Our vision and address to the student for IIT JEE Main (AIEEE) and JEE Advanced coaching classes

Dear student,

There are numerous options available today that will coach you for the board exams or competitive exams like JEE, BITSAT etc. So it is natural to ask, as to why you should join our course instead of the numerous other options before you. This question is best answered by our goal, that is embodied in the below vision statement.

Vision: To provide an excellent understanding of Mathematics and Science at the 11th and 12th standard level, that will act as a solid foundation for higher studies, as well as work in science and engineering fields.

Notice we don’t mention JEE Main or (IIT) Advanced here. That is because we believe that success in these exams (or any other exams), should be an outcome of fulfilling the above vision. Having this vision is important not just for us, but to the student also, because we have to accept the fact that only a small percentage of students writing an exam like IIT-JEE will clear it; therefore no coaching institution can guarantee success in this sense, for all its students. However, what we can guarantee is that if you sincerely work through this course, you will have a good foundation in Math, Physics and Chemistry that you will cherish for the rest of your life (assuming that you pursue a career in science or engineering).

Two years is not a long period considering how much you have to study and understand, and also the pressure to perform that rests on your shoulders. We have tried our best to help you, via the following features of this course (a student of Class X or many parents may not fully appreciate the below points; but any student who has spent half a year in Class XI and has attended IIT coaching from any other institute, will quickly appreciate that the syllabus is vast and daunting, and it is a very different ball game from Class X):

All important concepts are explained and logically developed wherever possible. This way we hope, you will appreciate the beauty of Science and Math, while preparing yourself for the various exams.
Though we cover the subjects comprehensively, we try to explain things in the shortest possible way, to help you cover the material more quickly.
We give many examples from past question papers – here the objective is not to maximize the number of examples, but to have sufficient variety that will broaden your perspective.
Practice is what makes one perfect. So we give assignments and tests which you must complete sincerely to get real benefit from this course.
Though we try to explain the subjects as well as we can, and the material is suitable for self study, there can be scope for questions. As a student, you can ask questions regarding the content and get it clarified (optional service). Also, we will publish some of the questions and their answers for all students to see, when we feel that other students will benefit from it.
Above all, we choose to do this online for several reasons. Travelling has become a nightmare in many Indian cities, hence online classes can save a lot of time and effort spent in travelling. We can also maintain better consistency in quality, since not many teachers (and this applies even to IITs) can explain with clarity, even if they know their subject well.

In conclusion, we want to state that we have tried our best to be a good teacher. If you try your best to be a good student, we are sure that we will make a good and successful pair!

Wishing you the very best from SCIMS Academy.

About the founder: S.Sivaram

SCIMS Academy has been started by me, S.Sivaram. I hold a B.Tech degree in Electronics and Communications from Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai and a M.E. in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

After finishing my M.E., I worked in Wipro for 12+ years, Siemens for 5+ years and Amazon for 3+ years. It was a difficult choice for me to give up a good job, and get into a venture like this. My primary reason to start this, and write almost all the lessons myself, is to do my bit of 'value add' to society; so this is more of social service rather than business.

I felt that teaching Class XI and XII students is the best option because this is when you start to explore Mathematics and Science at reasonable depth, and there is a greater willingness to learn, given that these years are crucial in the life of a student. I believe the content (at least 75% of it) forms an important foundation for those who want to pursue a meaningful career in science and engineering.

Ideally, the school should be the place where this learning is imparted. Unfortunately school teachers are usually not well paid, so it is difficult to get and retain motivated teachers. Moreover teaching the same subject every year may not be very interesting, even for a motivated teacher. The other problem is with the syllabus and pattern of questioning followed by many boards, which rewards rote learning, and do little to help the student understand the essence behind science and mathematics.

Though problem solving does help students to understand Mathematics and Science better, the current system of entrance exams with their over-emphasis on speed, vast syllabus (especially in Chemistry) and tricky questions, has promoted a culture where books and coaching institutes simply state a set of formulae / facts, and then tell you how to apply those facts to different types of problems. This is not learning either, because if you don’t do well in an entrance exam, what you are left with is a bunch of formulae and facts, with which you can do a 'few tricks'. I have started SCIMS Academy with the goal of filling this void that exists, and this is embodied in our vision statement.