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- Feb 28, 2005
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"To all those who really want the truth,
I don't know what part of the SRMC College Mr.Souvik Sen attends, but its not a true description of SRMC & RI in my opinion. For those students who have interest in medicine from the USA, this is not the college for you if you ask me. I joined SRMC straight out of high school under impression how different can college in India be. I was certainly in for a shock.
In this message I plan on setting the truth straight on many topics for those who need to know the truth, so they don't make the same mistake that I have
1. grading system
 - The biggest difference between the academic world of the USA and India is that in India all grading is subjective. This means that regardless how correct an individual may be, it does not matter because it is left to the subjectivity of the professor grading your paper.
- ex. - in my first year of college the first examination I had was call an internal examination ( the portions being a whole system within the body) the exam has 10 questions(2 essays(15 pts each) and 8 short notes(5 pts each) and 30 multiple choice questions(MCQ's, 1 pt each). After receiving my score I felt I had been wronged in terms of the grading. I was then informed of the most outrageous information. the professor told me that even though I had written the right answer, the most points a student could get was 4 pts out of 5 pts short noteand with an essay the most being 13 pts out of 15 pts. When I asked why I was told that there is no way that I could have written a perfect answer (or that matter any student). I was very confused by this method of grading. So if you look at the whole out of a possible 100 pts one is being graded out of, the highest you could get is 88 pts. in order to pass any exam in India one must get 50% or higher. If you are confused by this, dont worry I still am as well
2. Quality of education
 -For students from the USA, all of you (as did I) will realize how spoiled you were to have the teachers you did in high school. I can not comment on the quality of education in an American college as I have not attended one. NONE of the professors in SRMC have degrees in teaching at all. Dont get me wrong now, the professors are all very smart and knowledgeable but outside of a select few none of them have a clue on how to teach a class. A majority of them dont even teach, they just copy the text book on to an overhead projection and read it out loud. I dont know about you but I could do same thing and I dont consider myself a professor( to think I paid all that money for this caliber of teaching)
 -In my personal opinion I have not learned a damn thing from my professors in SRMC. All the studying & learning done was by me on my own in my room. The people who helped me the most would have to be the students that were senior to me. Without them I have no clue how I would made out med school in India
 -Now I know all of the students from the USA are a bit pampered in the sense they have not had to deal with extreme weather conditions. I struggled the first couple of years with the heat in India. And NO the classrooms were not air conditioned. All a fan does is rotate hot stale air. But for those who choose not to heed this warning you are in luck as SRMC has just recently air conditioned a majority of its classrooms. But when you hit your clinical years, touch luck, the hospital is not air conditioned.
 -oh yeah, on a odd note, all the guys sit on one side of the class room and girls sit on the other (just weird)
3. student rights
 -As this may not seem to be an important topic while thinking about what college you are going to attend. When it comes to SRMC it REALLY matters.
 -Since the college is a deemed university, they have total autonomy over everything and I mean everything.
-Examples
-The college looks down upon students who relationships with the opposite sex and it has long been felt that students have been failed for this reason (remember grading system is subjective)
-There is a curfew for all students regardless of age (doesnt matter if you have an undergraduate degree, they dont care). This is if you stay on campus
-If a professor decides to pick on you in class or on rounds, you will have to swallow your pride, because if you respond back you can guarantee that you will be failed on purpose (this is a fact). And when I say picked on, I mean I been dogged just for the fact I am from USA , nothing else (words cannot do justice to my displeasure)
-By the end of your tenure in SRMC you will learn, in order to get through college in India, you better leave your pride at home and work on your brown nosing skills
 -Just to make things clear YOU AS A STUDENT IN SRMC HAVE NO RIGHTS
4. occupancy
 -there are no co-ed dorms for any you that had other plans
 -If you are a male student that stays in the hostel (the Indian terminology for dorms) there are no TVs. there are TV rooms which are not air conditioned and are very uncomfortable for one to watch TV
 -Female students have TVs in their own rooms, but their room size is considerably smaller
 -Each NRI has their own room, with its own bathroom and air conditioning facilities
-This means you must buy your own A/C and have it installed
-You are given a desk, a cot, and metal closet
 -If you live in the hostel that usually means the majority of the food you will be eating is on campus.
-In order to eat at the NRI mess, one must walk about a half a mile each way (this is if you dont have bike or a car)
-The food served at NRI mess if not even fit for a animal to eat, let alone it be a human
 -In order to get to college from the hostel you must walk about three quarters of a mile (no transport will provided for you regardless of weather conditions(try walking to class during monsoon season))
5. outlets
 -beside basketball and weight lifting there are no real outlets for NRI students on campus available on daily basis, so get ready to bored out of your mind(literally); and for females there are really no outlets period.
-In end the reason I write this as a message of good will. I dont want anyone to go through what I went through just because they didnt know. Going to college in SRMC is not cheap, it cost me $100,000 dollars up front cash. The only saving grace of SRMC is that I have met a lot good people that I expect to be my friends for life, but truth be told if I had a chance to do it again there is no way in hell would I go to SRMC knowing what I know now."
All of the above was my original post over two years ago. I know many people tried hard to tear down what i had said earlier, saying that it was an exaggeration of the truth, blah, blah.....BULLSH&T...i can only talk from my experience. People will once again try to tear down what i have to say again, i challenge those people to disprove everything i said, not bits and pieces....they cant, cuz ultimately, it is what it is. But i put this up again after talking to some of my junior friends who have since graduated and they tell me they couldnt wait to get out of there. so once again i make return after two year gap in hopes i can enlighten some young people who are at point in their life where they need to make a decision that dictates they next 5-6 yrs of their life.
