Srikanth Technologies

The Reality Of Academic Projects

Students who have completed all but the final semester are gearing up to do their project in the final semester.

The practice of doing a project is taking back seat now-a-days. However unfortunate it is, the fact remains that many students are resorting to buying a ready-made project. The question is who is benefited by this? I believe certainly NOT the students.

In this blog, I want to share my opinions about the entire academic projects issue.

Who is benefited by academic projects?

Many training institutes offer projects. Some software companies develop less software and sell more projects to students. I know financially it is very rewarding from sellers point of view. So they continue to do it. They can sell the same project to many. If required with different titles. They say who will read the source code.

How many guides/externals know the technology the project is using. My understanding is that many do not (cannot) read the code. Say if a project is in Struts then how many guides understand Struts. The same is true with many technologies. So project sellers are in safe zone.

I even heard about some training institutes having a kind of tie up with colleges in such a way students of the college are made to buy projects in that institute. Of course this rewards both the parties. It is weird, but weird things do happen on earth.

What does it do to students? It takes a golden opportunity of understanding what it takes to build an application from a to z, away from students. Some of them are given 6 months exclusively to develop an application. That's a lot of time. One can even learn the technology and build the application in 6 months. Some students spend 5 months out of 6 months on talking on cell phone and then buy a project in 6th month. Who is losing opportunity? Who pays the price for lost opportunity? The answers is straight - Student.

My sincere suggestion to students, who are career conscious, is to grab the opportunity to learn what is the life cylce of a project by doing a project completely on your own. Understand the domain, database design, user-interface design, coding etc. Do not forget, you are learning what you are set to do the rest of your career.

Myth of live project

Coming to the myth of Live projects. Some ignorant guides and colleges expect students to do live project. As many of you know, live project is the one that is used by a company or individual in real life. It is not a live requirement; it is being used by a company to run its business. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Are beginners equipped with the knowledge to handle a live project completely on their own (with or without help from guides)?”.

My frank answer with 17 years of experience with students is a big 'NO'. At least most of them do NOT have what it takes (either attitude or technical ability) to handle a complete project. Don’t guides know about their college products? I know they do. If they think all students can handle a project in the final year completely on their own, they must be living in a different world (at least from the one I live).

What’s the solution?

The solution is to encourage students to learn the technology first. I come across a lot of students who have no idea about .NET (not even that it is from Microsoft) planning to do a project in .NET. Some want to do project in Java, but have no idea about any developments in Java. For example, they have no idea about JSF, Struts, Hibernate etc. Academic project is an opportunity to understand how real-world development goes. Learn a technology that is being widely used and apply it to build application. The domain of the project may not be very attractive or complex, let technology NOT be outdated.
 
I am really sick of students who want to develop application without knowing anything about technology. I know many of them end up getting some terminology in XYZ training centre and buying a project with ABC title.

Some students travel as much as 700 km to buy a project, some save their parents hard-earned money. 

Students must realize there is nothing like easy or difficult coding. Programming is always very demanding. You can’t complete a project without writing code. One must realize, you do the biggest favour to yourself, by learning to build an application.

I heard some students saying they have no time to learn until they get to final semester. You have enough summer breaks to do it. If you want to go to your grandmother's place for every vacation and spend entire time there, then only your grandmother can help you in this highly competitive world.

Success is not an accident. You have to plan for it and execute the plans.

There are Exceptions

Though I talk about majority of students, I know there are exceptions also. Some really want to utilize this opportunity and work hard to do something useful (if not to anyone else, at least to themselves).

I have personally assisted some students, who have really worked hard to do all on their own.

Most of them learnt the technology before they used it. You cannot cook and eat food at the same time. If common sense prevails you know you have to cook first then eat, not eat while you cook.

Conclusion

With thousands of students needing projects, one must understand, there are no thousands of requirements. Each student/group of students must plan for project NOT in final semester, but a little earlier than that. They should look at websites and other softwares that they use and see whether they can do a subset of it or do it differently.

Academic projects are only teaching tools and not industry products. The aim is to learn and not to produce world class software.

Srikanth

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Comments
Posted By nowliprasadbabu On 02-Dec-08 05:19:03 PM

hai sir, its very nice


Posted By srinivas On 03-Dec-08 11:06:58 AM

Sir u r blog is very nice.


Posted By srinivas On 03-Dec-08 11:10:01 AM

Sir i am student pursuing final mca sixth semister in vizag and i am intrested to do a project in .net and i dont have much idea on .net. what u suggest me to do? Reply please sir


Posted By Srikanth Pragada On 03-Dec-08 03:17:26 PM

As I mentioned in the blog, the best approach is to learn the technology that you want to use to develop application. So learn Java/.Net/PHP whatever you want to use to build application. Then you understand what you can do with that.Srikanth.


