The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) recently announced their NIRF Rankings for 2019. It is quite impeccable to notice that Miranda House, Delhi University has been ranked as the best college in India for the second consecutive year. Last year, five colleges from DU had made it to the list, while in the current rankings the number has risen to six.
While this is a commendable thing to notice in the name of the university, yet I believe there are certain things which simply go unnoticed.
Being a student from a not-so-popular Delhi University college, I fear that the limelight might never shift. My college might have not made it to the list, in fact, it did not participate at all, but the fact remains unchanged that I love my college.
This might be biased but here’s why I feel it is justified:
1) While other colleges believe that students aren’t students but a bunch of Marxs and Einsteins, my college makes us feel like students. We’ve been taught from day one that marks do not define your life; that scoring 60-70%, and being an average student is not a crime, because until the world closes down on cut-offs, my college is an example of the much needed breather the cut-offs may need.
2) It doesn’t pull out unexpected expectations from the students, it doesn’t make you fall into the rat race because well, you only live once, that’s the note on which the head of my department stated our orientation.
Not only does it stand out in it’s approach, it also stands out in what it offers to you in it’s curriculum. With graduating subjects like Bachelors of Science Honours in Food Technology, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Home Science, an option which can further bring you out to various other fields ranging from Psychology to Accountancy and Zoology, additionally holding Legal Studies in the curriculum of Home Science.
3) The college also offers Bachelors of Elementary Education as a course. Over which, Masters of Science Honours in Fabric and Apparel Science, and Food and Nutrition along with many interesting short term courses added to the crown. My college has always believed in a diverse curriculum and followed an interdisciplinary model.
4) In this institute of flabbergasting colours, BA (Hons) Journalism is the only course which stands out in the field of arts and commerce, making it open to all diversities and also turning the college in one of the seven colleges offering journalism as a graduation degree in the university.
5) Hence, it may not be ranked under the lists of great colleges, but it can offer you great and out-of- the-box career options in life. I think that it is necessary to do things other than simply continuing in the rat race. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg would have been university graduates in no time, had life not been out of the box for them.
I genuinely believe that the top-notch colleges have not only rigged the system of merit in the country, but have also been favoured to their name and possibilities. The best college has been in the papers for it’s misogynistic dictate towards the SOL (School of Open Learning) students of college. The Miranda House gates also witnessed protests by Pinjra Tod demanding the hostel curfew to be rolled back.
Another thing worth mentioning is the discontinued practice in Hindu College which received backlash for a sexist tradition of praying to a ‘virgin tree’ where the boys of the hostel, conducted a puja of a female figure called Damdami Mai on Valentine’s Day on the virgin tree and hung condoms on its branches believing it to bring luck.
If such practices are recurrent in the best colleges of the country, I believe I’m in a much better place, in this not-so-pompous and not-so-popular college of mine, because it at least exposes me to the vibrance of the world in all the right ways. The NIRF rankings couldn’t change my judgement of right and wrong, I just hope it doesn’t change yours either.