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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

#341

Post by danielscrubs »

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.

In Sweden, engineer is also a protected title, but computer science is aligned perfectly with software engineer because engineer basically says 3-5 years of "practical math of that field". Learning Python would not be "practical math", learning the O notation and linear algebra would.

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

#342

Post by the_jeremy »

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 have a mechanical engineering BS, but I work as a "software engineer". None of my engineering friends in college had a problem with "software engineer" as a title.

Pretending that engineer is a restricted title does not match the reality of the world today, and is unnecessary at best and creates miscommunication at worst. Language evolves and certain words become more lax and widely applied. We can prevent it in cases that are sufficiently technical (Zoom does not have E2EE, that's a blatant lie), but getting the world to use "literally" as it was originally defined is no longer feasible IMO.

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

#343

Post by ninju »

galfarragem wrote: post #317
sethammons wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because humans are pattern matchers. We have to strive to eliminate or reduce conscience and subconscious biases to ensure fairness. I know intelligent and successful people who would never take financial advice from someone with a beard for example. Edit: maybe an interesting example. I grew up around smart woman and girls. From observation, I “knew” women were smarter than men. I was in college before I heard that…

All living things use pattern matching - not just humans - as a surviving mechanism. It allows fast decision making. Which model do any of us prefer in most situations: one that allows us to be right more than 50% of times done in miliseconds, or one that takes hours/days/weeks (whatever) and allows 95% of good (or fair) decisions?

The appropriate response time depends on what is being decided

When it comes to deciding who I will be working with I would rather take the time (hours/days/weeks) so that that we make a fair (un-baised) decision

As for deciding to whether to evade a baseball being thrown at my head, I would prefer the faster response time. It okay to be biased against fast moving projectiles :-)

Any time you deal with people you need take the time needed to eliminate any biases that are common to many humans

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

#344

Post by em-bee »

kls wrote: post #182
triceratops wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said it was a hold over from the cast system I was with you until the "cast (sic) system". > you are held in more esteem in India when you manage more people. 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, in every society past and present. It's got nothing to do with the caste system. Personal anecd…

> I was with you until the "cast (sic) system" You will have to take this as second hand information as I am not familiar with the relics of the cast system. But as he relayed it to me. When you go on a date with a girl that would be considered to be in a higher social status than yourself, the first thing the father will ask is how many people do you manage. Being a manager seems to provide some mobility in the reli…

maybe the explanation is that management level is a replacement for the caste system to measure social status. not much different from western cultures. social status used to be the size of your land and how many people lived on it, now it's the size of your company or your team. the difference is that it is less universal but differs depending on the industry you work in.

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

#345

Post by specialist »

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…

"sheer volume of crappy engineers being churned out from"

This has been a problem my entire career. Long before China, India, Vietnam, etc entered the fight.

Credentials are just one signal in the torrent of noise.

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

#346

Post by bluGill »

magicsmoke wrote: post #219
bluGill wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is good overall because automation is making those manufacturing jobs worth less and less. Companies are starting to leave China for low wage countries already. Right now service jobs designing the automation is where the real money is and India is well positioned to take it. Note there are no easy roads to success in general. Being born to the right family helps (a lot) , but you can sti mess up.

Apparently not based on the premise of the article discussing the poor quality of service workers coming through India's education system. My hypothesis would be that the poor quality in education comes from trying to funnel as many people as possible into highly-skilled service jobs because there's no middle rung for them to take a rest at. Rushing things without a solid foundation always ends up being self-defeatin…

The article is just a repeat of similar ones I see in the US pushing some agenda. I take it with a grain of salt.

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

#347

Post by seemack »

bentcorner wrote: post #193
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 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 f…

It was important because there were specific job requirements that had to be met in order to qualify for a TN visa. The expertise you were expected to be bringing in as a Software Engineer was architectural level knowledge of coding.

The TN visa could be revoked at any time which is why you want to be really clear when crossing the border. I worked for Microsoft and they recommended that I bring my full job description package and lawyer's letter every time I crossed the border

The best part was when I had to go to the border to apply for the TN visa. The poor guy had a list of questions to ask and clearly had no idea what any of it meant. "And will you be doing any programming?"

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

#348

Post by seemack »

indiv0 wrote: post #67
ceejayoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't believe you would be able to get the licensing without the degree so saying the degree doesn't make any difference doesn't seem accurate.

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

#349

Post by red_admiral »

ninju wrote: post #343
galfarragem wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All living things use pattern matching - not just humans - as a surviving mechanism. It allows fast decision making. Which model do any of us prefer in most situations: one that allows us to be right more than 50% of times done in miliseconds, or one that takes hours/days/weeks (whatever) and allows 95% of good (or fair) decisions?

The appropriate response time depends on what is being decided When it comes to deciding who I will be working with I would rather take the time (hours/days/weeks) so that that we make a fair (un-baised) decision As for deciding to whether to evade a baseball being thrown at my head, I would prefer the faster response time. It okay to be biased against fast moving projectiles :-) Any time you deal with people you nee…

User story: Jane works in HR for $COMPANY. They have 10 places on the graduate scheme this summer, and have already received something like 800 applications. The boss wants a shortlist by Friday - they're going to read each one on the shortlist in detail and make a fair decision, but they're not going to spend half an hour on each one in the 800-pile because that would be 400 person-hours.

Of course, first you throw out the obviously bad ones - anyone who sent a word document when they clearly asked for PDF; anyone who doesn't have an engineering degree etc. etc. That still leaves you with 500.

What do you do? This is I suppose why implicit bias training exists, so you don't go "this one's from India, the last 10 from India couldn't even spell the company name right, reject".

(The next step in the UK is, reject everyone who doesn't have a first-class degree, if that still leaves you with a long enough shortlist. No wonder students are anxious about getting a first!)

Point I'm trying to make: there's situations in hiring where the time you can take is influenced by the volume of applications.

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

#350

Post by red_admiral »

core-questions wrote: post #297
sethammons wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because humans are pattern matchers. We have to strive to eliminate or reduce conscience and subconscious biases to ensure fairness. I know intelligent and successful people who would never take financial advice from someone with a beard for example. Edit: maybe an interesting example. I grew up around smart woman and girls. From observation, I “knew” women were smarter than men. I was in college before I heard that…

> We have to strive to eliminate or reduce conscience and subconscious biases to ensure fairness. Why? Does fairness serve a business purpose? Are businesses held to be fair to their employees in other circumstances? What is fair? Perfect proportional representation of the host population? Within what limits? Can we make a heuristic for what's more fair? Should that drive hiring decisions more than other factors? The…

"Fair" can mean a lot of things. If you asked three people to define fairness, you'd get at least three definitions, and I can think of some definitions that would indeed have a business purpose; I can also think of some that wouldn't.

An example of something that would serve a business purpose: widening the potential target market. Of course if your company is producing maternity wear then you probably don't want to aim for a gender-balanced customer base. But in general, increasing the size of your taget market can serve a business purpose.

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