Experience,Intuition-The Only Teacher

        Traditionally, a teacher is a person who makes you understand something, enlighten you over some concept, bring to your notice some phenomenon and make you capable of analyzing it. But as true as it is, no person can learn this from a teacher. Because it is only by your own intuitive insights and experiences that you learn something. 

       A very good analogy which I can make out here is that of a sarcastic comment. When you hear sarcasm and make out its intended meaning, you experience a sense of enlightenment. I , myself, by now have proved it that there ain't any fun in sitting over and getting a joke explained by some of you guys(since I am weak at understanding them:p anyways). 

        The point I am trying to make is, it is nature that is constantly playing these jokes not only on you,but on everyone of us.But it does so in very subtle way that you can't catch it immediately. But when you decrypt something on your own, you get that feeling of enlightenment and it is only then that you really learn something! 

        You might simply memorize that some infinities are bigger than other infinities or you could make it out from the fact that a transfer function with gain ∈[0,10] is relatively more stable than than a transfer function having gain ∈[0,5] for stable behavior. This is intuitive learning and no teacher in the world can teach this stuff to anyone.When you get such kind of epiphanies, they seem rewarding and you develop a liking for a subject.(Although my example was a bit poor, but I felt great on noticing it:p)

        The reason why a teacher can't teach, according to me is that words cannot completely express the thoughts in one's mind.One's experience cannot be conveyed in words to some other person in the exact same way as one felt about it; but words give a small insight into what one might have felt. Since one can't explain it to second about his experience in entirety, second obviously can't interpret it as one wishes to put it forward!

        But this does not mean teachers are not at all needed. You need someone to tell you some preliminary stuff about a thing before you start experimenting with it.Again, nature is the best teacher. But some of your intuitions might be wrong or you might face some difficulty in justifying your observation. Then it is the teachers who as mentors could tell something of their own experience which might pave way for explanation of your intuition. That is where teachers come in handy. They can no longer help beyond mentoring, which is very essential indeed.

         So, be indifferent to who teaches good or who teaches bad. It is more about what we learn and what we want to learn. If we envision it and it intuitively connects to us, we like it and learn it otherwise we just end up rot-learning it. Although Engineering is more of latter part in our case, but there's some other thing in our lives which intuitively connects with us and we keep getting epiphanies over that stuff! Do it and you shall be happy!