Once upon a time, long long ago in the 90th Foundation Course, some wise owl told us that the Phase 1 of our Professional IAS training would be way too chill and he was surely not talking about the temperatures. Unlike the Foundation Course, we thought we would have the weekend to ourselves. We would have the weekday evenings to us as well so that we can play whatsoever we want and all this would rejuvenate us for the next module in the offing. And here we are, on a Saturday morning, roaming around the campus with garbage bags and brooms doing Shramdaan.
I guess we all had this figured that Phase I would be academically draining but certainly not to this extent. Every week we have a module which is like a broader theme namely Education, Health, Rural Development etc and then we are bombarded with information in the form of - Case studies, Research Papers, Journals and Presentations. From Monday to Friday, we have a zillion emails in our Inbox from the faculty and upon seeing them, the Officer Trainees are reminded of that scene from Matrix where Neo dodges all those bullets by bending here and there. We do it without any such effort though, just select all and mark as read. And then from here to Sunday evening, we have a cease fire agreement giving our Inbox some breathing space.
Now that is still okay to some extent but there is more. We also have a Case Study stint every week wherein we copy a few things from a few papers and hurriedly make a presentation not getting enough time to comprehend the matter in question. Then we have a weekly seminar as the show stopper for every module wherein the Officer trainees present a topic from that particular module. The groups for both are generally constituted with 9-10 Officer Trainees. The only problem is that when you have such a large group, everyone tends to think that some or the other person will own up the responsibility, be the good Samaritan and burn some midnight oil to prepare a patch work errr Presentation I mean, so that the rest can be free loaders.
As soon as the Group members are revealed, the Keen Type Probationer (KTP) hunt begins. Officer Trainees with their fingers crossed open the email containing the list of Group members praying to get at least one KTP in their group so that they need not do a thing except for pretentious indulgence. Then there are those who think that there should be a division of labor howsoever unfair and everyone should play a role. So they act quickly, create a WhatsApp group of all members and then take a back seat claiming that they have done their bit by providing a platform for others to exchange ideas.
Some groups on the other hand, get lucky or so to say at least. They get multiple KTPs. But with KTPs, comes the plausibility of intellectual cold wars, sometimes ending up in turf battles on the questions that who would prepare the PPT and who would present it? It's like one of those First world problems we often come across, only much more ridiculous. But whatever be the case, there is always a PPT. And that's what most Officer Trainees believe in, the economic theory of the Invisible Hand. The whole scenario is like a market and it will take care of itself. All you need to do is sit back and enjoy.
Now I am not saying this idea of flip sessions is bad. But I believe one such thing per week would make more sense and we would get enough time to do our research and to comprehensively understand the topic at hand. Too much of anything is bad. With all these incoming and outgoing presentations, I feel like I am back to square one, at my first job, Deloitte Consulting. Gosh, at least I was paid better there. Anyway, one of the presenters had a very interesting quote about PPTs which I would like to mention as a closing remark...
"PowerPoint slides are like children. No matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours." - Scott Adams.
I guess we all had this figured that Phase I would be academically draining but certainly not to this extent. Every week we have a module which is like a broader theme namely Education, Health, Rural Development etc and then we are bombarded with information in the form of - Case studies, Research Papers, Journals and Presentations. From Monday to Friday, we have a zillion emails in our Inbox from the faculty and upon seeing them, the Officer Trainees are reminded of that scene from Matrix where Neo dodges all those bullets by bending here and there. We do it without any such effort though, just select all and mark as read. And then from here to Sunday evening, we have a cease fire agreement giving our Inbox some breathing space.
Now that is still okay to some extent but there is more. We also have a Case Study stint every week wherein we copy a few things from a few papers and hurriedly make a presentation not getting enough time to comprehend the matter in question. Then we have a weekly seminar as the show stopper for every module wherein the Officer trainees present a topic from that particular module. The groups for both are generally constituted with 9-10 Officer Trainees. The only problem is that when you have such a large group, everyone tends to think that some or the other person will own up the responsibility, be the good Samaritan and burn some midnight oil to prepare a patch work errr Presentation I mean, so that the rest can be free loaders.
As soon as the Group members are revealed, the Keen Type Probationer (KTP) hunt begins. Officer Trainees with their fingers crossed open the email containing the list of Group members praying to get at least one KTP in their group so that they need not do a thing except for pretentious indulgence. Then there are those who think that there should be a division of labor howsoever unfair and everyone should play a role. So they act quickly, create a WhatsApp group of all members and then take a back seat claiming that they have done their bit by providing a platform for others to exchange ideas.
Some groups on the other hand, get lucky or so to say at least. They get multiple KTPs. But with KTPs, comes the plausibility of intellectual cold wars, sometimes ending up in turf battles on the questions that who would prepare the PPT and who would present it? It's like one of those First world problems we often come across, only much more ridiculous. But whatever be the case, there is always a PPT. And that's what most Officer Trainees believe in, the economic theory of the Invisible Hand. The whole scenario is like a market and it will take care of itself. All you need to do is sit back and enjoy.
Now I am not saying this idea of flip sessions is bad. But I believe one such thing per week would make more sense and we would get enough time to do our research and to comprehensively understand the topic at hand. Too much of anything is bad. With all these incoming and outgoing presentations, I feel like I am back to square one, at my first job, Deloitte Consulting. Gosh, at least I was paid better there. Anyway, one of the presenters had a very interesting quote about PPTs which I would like to mention as a closing remark...
"PowerPoint slides are like children. No matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours." - Scott Adams.
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