Mechanical Engineering as an optional subject

[This is what was conceived as a serious "technical" piece - kindly refrain for searching for jokes in here!]

( For General Studies - and general preparation - a complementary article.)

This is in response to many readers’ and friends’ demand. Many people have, in the past, asked me about the absence of any ‘tips and guidelines’ article on this blog. It is generally expected of people who clear this examination to take to the pulpit and preach. I had avoided doing so for three simple reasons. For one, I am not really very sure of what exactly was done so right by me this time that warranted this result (as opposed to the not so good results of last two times – though I do have some guesses, which I shall reveal later in this piece). Secondly, I am very much sure that all said and done, luck plays a very important role in this examination – in technical language, a good preparation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Thirdly, the whole business of preparing for an examination has to be a very personalized process. The whole concept of coaching and a sort of ‘assembly line preparation’ does not appeal to me, and neither is it liked by the Commission, who seem to be determined to eradicate the whole business by the recent ‘revolutionary papers’. Yet, I have been told by many to pen down something in this direction, and hence, today I attempt to do so – and believe me, it is almost as difficult as attempting those innovative GS questions.

Since I have taken upon this task of writing about the preparation for this exam, I also exercise the prerogative to limit myself to writing about Mechanical Engineering. There are infinitely better sources to learn about General Studies, Economics optional and Essay preparations. Many readers, and Facebook friends had complained that while successful candidates in other optionals had put forth their thoughts, I had not done so for Mechanical Engineering. So, taking all this to the logical conclusion, here it goes.

First of all, let us discuss the viability of Mechanical Engineering as an optional subject for the examination. I am not getting into the whole humanities vs sciences debate, but I must say that as a fresh start subject, it can be very tiresome and lengthy. Though I’ve had a very fruitful relationship with the subject, it is also a fact that many Mechanical Engineers avoid taking it as an optional, and do very well with any of the humanities and literature optionals. So, before taking the plunge with this optional, it would be better to check if you belong to any of these categories –

1. 1.       Actively involved in studies of Mechanical Engineering – PG, Research, preparation for GATE, Engineering Services Examination.
2. 2.       Generally in love with the subjects constituting Mechanical Engineering.
3. 3.       In a job that does not give much time for taking on two optionals at a time, and hence having an inclination for an optional with which one is somewhat familiar, and which can be prepared with some final bursts of effort.

There may be other categories of people who may take this subject as an optional. However, I find it most pertinent for these three categories – first two positively and the last negatively. Yours truly was somewhat in category 2 and very much in category 3. All I want to say that if you are not in these categories, it might be a better investment to take some other optional – which may give much more ‘bang for the buck’ effortwise.

Coming to the next part, many friends have been asking me about the books that I consulted and read. I must put it down, very humbly, that I read most of the common books that are prescribed in many of the engineering courses across the nation. A subject wise list follows:

• Mechanics of Rigid Bodies – No particular book – questions are of the same nature as asked in the engineering entrance examinations, and are of much simpler level – may use any XI standard book on Mechanics (Arihant etc.)
• Mechanics of Deformable Bodies – B.C.Punmia (Mechanics of Materials) (many also recommend Sadhu Singh)
• Engineering Materials – Relevant chapters of the book on Manufacturing by E.Paul De Garmo (many recommend V.Raghavan)
• Theory of Machines – S.S.Rattan (Sharma and Aggarwal for Machine Design)
• Manufacturing Processes – E.Paul De Garmo (some inputs from Hazra Chowdhary as well)
• Manufacturing Management – E.Paul De Garmo, various “free view” snippets from Google books*
• Thermodynamics – P.K.Nag
• Gas Dynamics & Turbines – S.M.Yahya
• Heat Transfer – J.P.Holman
• I.C.Engines – Mathur & Sharma (Ganeshan, or Obert might be as useful)
• Steam Engineering – P.K.Nag
• RAC – C.P.Arora

*It need not be told that many of the topics may not be found in the books mentioned above. For such cases, the Internet comes to the readers’ rescue. The best way is to search for the topic on Google books. Often, if it comes under the search results, the given chapter is free for viewing, and one may read from the screen. Or, one may review which book has the best content, and then proceed to buy the book. However, it would be seen that different chapters are better explained in different books – and hence, reading on screen and then preparing notes / crash notes would be a better option.

