The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
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The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
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Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#2"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers.
And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chinese/etc. universities] has preconditioned you to think all engineers from [Indian/Chinese/etc. universities] are crappy, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#3[deleted]
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#4"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers. And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chin…
I also have a problem with calling developers engineers. Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer.
But unfortunately even the degrees themselves become less significant. A PhD in mathematics used to mean more than it does now. But another point is that with global literacy going up, scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather with inherent abilities that are uncommon. (Take Fortran coders as an example.)
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#5Same thing has happened with college degrees in the US. Why are people always surprised by this? A credential only has value through exclusion.
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#6"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers. And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chin…
I was going to say the solution is to raise the bar for software engineers, but it seems the problem here is the culture around prestige and money which has prompted millions of people to go after programming careers. It's not easy to change culture.
Still I think there should be some needed post-grad accreditation for software engineers if they want to actually be called engineers.
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#7"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers. And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chin…
I also have a problem with calling developers engineers . Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer. But unfortunately even the degrees themselves become less significant. A PhD in mathematics used to mean more than it does now. But another point is that with global literacy going up, scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather wit…
Wait... so in your mind there is a distinct difference between a developer, programmer, and engineer? Because in my mind, they are all the same.
How are they different, in your mind?
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#8"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers. And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chin…
I also have a problem with calling developers engineers . Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer. But unfortunately even the degrees themselves become less significant. A PhD in mathematics used to mean more than it does now. But another point is that with global literacy going up, scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather wit…
I agree, I tend not to call myself an engineer because I don't have a PE license and never took a PE exam (though at one point I almost took the PE exam for electrical engineering). However, I was using the terminology of the article.
On a side note, when people ask what my job is, I usually say "programmer" or "software developer". For some reason I just feel uncomfortable calling myself an "engineer", I think I find it is just a bit pretentious.
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#9"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Churning out engineers as fast as possible and pressuring everyone to become one despite lack of interest just guarantees you will churn out astronomical numbers of crappy engineers. And I hate to say it... but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from [Indian/Chin…
I also have a problem with calling developers engineers . Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer. But unfortunately even the degrees themselves become less significant. A PhD in mathematics used to mean more than it does now. But another point is that with global literacy going up, scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather wit…
> scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather with inherent abilities that are uncommon. (Take Fortran coders as an example.)
Soft skills and people skills are also scarce skills, in my experience. You can always teach a monkey a new trick (you can always teach a fresh looking young man to program in Python or to solve a differential equation), but you can't as easily teach them to: communicate in a professional manner, talk like a professional to other professionals (both people above you and people below you), write clearly, concisely, and without grammatical or orthographical mistakes, sell yourself or your product, etc.
The geeks will not inherit the Earth. Socially sophisticated people will inherit the Earth.
Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also have a problem with calling developers engineers . Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer. But unfortunately even the degrees themselves become less significant. A PhD in mathematics used to mean more than it does now. But another point is that with global literacy going up, scarse skills are now not based on the amount of people with certain degrees, but rather wit…
Wait... so in your mind there is a distinct difference between a developer, programmer, and engineer? Because in my mind, they are all the same. How are they different, in your mind?
The same argument used to call a programmer an engineer could be applied to anyone that writes for a living, any doctor, any lawyer, well pretty much anyone. We're all "engineers" unless we're doing something completely mechanical.