21–30 of 171 posts
This is what happens when supply side overwhelms demand side. I remember in my teens, a person who graduated highschool with a modicum of technical aptitude could get hired as an entry level engineer in electronics, manufacturing, automotive etc. No longer the case. They won't even hire you for dog catcher with that background.
Are we overpopulated?
I used to think that the “holistic” criteria elite US colleges use to select students was a failure of meritocracy. My view was that the non-objective metrics were excuses for colleges to let in students who wouldn’t grind but wanted prestige and had rich parents. But if you tie a person’s social status to performance on a single test, you suffocate all the useful things people could be doing if they didn’t have to s…
Having lived in the US for a decade now, one of the biggest culture gap I keep and that probably won't ever go away is how it's somewhat accepted here that "letting rich kids cheat/buy their way into Ivy League is not that bad, and look it pays for a new cafeteria".
This is what happens when supply side overwhelms demand side. I remember in my teens, a person who graduated highschool with a modicum of technical aptitude could get hired as an entry level engineer in electronics, manufacturing, automotive etc. No longer the case. They won't even hire you for dog catcher with that background.
https://a127-jobs.nyc.gov/psc/nycjobs/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HR...
It doesn't invalidate your broader point in the slightest, of course.
I would love to see really elite schools lowering the threshold for the quantitative measurements like the JEE to say, 85% percentile, and just randomly selectively students who meet it. In my experience there's definitely a point in which better scores on things such as the JEE stop being correlated with both college performance, life satisfaction or even career earnings.
This is what happens when supply side overwhelms demand side. I remember in my teens, a person who graduated highschool with a modicum of technical aptitude could get hired as an entry level engineer in electronics, manufacturing, automotive etc. No longer the case. They won't even hire you for dog catcher with that background.
Are we overpopulated?
This is what happens when supply side overwhelms demand side. I remember in my teens, a person who graduated highschool with a modicum of technical aptitude could get hired as an entry level engineer in electronics, manufacturing, automotive etc. No longer the case. They won't even hire you for dog catcher with that background.
Did you really mean engineer or did you mean entry level technician?
When I graduated high school in the late 80's, you would at least need a community college degree to become even a technician or technologist.
There is an argument to be made that to be the best at something you have to commit like that. You could write a similar story about pro athletes probably, although team sports would include some level of socialization by default, not all sports are team sports. And I imagine a lot of other sacrifices (friendships outside the team or sport, hobbies, education) are made in pursuit of a pro athlete dream too. And of co…
It heavily implies that. The story says "Despite all the hard work engineering students put in, a survey conducted in 2019 found that 80 per cent of engineers “are not fit for any job in the knowledge economy and only 2.5 per cent of them possess technical skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI) that industry requires”."
But if you follow the link it goes here: https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/indian-engine...
That story is about engineers in general, not IIT graduates specifically. It seems disingenuous to highlight the exceptional efforts required to become an IIT graduate yet downplay graduates' post-graduation prospects by referring to engineers in general.
About 0.9% of IIT applicants will be admitted. Compare to Ivy League Universities, which range from 4.5% (Harvard) to 10.6% (Cornell).
That said, I spoke with one IIT graduate who tried to downplay the experience. I could never tell if he was being humble or polite, or if he really felt the difficult was exaggerated. He was smart, but he didn't seem to have missed out on a childhood for the sake of getting into IIT. Of course, I grew up with several smart peers who made getting into Ivy League universities look like a walk in the park.
I used to think that the “holistic” criteria elite US colleges use to select students was a failure of meritocracy. My view was that the non-objective metrics were excuses for colleges to let in students who wouldn’t grind but wanted prestige and had rich parents. But if you tie a person’s social status to performance on a single test, you suffocate all the useful things people could be doing if they didn’t have to s…
As a counter-example, I have gone through a relatable experience though not in India but France (our "preparatory classes" system also has similar high competitiveness/high pressure characteristics, to prepare for a few deciding exams). It only lasts for 2 years, but the stakes are somewhat similar from what I understand from the article. Having lived in the US for a decade now, one of the biggest culture gap I keep…
What I'm going for is more the idea that if you consider the best alternative I can think of to the "holistic" approach, you get selecting applicants purely based on entrance exam scores. In such a world you'd be punishing a kid who plays with Arduino out of interest. Any energy devoted towards something other than test prep is energy wasted.
In the American system, as I'm coming to see it, the kid who plays with Arduino is punished less. The test won't take you all the way anyways, and you even get a little "refund" on attention sunk into some types of activity which qualify as extracurricular.
I don't mean to say that IIT graduates lack creativity - there are many well-known examples to the contrary. My point is that an academic system where success is predicated on test-taking ability will produce great test-takers who function quite well as cogs in the machine. The system does not cultivate enough creative thinkers who can imagine the machines that have not yet been built.