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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870351550457614...
this query will save lots of time www.google.com/url?url=
HN sends thousands of high value users to these corporations each day, and linking to the full version saves us time and brings goodwill to an obtuse online publisher.
In a decent engineering college most of the bright students will be hired by one of the software services companies like Wipro,Infosys,TCS,cognizant. Those who are considered "unworthy" by these companies will end up being a lecturer at some engineering college. Most of the bright kids never choose teaching as a profession.
The CS degree taught in these colleges are not worthy, most students copy their lab exercises and get their job done.Again if you look at the quality of the lab exercises they are not worthy enough. A typical lab exercise will sound like "Implement library management system with Turbo-C", (yes Turbo-C) where the student will be given with 100% mark if he creates a structure and prints the contents of it.The point is, a student in 4 years of his college life never create something real and useful.
No one from a decent college will go to a call centre.
Here is a paper done by one of mentor, who is into free software advocacy among students, this paper clearly explains the mentality of students and tutors in most of India's engineering colleges http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads/glv/shakthimaan-paper/s...
First off 24/7 is a terrible, terrible company to take as an example, being and ITES company the only skill they require is the skill of communicating in a non-native language, which unsurprisingly is not a strength of most of the college (some of them being Hindi Medium) graduates. If we consider real programming work (which is language neutral), there are absolutely brilliant programmers in India. In fact Indian students were the second highest fraction in GSOC last to last year.
Secondly the point that the curriculum is outdated is totally ridiculous, the books I studied during my Masters and those during my Bachelors had a big chunk in common. One big difference I found was the quality of teachers is top-class here in US, while not so much in India, and the argument from the article about low pay scales for the teachers, being the reason, stands water.
But the biggest difference is in the teaching methodology and the grading system. Here in US there is a great emphasis on 'Learning by Doing' and a majority of the grades depend on the homework even at college level. While in India, as the article mentions, it is almost solely based on end of the term exams, which encourages cramming and discourages daily learning.
But as an encouragement to the Indian students, I would like to add that if you wish to pursue a field in today's world, there is no stopping you back, specially with the advent of places like Khan academy, MIT open course-ware etc. All you need is will and a little persistence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As stated above, most colleges in India do not allow you to pick subjects and customize your course. Thus, all you chose is a 'major' (the degree) and the rest (the subjects and curriculum) has been chosen for you by the college. >Children here make the first choice of their courses to study in High School when they are 16. That's almost too young to decide what you want to be. This is exactly the same as in britain…
But was it that way in Britain before India became independent in 1947? I thought the British "slot everybody into a job" system was part of post-WWII socialism.
The move to vocational courses for things outside the obvious (such as medicine) is a more recent phenonemon, in part bought on by large numbers of people going to university as it is the 'done thing' rather than by a desire to be educated, and in part by a return to a funding system requiring the students to pay for the education and wanting something tangible at the end of it (a job).
I ran a startup in Kathmandu, Nepal for 4 years (www.olenepal.org) and this mirrors my experience there. The modus operandi of Nepali Schools is the "the teacher speaks and the kids repeat." this means that you can't judge applicants at all by their educational background. The best ones I had were almost entirely self-educated. Also, I think I found that only one in 50 applicants were worth hiring. That said, I belie…
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
This isn't upvoted enough. While the general sentiment of the article is true enough (I suffered an academic path not too different from magic_haze - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2412098 - above), the specific example of the call-centre in question cannot be used as a valid premise. They want " new recruits who can answer questions by phone and email. ", and also in all likelihood want to pay a pittance for th…
Then Google, IBM, et al in India would be starving for talent.
On a micro scale you are correct - the hiring problems are a function of how much they are willing to pay. But that's not really the crux of the problem - the problem is that, on any pay scale, the supply of competent/qualified people is smaller than the demand.
That's the way I've experienced it in the US anyhow. If you want a software engineer and are willing to pony up a lot of cash, you will find someone good. This doesn't change the fact that the supply pool is still woefully undersized relative to the demand.
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…
> a) There are colleges beyond IIT and REC and no they are not all bad
yes, but atleast in Bangalore, there's a nauseous culture of "IIT or nothing", supported mainly by BASE/FIITJEE and all those schools in Kota. It was very difficult for me to get out of it - if anything, it's gotten even worse since I left five years ago. I feel sorry for my cousins who are in their 8th grade now, and already being forced to go to a pre-JEE training (which, inevitably, will start as soon as they finish their 10th grade board exams. A training for a training for an examination that will then start their training? What kind of Alice in Wonderland crap is this?)
My parents are both professors at a certain well-known MBA factory in Bangalore, and trust me, the education system is worse than it looks. My mom was recently forced to use pencils when correcting examination papers (for the obvious reason), and my dad regularly complains about how he is forced to dumb down papers every semester or risk getting fired. Agreed, this is all anecdotal evidence, but it is damning nonetheless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"An important, but tangential point to note is that unlike the US, ...People join colleges already deciding (without taking a single course) what they plan to get a degree in." Isn't that how it works in the US as well? Don't students join colleges already deciding what they plan to get a degree in? I'm from Canada. When we apply to university we have to apply to a specific degree. First year courses are already tail…
You can change degrees fairly easily but, depending on the requirements for your new degree, you may have to fulfill a number of additional requirements. For example, if you are going to a large public university and are in their engineering program studying for an electrical engineering degree, you can switch over to computer science with very little difficulty. However, if you are in the liberal arts college studyi…
I hear that things are similar in other majors: if you're switching from one major to another that's fairly close to it (e.g. from molecular biology to botany) it'll be pretty easy. Longer jumps are more difficult, especially if you're going into a major with long prerequisite chains, like mathematics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm not sure if my reply had any conclusions, but if it did, it is only that the difference in (supposed) quality of IITs vs. local colleges is atrocious, and this needs to rectified ASAP. However, it is important to remember this quality of education is merely a crutch, and it is completely up to the student on how he/she makes use of it. There are certainly many cases of students going way beyond what their peers h…
Also a) I think it is fair to say that a post which ends with "Horrible Stuff" is reaching some kind of conclusion. b) When I look at people who like me who "failed" at 12th grade and didnt get into IIT, I see that just the process of trying has served us well. c) Education as you rightly said is what you make it out to be. d) I do want to congratulate you for the strength of your convictions in choosing to pursue undergrad abroad when you realised that the Indian education system wasnt serving your needs.
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 C…