July 4, 2013

Admissions 2013

Philosophy under FYUP: Course Analysis

By Akriti Gupta July 4, 2013

Philosophy, the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, has been a core academic discipline for centuries to come now. With an increase in the percentage of young minds wanting to develop a thought process of their own and to learn how to do so, B.A (H) in Philosophy has become one of the most sought after courses in the University of Delhi. Available in most of DU’s most renowned colleges, like St. Stephens, Miranda House, Lady Shri Ram, Hindu etc., this course has seen a sudden hike in the number of takers. So here at DU Beat, we decided to analysis the changes made in this course with the advent of the new Four Year Undergraduate Program (FYUP).

The Course
Analysing the University’s undergraduate Philosophy course in particular, we can definitely see that the course has become more rigorous than its predecessor. The subjects introduced at a foundation level are ones unrelated to philosophy (with the exception of Philosophy, Psychology, Communication and Life Skills), but definitely help in understanding the subject better and help sharpen the student’s analytical skills. It also gives a subject like philosophy a more practical, hands-on approach; but alongside a core, theoretical subject like philosophy, it is deemed not required.

The Integrating Mind, Body and Heart course is a welcome addition as it is a core philosophical subject which aims at honing a student’s moralistic side. The applied courses include the likes of Aesthetics and Art Appreciation, Bio-ethics, Meditation and Today, Issues in Applied Ethics etc. These courses definitely help students understand the wide spread implication of a subject like this, but studying subjects like ‘Meditation’ and ‘Art appreciation’ makes the subject extremely stereotypical, and add fuel to the fire as students already question the vague nature of the subject. The winning factor of this new program is the emphasis on the understanding of concepts like Ethics, which people across on a daily basis in their student/work life.

Extra-curricular Activities
The revelation that extra-curricular activities would now hold credit is one of great joy for most students, as in a University like that of Delhi; most students come with the hopes of indulging in their choice of activities along with their studies.

Freedom of Choice
While students will now be able to make an informed choice about exactly what honours degree they’d like to pursue, there has also been certain curtailing of free choice, with the eleven foundation courses being compulsory along with one applied language course.

Exit Points
Under the FYUP, the mid course exit points provided after two years and three years respectively may also prove to be the easier way out for some. Giving young 18-19 year old students an open choice as to leave in 2-3 years makes it difficult for them to make career choices in their formative years.
Also, a subject like philosophy needs time to be studied and understood, but with the option of quitting; there is going to be a major increase in the drop-out rates of our country, making this course a not so feasible option.

Employability
The new FYUP has definitely made a traditionally academic subject like philosophy more market-friendly as the terminology of having a ‘professional degree’ now makes it easier for arts students to land jobs immediately after their under-graduation. Also, the study of various other humanities subjects alongside those of science enables graduates in philosophy to choose from a wider plethora of career options.

Final verdict
The FYUP has definitely changed the course structure of philosophy for the better by making it more practical in nature, but it definitely has definitely lessened the value of this subject as a core academically taught program. The success of this course can only be judged after we see the increase or decrease in the number of takers for this subject.

(For analysis of other courses click here)

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Biblio

Book Review: Those Pricey Thakur Girls

By Aishwarya Chaurasia July 4, 2013

“Dabbu’s list of reasons for turning down perfectly nice, healthy, decently earning incomepoops under thirty:

(Compiled by Anjini Singh and Eshu Thakur)

He said “intrusting” instead of interesting
He had hairy ears! (like Yoda)
He had uncool bum
He came first in every exam, all his life, from nursery to IIT to IIM!
He wasn’t Dylan Singh Shekhawat.”

Anuja Chauhan is back again with yet another RomCom hit. After patronizing cricket in “The Zoya Factor” and politics in “Battle for Bittora”, the author takes up press in the backdrop pre-liberalization New Delhi back in the ‘80s.

