Computer Institute? Think Again. Review on NIIT Ltd

My father believes in preparing for the future. And so, during the vacation of my 6th std in 1993, instead of playing 'hand cricket with a tennis ball' with friends in my apartment complex, I found myself pillion-riding on my uncle's TVS-XL, clutching a smart-looking blue folder-case with NIIT emboldened on it, and in it some smart-looking booklets on GW BASIC and a box with a 5.25'' floppy disk in it which I never opened.. as I was told the disk would be worthless if I so much as touched it untowardly. I was in chennai then, and NIIT's main center in Nungambakkam was just being built. I didnt have to worry about falling asleep in my classes.. the construction noises droning all around us ensured we'd be wide awake.

I was one of the youngest students in that batch, and there wasn't too much I managed to understand. I cant comment on whether our instructor was well-qualified, because I didn't know much myself, but I do remember that she was very pretty. We were put onto comps during the lab sessions in the ratio 2:1, and my labmate was 4 years my senior. We didn't see too much eye-to-eye (literally) and as you can guess, I didnt get to touch the computer much. One month later, I was the proud owner of a rather impressive-looking NIIT certificate with a not-so-impressive grade in fine-print at the back that proclaimed I was 'average'. I was also given 10-hours-worth of vouchers that I could use at their 'ComputerDrome', a large stand-alone 'computer lab'. Dad insisted I use them up, and so I went there everyday for the next week and played pacman industriously.

The grade I'd gotten ensured made dad realise I wasn't really computer material, so he didn't persist in trying to educate me on it further. In the summer of 1996, however, a generous uncle gifted me his old 386 computer. I was fascinated beyond words, and I did more with the Lotus 1-2-3 on it than any sane individual can imagine. Another uncle in the PC business installed a GW BASIC editor on it, and I began experimenting on it with gusto. Three weeks later, I had coded Tic-tac-toe on it, and another week later, my own rather shoddy version of Pacman was released in the hallowed portals of my dad's bedroom. He, ofcourse, never tired of asking me to 'stop playing' with the computer.

I soon tired of BASIC and Lotus 1-2-3, and when in 1998 I was in the middle of high school, dad decided, amidst much prodding by my uncle-in-the-PC-business, to go with the times and upgrade my 386 to a 133 Mhz Pentium Pro. With high school came the basics of C and C++, which was a relative breeze, thanks to all those idle hours coding in GW BASIC. It was an interesting new language, however, and I did some arbitrary coding on the side. So was the Windows 95 that came with my PC.. and the Quake CD a friend lent me. Needless to say, I spent a lot of not-so-quality time on my computer, much to the chagrin of my parents.

With engineering college, in 1999 I moved away to live with my uncle. They had no computer. Incidentally, 6 years after that initial disaster, here came my second tryst with NIIT. I noticed an ad for the NIIT Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships.. they seemed to be plastered evrywhere. I applied under the topper's scheme, gave their test, and got a 100% scholarship to do their 4-semester (2 yrs) DNIIT program (worth INR 35,000). I was later asked to pay a INR 500 registration fee, but that was a minor irritant. The scholarship came with a continuity condition. I had to obtain 85% after each semester to qualify for the next. The first semester was on MSOffice applications and basic HTML, packaged to look like they were the most in-demand skills in the market. The title was the clincher.. 'Advanced Course in Programming Concepts'. I HAD to scoff, but I went anyway, I had nothing better to do and it was free. Seven and a half months later, after learning precious little that was new to me, our final scores arrived. I had come second in my batch, with a 84.48%. The highest was 84.78%. I was given the option to 'continue at a concessional rate'. Needless to say, I chose not to, as did the other 2 topper scholars who'd joined with me.

I decided to give NIIT another chance though, since I hadn't really experienced learning from them things I really wanted to learn. So I enrolled for a month-long course on Java (INR 5,000) with them in early 2000. It did seem funny that I'd spent the last 7 months 'mastering' MS Office, while I was going to become a Java professional in a mere one month. After brushing through some UML and basic Java Applets, our pretty instructor zipped through the course in record time.. with loads of unannounced class cancellations thrown in. The test was a breeze though.. it had to be.. she was standing right behind me telling me the answers! I decided that Java was far more boring than I'd expected it to be, and left it at that.

A year later, I moved away to live with some friends, and bought a PIII 800MHz. I'd assembled it myself, and it was a steal then at INR 25,000. Thats when I discovered Visual Basic 6.0. It fascinated me no end. So far I'd coded programs that were just that.. programs. Here I was building my own windows applications.. and in no time. I did some weird things, scared a lot of friends with virus-emulants, wrote serious desktop encryption programs, and other things a bored budding geek would do. I also prodded Visual C++, and learnt to appreciate its power. And I rediscovered Java.. and did more with it than I woud've thought possible when I was giving my 'assisted' Java test at NIIT barely a year earlier. I discovered Photoshop, and Flash, and a whole host of other wonderful things. And I went on to win 2 national on-the-spot game-coding contests.

To cut a long story short, coaching centers aren't the best of places to learn programming. I hardly learnt anything significant those 3 stints at NIIT. And I dont find things to be too different with my friends who went to other institutes. Most of my learning happened when I had a computer to fiddle with, to learnt on my own. So dont go rushing to that computer institute the next time you see a colorful ad. Instead, invest in a good computer and a broadband connection. Institutes mostly teach you popular technologies that the internet is teaming with code examples for. Google is all you need. Start with something simple, yet fun, like Visual Basic. You'll soon find you enjoy it, and can graduate to more obstruse technologies.

Parents reading this may worry about giving their kids a computer, and more so an internet connection. Pretty justified concern. Paranoid parents should get a computer without a CDROM drive or an internet connection, loaded to the brim with applications, and a few games. Throw in a few good books for good measure. You'll see results within months. If you dont, your kid probably is all set to become a wealthy investment banker, so dont fret.

I must add that those 7.5 months at NIIT were (though academically nought) a lot of fun. I made a lot of good friends there (amongst them my fiancee) who I still keep in touch with. The instructors were young and fun too, though ill-qualified. And you must commend NIIT for capturing public fancy for Information Technology, and making a lucrative business model out of it. As far as student learning goes, it really isnt surprising that there isnt any. There isnt much good that a 2-hour lab session per WEEK on a shared computer can do to you. And giving you more doesnt make economic sense for NIIT. And finally, a good programmer has far better options than to come teach at a computer institute.