The unbecoming of an engineer.

My academic experience was a constant struggle towards reconciling the truth; seeing past the shiny veneer of my engineering college and comprehending it for what it was.

NUST-PNEC is preceded by its reputation for taking in only the brightest who supposedly undergo 4 years of rigorous academia and come out with an unparalleled competence in engineering. A quick look at the number of graduates annually is enough to conclude that an industrial revolution in Pakistan might very well be underway. Name an international FMCG, and one can trace its alumni to the top. The secret of their prosperity? It can’t possibly be anything less than an exemplary institution, where pedagogy must have been endowed by Benjamin Bloom himself.

Under these operating assumptions, roughly 70,000 candidates annually put hopes in their undergraduate program. Those who get in, look to their education as the great equalizer and some even naively romanticize the idea of engineering design, research, and manufacturing. Eventually and most ruthlessly, such romantic notions are sucked dry out of us.

I sought to understand why my affair with engineering never came to fruition. And it was then my interest shifted towards pedagogy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy was flipped on its head. Every semester, we regurgitated the qualitative and blindly plugged in the quantitative. For students’ and teachers’ convenience alike, academic integrity was subsided. Assessments were seldom crafted to distinguish between rote learning and genuine understanding. Because as long as the business model was in order, why even bother. And then it dawned on me; the artificially assumed prestige of NUST-PNEC did not root in providing the country with exceptional engineers, rather in their authority over printing acclaimed degrees.

Hence, I graduated out of wanting to even be titled one because I had not done it justice. All I had were my reflections and a sense of urgency to go about correcting this tragic state of affairs in education. But I lacked validation for my conclusions, guidance on how to channel my passion, or direction to take up in the future.

Only recently did my horizons broaden to empathize with our state of affairs when I took courses in linguistics, one of which was Bilingualism.

What had manifested as academic hypocrisy was deeply rooted in our lack of linguistic competence, having no option but to cut corners, and all to build a facade of a progressive nation. It was a classic case of Campbell’s Law. And my alma mater seeking to monetize these desires was only part of the problem.

So until we are ready to put aside corrupted social indicators, and resolve to restore academic integrity through proper pedagogy, there’s very little hope that all of this veneer can hide away the festering education system, currently at the brink of its collapse.

And until change comes about, I appeal to the future generation to make informed choices when it comes to settling on their choice of institution, look past the facade of rankings, and dismiss the myths of ‘scope’. Do what you love, and never stop actively learning. You’re here to create your own value and space as an individual in this ever-evolving world which has no idea what the job market would look like even in the next 10 years.

Follow your instinct, make informed choices, be active learners, and resist the herd mentality. You’ll be fine.