Alumni Speak
Friday, January 30, 2004
JAM Survey
Name: Ravi
This posting is in continuation of our attempt to make our students aware of options other than JEE. In Purnea, there are instances when people have dropped years after years for JEE and have ended up by getting something which doesn't suit their potential. We have just started with JAM and this is what i arrived at after doing a survey of 3-4 hrs. with Msc. students of IITK. Following is the message which i composed for sir.
Sir,
Today i intervierwed a few Msc. students individually, and asked them questions of our interest like, the level of difficulty of JAM and carrier oppertunity after M.sc.. All of them, without any exception, told that the JAM paper is easy and if one does his B.SC. seriously, there is no need to give exclusive time for this exam. But, i think the gud thing with them was that they all have studied in a college where classes are held regularly and degree is completed in three years. In our case, the minimum time which is reqd. to finish graduation is four to five years, leave alone the matter of whether classes are held ot not. Moreover, ppl generally drops 1-2 years for JEE which makes it to 5-7 years. Wat i want to suggest is that we shud encourage ppl to do graduation from IGNOU immediately after intermediate. I've also done one year of B.Sc. from IGNOU, and i can tell u that it is never going to disturb those who wants to continue his/her JEE preperation, at least for first one and haf years. This means that a student can take two more attempts of JEE without wasting his time. But for JAM, one will need to study seriously in the final year. As suggested, final year of study wud suffice and most of the questions in the test has the same level of difficulty as that of the university exam paper. There is no such coaching material kind of thing, so everything will depend on wat one learns from his/her B.SC..
I don't kno wat is the pattern of exam this time, in the previous years after the entrance test they used to take a haf an hour to one hour interview; but, since this is the first time when all the IITs will take M.Sc. students thru JAM, the pattern mite have changed. Anyway, as they told, the interview is as easy to clear as the written test. Maths students can take admission in Stats and vice versa.
Schol (scholorship in US university) sceinario is far better than wat i had expected. Last year, all of the 21 students in chemistry, around 80% in physics, and around 70% mathematics and statistics got schol. The number is less for mathematics and statistics student only bcos they opted for job, which is easy for them in comparision to physics or chemisty students. From job point of view, there is not much scope for physics and chemistry students during campus placement, but one can easily persue higher studies in these streams. They also gave examples of people who didn't want to go abroad and have done Ph.D. from the institutions like IIT, IISc, TIFR, or even IIM (i too cudn't blive this, but this is true).
I am telling u wat i learnt by talking to individuals of all the departments viz. phy, chem, maths and stats. Plz. let me kno wat else can be explored.
Ravi (Mamu).