The story revolves around the five beautiful but troublesome daughters of Justice Laxminarayan who lives in the lavish bungalow on the posh Hailey road with his wife and the two unmarried daughters Debjani, our protagonist and Eshwari, the overly popular girl in school while the other three married ones; Anjini, drop dead gorgeous and incurably flirtatious but childless, Binodini who files a case against her own father to get her “rightful hissa” and Chandralekha, the “black sheep” in the family who elopes on the eve of her wedding.

The hero of the novel, Dylan Singh Shekhawat, Debjani’s “honest, brave and kind” Prince charming and highly patriotic journalist who is haunted by the massacre of the Sikhs in east Delhi and undertakes a personal mission to expose the man behind the riots. The plot thickens when in the midst of on and off romance between Dabbu and Dylan, dirty politics takes over fiery Journalism and our hero is framed with bribery and is sent to jail.

Those Pricey Thakur Girls isn’t just a romantic fiction, it takes us to old India, Delhi in particular. The dialect in which the author makes the character speak makes you laugh with “k****a, and M and B and F words and the mantra gleefully recited in unison by all the sisters: “May she die! May she be eaten by worms! May termites gnaw at her anus!”. The book might apparently be called as Pride and Prejudice of India with all the Indian Masalas of Family drama, sibling rivalry, lover’s quarrel and immense humor.

And because Dylan is “tall and sinewy and muscular”, has “lean dimples”, unruly hair and a torso made up of “muscular toffee-brown bits” I am glad a sequel is on its way.

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Admissions 2013

Economics admissions fiasco at Gargi and JMC

By DU Beat July 4, 2013

Unlike other Delhi University colleges that kept their first cut-off high in order to avoid over admissions, Gargi College had its cut-off for Economics at 93%, while the average cut-off for Economics was fixed at 97%. Gargi, which previously offered BBE (Bachelor in Business Economics) as a course, is offering Economics Honours as a discipline for the first time. The college was over flooded with students aspiring admission for the course. There was shortage of forms and students were provided with tokens instead. It had an intake which was approximately five times more than the sanctioned strength.

While many colleges are still admitting students, there are some colleges that closed admissions after the first cut-off. Gargi also put a stop to its intake process for almost all courses except History, Sanskrit, Botany and Mathematics. Economics is available in 42 colleges in the campus and most of them came out with a second cut-out. Gargi however, closed admissions just after the first cut-off admitting over 200 students against the approved intake of 40 students.

“According to the University policy and guidelines, its not the first come first serve basis for admissions, no one can deny admissions if a student is eligible for a course provided he/she comes within the time specified”, a lecturer from the college said. “When there are over admissions for a course, we increase the number of sections for the same so that the students and the lecturers do not face problems at the end.” the lecturer added.

Generally, at the most departments have two sections in a batch. With such a huge number, the batch might now be divided in to something around four to five sections. Space crunch, limited faculty and overall limited resources are some of the problems that such a situation could result in. When questioned with regard to the same, we got the response that the college is fully equipped to handle the situation and no college would take admissions otherwise.

(Check entire Admissions 2013 coverage here)

Jesus and Mary College reportedly had their own admission fiasco going on. On 3^rd July hundreds of students turned up at JMC to try their luck at getting admitted even though they did not satisfy the cut off. Apparently lots of girls withdrew their admission from JMC’s economics course after the second cut off as they qualified for other courses. So JMC offered the jackpot, admission on first come first serve basis however it was not a formal announcement. Indecently more than a few people heard about it and there was a huge admission rush on the 3^rd.

“I had called the office yesterday and they confirmed the rumour. But today they did not admit anyone below 95% because of the large number of students scored 95%.”said a disappointed DU aspirant, Varsha. Even though the official cut off declared was 96.5%, students were admitted at 95%.

Colleges are confused and unable to handle the number of aspirants. Some are overloaded while others are adopting under the table method to admit students. The Delhi University admission procedure certainly requires further improvement. Have something to add about the admission mess around? Share it with us in the comments.

Reported by: Shaily Sharma ([email protected]) and Pinakita Gupta ([email protected])

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