u/Jaded_Attention_725

I don't usually post stuff like this, but I need to get it out because I think it's a fair complaint and not just me venting for no reason. I'm from the Robotics branch (not naming my year), and honestly there's really only one thing that's bothering me about my college, but it's a big one. It doesn't feel like a proper "college" experience when it comes to actually building things. The equipment problem We're constantly told: "you need to work on hardware AND software, build real projects, get hands on." Fine. Except when we actually go to get the components or tools we need, they're either not available, or what we do get is damaged or half broken. You can't build anything reliable with equipment like that. I saw a post from a second year student a while back listing out a bunch of these issues in detail, and reading it now, after what I've experienced myself, I think every bit of it was valid. What made it click for me: my internship This past summer I did an internship at a well known college (won't name it here), and it genuinely opened my eyes. That place had: Actual working resources that people could use properly, not stuff sitting around broken. A dedicated block of time built into the timetable specifically for project and build work. Not "whenever you feel like it," but an actual scheduled slot, every week, for every branch. That's the part that really got me. It wasn't chaotic or left up to individual initiative. It was structured. You showed up, worked on your project in that slot, and went home. Compare that to my college At NITTE, the "solution" is: "you have a full Saturday, come whenever, do whatever you want with it." That's not the same thing as a structured block of time. It's just an unstructured day dumped on us and called a solution. And when people push back and ask for more support, the response is usually something like "just stay back till 8, 9, 10 PM and work on your project, no one's stopping you." But here's the thing. A lot of students commute from far away. Staying back till 9 or 10 PM isn't a small ask for someone who then has to travel a long distance home afterward. That "solution" only works for people who live close by. It's not a real fix, it's just shifting the burden onto students without acknowledging the actual barrier. The bigger issue: nobody actually listens We do have a feedback form. But from what I've seen, it feels like it exists just so they can say "we collected feedback," not because anything actually changes based on it. The management doesn't really come to the students, understand what we're dealing with, and adjust anything. Decisions get made and then handed down. There's no real back and forth, no attempt at actually asking us before deciding things. I get that the teachers know their domains well, that's not the issue. The issue is that domain knowledge in a subject doesn't automatically translate into understanding what students are actually struggling with day to day. And it feels like that gap never gets addressed. My actual proposal (not just a complaint) Here's the thing. I'm not even asking for something wild. I'm not asking for more holidays, less work, nothing like that. I'm asking for one specific, low cost change: Keep Saturday as an off day, don't touch that. Instead, build some breathing room into the regular weekday timetable itself, a proper, guaranteed free block, not squeezed between back to back classes, that's set aside for project and product building work. That way nobody loses their weekend off, but every weekday still has some room to actually breathe and work on something hands on, instead of the day being packed wall to wall with classes and project work getting pushed entirely onto a "free" Saturday that not everyone can even make full use of. It solves the access and travel problem, it gives students the same kind of structure my internship college had, and it directly responds to what students have already been asking for. Most importantly, it means students can actually learn and build during the day, and then go home at a reasonable hour, instead of being told to hang around campus till 9 or 10 PM just to get project time in. I just wish there was an actual channel where this kind of thing gets heard and acted on, instead of feedback disappearing into a form nobody looks at twice. Curious if anyone else here has experienced something similar at their college, or if any institution has actually implemented something like a dedicated project time slot successfully.