What is IT??

With the HSC board exams round the corner, I'll cut corners on descriptions of the anxieties and pressures of the exams itself and come to the crux of the post.

This started a few days back when one of my neighbours who is appearing for the HSC exams came to me. She wanted to do engineering but wasn't clear if she wanted to do it (err did u understand tht??). So she came to me with a twofold program (1) Tell me about engineering (2) Tell me about IT engineering.

The first part was easy. I told her about the pride and prejudice that comes with being Er. XYZ (I discovered that prefix recently and hope to attach it to my name in few months!!). Among the benefits are recognition as a 'rational' and 'intelligent' person. You learn to work fast and take shortcuts where needed (like learning from notes instead of books and compressing assignments). You get to learn and have fun too if you can walk the tightrope between acads and partying. It makes you realise what "learning for learning's sake" means.

On the flipside its a lot of pressures every 3-4 months with submissions, vivas and exams. There are those distressing times when u get low marks or bad grades or even when u feel u just cant cope up with the studies!! But u learn to handle it bcos afterall that's how real life will be. I touched upon the campus placements and festivals part for her so that she understood degree college life but I guess it's a part of any degree course not just engineering.

On the whole being an "engineer" to me doesn't mean ur technically proficient in general and in your discipline in particular. To me it means you've come a long way as a person since u wer in school or jr. college. It means u've learned to cope with the vagaries of life. It means that you apply the same rationale and analysis that engineering subjects require to everything in life and not let emotions get the better of you even at the worst moments.

Perhaps I can best sum this up by the statement mom dad make at home everytime they feel I'm gonna throw a tantrum. No they don't say "You are grown up now" or "Stop acting childish". Instead they say "You are an engineer". That has the effect of clearing the layer of strong emotion in my mind at that minute - be it anger, resentment or dejection - and throwing my rational self into gear.

By now you must be wondering y the post carries such an irrelevant title when something like "An engineer speaks" would be more apt. But it is a question that I asked myself before I answered the second part of my neighbour's query. What is IT or Information Technology???

You would think 4 years of studying IT engineering would have let me answer the question in a jiffy. But the more I pondered over it the more I wondered why I didn't know the answer. Is IT about writing programs?? By its definition IT means "all methods of storage, retrieval and modification of information." Then if I am competent enough to arrange an array of clerks and filing cabinets in such a way that I facilitate easy storage, retrieval and modification of information; do I qualify as an IT engineer? Even if I don't know 'P' of Programming??

Is my definition incomplete or inaccurate? Or is IT just a collection of subjects prescribed under IT engineering? I know its shameful coming from an almost full-fledged IT engineer but - Will someone tell me "What is IT??"