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India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

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Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#51

Post by movingahead »

jseliger wrote: post #47
magic_haze wrote: post #30

As an Indian student who tried to get through the "system", I can relate to this. I was really into computers and programming in high school, so I decided to go into the engineering stream in the "+2" years (basically, 11th and 12th grades, as opposed to the biology stream, which supposedly preps you for medical school). I remember the parental and peer pressure particularly well: my dad was pretty much opposed to it…

One question: does India have equivalents to U.S. private colleges and universities? It seems like one of the U.S.'s major strengths comes from the fact that you don't _have_ to choose public schools, which means that a) you have many more schools to choose from and b) the competition, especially for top students, forces public schools to be somewhat better. A more minor Q, if you feel like answering it: which school…

India does have many private colleges and universities, but their quality varies a lot. CS courses in most of them are dictated by the needs of the outsourcing biggies like Infosys and TCS, which doesn't gel with traditional CS hacking. However, with the rise in the startup culture, these private universities are changing for good.

PS: I am a student at one of these private universities.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#52

Post by danielford »

galadriel wrote: post #10
dman wrote: post #2

That is probably true globally.

Can teachers be bribed in US to pass students ? (Just curious)

I teach college in the US. I have never been offered a bribe. In fact, I've never heard of anyone even attempting to offer a bribe.

However, I did wimp out once when a student begged me to increase their grade from a D to a C because they needed a minimum GPA to play football. My thought at the time was, "This guy is a prick, but he has absolutely no future in the life of the mind, and college football is probably his only chance at success in life." It was something of a split-second decision, and I still regret it. Upon further reflection I realized it was completely unfair to the other students in the class, and swore never to do it again under any circumstances.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#53

Post by phr »

petervandijck wrote: post #8

"For their next challenge, they had to type 25 words a minute" That's pretty slow, right?

Steve Yegge says every programmer should be a fast, accurate, touch-typist:

  http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html
I couldn't find his minimum-speed prescription, just now, but he does say 70 words a minute is easily obtainable for anyone with two hands.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#54

Post by ck2 »

aonic wrote: post #6

As the price of talent in India continues to increase, the problem may be that these companies aren't willing to pay the new premium for the same talent they used to pay less for pre-offshoring boom in India. Leading them to outsource their own resource needs to cheaper places

Out of curiosity, who is India's "India" for even cheaper outsourcing?

I know some US corporations are using US prison labor @ pennies per hour for phone support, surprised that abuse hasn't been pushed further, unless maybe it has.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#55

Post by movingahead »

w1ntermute wrote: post #13
mquander wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who knows nothing about the Indian education system, can you clarify? Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or administrators? Or do they decide on their own focus, but prior to college? I would also offer that the article isn't complaining that graduates are not passionate about their work; it's complaining that they appear to have taken very little away from their educat…

> Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or administrators? Parents. Their future job is usually decided for them before they're even born. The number of people who go into a particular profession because they enjoy it is exceedingly small.

As J K Rowling puts it brilliantly, there is an expiry date on how long you can keep blaming your parents for everything that goes wrong. http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_f...

We lack a culture where hacking and playing around with things is encouraged.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#56

Post by dman »

magic_haze wrote: post #30

As an Indian student who tried to get through the "system", I can relate to this. I was really into computers and programming in high school, so I decided to go into the engineering stream in the "+2" years (basically, 11th and 12th grades, as opposed to the biology stream, which supposedly preps you for medical school). I remember the parental and peer pressure particularly well: my dad was pretty much opposed to it…

I agree with you on several points - too much emphasis on engineering/medicine, very tough competition and superfluous subjects but I disagree with your conclusion. a) There are colleges beyond IIT and REC and no they are not all bad. b) A case can be made that at least through high school people be aware of what different fields have to offer before choosing to specialize. c) Donations are limited only to management seats. Say what you may - admissions in India through centralized processes are very transparent, actually more so than here in the US. d) Most people everywhere have little enthusiasm for the jobs that they do. e) It is not all bad.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#57

Post by dman »

ck2 wrote: post #54
aonic wrote: post #6

As the price of talent in India continues to increase, the problem may be that these companies aren't willing to pay the new premium for the same talent they used to pay less for pre-offshoring boom in India. Leading them to outsource their own resource needs to cheaper places

Out of curiosity, who is India's "India" for even cheaper outsourcing? I know some US corporations are using US prison labor @ pennies per hour for phone support, surprised that abuse hasn't been pushed further, unless maybe it has.

Indonesia has a cheaper cost of living the last time I checked.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#58

Post by magic_haze »

gnufied wrote: post #43
magic_haze wrote: post #30

As an Indian student who tried to get through the "system", I can relate to this. I was really into computers and programming in high school, so I decided to go into the engineering stream in the "+2" years (basically, 11th and 12th grades, as opposed to the biology stream, which supposedly preps you for medical school). I remember the parental and peer pressure particularly well: my dad was pretty much opposed to it…

The problems of entrance exams are obvious, but you are not being fair - when you say, why did I had to mug organic formulae? Isn't that kinda, how everywhere? If all I want is to do - MS in CS from some top US university, why do I have to mug that word list for GRE? > was very miserable because I had no real interest in any of the subjects You had no interest in Physics & Mathematics? You can hardly blame people who…

yes, I agree. I understand why the JEE people decided to go that route, but all the same, it is completely unfair to the thousands of students and parents who are forced to go through this mess. The system of incentives is just so perverse.

This is not relevant to the discussion, but I was very interested in Mathematics: I would have loved to learn more (I even applied to the Indian Statistical Institute, but with all the effort required for the other exams, I simply didn't have the time to prepare well for its entrance test). But the whole experience turned me off. Seriously, how would you feel when your entire experience with geometry is limited to high school level, and suddenly someone comes up to you and asks you to prove Napoleon's Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%27s_theorem) in under four minutes? My Math tutor did that.) I was completely burned out at the end of it all. Goddamn shame it had to happen that way.

> Again, even in US, "most" people have very little enthusiasm towards work they are doing. But I believe, your story is little anecdotal too.

Again, true. I was just speaking from my experience and how my high school batch (also in Bangalore) turned out. It would be silly of me to claim that with a 1 billion+ population, none are genuinely interested in programming.

Re: India Graduates Millions, But Too Few Are Fit to Hire

#59

Post by rorrr »

magic_haze wrote: post #30

As an Indian student who tried to get through the "system", I can relate to this. I was really into computers and programming in high school, so I decided to go into the engineering stream in the "+2" years (basically, 11th and 12th grades, as opposed to the biology stream, which supposedly preps you for medical school). I remember the parental and peer pressure particularly well: my dad was pretty much opposed to it…

My impression (and I might be very wrong) is that both Indian and Chinese education is concentrated on memorization rather than understanding. That's why so few people from both countries can solve problems (at least in my work experience).

I've interviewed a lot of people in the last 2 years, and I never look at the education level. I only care about your ability to solve problems. We've had people with masters in CS from good schools who could not solve trivial programming problems. We've had completely self-taught guys with a high school diploma, who aced the interview. HR cares about your education level, but if we want to hire you, they can't really say "no" to us. So if you're into IT, you're already light years ahead of all the mindless drones who got a degree just because IT pays well.

Smart people are always in demand. Keep educating yourself, in whatever field you choose. Become a pro, and you will always find a job. Do some contracts, or some open-source work, get your name out, you will make more and more money every year.

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