Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India • Hacker News Board

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#101

Post by dang » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

1024core wrote: post #83

gautamcgoel wrote: post #20

I am Indian-American, and while I cannot comment much about the culture of Indians in India, I can comment a bit about the culture of Indian-Americans, especially second-gen Indian Americans like myself. Many of my Indian-American classmates exhibit the behaviors described in this article. For example, in my high school (a magnet program for gifted students), there were several Indian-American students, many of whom…

Is there an equivalent of "Uncle Tom" among Indian-Americans? Because you seem to be it.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting to HN, we'd be grateful.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#102

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #73

imheretolearn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I was lucky to have very "Americanized" parents who didn't raise me with these backward attitudes. You miss the entire point of the article. You are privileged not only to have Americanized parents, but you are privileged because you are an American . Your world is way better than that of a common Indian student. Most Indian students need a job, just to be able to feed their families. Quoting from the article: "Wh…

Thank You!, Thank YOU!, THANK YOU! This right here is the truth. The article is simply a rant from somebody who has yet to grow up and understand the real world i.e. they are in a privileged position in life. When you have so much competition for limited opportunities, you cannot apply the same yardstick from a different environment. The Fight for Survival is as true of social structures as it is in biological ones.…

I don’t understand why you seem to imply that half arsing your education is fine if it means you get a job? Why not make the best of it and get a job?

Any Indian with access to a computer can potentially be a (much) better hire than the one from the most desired engineering college. In fact, I’d almost have to expect so since they don’t have to waste time on all that signalling.

It’s unfortunate that that apparently doesn’t matter to the companies doing the hiring :/

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#103

Post by wy35 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #18

searchableguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the obsession with certificates interesting. One of my past school used to hand them out like candies. It costs like a dollar for 10 and made everyone happy. Same with trophies and medals. After some questioning and feedback from a lot of people indirectly, I concluded that it's one of the best investment any school can make. It results in lot of good PR, recognition, talks, feel good, etc. It's useful to targ…

That's interesting because I've always found someone being "certified" for e.g. Microsoft something is a huge turnoff for hiring.

On the flip side, knowing someone is AWS certified tells me they at least know their way around the console.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#104

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

aviraldg wrote: post #27

gautamcgoel wrote: post #20

I am Indian-American, and while I cannot comment much about the culture of Indians in India, I can comment a bit about the culture of Indian-Americans, especially second-gen Indian Americans like myself. Many of my Indian-American classmates exhibit the behaviors described in this article. For example, in my high school (a magnet program for gifted students), there were several Indian-American students, many of whom…

Why are you so quick to blame "backwards attitudes" when this behaviour is simply to meant to compensate for discrimination against Asians in college admissions? ( https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-many-sins-... ) Asians with far better scores are deemed to be less worthy due to "uninteresting personalities" than others far less qualified. I don't think it's difficult to understand why the children of…

I dunno, I have no generational wealth to fall back on, but that has never really motivated my interest in a high performing career.

Of course, the career I chose just happened to be programming, so it did end up that way.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#105

Post by imheretolearn » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:35 AM UTC

pitay wrote: post #98

imheretolearn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I was lucky to have very "Americanized" parents who didn't raise me with these backward attitudes. You miss the entire point of the article. You are privileged not only to have Americanized parents, but you are privileged because you are an American . Your world is way better than that of a common Indian student. Most Indian students need a job, just to be able to feed their families. Quoting from the article: "Wh…

I'm from a poor background and I didn't cheat. Nor did I commit bogus pull requests just to pad my resume. These things poison any community trust, put people into positions that jeopardize other peoples lives, and make meritocracy a joke. What does is say about a person if their attitude is that these things are okay if you are from a certain background? It says that they care about the background of the person more…

To give you a hypothetical example, in India, there are maybe 10k jobs but a million aspirants for that job. And 90% of those million people are poor. In USA, you have social security to fall back on if you don't get a job. In India, if you don't get that job, you're on your own until the next attempt. Being poor in USA and being poor in India are very different.

