The Technical Electives Syndrome
As most of you know, I am a University Lecturer by profession. With the introduction of the course unit system in our Universities, the prominence given to elective courses, where you allow a particular student to choose her/his courses from a pool of courses has increased tremendously. Theoretically, this is a really good move and there is no second thought about it (at least in the context of this post). In our faculty (Engineering at Peradeniya) we typically have two groups of elective pools: (1) technical electives and (2) general electives. The courses in the former pool are of technical nature for Engineering and the later are of non technical nature for Engineering (such as humanities).
What I am trying to discuss here is a side affect of technical electives (there is another totally different side affect of general electives – the General Electives Syndrome – the discussion of which I will save for another day).
Little more about the technical electives at our faculty: a typical Engineering student at our faculty will have to cover 18 credits of technical electives to qualify for graduation. This is the required number and therefore the minimum and they are allowed to take a large number if they prefer. The final GPA (grade point average) and the class (first, second upper, etc.) will be calculated based on a reasonably large amount of non-elective courses and the required 18 credits worth technical electives. A student, when graduating can indicate the technical elective courses she/he wanted to add to the total GPA calculation.
This is where the problem is: now, a student can follow as many technical electives as she/he wants and when graduating can select the ones that have good grades (to me this assumption is right only if the grades obtained are randomly distributed) and therefore a good GPA. With this mentality, most of the students adapt to this pattern (there is a small number who has some other reasons and I will not discuss it here). Surprisingly, what they fail to realize is that following too many courses is dangerous and they might end up getting lower grades in all courses (due to the unexpected workload), as opposed to only following the required number and getting good grades. I have been trying for a while now to tell this message to the students and it was most number of times a failure than a success.
Now, the floor is open for discussion 
……
Sir,
This is true, but if we/students select the technical electives from a stream, then we will have no idea about other related streams. Won’t it be a issue in the future of the students?
Thanks Sir!
Abimaran,
Thanks for your comments.
Actually, this is what I meant by (- (there is a small number who has some other reasons and I will not discuss it here) – ). My point is, you can’t anyway cover ALL the related other streams. You may argue that at least you can cover a few. What I believe is that the core courses should give what is necessary and the electives should give the flavour of a sub-stream. It is the responsibility of the student to choose the sub-stream.
I too agreed 90% to the point. In fact I have followed same courses when they were introduced to the faculty some where in 2006/07.Even those days most of my colleagues tend to follow many courses as much as possible but still there are some students who carefully managed their time with those courses and earned good marks.
But mind the fact that some tech electives are very easy and have less burden than others!!So the lecture halls are getting filled up.
But my personal view point is that a students should select tech electives which will add a value to their career rather than going behind good GPA.
Of course good GPA is not hard to achieved for a favorite subject I guess!!!
I second it!
Rangani,
Thanks for your comments. If you can also tell me about the 10% you disagree
.
I totally agree with you regarding the issue of getting good grades in courses you like (unless you find a really bad teacher
).
In fact, I didn’t tell you all another side of this story. It seems like no student is realizing that its more work to the teachers (I don’t wont to complain and that is the reason why I didn’t include this side of the story in my original post). Then, some departments might want to reduce this burden by reducing the technical electives they offer. But, obviously that is not the right thing to do!
Sir, depending on your context this might be true. But, if I am correct these 18 credits should be accumulated in fourth year(on 7th and 8th semesters), exclusive of credits of final year project. So if we compare this situation with 2nd year and 3rd year a student has to cover 18 credits per semester whereas above technical elective 18 credits is to be covered in typical two semesters.So if a student can cover 18 credits within one semester he does have the ability to cover more than 18 credits within two semesters.Moreover in 2nd and third years he has to follow the offered courses, with no selection whether he likes or not. Specially including some embarrasing subjects offered by other departments. But in 4th year what he does is what he likes.So he has the freedom of choice and ability to gain more marks.(But I do not know whether a technical elective course differ from a core course from any aspect that can be weighted).
So I do not see any fault in doing more than 18 credits
Mahesh,
Thanks for your comments.
While agreeing with you about the freedom should be given to the students regarding electives, I think you are missing a number of points here (given that you started talking specifically about your field and batch I will put my comments in the same context):
1. You will NOT be able to cover 18+18 credits (the recommended credits per semester is 18) given that your semester 7 is very short
2. Core and Electives are different. I have mentioned it in one of my comments to the same post
3. You are also expected to cover some general electives during this period. Actually, the total credit you all are supposed to cover is based on the 18 credit per semester (in 8 semesters).
Actually, I am making the same point you made. Given that the student has the freedom, make use of it to gain more marks, not by following too many courses and choosing the courses with good results, but by following the courses you like and gaining good grades
I think all these 18 cresdits should be covered within the final year. (Can’t we do any tech. elects. on 6th semester as well?)
I also thought to do more than 18, only becoz I need to learn something about all specific fields. But, yes I agree with you sir, more work load will reduce the grades of all subjects. (@least it is true about me
) But I think it is ok for those who can manage it.
