DU FYUP mess: A student's point of view

Last year, around this time an unassuming, excited and hopeful batch of students were getting ready to take a dip into college life. Like the thousands of other Delhi University (DU) aspirants, I myself was eager, thrilled and apprehensive at the same time to be accepted into the academic batch of 2017.

Yes, I was a part of the ill-fated, four-year course. In fact, this pilot project was the vice-chancellor's brainchild. It was sufficiently obvious that the implementation of this system was anything but unanimous.

While enrolling into arguably the most sought after varsity in India, we were assured of a world-class education, a holistic learning experience, which would improve our prospects in life ensuring we graduate with a good reputation.

Believe it or not, it seemed like a decent enough plan at that time. Little did we know that the thought which went behind the world-class plan was third-class. It meant the students had to go through a month of ingeniously crafted foundation courses and a couple of IMBh (integrating mind, body and heart) classes. There was an unspoken truth in the air - this is not what we signed up for.

After two semesters of learning prime numbers, balanced diets and how to write emails there is absolutely no expectation from the DU administration about the road ahead.

We were made to sit till 5 pm for these mind-numbing classes. After a while, they became lectures which the teacher was reluctant to deliver, and the student was not awfully interested to attend. All of us felt that a lot of our time was being wasted. This time could have gone in doing something definitely more productive than revising your 5th standard science syllabus.

My primary contention with the system was that it left little time for us to focus on our primary honours subject, as well as to actually read and learn. I remember finishing presentations and projects for the foundation courses that would absorb all my time without offering an iota of knowledge or insight.

The system did not seem to be working for the teachers either who regularly complained about the same issues the students raised like the rudimentary courses and seemingly endless hours devoted to these courses.

The biggest mockery of the FYUP was to be seen during the semester exams. The exams gave us an acute sense of the degree to which we can trivialize higher education. Actually, I cannot really complain about this mockery because it was this thoughtless exercise of childish question papers and dumbed-down expectations that made sure we didn't have to put any mind to the foundation course tests. They were more of tests, not exams, because they were worth 20 marks only.

Even after seeing the blunders of the system, every day, glaring right in front of our eyes I decided to notice the positives. As minute and virtually-nonexistent they seemed, it felt ideal to look at the silver-lining, the so called "long term-plan". Not that this feeling made this year extremely productive, it made me look forward to the three years ahead.

I had made peace with this idea by now. This silver lining was the discipline-2 or minor courses. This would be a subject of your choice which you would pick in your second year. However, the university thought that the best way to allot these would be on the basis of the marks you obtain in your foundation courses in the first semester. After a year of travesty and goof-ups the university realised that the merit for a student to study, for instance an economics course, depended on how well he can speak in Hindi. This is how they managed to mess up the single arrow in their quiver of thoughtless ideas.

Honestly, the entire concept of the four year course, as well as the intention, is extremely noble and potentially beneficial for its students. However, the hurried and rash manner in which the system was conceptualised and the way it was pushed down everyone's throat rendered it redundant. The administration turned a deaf ear to anyone who found loopholes and pointed out mistakes in the FYUP course. Rather than incorporating suggestions and fixing the faux pas, the administration decided to stifle all those voicing dissent.