Importance of 'Final Year Project' in engineer's life

According to Oxford, an 'ENginEER' is a skillful contriver or an originator. A person who devises new things, innovates and improves the quality of living using the skills he is trained in his four years of engineering college life. But do you really think does this definition apply to many of us today ?

Being an engineer, a thought always ponders in my mind . Are we, most of the engineering graduates today, able to truly call ourselves a true engineer? There is no need for you to give GATE or any other technical exam to test yourself as an engineer. But you have a real easy way to judge yourself by simply looking at your 'FINAL YEAR PROJECT'.

The ultimate test of all the skills you developed in 4 years is the final year project you take. For most of us its just a waste of time, a forceful endeavor, or just another obstacle in the way towards your degree. To few its like a commitment made to the four years they strived to make their identity. The casual attitude of todays engineer towards their projects is the big reason for the downfall of the quality of engineers produced today.

Moreover are the students only responsible for this degradation in the engineering attitude ? The answer is no. Usually the first stage of starting any project is to find a suitable person who can steer your project towards a success in a stipulated amount of time. This person is called the 'Guide' of your project. Ideal method to select a guide is to check if he has the necessary skills and command in the field your project is in. But now the scene is completely reverse. People chose their guides on the basis of the fact that 'the more linient and the lesser skillful the teacher be , the more he is preferred to as a guide'. And the story doesnt end here. Even such teachers who are of completely different fields come to judge students in their Project exams giving them another loop hole. Some guides give out ready made reports to their students to just copy and paste it so that he/she doesnt need to go through the details of the report. Some are more interested in formatting rather than the content. I mean formatting can even be done by a layman why you need to be an engineer ?? Cant they understand this simple thought? Anyway this is the main reason for the shift in the mentality of students, about the image of a guide.

The level of projects undertaken by grads have also fallen these days. The basic definition of engineer as a skillful contriver is slowly forgotten by many.