A list of important factors
to consider before opting for diploma in engineering:
You Will Perform Poorly in Mathematics
This is the biggest drawback
of doing a diploma before a degree in engineering. Because whatever stream you
choose, a diploma course has the subject Mathematics only in the first three
semesters as M1, M2, and M3. And the pathetic syllabus by the Maharashtra technical
board (MSBTE) will have you learning only basic Matrices.
By the time you complete the
course, you will forget most of it chiefly due to a lack of practice and
implementation. Next, since you will directly enter the second year of
engineering degree, a huge part of essential Mathematics (first two semesters;
M1 and M2 of degree) will elude you and there is where they teach you why
Mathematics is so, so, so important in engineering. Eventually, the
chances of you flunking in the third-semester Mathematics is as high as your
chances of getting through the college that you want is low. Tutors may help
you, but remember, coaching classes are a multi-crore business in India.
Although I somehow passed M3
in my second year, I struggled a lot to get passing marks of 40 out of 100 in
M4. Since Mathematics is critical for other subjects like Electrical Networks,
I struggled with those subjects as well.
Lack of Friends
You will find out how badly
you suck at Mathematics in less than five days of your degree. And there’s this
lack of friends-cum-classmates that you cannot even throw the baggage on.
Most of your classmates have
all braved the CET and are, in most cases, younger to you by at least a year;
they have already formed groups and all the pretty girls are taken, the topper
has been throned and is usually not good-looking, teachers have capped their
white-lists and created nicknames for you. You will never be called by your
first name until the time you almost forget how a Bipolar Junction Transistor
(BJT) works. Diploma students are called D2D students, direct second year
admissions, failures, scumbags and thankfully, sometimes “scholars.” Too bad,
they won’t call you back-benchers because unlike during the school times, here
the only vacant benches are the front ones. Somebody might want to edit that
Kalam quote!
My time at the student
council during diploma days helped me get through the degree
To cut the long story short,
if none of your diploma classmates has enrolled with you in your college and
if you are an introvert, then you will indefinitely sink into a state of
desolation. Paranoia will take time, but history shows that soon you will find
solace in other diploma students from different college and/or streams.
The diploma is Not Equal to Degree
The diploma will give you
opportunities and plenty of accolades for participating in the ubiquitous
technical paper presentation competitions where you take a topic (which is
often – “Recent Trends In Engineering”) and plagiarize every other online
journal/Wikipedia article/magazine related to that topic without citing. The
rookie jury will be astonished to see you present a Prezi slideshow because
they are used to the more popular MS PowerPoint presentations. Technobabble
will win you that cash-prize.
Some of the honours I
received during my diploma days. These only look good in the showcase today
In degree, the story is
totally different. You think of changing the monotony by participating in a
presentation in the upcoming college-level technical fest. They have
challenging competitors, professional jury, brainstorming sessions, and
concept-debriefing. You will fail terribly if you follow your diploma protocol
and that will further attack your self-confidence.
You should also think over
this: diploma is typically a three-year course and degree is a four-year one
but you only move forward a single year (direct second-year admission) in
degree after you completes the diploma. That answers the question of why the diploma
has such low value in career shelves and professional CVs.
The diploma is just a certificate course that was originally developed to
help individuals land quick jobs in the technical fields. It cannot be termed a
degree (as in academic rank) because earning a diploma neither makes you a
graduate nor just a 10th/12 pass out. You hang in the middle and that’s not a
great situation to be in.
Parents Will Never Understand the Paradigm Shift
Okay, so you cracked that
diploma examination with flying colours and were consistent in your efforts. You
get the provisional certificate. Fine. But, since you suck at Mathematics, and
because you will invariably find out that the remaining subjects are partially
related to it, you will have the luck of flunking in at least one subject.
Because what you studied during the diploma will be located on the farthest parts
of your brain and Mathematics, along with alphabets now has ambiguous
sentences and Greek letters guarding it.
Techmax Publications won’t
be sufficient also because they are crammed with errors. Depending on Easy
Solutions or the recent fad KT280 Solutions may help, but will
you really understand and grasp the engineering concepts? When the time comes
for you to perform during the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) or
any Public Service Undertaking (PSU) entrance test that you may later take, you
will most probably experience a huge failure.
And that failure won’t be
like how it seems to be in that famous inspiring quote about the invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison. It will bring you embarrassment. Teachers of your
former polytechnic will understand and react totally opposite to how your
parents will. That’ll be a relief, and if your diploma mates are allowed
to keep term (ATKT) in the same subject(s), that will be a support
against your parents, too. Pressure will falter and you will stop thinking
about the future. This moment will be worthy, and I am pretty sure, the next
time you sit to study with a credible reference book, it will be with
vengeance. Only, here the adversary is no one.
Final Points
So, it is up to you and only
you to decide what it will be and how it will be. Engineering is just too
overwhelming when it comes to all the knowledge and learning, but make sure the path you choose is trustworthy and unmasked.
DO NOT listen to people who
use sentences like “Diploma will give you experience”, “Diploma is better than
the pain of CET”, and “Diploma is in parallel with Engineering.” This is all
blabber because these people are actually referring to how the mainstream terms
it.
DEV BHOOMI GROUP OF INSTITUTIONS
Dev Bhoomi Campus, Chakrata Road Navgaon, Manduwala, Dehradun- 248007, Uttarakhand, INDIA
Phone No: 0135-2694241, 42,43,44,45
Toll-Free: 1800 103 4049
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