Values,ethics to round off engineers’ rough edges

Designed by a group of teachers,Prof RR Gaur of IIT Delhi and Prof R Sangal and Prof GP Bagaria of IIT Kanpur,the course content focuses on teaching value education through self exploration. “The course is completely secular and the content is based on the philosophy of — sah astitvavad — that is to understand human reality vis a vis the rest of existence by looking inwards,” said Dr Rajneesh Arora,PTU VC.

The course is in the form of a dialogue between the teacher and the students where the teacher,through proposals,forces the students to think about their lives and then present it before the teacher.

Dr Arora feels pure technologists are not the ones who are most successful in life. “My experience as the head of the placement cell in GNDU showed that a student with a well rounded personality fared well in the tests which the hiring companies conducted. Those who topped engineering courses were the ones who got jobs with difficulty. Purely technical education forms a square personality which is difficult to fit in the varied and complicated roles that he is expected to perform. A well rounded personality fits in well and makes the wheel move. This course aims to round off the sharp edges.” The course is already available in the IITs and some other institutes in India as an optional subject.