Thank you Sir for your reply.
I suppose that I had not made any impression about the fact that freedom should be given to students regarding electives.I said since we,students already have been given the freedom we can select what we like.
I would like to share my opinion on the facts,which you have pointed out.
1.For computer students 7th semester is short(nearly 7 weeks).So it is unable to cover 18 credits for that semester.So I agree with you.(The elect students have the same issue, while other non-elect & non-computer students have a full semester. But since I have narrowed my discussion regarding computer students I am not going to take other fields into consideration).For 7th semester it it might be 9 to 12 credits including 3 credits for the final year project.So here, a student can cover 6 credits in worst case.
In 8th semester it is possible to cover 18 credits. Apart from 3 credits of final project 15 credits can be covered. So in final year a total of 6+15=21 credits can be covered.If we assume these credits are from technical electives so it is possible to cover more than 18 credits.
You have mentioned recommended credits per semester is 18.I would like to know whether is this the maximum limit or anything else,since I have no idea about it.( I assume that a student cover more than 18 credits,provided that some of my batchmates have done general electives in 4th semester where then it exceeds total 18 credits per semester).
2.Yes it is true electives differ from core.But can you explain more about what you meant by “What I believe is that the core courses should give what is necessary and the electives should give the flavour of a sub-stream”,specially the things you meant by terms NECESSARY and SUB-STREAM?Here do you refer a sub-pathway of a particular engineering field or a particular subject that cater irrespective of engineering field from the term sub-stream.
3.Here computer students are eligible of covering 12 credits in short term for general electives, after second year.Also in 6th semester only 15 credits are covered by core and can utilize rest 3 credits either for general or core.Most of the students use this for general.So at the end of 3rd year a student can cover the reqiured 15 credits of general.So no worries in 4th year about general. Thats why I mentioned a student can cover more than 18 credits in fourth year, if he wishes.Also since general are not counted for GPA most students do them only get to get the pass mark.So if he want to get good GPA he can give a much consideration on technical. So it is not necessary much about general electives.
Mahesh,
Thanks for putting aside sometime to think about this issue and writing writing a reply. I will reply in the same order.
1. 18 credits is what is “suggested”. You can take more (or less). The hard limit for a semester is 24 credits. The motivation behind having this hard limit is to allow students who failed courses to repeat and not to cover more credits. I will tell you why I am saying this. In our system, even though it is possible to finish the required credits early (by taking more courses per semester) it is NOT possible graduate early (you have to complete 3 academic years in your special programme).The count did has a little flaw. Actually, what is recommended for GE semester is 9 credits and 9 credits again 9 more credits during the short semester (semester 7). That’s what is recommended and therefore you don’t really have a chance to do any extra credits if you follow the recommendation.
2. What I meant there was, if you take Computer Engineering, the core courses should cover all the basic subjects necessary for Computer Engineering and the elective courses will introduce sub-disciplines like Embedded Systems.Some one who know the basics (the core courses) should not have much trouble in spending some time and understanding the sub-disciplines.
3. Like I mentioned earlier, it is not 12, but 9. And like you have rightly indicated, students don’t really care about the score of GE (this is a separate topic and I promised in the original post that I will write about it later). If its me, I will anyway care about my courses. Whether I get an A for a course or a C is matters to me, independent of whether this A or C is included in my GPA. But, I am proven wrong by the students
My comment totally depend on the system we had at 2009. I suppose that the better number is just one more than the required number of subjects for 18 credits. The extra one should be taken only if it is the last chance we get (obviously in the last semester).
It is better to try and reduce the number to only two electives required at the last semester. With the extra one it becomes three. At our time we could do 1 technical elective in 6th semester. So, it was very easy to keep only two subjects required to do at the last semester.
Better to take on extra in final semester, since if something goes wrong in the final semester no one can
correct it. Since, we had two semesters to do technical electives before the final semester, we had two chances to know the results and plan for next semester. In 6th and 7th we didn’t have to take lot of electives but maximum 3 in 7th and probably 1 in 6th.
In addition, I was just planning for a good GPA
In my view, students should have the chance to attend lectures in any number of modules but should be restricted to sit exams in only the minimum number required by degree regulations. If they sit exams in more than the required number and select the best for their GPA calculations, which I think the system now is — some poor lecturer is marking those scripts unnecessarily; that energy of the lecturer should be diverted to research. In life you have to make decisions and stick to them without looking back too much (a bit like not being able to have multiple girl friends in parallel) .
I agree with this article and I also noted this pattern my self, kind of like the traditional Field Selection that existed.
But if you look in to technical electives in CE, actually the interesting (may be difficult) subjects are TEs, at least that’s the case with me.
When it comes to TEs, a student has to make a decision, GPA or otherwise. If needing GPA, doing a lot of TEs a int a good decision as pointed out.
Personally I don’t go much behind GPA (not that I don’t like it), its like money, its not every thing in life. There are things that matter more!