Textile@IITD: Through the eyes of a UG junior student

INTRODUCTION

I have spent a year in the Textile and Fibre Engineering department of IIT Delhi pursuing a Bachelor of Technology and a minor from the Computer Science department. My designation qualifies me to write this highly opinionated post which is a collection of my experiences and my interpretations for some of them. The value comes from the fact that I make an unbiased review of the department with no filters. This document can serve as a guide for aspiring Textile students at IIT Delhi, current students to guide them in their education, and even professors, administration, and educationists to guide their pedagogical approach.

Note: My experiences are, for better or worse, limited to the UG programme only.

THE PRIOR CONTEXT

One of the first representative experiences for first year students is the subtle branch based discrimination and the nucleation of groups based on it. Although the clustering and formation of impenetrable groups are less prominent in first year as the courses are taken with no regards to department, the bias exists and gets ugly many a times. Casual jokes and snarky remarks about JEE rank and departments are common and even stereotypes based on which department one belongs to (The IITD slang for a Textile student is a Tatta, which means scrotum in English). Just like the natural tendency for humans to hierarchise everything, there exists a well-ordering principle for branches at IITD wherein CS occupies the highest place and Textile the lowest.

This creates a deep-seated psychological dynamic in the minds of Textile peeps which is almost impossible to get rid of unless someone is extremely confident about themselves. Fortunately (and I make this statement based on observations of my batch), students who come to IITD are significantly more “aware” about themselves and smarter on average than the general populace who sit for JEE. This somewhat cushions the dark abyss into what someone can inadvertently fall into if they are exposed to the toxic first year environment very much prevalent in IIT Delhi. I can only imagine the sheer insecurity and hopelessness that a Textile student at a Tier 2 or Tier 3 college would face.

It is not a lie that Textile students lack severe engineering aptitude when it comes to academics. This is confirmed by the well-ordering principle applied to JEE ranks and subsequent CGPAS at the end of year 1 (Again, I don’t have exact data but observations about my batch supports the supposition). One problem that severely aggravates the academic divide between a Textile student and an average IITD student is the role of reservations. Being one of the least sought-after branches at IITD, most students are attracted by the brand value of IITD solely. This allows a larger proportion of not-so-academically-inclined students to get admitted to the department. However, they are expected to compete with every branch and it is simply not possible to get up to speed with a meritorious and sincere student in the first year. This leads to Textile students having some of the lowest mean CGPAs across all branches.

Now let me talk about the other side of the coin - the merit of a Textile student. As noted before, an IITian is and will always be better than the average engineering student. They may not have studied for long hours during JEE prep but most of the students are smart. This is where I’ll introduce the first problem of the department.

THE COURSEWORK

One of the first course Textile students take in their 2nd year is Textile Fibres (TXL111) - a course which is extremely heavy on factual information that one is supposed to rote-learn. There is no other way for a student to get a good grade except to remember a few numerical facts such as density of cotton etc. For an IITian, this is a serious matter of insult. At least, that’s how I felt most students take up the coursework in my experience.

I also understand that course experience is highly professor dependent but the inherent coursework is so unappealing, ancient, and disconnected with modern textile engineering practices that it ends up being heavily resented by students. I remember the course Yarn Manufacturing 1 (TXL221) I took in my 4th semester and the coursework was so disorganised and abrupt. There were very few concepts and no structure to any of them or how they relate to one another. It was impossible to follow the material through lectures and I had to pass that course somehow. The slides were very old and badly developed. It was evident that the same material was recycled each year.

THE PROFESSOR

The course coordinator or the professor is one parameter that is immutable for a student. One can opt or or drop a course but they have no control over the choice of professor at IITD. This creates very interesting dynamics and leads to further fractionalisation of students (Although, I suspect this is not a Textile specific phenomenon, it is, however, definitely a IITD phenomenon). Continuing the example of TXL221, there was a major disconnect between what the professor taught versus what he expected us to regurgitate in the exam. The marking scheme is prof-dependent and is one of the most opaque and harsh in the Textile department. So, there was a lot of surprise when the first minor exam marks came in and a random student got the highest and the class toppers got apparently random marks (myself included although I wasn’t lucky enough to land on the upper side of the class average).

Eventually, a small section of the batch realised how to game the system by learning how to write rather than what to learn. Thus, the optimisation is greatly skewed towards how to maximise marks obtained in an exam rather than to maximise learning. This can lead to a lot of interesting things such as but not limited to, following every single, however ridiculous, whim of the professor, grading policy, and exam pattern. I have seen my friends memorise everything just to regurgitate it on paper for the sake of marks. It is an extremely sad and ugly affair.

The situation is not as hopeless and horrible as it seems. There are sparks of great teaching also. Although I got the lowest possible grade in TXL221, I also got the highest grade possible in another course in the same semester. When I look back, it was a combination of a terse and extremely structured course content and an extremely passionate teacher who evidently put a lot of effort in the course. And by no means was this course “easy”, it was one of the most challenging and tricky courses for me but I knew what was happening and I think that matters a lot to students.

