Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Engineer's Day 2009

Engineer’s Day ’09, its over now. The pics have started appearing on facebook and being exchanged with a lot of viruses along with them. The structures are ready and being appreciated and criticized equally. The report is out and some post Eday work still left.
All in all, an Engineer’s Day to be proud of. Highlights of the event would be the 4 structures made, the 5 paintings (discounting the white wall), IP Gautam-Municipal Commissioner as chief guest, the Academic Exhibition-in which each and every slide was new, and last but the most important-the theme for this year “Development and Maintenance of Urban Municipal Schools”.
The topic ‘social infrastructure’ was suggested by the General Body, for the first time in recent memory. Then we zoomed down on the education sector and then Municipal Schools. A topic, which was criticized by many as not being related to the field of us-engineers. But as one able faculty member once said, ”they are not engineers yet, and it is in our hands to see whether they become one or not.” Even as engineers there are some social responsibilities that are as important as building bridges and skyscrapers. Its this responsibility that we have tried to fulfill this Engineer’s Day. We tried to answer the question why municipal schools are marked as the lower rung schools. We may have not answered the question fully, but we made inroads. The attempt was not just to accuse the government, but also to show a way. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
There was a conscious attempt this time by the council to reduce the faculty involvement in some issues like getting work done out of the students. But truth remains that things streamlined after a certain GBM. Truth remains that fourth year turned up for the second tree plantation (yes there was a first) only after it was announced in the class by a faculty member. As always, truth is hard. For us as well.
But, there is another truth. That the above truth was just a mole on a beautiful face, a beauty spot you might say. That for every oversized a** that didn’t work, there were many who forgot to see the time when they worked. Perhaps that is how it is to be. Names have already been taken, so now for a positive reason. Applauds to fifth year for standing together as a team for everything, in everything. Report making, Academic Exhibition, Presentation, a structure, a painting and fourth yearites for lending a huge helping hand in each one of them. Cheers to the first year, who were there at all times. Working their a**es off at all times. Second year for being in everything, a structure, a painting, wall cladding, basin(!). Bit off more than they could chew? They ended up digesting all of it, so no worries (whatever meaning you take out of that). Third year for their two structures.
Money matters, when there is so much activity on campus happening, it has to be backed by funds. Hard money, hard fact. There was no support, it was like a green field project, nothing to build up upon. The sponsorship team started from the foundations and ended up constructing a tall building. Tall enough to meet the needs and have something left for future use.
Its 560 words already. So summing it all up, an event to be proud of, as an SBSTian. There is that empty feeling, kind of like the ones you have after you come back from a vacation. Back to submissions, tests, reports, presentations.
Nothing is perfect in life, we aspire to achieve that perfection. We make efforts to reach the pinnacle. We have got another chance in the form of Techfest. Lets not cry over spilt milk. Just mop it up and go to the dairy again. :)


Note-in-note: We had a meeting with respected Dr. Vakil sometime back and he was more than just pleased to see our work. He wants us to go ahead with our idea of developing the school in Maninagar. The work that we have done this year, the paintings, the structures everything was wholeheartedly appreciated by him. More on this later.....

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