I am in no way encouraging hacky ways for resume grooming. I am just stating why it is a phenomena in India. You're doing a good job by not employing these tactics to further yourself. Also, a key difference could be that you're maybe not from India. And if you are, you're an exception not the norm.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#106

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

kovac wrote: post #69

compscistd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly anecdotal, but my ex at the time (white), bio major, had a real tough time studying for midterms and finals in undergrad. Meanwhile, my cousin (Indian) in the same class was breezing through the exams, partying more than me (a liberal arts major!), generally screwing around and somehow consistently ended up with a better score. My ex couldn’t parse this and just assumed my cousin was smarter or more qualified…

I remember when I was in college, we had this end of semester exam for stochastic processes. Our exams are usually about 2 hours long and have about 4-5 problems to solve. After this particular exam, a friend of mine was surprised that I hadn't seen the last problem with the answer in our professor's book (she has seen it the night before. Looks like all her friends had too). Ina mathematics exam with 4 problems, I c…

Ultimately it probably was. What use are your exam scores now?

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#107

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

adamkf wrote: post #87

rtx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is studying based on previous years questions cheating. Dont we do the same with white board interviews?

Since you bring it up, I think studying questions that a company has been known to ask in the past is somewhat in poor taste, especially if the candidate gives the impression that this is the first time they've seen the question. Usually, when I've done interviews, I'll try to throw a wrench into the question and see how the candidate reacts if I suspect they've seen the question before. Though in both cases, I think…

When interview questions are generally of the ‘have I seen this question before’ kind, it’s hardly cheating to try and memorize as many of them as possible.

It just means the method of interviewing is flawed.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#108

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

mbo wrote: post #89

aplummer wrote: post #5

It’s interesting comparing this to Australia / NZs cultural career issue, “tall poppy syndrome” [1]. People really need to be coached to even say a personal achievement let alone sell it when apply for jobs. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

Working for an American company from Australia, I've noticed a tendency for Americans to work overtime to meet a deadline, and Australians to vigorously oppose their peers from doing so. I've even seen people set up alerting if anyone makes commits outside of work hours. There's an unspoken agreement that if someone puts in overtime and others don't, it makes the non-overtimers look bad and that that the overtimer sh…

And the overtimer should be cut down. That kind of working leads to management expecting the same thing every time, and before you know it everyone is expected to work 12 hour days.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#109

Post by imheretolearn » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #102

rramadass wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank You!, Thank YOU!, THANK YOU! This right here is the truth. The article is simply a rant from somebody who has yet to grow up and understand the real world i.e. they are in a privileged position in life. When you have so much competition for limited opportunities, you cannot apply the same yardstick from a different environment. The Fight for Survival is as true of social structures as it is in biological ones.…

I don’t understand why you seem to imply that half arsing your education is fine if it means you get a job? Why not make the best of it and get a job? Any Indian with access to a computer can potentially be a (much) better hire than the one from the most desired engineering college. In fact, I’d almost have to expect so since they don’t have to waste time on all that signalling. It’s unfortunate that that apparently…

>> I don’t understand why you seem to imply that half arsing your education is fine if it means you get a job? Why not make the best of it and get a job?

Quoting from the article:

"In middle school children have dreams to become a Pilot in the airforce, or maybe a Police officer, or maybe a Opera Singer ! But by the time of high school, everyone is just either on road to become an Engineer, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Chartered Accountant …. or a failure. This may seem harsh but that’s how most of the society operates here in India."

The problem here is that students are forced by their parents into a field of education they don't even like. How do you expect someone to understand the intricacies of fluid dynamics when they don't give a rat's ass about it. When you give exams on topics you are not even remotely interested in? Therein lies the privilege of being American. When you're a common Indian student, you don't have a choice in choosing your field of study

>> Any Indian with access to a computer can potentially be a (much) better hire than the one from the most desired engineering college.

This only works well for computer science. What about students who want to become doctors? Do you know that to get a seat in an Indian medical college, a common Indian student will most likely have to pay a "donation" just to get their foot in the door.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#110

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

monksy wrote: post #39

gautamdivgi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> religious values that don't honor ethics Reference for this? I was raised a Hindu still am. I don't and have never condoned cheating. The religion doesn't condone cheating. I smell good ole bigotry in the comment.

I'm not hindu, nor would I claim I am. What I've read a long time ago was that there is a god in the religion that promotes that behaviour (it's not about the action of deceiving, it's if the person that was deceived is gullible enough) I'm going to have to see if I can find it again, or if this is a misunderstanding. EDIT: I can't find the original statement about the religious values. I've removed it as that I can'…

I mean, there’s a god in the Norse religion that promotes cheating/lying/stealing as well. That doesn’t mean it’s a general value of the religion.