Course content and student expectation mismatch

Textile@IITD courses are not “easy”, they are logical and analytical and expect effort from the students but it still lacks in terms of rigour as compared to an average IITD course. Perhaps it is because of a complete lack of mathematics. Definitions are loosely defined, concepts may feel hollow at times and the course material simply superfluous.

Secondly, professors are forced to implement ridiculous policies ranging from roll call attendance to surprise quizzes just to make sure students are engaged in the class. I can understand how this is a serious pedagogical problem - how to teach something to students who are entirely disinterested in learning? However, this only lowers the reputation of the branch in the eyes of the students who feel like they are being treated as children.

Non-uniform and non-standardised evaluation

Unfairness prevails in the department as students are incentivised to mug up one day before exams, rampantly cheat without shame, and game the system in whatever way possible. A glaring example of this is seen in lab courses (TXPXXX) where marking schemes are geared towards ensuring students turn up rather than ensuring that they get something of value. It is a common practice to allocate 50% of the weightage on attendance and so on. Class participation is valued but that is mostly an eyewash as the process is highly non-institutionalised with very biassed or incorrect assumptions about what “class participation” even means. Vivas are conducted by equally disinterested TAs and are simply decorative in nature and anyone keen to game the system only has to pay a little attention. The tragedy of the situation is that students are not motivated enough to do even that.

A comparison

At the same time, take a CS course where the student-professor dynamic is totally different. The students are inherently interested to learn. The professor takes the role of a facilitator and has to simply point the students in a certain direction. As a result, attendance policies are unheard of in CS/EE courses and students have a say in course policies like evaluation schemes etc. This increases the reputation of the department and the inherent confidence of the students themselves in their eyes.

Most often, it is sufficient to pretend that one is studying than to actually learn in order to secure a good grade. This greatly discourages learning, which discourages interest, which discourages new ideas from the students, which discourages active research, which harms the department’s reputation. It is a vicious cycle. Textile engineering offers a vibrant field for some really amazing research opportunities and for anyone interested it is a gold mine, both from the academic as well as the monetary perspective. I feel this is true for any disciple of engineering simply because people would always demand better goods and services.

THE STUDENT

I began this article with the student in mind and I revisit this part of the story to tie all parts together. There is a strong correlation between the type of students who opt for a department versus the department they choose. For example, the most studious and academically bright opt for CS. A little less opt for Maths. EE consists of even less competent students and so on. Note that the word “competent” is a highly controversial term and I detest using it but it should be interpreted as “competency as measured by the JEE exam”. It is the well-ordering principle at play.

Students who opt for Textile mostly come with a set target in mind even before they begin their first year. This is a sad situation as it completely debars students to explore the liberating academic lifestyle of a university and to effectively identify their interests. Even as I write this, my friends are busy preparing hard for the intern season. As for me, I’m not sure where my interest lies and I am still exploring. I think it’s a good thing to not know. With the textile legacy, it is very difficult to do that.

Psychologically, Textile students are also surprisingly self-confident. Perhaps, this is just the experience of my batch but I find them very proactive in pursuing a number of hobbies from photography to debating and they are pretty good at it. I think it is this self-confidence that enables them to choose textile in the first place, in spite of all the lore and hostility towards it. They approach the department with the prior bias of “This is a dead branch. I have to figure out something else.”

This attitude, fueled by an outdated (or unstructured) curriculum incentivises students to be least bothered about their courses as long as it fetches them a decent CGPA. I am no one to opine if it is right or wrong but as I pointed out, I feel that the world is bigger than the nutshell we choose to live in.

THE OPPORTUNITIES AFTER TEXTILE@IITD

I shall update this section after my third year of the B. Tech programme.

However, I must note one significant experience from my pre-internship experience. Sprinklr is a sought-after tech company that recruits interns from campus. However, this year it did not allow Textile and Material Science students to sit for the pre-intern tests. The reason cited by the company’s HR was: “I don’t think these departments will be able to compete and clear the tests like the other branches.” These are the popular impressions of the department in spite of a significant number of Textile graduates securing tech placements.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

As part of my training as an engineer, I am expected to provide solutions to problems and after presenting this piece, it is only apt that I do so now. Note that this is not substantiated by any data or research on my behalf apart from my experience so take them with a grain of salt.

The individual cogs of the machine work together to make the Textile department what it is today. I don’t know what incentive mechanism drives the faculty or the course development but I can vouch for the fact that the presentation makes a lot of difference simply because I have seen it happen in a Textile course. Textile courses are as important (and perhaps engaging too if they are made to be) as any other course but a combination of above highlighted factors makes it impossible for students to believe otherwise. I think one possible solution would be to reimagine the course material from the ground up and include industry-relevant material with emphasis on application of digital technologies, CAD, connection with business, entrepreneurship etc. Essentially focus on aspects of Textile engineering that are more “usable” for the students. Another solution would be to allow students to craft course policies as they please and introduce more innovative accountability measures than just traditional attendance and exams. This can include projects, reports, mini research work that includes more hands-on application of concepts taught in class. The exams must NEVER be a way for students to test their memory muscles. All this will require a major effort from both the faculty and the student body at the humble Textile department at IIT Delhi.