The other day we had a Systems Programming exam. A day before it everyone was running helter-skelter to catch hold of a book to study for it. I was no different.

Thoroughly bewildered about what to do, I approached the rankers of our class and asked them which book they were referring to. One common answer from all of them. Techmax Publications.

I mean come on....is that even a book? For all I know It's just an oversized review paper!

It lacks content and originality. The authors make it so exam-oriented that it lacks basic in-depth knowledge. And then the whole country cribs about brain drain! This is the root cause. It all starts from here. Students mug up these big dull books and throw it up over tonnes of sheets every semester. After exams how much do they retain? Nil. How is our country going to retain engineers when these engineers can’t retain the knowledge they gain here? And this is not it. I am just getting started.

Coming to the authors of these books. Are they even needed? At the end of the day Techmax books are compilations of all the renowned books for a particular subject. A theory topic from one, a derivation from the other and questions from a third. There are no innovative inputs which come from these ‘proclaimed’ authors. Most of these authors have degrees such as PhD or maybe M.Tech but honestly these degrees are a waste. Ultimately they are anyway going to scan five to ten books and write down their observations to compile one big fat book. I am a half engineer and even I can compile such books. Why bother qualified professionals for it?

But is it entirely right to blame them? Isn’t our curriculum designed in a way where we have an average of seven subjects per semester and insufficient time for all of them? Techmax Publications has as a matter of fact correctly analysed the consumer demand. They realized the sales that they were targeting as studies are vast and time is negligible! There is always an insatiable need for short-cuts like these. Students have to take on an extremely busy life and have to strike a perfect balance between grades and extra-curricular activities. They do have the hunger to learn but no place to shelter this hunger on their jam-packed schedules. Now that we view it from a different perspective, Techmax is actually helping students to meet their time constraints and thus making it a win-win situation for all.

How can I be so sure you ask? That’s because I finally cracked my Systems Programming examination using the same Techmax!