The most prized degree in India became the most worthless • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by throwawaysea » Tue, May 12, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

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.

Computer Science is an "engineering degree" at many universities. The distinction of which school a degree belongs to at a university is basically arbitrary.

I am definitely against the idea of licensing or professional organizations gating who gets to call themselves something. I think it's OK for an organization to invent their OWN term and branding, but they cannot take a generic word like 'engineering' and add regulatory capture on top of it. For instance, if IEEE or ACM wanted to license programmers, they are free to come up with a process for licensing with a title like "IEEE Software Engineer". The market can decide if that bears any value. But that value has to stand on its own, and not rely on government intervention granting those organizations a monopoly over the term 'engineer'.

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

#82

Post by throwawayengda » Tue, May 12, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

matchagaucho wrote: post #38

A lot of this argument seems to rest on this premise... "Good coding skills (the ability to write functionally correct code) are possessed by 4.6% of Indian job applicants, 2.1% of Chinese candidates and 18.8% of the US candidates in the IT and software industries"

A wrong premise based on Aspiring Minds fraudulent studies.

Aspiring Minds is an Indian company that sells buggy web-based pre-interview filtering tests as a service. It is in Aspiring Minds interest to portray (Indian) college graduates as incompetent to make companies buy their pre-interview filtering services.

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

#83

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #71

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?

IMO, developer and programmer are the same. Engineer implies a higher level of skill WRT establishing and following processes designed to minimize risk. A software engineer, like their mechanical or civil equivalents, has a strong sense of duty WRT building things that are useful, safe, reproducible, etc. No doubt the line is gray. But, your stereotypical web app developer (failing fast while chasing a unicorn) is no…

No doubt the line is gray. But, your stereotypical web app developer (failing fast while chasing a unicorn) is not an engineer.

That could just as easily describe Google and it is full of “smart people” (tm)

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

#84

Post by christocracy » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

kls wrote: post #78

cmckn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this bias in myself. I interned with several guys from India during college. I was an undergrad, they were grad students, having gotten their undergrad in India. We all went to the same university in the US. They weren't "crappy" engineers, per se, they just seemed to not actually have an undergrad degree in CS. Obviously I never saw their transcripts, but we seemed to be working from very different knowled…

I posted a comment a while back about this subject and the funny part was I got flamed by a bunch of US based technical workers, while the Indian techies pretty much agreed with me. Anyways the TLDR was I have a buddy Karthick and he is one of the best developers I know. So I asked him one day about why there was such low quality in India and he explained to me it was misaligned incentives due to the fact that, the f…

I remember that comment. I’ve quoted that story a number of times.

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

#85

Post by onetimeusename » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

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…

Something similar happened in the US where numbers of students in CS went up over time. However, academic fraud has not been as big of a problem as it is in India.

An Indian friend of mine said that IIT is good but hardly anyone can get in and the caste system dictates admissions policies anyway so many people try to get engineering degrees from schools with lax standards. The professors are completely unqualified, according to her, and people have to pay more to learn the material from off-campus tutors but not everyone can afford that.

I think this should be the focus is ending academic fraud rather than some of these other issues. That could do a lot of good. Here is a reference to a story I found that corroborates what I was told.[1]

[1]:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/UGC-probe-f...

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

#86

Post by damnyou » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

gchpaco wrote: post #65

damnyou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that a common thing in the tech world? Regardless, I'm not sure what that has to do with the name of the degree one got.

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

#87

Post by throwawayengda » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

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

'700+ graduating class' sounds more like a fraudulent diploma mill than a Tier 2/3 college.

Actual Computer Science and Computer Engineering grads from Indian Tier 1/2/3 colleges have no problem finding jobs.

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

#88

Post by jkqwzsoo » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

toohotatopic wrote: post #73

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?

To me, those are roles that describe different aspects of software creation. Depending on the job, those roles are needed in different proportions. Engineers apply math to create systems. Without Newton and his math there wouldn't be engineers or the other way round: engineers are those who create the stuff that is only possible with Newton's math. Since only few software needs math to that degree, rarely any softwar…

> Software developers on the other hand are like real estate developers. They don't build walls, they don't do structural analysis. Instead they combine systems. Unlike real estate developers, they mostly do the plumbing by themselves.

I like this analogy, because it confirms my personal biases/discomfort about web and app developing falling under the same umbrella of "engineering" as nuclear reactor design, missile guidance, and the worldwide chemical industry.

However, to advocate against my biases, in my field (ChemE), most of the fundamental work has been done. Very few BS graduates in chemical engineering will design a distillation column or a chemical reactor. Again, most of the basic science and engineering has been figured out long ago (which is why most research ChemE looks more like chemical physics, molecular/systems biology, and materials science than reactors and unit operations).

So, to an approximation, a chemical engineer won't "build" something. They'll stitch together components that were figured out a century ago. In fact, this was the entire point of "unit operations" -- black boxes that can be represented as a functional transformation on their inputs to produce outputs, and can be solved, quasi-linearly, to estimate the overall inputs and outputs of a chemical process.

In that case, by the same analogy, they wouldn't be "chemical process engineers", but "chemical process developers". Yet I wouldn't suggest a chemical engineer who pulls correlations out of Perry's isn't really an "engineer", so with critical review, it's hard for me to justify a believe that somebody who stitches together APIs for a living isn't equivalently an engineer.

[Edit: a relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1988/ -- Most engineering doesn't seem to be that different]

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

#89

Post by magicsmoke » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

AQuantized wrote: post #69

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?

In East Asian economies, the workforce transitioned from farming to labor-intensive manufacturing before moving onto high-tech services. India, in contrast, had a booming tech consultancy sector before they had a strong manufacturing sector. A poor farmer in China, and Japan/Korea in the decades prior, could move to a city and make a better income on an assembly line despite not having any formal education. A poor farmer in India needs to jump up to a service job which needs a lot more training and preferably a diploma to prove it. So even if your local college is a shit diploma mill, you'll still send your kids to it because there's no other choice for upwards mobility. There's no factory job where your children can get hired at and save up so the next generation can go to a college with legitimate training.

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

#90

Post by throwaway158497 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #61

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”

Err. The kid is awake for 16 hours a day. He is applying for jobs in 15 of those hours. This one hour is extra money for him. Also, it is at the same rate as as his full time job pre covid.

There are just not enough new people hiring in India right now. So any extra little money helps.

To your question, who in the world is willing to teach for that low, think of it as his first teaching gig. Through this, he is discovering a new market for himself.