would be one mid-sem exam(closed book), which is like a unit test for 30% of marks, then an objective online test for 10% and the final would be an open book exam (dont be happy, its not as easy as it seems to be) for 60% of the marks. Each would have a gap of minimum 2.5 to 3 weeks. About the open book exam, as I said, its not as easy as it seems to be. To put in short, its like going to a feast with a tape on your mouth. You can smell all the dishes and sometimes taste also(somehow), but cannot eat completely at any cost. Literally, the questions wouldn’t be straight forward or Copy-Paste kinda questions, where you can find the answer from text-books.
One of my colleague suggested me on this. The best way to tackle the open-book exam is to make less use of Book. Yes it sounds funny, but true. Using book, checking out the most suitable answers would just eat up your precious time in exam hall, rather
i) Just try to recall what best you can write on the same as per your preparations.
ii) Have plenty of bookmarks or create an index of your own.
iii) Best place to find the related stuff in your book is to check the topic wise index at the end of your book. Believe me, this helps a lot.
5) Marking scheme: There are two types of marking/grading schemes : Absolute and Relative.
BITS follows Relative marking scheme, where if the top score is 50/100 then 45–50 would be grade A and 35–45 would be grade B and so on(The period may vary). Since this is not in a student’s control, so just do your best and leave the rest :)..
All the above problems are just some junk text if you are determined well enough and know how to manage your time, because after all its your time and your decision and hence “you” yourself are the right person to do the best.
Disclaimer : Please note that, this is purely my opinion and hence this post is not responsible for any consequences of anybody’s decisions based on the same. Also, by this post, I am not downgrading any particular institution.
Originally published at http://hsraju.blogspot.com.
