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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

#51

Post by pinewurst »

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…

I hesitate to label that "racist". Developing a feeling from interviewing engineers trained in India or China that they're generally not competent is not equivalent to feeling they're inherently stupid or bad people. They just came through a crummy education system.

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

#52

Post by throwaway158497 »

drchiu wrote: post #37

Tangential question (which has been on my mind) related to this: I don’t have a CS degree. Background in something completely unrelated. But I’ve been able to make a living programming doing my own thing (bootstrapped online stuff). As a result, I never bothered to apply for jobs at established CO’s. For those who work in established tech start ups or tech companies, what proportion of your software devs have an actu…

Almost 100% of people that I work with, at a large email provider have a CS degree. That said, we don't discriminate at developer/team level. That's handled by recruiters and management :D

CS degree from right places puts you on at a advantage. So, without a degree you will be competing with guys who had benefit of formal education. And that may seem like a glass ceiling if you don't interpret correctly.

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

#53

Post by burntoutfire »

mikorym wrote: post #4
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…

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 also have a problem with calling developers engineers.

I held this point of view for a long time but, after lurking at r/engineering, I've learned that their jobs are (depressingly) similar to ours. I.e. it's almost never deriving things from first principles, but rather trying to quickly bolt together a solution out of pieces looked up at different vendors' catalogs. Most engineers don't even remember the basic equations they have learned at university.

> Heck, I would be offended if someone called me a developer rather than a programmer.

It depends on the specific job, but currently, I can spend 30 minutes changing one line of code followed by one week of deploying, testing it, making sure the configs are all right etc. So that's 30 minutes of programming followed by one week of "installing dishwashers" (as the joke on the team goes). Lately, I see myself more of a software configurator than creator (my nominal job title is a backend web developer).

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

#54

Post by theandrewbailey »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14
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?

Not the person you responded to, but my $0.02. Developer: codes websites and apps. Programmer: writes computer code. Encompasses developers. Engineer: builds bridges, rockets, cars, missiles, smart tvs, gaming consoles, computers, power stations, electric infrastructure, water treatment plants, etc.

Developer: builds subdivisions and "develops" real estate.

Related: I've come across a handful of programmers that describe themselves as "contractors". So you hang drywall and install toilets?

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

#55

Post by fingerlocks »

mikorym wrote: post #27
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?

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 programmer writes programs, but a developer writes applications? Really odd line to draw in the sand.

If I build an iOS app that streams video to a webpage, am I developer or a programmer?

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

#56

Post by tpmx »

Five years ago I was working at a software company in Europe that was willing to accept hires from anywhere, globally.

We managed to hire about one smart person a month, out of a torrent of perhaps 1000 applicants per month. The vast majority (like 85%) of the applicants were from India and Pakistan. And out of those, 95% used the exact same resume/personal letter layout and content, sometimes down to the exact same wording.

We tried to be openminded, so we set up a bunch of interview calls with especially promisingly people from this "pool". After about 10-15 of those calls we just gave up.

We did eventually hire two indian people and were very happy with their contributions, but only after they had made their ways to our little country on their own. Imagine being a talented developer in India, interviewing for a job overseas, against this background of overwhelming mediocrity?

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

#57

Post by scarface74 »

cycloptic wrote: post #35
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…

> but it possibly creates unintentional racial bias in interviewers because the sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from universities has preconditioned you to think all engineers from there are crappy You can't blame interviewers being racist on the bad actions of some university. They have to address their own racism themselves.

“You can’t blame cops for shooting innocent minorities. You have to blame guilty minorities.”

Yes, you always blame the racists for being racists.

Edit: instead of deleting my (incorrect) parsing of the parent poster, I’ll leave this here and accept my well deserved lashings and downvotes...

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

#58

Post by wccrawford »

Jaygles wrote: post #15
travisoneill1 wrote: post #5

Same thing has happened with college degrees in the US. Why are people always surprised by this? A credential only has value through exclusion.

The credential's value doesn't go down for the entity seeking someone with the credential. The value only goes down for the person who has the credential IF they were deriving value from the exclusivity of the credential. In other words, the value one gets from the exclusivity of a credential is separate from the practical value of having the credential. The value from the exclusivity is bound to decrease as a popula…

If a credential gets less exclusive over time (meaning they relax the requirements on it) and the same company seeks someone with that credential repeatedly over time, the value that the company expects from that credential does go down.

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

#59

Post by umvi »

throwaway158497 wrote: post #42

Tagnetially related. Because of COVID lockdowns, many consulting firms are shutting down. I hired an engineer with 2 years experience to teach me HTML/CSS/JS for one month. So fa I am satisfied with him compared to what I learnt on Udacity frontend nanodegree. I am paying him $100 for 30 hours of classes. For people wanting to learn stuff, this is the best time. If you want to contact him, email is in profile

> I am paying him $100 for 30 hours of classes

Seems a bit unethical to pay someone $3/hour for their time (unless he is retired/mainly doing it for fun/teaching a lot of students at the same time).

But for a person trying to make a living with 1-on-1 lessons, that's pretty brutal.

I pay $15/hour practicing foreign languages on italki

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

#60

Post by yaitsyaboi »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #43

I've noticed something similar in the US university system. I was a Assistant Prof during my PhD in CS at a state college. Students from our program went on to directly compete and get jobs over students from Stanford, MIT, CMU, etc. Our program probably cost 1/4 that of other "prestigious" universities yet we largely had the same outcomes for students. Personally, I'm glad there's been a leveling of the playing fiel…

But the article is describing the opposite phenomenon, it seems that in India only students from their Stanfords and MITs are qualified for and get the jobs.
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