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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

#61

Post by scarface74 »

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

Who in the world would be willing to teach for 30 hours for $100? I would be much better off spending those 30 hours looking for the few available jobs that are out there or do the old r/cscareerquestions “learn leetCode and work for a FAANG”

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

#62

Post by eximius »

scarface74 wrote: post #57
cycloptic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

I think you're misinterpreting his statement. I think he's saying that the actions of the university are not an excuse.

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

#63

Post by joshuaissac »

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.

A credential has value derived from the ability (in a given subject) it takes to obtain that credential, and how useful that ability would be to an employer. Qualifications awarded by a college usually indicate that the student has a certain level of ability in that field. When colleges' standards of what they deem to be an adequate level of ability to warrant granting a qualification drop, so do the value of those qualifications, independently of how many people have that qualification. That is what happened here: “Quality was compromised in pursuit of quantity.”

There is still demand for skilled tech workers, but many technical colleges are not producing them.

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

#64

Post by eximius »

demosito666 wrote: post #39
WilliamEdward wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> there should be some needed post-grad accreditation for software engineers Which will depreciate just as fast for the same reason.

Not necessarily. Most gatekeeping institutions outside of education works fairly well. The Bar, the AMA, PE exams, etc.

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

#65

Post by gchpaco »

damnyou wrote: post #20
jeromegv wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm suspicious of any attempt to place so much importance on the name of a degree. I'm not even convinced there's a meaningful distinction that can be made between the two. Computer science topics like finite state machines are central to software engineering, and engineering ideas around correctness, safety and reliability form the basis of a lot of CS research.

The main difference is that engineers have a code of ethics they're expected to uphold, with the threat of taking away your certification if you don't.

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

#66

Post by econcon »

analog31 wrote: post #36

I wonder if India faced a problem similar to the for profit college system in the us, where a lot of the programs were fake.

In India from low tier colleges, you don't learn anything. Heck, they don't even let you use the machine that are on premise. Only top engineering colleges have any skill if it's even available.

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

#67

Post by indiv0 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #47
indiv0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fully OK with the distinction because of the licensing process and strict requirements on engineer-certified work, but as someone with a CS degree from a Canadian university I can tell you with confidence that my friends in the software engineering pathway had probably 90% the same course load as I did. Really the only major difference at our university (IMO) was that they had a capstone project they did as a gro…

The course load isn't the critical aspect, though, is it? Licensing typically means professional standards set by a licensing body, continuing education requirements, insurance/liability rules, etc.

Absolutely, not disputing that. I just took offense to the "Calling yourself an engineer when you studied Computer Science is a bit odd to me" statement. I don't think the degree makes the difference, the licensing does.

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

#68

Post by scarface74 »

eximius wrote: post #62
scarface74 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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...

I think you're misinterpreting his statement. I think he's saying that the actions of the university are not an excuse.

You are correct. See edit.

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

#69

Post by AQuantized »

inapis wrote: post #41

This is a well written article. For decades, the Indian society has tried to use engineering (along with law, medicine and IAS) as a template to success. Given the population numbers, it was bound to break sooner or later. As an Indian CompSci graduate, I am excited for this bust to happen as soon as possible. Most people I know did not like studying computer science, are absolutely unhappy with their worklife and wa…

What sort of opportunities are available for someone with little experience/qualifications in a poorer country?

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

#70

Post by eklavya »

inapis wrote: post #41

This is a well written article. For decades, the Indian society has tried to use engineering (along with law, medicine and IAS) as a template to success. Given the population numbers, it was bound to break sooner or later. As an Indian CompSci graduate, I am excited for this bust to happen as soon as possible. Most people I know did not like studying computer science, are absolutely unhappy with their worklife and wa…

> Out of the 700+ in my graduating class of Computer Science, less than 70-80 are still associated with computers in some for or manner.

I can back that up with my anecdotal stat as well, that number is rather generous, not even 70-80 would be doing it still. There were some which hated it and it showed. They were pressured into it and they were just struggling all around to develop any interest at all in the field.

> I can't wait for Indians to realize just how much easier it is to get employed today if you are willing to let go of the traditional path.

I am skeptical about this. Unless you can actively demonstrate competence (select few) you are not going to be favoured against someone with real degrees in the pile of resumes.

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