Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

restofworld.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 393 posts

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#21

Post by wobbly_bush »

This article is all over the place, with some elements of truth. The essence is that Indian universities don't provide good education - that's been known for decades now. This is reflected in how many Indians have been going for higher education to Western universities for decades.

> There are currently more than 3,500 engineering schools across the country, and about 90% of graduates do not have the programming skills to work in software engineering

That's because there are non computer science graduates as well?

> In India, you need a ‘traditional degree’ before you pursue your passion,” he said. “And that degree in almost all cases is engineering.”

Not true, this depends on the region. Engineering is way more prominent in South India than the rest of the country.

> With programmers everywhere, annual salaries for entry-level jobs have remained at around $4,500 for the better part of a decade

This is referring to the outsourcing companies I'm assuming. Ironically, majority of intake of the outsourcing companies are graduates whose major is not computer science. So the presence of "programmers" should not have an impact on the other engineers.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#22

Post by rofws »

remmargorp64 wrote: post #7
mikorym wrote: post #4

Earlier 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?

They're considered the same nowadays mostly because they've been doing overlapping jobs. Even worse, 'entrepreneur' is something that tells me absolutely nothing concrete about what the guy does.

But to come to your point, in my mind - an engineer is the one who designs the software, a programmer is the one who actually writes good code to make that design a reality, and a developer is a blanket term for someone who does both (or more) jobs.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#23

Post by C1sc0cat »

jeromegv wrote: post #11
remmargorp64 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In Canada you can't call yourself an engineer unless you studied engineering in university and went through licensing. It's not really enforced in tech, but for me the definition is someone who at the minimum studied an engineering degree. Calling yourself an engineer when you studied Computer Science is a bit odd to me.

Why do you think Computer Science is not "engineering" aka a scientist with thumbs.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#24

Post by remmargorp64 »

bachmeier wrote: post #10
remmargorp64 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to the dictionary, an "engineer" is a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or public works.

A computer is a physical machine that runs programs which are encoded digitally on physical hardware (memory).

I could see an argument for considering a computer program to be an engineered "machine" that runs on a turing-complete computational platform. Just because a computer program is digital doesn't mean that it's not an engineered mechanism. In fact, early computer programs did run on physical hardware in a physically mechanical manner.

A doctor or lawer, on the other hand, is not building any type of machination. They are diagnosing patients and having arguments with judges. What exactly are they engineering?

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#25

Post by tguedes »

jeromegv wrote: post #11
remmargorp64 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In Canada you can't call yourself an engineer unless you studied engineering in university and went through licensing. It's not really enforced in tech, but for me the definition is someone who at the minimum studied an engineering degree. Calling yourself an engineer when you studied Computer Science is a bit odd to me.

Most US universities from what I've seen don't offer a different track for software engineering vs computer science, it's all under computer science. Most universities also have computer science in the college of engineering.

I think the issue is just university programs aren't granular enough.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#26

Post by knolax »

umvi wrote: post #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/Chin…

The article is about the education of engineers in the country of India. The vast majority of Indians working in engineering in the US were born and raised in the US, or at the very least educated here. Ethnically Indian people in the US are disproportionately represented in the upper levels of tech. Anybody who can't recognize this has only themselves to blame.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#27

Post by mikorym »

remmargorp64 wrote: post #7
mikorym wrote: post #4

Earlier 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?

Engineer: Someone qualified with a B Eng or equivalent. In some countries this requires a masters level as well.

Programmer: A person who writes computer programs. I would personally also imply that the programs are typically not deployment of other programs, but this is my own view and not a standard definition. (Actually all of these are not standard definitions. At least, not anymore.)

Developer: A web developer; A person who writes or deploys applications. In the web era I guess most developers have some inherent focus on the internet as a client interface.

I would also add:

Hacker: A person who likes to probe things until nothing jumps out anymore. (These days people call this a White Hat.)

Cracker: A person who likes to probe things until nothing jumps out anymore. Then they probe some more where they really should not and the police get uneasy. (These days called a Black Hat.)

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#28

Post by MattGaiser »

I would be interested to know if there is actually an oversupply of programmers or whether there is still a shortage of skilled ones in the labour force and they are just graduating anyone who pays their tuition.

We have that problem here in Canada and the USA. Plenty of developer jobs are open, but I also know lots of CS grads who never found jobs, even two years out of university. That's because most would struggle with FizzBuzz.

Sure, they are on paper qualified to do the work, but absurdly unqualified in actual skill.

Re: The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

#30

Post by new2628 »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #9
mikorym wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

> 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 teac…

Adequate comment for the user name :)
Post reply on HN