I don't know what part of the SRMC College Mr.Souvik Sen attends, but its not a true description of SRMC & RI in my opinion. For those students who have interest in medicine from the USA, this is not the college for you if you ask me. I joined SRMC straight out of high school under impression how different can college in India be. I was certainly in for a shock.
In this message I plan on setting the truth straight on many topics for those who need to know the truth, so they don't make the same mistake that I have
1. grading system
 - The biggest difference between the academic world of the USA and India is that in India all grading is subjective. This means that regardless how correct an individual may be, it does not matter because it is left to the subjectivity of the professor grading your paper.
- ex. - in my first year of college the first examination I had was call an internal examination ( the portions being a whole system within the body) the exam has 10 questions(2 essays(15 pts each) and 8 short notes(5 pts each) and 30 multiple choice questions(MCQ's, 1 pt each). After receiving my score I felt I had been wronged in terms of the grading. I was then informed of the most outrageous information. the professor told me that even though I had written the right answer, the most points a student could get was 4 pts out of 5 pts short noteand with an essay the most being 13 pts out of 15 pts. When I asked why I was told that there is no way that I could have written a perfect answer (or that matter any student). I was very confused by this method of grading. So if you look at the whole out of a possible 100 pts one is being graded out of, the highest you could get is 88 pts. in order to pass any exam in India one must get 50% or higher. If you are confused by this, dont worry I still am as well
2. Quality of education
 -For students from the USA, all of you (as did I) will realize how spoiled you were to have the teachers you did in high school. I can not comment on the quality of education in an American college as I have not attended one. NONE of the professors in SRMC have degrees in teaching at all. Dont get me wrong now, the professors are all very smart and knowledgeable but outside of a select few none of them have a clue on how to teach a class. A majority of them dont even teach, they just copy the text book on to an overhead projection and read it out loud. I dont know about you but I could do same thing and I dont consider myself a professor( to think I paid all that money for this caliber of teaching)
 -In my personal opinion I have not learned a damn thing from my professors in SRMC. All the studying & learning done was by me on my own in my room. The people who helped me the most would have to be the students that were senior to me. Without them I have no clue how I would made out med school in India
 -Now I know all of the students from the USA are a bit pampered in the sense they have not had to deal with extreme weather conditions. I struggled the first couple of years with the heat in India. And NO the classrooms were not air conditioned. All a fan does is rotate hot stale air. But for those who choose not to heed this warning you are in luck as SRMC has just recently air conditioned a majority of its classrooms. But when you hit your clinical years, touch luck, the hospital is not air conditioned.
 -oh yeah, on a odd note, all the guys sit on one side of the class room and girls sit on the other (just weird)
3. student rights
 -As this may not seem to be an important topic while thinking about what college you are going to attend. When it comes to SRMC it REALLY matters.
 -Since the college is a deemed university, they have total autonomy over everything and I mean everything.
-Examples
-The college looks down upon students who relationships with the opposite sex and it has long been felt that students have been failed for this reason (remember grading system is subjective)
-There is a curfew for all students regardless of age (doesnt matter if you have an undergraduate degree, they dont care). This is if you stay on campus
-If a professor decides to pick on you in class or on rounds, you will have to swallow your pride, because if you respond back you can guarantee that you will be failed on purpose (this is a fact). And when I say picked on, I mean I been dogged just for the fact I am from USA , nothing else (words cannot do justice to my displeasure)
-By the end of your tenure in SRMC you will learn, in order to get through college in India, you better leave your pride at home and work on your brown nosing skills
 -Just to make things clear YOU AS A STUDENT IN SRMC HAVE NO RIGHTS
4. occupancy
 -there are no co-ed dorms for any you that had other plans
 -If you are a male student that stays in the hostel (the Indian terminology for dorms) there are no TVs. there are TV rooms which are not air conditioned and are very uncomfortable for one to watch TV
 -Female students have TVs in their own rooms, but their room size is considerably smaller
 -Each NRI has their own room, with its own bathroom and air conditioning facilities
-This means you must buy your own A/C and have it installed
-You are given a desk, a cot, and metal closet
 -If you live in the hostel that usually means the majority of the food you will be eating is on campus.
-In order to eat at the NRI mess, one must walk about a half a mile each way (this is if you dont have bike or a car)
-The food served at NRI mess if not even fit for a animal to eat, let alone it be a human
 -In order to get to college from the hostel you must walk about three quarters of a mile (no transport will provided for you regardless of weather conditions(try walking to class during monsoon season))
5. outlets
 -beside basketball and weight lifting there are no real outlets for NRI students on campus available on daily basis, so get ready to bored out of your mind(literally); and for females there are really no outlets period.
-In end the reason I write this as a message of good will. I dont want anyone to go through what I went through just because they didnt know. Going to college in SRMC is not cheap, it cost me $100,000 dollars up front cash. The only saving grace of SRMC is that I have met a lot good people that I expect to be my friends for life, but truth be told if I had a chance to do it again there is no way in hell would I go to SRMC knowing what I know now."
All of the above was my original post over two years ago. I know many people tried hard to tear down what i had said earlier, saying that it was an exaggeration of the truth, blah, blah.....BULLSH&T...i can only talk from my experience. People will once again try to tear down what i have to say again, i challenge those people to disprove everything i said, not bits and pieces....they cant, cuz ultimately, it is what it is. But i put this up again after talking to some of my junior friends who have since graduated and they tell me they couldnt wait to get out of there. so once again i make return after two year gap in hopes i can enlighten some young people who are at point in their life where they need to make a decision that dictates they next 5-6 yrs of their life.
