To those of you who landed here looking for CEED options or discussion, you're in the wrong place. This post is by a guy who didn't make it.
First things first for the late comers. CEED is a design exam conducted by IIT Bombay for admission into it's Prestigious design programme. There are about 6 more colleges which admit students based on CEED rank. All my visitors and well wishers know I've been blabbering about it relentlessly for the last few months and even put aside all thoughts of getting a job in the hope(confidence) that I'd make it. Turned out I was way off.
Design encompasses a lot of things. Imagination, creativity, cognitive abilities and a lot more - Sketching is how you put it on paper. Coming from the one who didn't make the cut, the following lines may look one sided but bear with me.
Where I went wrong:
- I think I am good enough for getting in. My sketching is pretty amateur and I am still getting the hang of things on curves and complex 3-D illustrations but what's a two year course for? Even Harvard has a full semester for improving drawing skills for it's grad students!
I read a book on Sketching by Koos and Roselien where one of the tips for good sketching was to draw the guidelines- thin,fuzzy lines that show the dimension and shape of the object. Perhaps the examiner thought I was too rookie to draw those! I even drew those 2-D, 3-D guidelines to make things worse.
- I did not carry colors. I have enough color pencils and pens to open a shop but I wasn't carrying a single one on exam day. I don't know why I did that.There was a question on coloring two cars, one "masculine" and the other "feminine" I borrowed a couple of color pencils from Japheth: Brown and Green. I'd might as well left that question unanswered!
- I got distracted. I do this a lot and the guy sitting on my right was doing a fine job of wasting my time. Everything he drew looked perfect and he had awhole set of coloring material from little crayons to watercolors. The guy on my left was the other end of the spectrum... he drew like a small child. I should have realized then and there I was at the middle, literally and figuratively.
- Dad told me long long ago nothing will ever come of dabbling in everything. "Get your priorities straight and hold on to the thing you love most"
(Not his exact lines...that's too filmy)
I have a degree in Information Technology- And I tried getting into a design college- I do some photography too- I get excited looking at engines. Aeroplanes, trains, trucks..makes no difference- and then i do a bit of graphic designing too.
BE A JAcK OF ALL TRADES- MASTER OF ONE!
- I was sick. Having pao and Kheema(minced meat) for breakfast and shammi for dinner a day before exam is a bad idea. It took a Metrogyl, lots of fluids and a totto empty stomach to get me through the exam. And bad health brings down thinking and productivity.
Where they went wrong
Enough about me. I read this long post by a CEED aspirant who didn't get admission last year. His gripe was that he was denied admission in spite of having more than a year of experience running a design studio. I saw his portfolio myself, it was awesome. He felt that the admission system was flawed and a rework of the exam pattern was needed. He got booed by IITians in the comments. Here are some of my observations/ questions:
- Were all the papers checked by a single examiner? Perception and views differ. What may seem like a good idea to one may look stupid to another.
If the papers were indeed corrected by several people I think it'd be safe to assume some deserving candidates were left out because the evaluator had had a bad day. Call it wishful thinking but I'll say the same thing happened to me.
- If you're really that good at filtering talent, why is it that several students who're now doing their masters at your place have crappy portfolios?
One can't get the dimensions straight on cars and another put up flowers. Like I said before, I am not that good either(I put up random amateur sketches of toothbrushes and stuff) but that bad? Did I deserve that score?
- Who closes registrations even BEFORE the results are out? A great job conducting the exam and all...even the website was well designed(pun not intended).
But opening and closing registrations(at one of the colleges) in a very short span of time and that too before the results were announced is a bad bad move.
And being one the best educational institutions in the country, you didn't think to add an email alerts widget to your main page?
My Google Page rank is still pretty low but, by some miracle, you're a CEED 2011 attendee and have something to share...feel free to write in a comment. From
what I've seen, the toppers are not very net savvy...nothing on Blogosphere about the exam or even Design for that matter!
1 comment:
Yea the admission system is highly flawed,i myself have a amazing portfolio but cause of similar problems you faced..i also didnt get admission..but going for NID... :)
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