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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

#191

Post by babesh »

catlas3r wrote: post #166
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…

I prefer the term "software engineer" for a reason I haven't seen yet in this thread: clarity when speaking to people in other industries. Among many of the people I talk to on a regular basis, if I told them I was a "developer" they would assume that I was a real estate developer. If I told them I was a "programmer" it would be a little clearer, but before I moved into software I worked in the events industry for a…

I think part of the discomfort is that there is no exam that software engineers have to pass (other than a few states) unlike real engineering professions. I suspect and I suspect many others suspect that a large percentage would not actually be able pass a meaningful exam.

However passing such an exam would probably only be partly correlated to success in the field. Part of this is because exams are imperfect, part because success in the field is not dependent on engineering skill, and part is because the tech field’s success is based on finding/creating/replacing/owning (new) markets rather than pure engineering.

If software is much better than what was there before, even shoddy software engineering will be superior to the existing solutions.

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

#192

Post by munk-a »

triceratops wrote: post #167
CydeWeys wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can replace "India" with literally any country in the world. Managers and bosses always are and always have been held in more esteem than leaf node workers This is true to a much greater or lesser degree depending on country, though. Here in the US you can be a really senior leaf node software engineer with fancy titles like "Staff" or "Senior Staff" or "Distinguished Fellow" and command tremendous respect and…

"Staff" and "Senior staff" and such are only recognized by ingroups. And often you need to be a staff level engineer to even begin managing people in tech. In most industries that aren't tech, compensation and prestige are directly proportional to how many people you manage. Only in tech can individual senior engineers have impact that justifies the high pay without managing people.

Only in tech is this the case - but I don't think that only in tech this necessarily needs to be the case. High impact employees can exist in a wide range of roles, but recent cultural trends have been to push toward commoditization employment so that someone with a different approach is assumed to be a malus rather than fairly evaluated - there are KPIs and if your work style isn't optimized for them you'll flounder in corporate america.

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

#193

Post by bentcorner »

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 immigrated into the US (from Canada) to work for a tech company, and a piece of advice I got from our legal dept was: Whenever you cross the border and the guard asks you what your job is, answer "Software Engineer". IIRC it was important I answer this correctly because that's the role that I was permitted to work for (under a TN, later a H1B; I'm now naturalized). Saying "programmer" or "developer" may have been fine (I don't know), but I do recall some emphasis on getting this right.

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

#194

Post by aaaxyz »

totalZero wrote: post #171
kumarm wrote: post #157

When I joined Engineering in India (1994), my state had 2000 engineering seats. 120K people wrote the entrance test for the 2K seats. Today the same state has about 250K seats. Anyone who writes the entrance test can get into some college or other. Has the quality gone down? I would think so. But I definitely think qualified students is definitely greater than 2k even when I went to college. I would rather prefer ove…

To play devil's advocate... The value of an education comes as much from the group of peers (classmates who interact regarding experiences, plans, lessons, and ideas) as from the books and professors themselves. Like a critical mass of brains. If you water the group down, then the most talented cohort benefits less than if they were the only people to advance.

As someone who got an undergrad degree from a top 40 school and is now taking courses at a state system school accepting a lot more students, I completely agree.

The difference in terms of work output and professionalism between students is massive. Presentations from other students lack depth and often fail to explain basic concept; they have very little educational value. Group work is a complete mess since a lot of people never learned how to organize themselves, have very little motivation or fail to explain their ideas properly. Simple things you usually learn in undergrad like putting a bibliography together or spell checking documents are lacking. You end up wasting huge amounts of time correcting other people's mistakes.

Another big difference I've noticed is that students seem to have little interest in the area of study; none of the ones I met have non curricular side projects. There's also a lot less discussion happening outside of classrooms.

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

#195

Post by munk-a »

andrewflnr wrote: post #110
onetimeusename wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

> ...and the caste system dictates admissions policies anyway Like, officially, in writing? Even if it's informal, as an American it blows my mind that that's still a thing.

Honestly the remnants of the caste system are hard to distinguish from "legacy" in America. If you're a Bush or a Kennedy you're going to have an easy time getting into school - in America it's a bit weirder even because buying your way in is generally considered legitimate and culturally approved.

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

#196

Post by svachalek »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #129
ChuckMcM wrote: post #111

Pretty damning " 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, according to one study. " That said, I'm curious how you could talk to someone about programming for four years and at the end of that 9 out of 10 of them could not actually do it.

To follow up on what CosmicShadow said, one of my most memorable interviewees was the candidate with an MS Comp Sci who, upon being shown the problem for our team effort design exercise was able to categorize it (something in CS theory I had never heard of), explain what the canonical solution would be, but was completely incapable of writing the for{..} loop that comprised the first part of the solution. I honestly…

Reminds me of the first PhD CS I worked with. He asked me for some problem he was having with his system and after poking a bit, I said the quickest solution would be just to reboot it. He gave me the blankest of blank looks, so I rebooted it and he watched the process like the computer just grew horns.

How can you get all the way through a PhD program without even encountering the concept of rebooting a computer?!

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

#197

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by derefr »

triceratops wrote: post #188
derefr wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it exists outside the tech world. It's the meaning of the word "profession." A senior doctor or senior lawyer is respected, despite being a leaf-node.

"Doctor" is always respected, senior or not, in every society going back to the stone age. It's the nature of the profession. And doctors have authority over people in the workplace - nurses and technicians primarily - even if they don't fire or give out raises. "Senior lawyer" isn't a thing AFAIK. Law firm partners or senior partners have management roles, or at least, influence, in their firms. Otherwise you're an…

"Senior lawyers" exist—they become judges :)

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

#199

Post by BaronVonSteuben »

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 have noticed this as well, both as a worker and an interviewer. The number of unqualified people of Indian ethnicity that inundate job applications is staggering, and some perform embarrassingly bad in the interview.

That said some of my favorite people to work with (smart, easy to work with) are Indian. It's really a shame that the issues affect perception of everybody. It's a good reminder to me not to judge a book by it's cover, metaphorically speaking.

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

#200

Post by hodder »

The top story on Hacker News right now is how Twitter is allowing (some) employees to work from home permanently. The locational cost of living arbitrage (from an employee perspective) and labor arbitrage (from an employer perspective) available in the market is immense and companies that can succeed in overcoming the language and cultural barriers are looking at a massive opportunity.
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