Well... as far as my college is concerned, yeah it does eat up a big chunk (8am to 4:30 pm, on 3 days a week) of my 24 hrs, plus till 3 years of 4 year course I

Well... as far as my college is concerned, yeah it does eat up a big chunk (8am to 4:30 pm, on 3 days a week) of my 24 hrs, plus till 3 years of 4 year course I need to study chemistry and physics along with core subjects, and surprisingly environmental science too is pushed into CS here, 4 credits (highest) for env. science... and chemistry shares same 3 credits with other topics like OS and Algorithms. I wonder why my education system fails to see the importance of less load on students and giving us free time to experiment, self-learn and spend more time in understanding what is important for us. Plus a semester in my college has 5 tests, so every month we are really busy... its really hard managing time like this ! Imagine a student whose parents can't provide funds due to some reasons, how can he ever self finance or add some independence/comfort to his life! While my friends in foreign universities do find great part time opportunities and free time to work some side-projects, this kind of scenario is majorly lacking in India :( most of my classmates just concentrate on getting 9+ gpa,don't even care to look at whats going on in the world outside... since grading is competitive, this creates a pressure on one and all to be at a nice position compared to those who give 24x7 to mugging based syllabus and never ever dream to achieve any self earned practical experience which I believe to be the best form of learning. The case is not the same in premier institutes in India such as IITs, NITs and BITS. Getting to those colleges is achievable only after beating a huge crowd of super high IQ people. This can't be possible for everyone, anyways my point is the private institutes are really messing up with our lives as in case of my college due to outdated ideas and thoughts of people who run it. Major issues for my college are discipline which translates to - 1. no use of laptops in the hostel for first 2 years of college.... 2. Uniforms on 2 days a week. 3. ban on jeans and tshirt 4. no cellphones 5. no girls and guys hanging out 6. not getting treated like adults even when we are 20 years old... 7. many more like hostlers standing till 3am as punishment for making some noise on the last day of 2008 Now that really makes me think, my college is stopping me from getting rich and advancing in my own views! I could've learnt so much more if I was in a college that is run by people who are more broadminded and understand how education and knowledge are different and respect what Einstein said in "On Education" and aim for a better advanced society for future rather than creating huge crowd of people with zero creativity, experience and almost ditto common skills. The best some screwd up colleges can do for people like me is relax the timings and test, syllabus load and let me have some college/life/fun ratio. BUT COLLEGE EDUCATION IS NO WASTE OF TIME EVEN IF THESE STUPID ADD-ONS ARE ATTACHED TO THE ONE WHICH I GET :)