**It also needs to be doubly clarified that this is in no way supposed to be an endorsement of these books (except, may be, of the De Garmo one) – it’s just that I happened to read these books.

In addition to these, there is a wonderful repository of online material at the NPTEL website– it is a collection of lectures – both PDF and videos – prepared by the esteemed faculty of various IITs. If a topic is available on NPTEL, it is best read from NPTEL, for no book can match the conciseness and clarity of these lectures.

Another important thing which may help a person, who has chosen this path, where a minimum of 8 books (some of them are really big – the E.Paul De Garmo book can be used as a weapon if thrown at somebody!) need to be read, is the preparation of notes. Notes should be prepared only when a topic has been properly understood – and should be in one’s own words. And, most importantly, notes should be very brief. It’s no point making notes which are as unwieldy as the books. A perfect set of notes should contain information enough to help a well prepared mind “recall”, and it should be as low in volume as possible. It has two benefits – there is no other humanly possible way to revise the whole syllabus in a day or two – which is all one might get in the middle of the Mains; and, by making the whole syllabus visible in a few pages, this exercise gives one’s confidence a boost. I made a set of very compact notes, noted alongside the syllabus itself. It gave an additional advantage – almost nothing out of the syllabus was left unread. (covering the whole syllabus is very important –it often happens that the easier questions are from the most ‘backwaters’ of the topics in the syllabus, which one might be tempted to gloss over. This was one thing that I did stick to, quite scrupulously, in this attempt.) For the want of a better term, I called them ‘Crash Notes’. I am posting a link of the same – while the language and terminology used may not be very intelligible to anyone else but me (since these notes were made for my benefit), these scans might give some idea about what to do. The Mechanical Engineering notes are marked with ‘Mech’.

Finally, coming to the execution part in the paper itself, I had two observations, which, according to me, were somewhat instrumental in fetching good scores in the subject. In fact, these two things were also done for the first time by me in this attempt, and they led to a phenomenal increase in the portion of the paper attempted, and hence, maybe, consequentially, the marks attained. These were:

1. 1.     Not getting too stuck on a troublesome question. The worst thing one can do in this era of very long papers is to try a question for too long, as I had discovered, to my peril, in my last attempt. This time, I left many questions midway – as soon as they “went sticky”. The power of human subconscious was obvious, as when I returned to those questions later, after an hour or so, I was able to solve many of them, without wasting much time on actively thinking about them. It was much like sleeping over a problem. (Disclaimer- Readers may try this in mock papers before taking this technique to the Mains exam hall. It worked for me, but it is not some proven and tested psychological tool; so desist from coming back to sue the undies off me!)
2. 2.       Going for the ‘theoretical’ questions rather than the numerical ones. Whenever I had a choice, I went for the theory questions. I know that attempting theory questions is considered somewhat ‘unmanly’ by many Mechanical Engineers, but it can be a lifesaver in long papers, for the following reasons-

a.       Theory questions have definite answers that one knows for sure. Once attempted, it is a confirmed receipt of 7/8 out of 10 marks. Numericals, on the other hand, are “10 or nothing” gambles.

b.      Theory questions can be shortened under pressure. One can go from detailed explanations to bullet point answers given the situation and the time crunch. However, a gas turbine numerical will be solved in 2-3 pages only, and it does not care for the fact that you have only 5 minutes left on the clock.

These are my two cents on this whole topic of preparing Mechanical Engineering as an optional subject. Hope it helps those who needed help. Please don’t laugh; it was as hard for me to write this one as it was for you to read it!

Some other blog posts (not related to preparation)

Bharat Darshan - Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
The Price of Transparency
"If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus!"
With Great Power comes Greater Arrogance?
Ignorance is bliss?
The Men who Ruled India