Posted By Srinivas On 06-Dec-08 03:06:30 PM

You are absolutely right sir, but students can't understand this. To Complete there final year, Students have to obey the college lecturer orders. by doing that lectures are getting benefit, Simply by paying 2000/- they can get any software/project in any institute (except in SRIKANTH) i know this.Students from Srikanth willl come out with a PROJECT,Full idea on Technologies and Complete Satisfaction.Really you are BIG Asset of Vizag Students.


Posted By Koushik Nandan On 08-Dec-08 10:29:01 PM

Sir, you are its a fact. it happens everywhere.


Posted By sagar On 09-Dec-08 09:21:46 PM

sir! now am final year... i know i should realize before.....from ur words i really do my project my self after learing and knowing about the technology.....


Posted By chandramouli On 11-Dec-08 11:30:53 PM

sir ,you have actually documented what exactly is hapenning in colleges and i'm the live testimonial facing all the above


Posted By siva On 12-Dec-08 08:35:42 PM

my suggestion on this part would be learn the technology..from the beginning of your sem, and before you enter the last but one semester, try to start documenting your thoughts, may be an hour a day, try to visualise the requirements say, how the front page look like, how do you authenticate the login information, what would be requirements to complete the projects, once that is done, you have everything as an idea and technology is in your hands...start up would be walk in the park...I hope this helps.


Posted By uma maheswari On 15-Dec-08 08:00:00 PM

Hi vivek U send very inspired msg to all students
who really need to understand the present situation
on projects knowledge.I am very thank ful to u for
giving valuable suggestion.


Posted By umasankar On 06-Jan-09 07:51:27 PM

hi sir this is wonderful blog which i neven seen before.It gives valuable suggestions regarding. No one in the colleges can give the ideas about the projets. It helps me in understanding the projects. Thanking u Sir

Ur's Sankar


Posted By Rajasekhar On 17-Feb-09 10:47:17 PM

"Success is not an accident. You have to plan for it and execute the plans".

Great quote. Sir, What you have mentioned is absolutely true. The teachers have to take care of the students life. They must atlest explain about the project from 3rd year itself.Till final year students are not bothering about the technology.Just enjoying the student life with mobile or something crazy time pass. I wish students who has enthusiasm must understand your concern.


Posted By lavs On 22-Feb-09 12:46:46 PM

sir this blog is excellent.


Posted By ButchiRaju On 08-Mar-09 09:36:08 PM

Hai sir.. Its very nice... Especially the word "Success is not an accident. You have to plan for it and execute the plans" ... superb


Posted By chandra On 27-Mar-09 08:12:14 PM

Sir nice blog, I will repeat these words for my juniors who will come to me for the project.... As i am out of the academic project.


Posted By Naresh On 30-Apr-09 02:47:03 PM

Its true and nice to see it as a blog. I do mean the same that academic projs r to learn and not to produce a gr8 software


Posted By muthu On 09-May-09 08:50:05 PM

Hi,
Its good to see that someone is writing about the "academic project" scam. As you have mentioned the main thing is the staff should understand that there is no true live project/IEEE project that a student can do. Also the students think that Software industry is entirely in J2EE or .Net. I do not know how many students know that there are far better areas to complete their academic project learning something.Hope some students would change their minds atleast looking at this blog.


Posted By kamal On 07-Oct-09 01:26:44 AM

a great blog


Posted By kiran kumar On 20-Nov-09 03:12:31 PM

Thank you sir, i am very happy after gone through this content and have learnt much more about.. i do my project by my self..


Posted By K.Konda Reddy On 20-Dec-09 11:47:49 PM

Its very very useful to all who want do a project .


Posted By shankar On 23-Oct-10 02:07:45 PM

It is excellent sir,thanks for giving such an important information to us


Posted By Innovation lab On 26-Oct-10 05:13:28 PM

Very good Advice for Students.This is Very good help for final year students who are going to do their Academic Projects.


Posted By manogna On 31-Oct-10 01:35:35 AM

Thanks for enlightening on the importance of projects sir..
But there is a lot more to learn to reach that stage.


Posted By Suresh On 10-Mar-11 08:26:22 PM

sir... im ur java student. I really inspired of ur words in class and by reading this blog too... ur excellent sir.


Posted By Naveen On 13-Dec-11 07:44:27 PM

Hi Srikanth, its very rare suggestion .. Hope everyone may understand this .


Posted By raja thumu On 20-Dec-11 03:03:14 PM

nice one .every one get inspire by this


Posted By koteswara rao On 13-Dec-12 04:34:06 PM

Most of them learnt the technology before they used it. You cannot cook and eat food at the same time. If common sense prevails you know you have to cook first then eat, not eat while you cook.
Really wonderful sir.............


Posted By Dastagiri On 09-Jan-13 05:44:29 PM

Ulimate guidelines. I did not get this type of guidelines before.


Posted By Ramakrishna On 06-Feb-14 04:10:14 PM

hai sir.your blog is really good and thanks


Posted By tejaswini On 31-Jul-14 04:55:29 PM

very nice blog sir.