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In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

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Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give countless such examples about Harvard stanford. You can give me one and that too not a unicorn. Can't you see my point? Sun was bought by Oracle because of Java, so Khosla basically developed a language which Oracle bought. I am not belittling the achivements of Khosla, but other institutes outside India have achieved far greater than what Indian institutes can hope to attain you can't compare Go and Java.…

Actually, the list is quite extensive. I called out Sun mainly because it is a class above Google and Facebook. Also, Sun contributed significantly more than just Java: Solaris (one of the first widely used kernels that had containers), SPARC, VirtualBox, OpenOffice, ZFS. I think it's really sad that people have forgotten the contributions of the first-generation of large computer companies. I rank Sun Microsystems w…

https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/unicorn-universities-where-mos...

The top school on the list, Stanford University, claims 51 unicorn founders as alumni while runner-up Harvard University has 37. Rounding out the top three is the University of California with 18.

This is the truth but I can just tel you the truth, I can't make you believe it.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#172
post #82

India is an interesting place at the moment and the pressure to succeed is immense (often to the detriment of personal wellbeing). So much so that cheating schemes are commonly devised by large groups of people, and the ingenuity involved is often quite remarkable and creative. I've personally hired a number of people in my Delhi office from the local IIT, and these are a few things I've noticed amongst new grads: pa…

This is an accurate observation on the IIT students. A student in an IIT is an demonstration for their will power to sacrifice their social life in their teens to know all the common problems(past years exam questions) by repeated practice. The one thing that makes harder to work with IIT students is they feel entitled forever and feels they belong to a higher caste. That is why its always best to form teams with only IIT graduates. Also another important thing to note is IIT as an under graduate is much tougher to get in to rather than as an IIT post graduate.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credentualisn hasn't gotten so bad that if I see a resume with certifications, I take that as a negative signal when I am interviewing candidates. On the other hand, I've done a few certifications in my day but mostly to force myself To learn something. I usually leave the certifications off of my resume because of the stigma. I will talk about projects that I've done using the technologies.

Credentialism was so bad in the 90's that people did exactly that. It's bound to come around again.

Its definitely a thing in cybersecurity. The more credentials someone has, the less they are likely to know

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#174
The important thing what people miss outside india is that india forces people to marry by 28 or so. This mean the thought responsibiliy is so huge. This is not the case in western society. It is much more evolved. An individual has a free choice to choose work less and enjoy and not have a family. This is sadly not the case in india.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#175
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're witnessing is the contradiction between real education (designed for learning) and credentialism. The truth is that the world is facing a massive crunch. Billions of people are struggling to get out of the circumstances they're trapped in. Getting a credential and getting a professional job is seen as one of the only paths out of the mire. People who are desperate have no interest in free thinking. Their…

Credentualisn hasn't gotten so bad that if I see a resume with certifications, I take that as a negative signal when I am interviewing candidates. On the other hand, I've done a few certifications in my day but mostly to force myself To learn something. I usually leave the certifications off of my resume because of the stigma. I will talk about projects that I've done using the technologies.

I am curious what do you think about Coursera certificates. For example Coursera (Deep learning specialization)doesn't allow you to complete assignments and projects of the course without subscription. Also it just feels good to have a token of your weeks of effort. Would you reject someone's resume if he showed this certification?

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#176
post #77
post #73

from what i read and what i saw in test cheating,is it common in india culture? our local high school is investigating test cheating,turns out all of them(12) are from indian,which puzzled me, other culture treats test cheating something extremely bad,but the india students probably think it is not a big deal?

Indian here, unfortunately cheating/not following rules is part of our culture. Most of the times you dont get caught, if you do get caught then you just have to pay a small bribe and you are free. So if you dont cheat you will fall behind everbody else is doing it so you do it as well

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Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#177
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all jobs of good software engineering companies these days have a top college degree as a requirement in their job ads. If you have been in the job market you would know the fact that it's the degree that matters most. Companies prefer to even give an interview only if you have a degree from top-tier college. Whether we like it or not it's the fact that here we need a degree from top college to get good opport…

I have no idea what top-tier company are you talking about. Google, for example, doesn't care about from which college you graduated and hire through APAC test. If you are good enough to be in the top n percentile you would be called for an interview in Google. Take a look at https://www.hackerrank.com/jobs/search . No companies give a shit about which college you are from as long as you pass the coding test.

https://www.hackerrank.com/jobs/search?location=bangalore_ar... - there is not even single job in bangalore area listed there. First of all, if you don't have a degree from good college it's very difficult to even get an initial round interview. My point is you won't even get an interview call unless you are from top college. It's the ground reality. I am speaking from experience of seeing many with tier 1 degree getting interviews while people from bad colleges having hard time even getting an interview despite having better github and projects to showcase. In reality getting a tier 1 college degree matters most than anything else no matter how much you argue. It has got to do with the quality of engineering education in low tier colleges and so being from a low tier college is a label of being incompetent. Tier 1 college graduates on the other hand get better opportunities, have more alumni connections working in top companies, are already certified to be smart and hence get opportunities.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#178
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all jobs of good software engineering companies these days have a top college degree as a requirement in their job ads. If you have been in the job market you would know the fact that it's the degree that matters most. Companies prefer to even give an interview only if you have a degree from top-tier college. Whether we like it or not it's the fact that here we need a degree from top college to get good opport…

I have no idea what top-tier company are you talking about. Google, for example, doesn't care about from which college you graduated and hire through APAC test. If you are good enough to be in the top n percentile you would be called for an interview in Google. Take a look at https://www.hackerrank.com/jobs/search . No companies give a shit about which college you are from as long as you pass the coding test.

and I don't want to pick ads but since you are not speaking the truth about the ground reality I would like you to check: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/613566647/. It clearly mentions "B Tech in Computer Science or equivalent from a reputed college" as the qualification required. I don't understand why it's so difficult to open eyes and see the reality, a good college degree has a lot of value in India.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#179

An anecdote and a poll. I grew up in India in middle class family where education was considered important. A recurring nightmare (autual dream I see during sleep) I see even in my adulthood is about me about to take an exam and not being prepared for it. I do not see this nightmare often but I still remember it since the amount of panic I feel when I see it. I discussed with my wife and she also have these nightmare…

Me too :( I'm almost 40 and I have the same nightmare.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#180

When more than 50% of seats are reserved under quotas, what is there left to compete, unless you are the brightest of the bright. It is irrational to put efforts to study for exams for both open category candidates and those under reservation categories.

There are no quotas in IITs or BITS. Just SC/ST which is like 1-2%
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