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The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

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Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#141

Post by fellellor »

whack wrote: post #93
darth_avocado wrote: post #75

This article is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to get into IITs. I got into one, and I can guarantee that this article pretty much picks and chooses data points as it wants. Yes it is academically challenging to get into IITs, but there's two ways you can get into one: Devote your entire life towards "cracking" the game that's the entrance exams, or just study enough that you've mastered the understanding…

The following is a great example of how the article cherry-picks its data: > “They have been cut off from society, they are unaware of current affairs, and are desperately in need of our induction programme for freshers where we try to re-orient them to society and the institute,” the (IIT) professor said on the condition of anonymity. This skill gap haunts them even when they graduate. Despite all the hard work engi…

I’ve heard that’s the statistic for the entire engineer population. IIT engineers are a very small percentage of the overall. However, even if you have a very poor opinion of the other colleges, this “unemployable” conclusion is heartlessly lazy and unprofessional. People who say that such a large population from diverse backgrounds is completely un-resourceful deserves nothing but disdain.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#142

Post by fellellor »

addicted wrote: post #90
darth_avocado wrote: post #75

This article is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to get into IITs. I got into one, and I can guarantee that this article pretty much picks and chooses data points as it wants. Yes it is academically challenging to get into IITs, but there's two ways you can get into one: Devote your entire life towards "cracking" the game that's the entrance exams, or just study enough that you've mastered the understanding…

It also depends when you got into the IIT. My dad got into an IIT and it was basically like you describe it. I got into IIT and it was like how this article describes it. It’s also gotten easier since I took the JEEs because they’ve quadrupled the number of seats available by enlarging the existing IITs and making a bunch of new colleges IITs, so I suspect it’s easier now than when I was taking those exams.

The article rightly blames the scarcity for the problem. But bizarrely enough, one of the factors responsible is this gate keeping tendency that is inherent to the Indian culture. I still remember the whining that the expansion will dilute the “quality” from so many former IIT people.

The Government of India spends a lot of its resources badly for populist reasons, and scarcity can be mitigated with what they have currently on hand.

Though, gate keeping is a widespread human cultural tendency, India still hasn’t had any champions emerge, who have successfully fought against it, like for example Theodore Vail did in the US.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#143

Post by fellellor »

whack wrote: post #87

Everyone here is decrying how awful this meritocratic system is, and I'm just thinking about how awesome it would be if they made some tweaks to their entrance criteria. Give students a score-bonus for: - Completing a triathlon - Doing 60 push-ups in a minute - Performing 500 hours of community service Even if it doesn't change how competitive the system is, at least you'll end up with an army of nerdy buff do-gooder…

Haha. It’s actually not a bad idea.

Making good health, community service and social skills a core requirement to get admission seems like a great idea. Can this also be gamed? Sure. It’s not like the existing criteria are not being gamed by families with a lot more money.

It is futile to complain about how the admission system cuts kids off from society and takes a toll on their health. Fierce competition for scarce resources is inevitable. Sure, the government can do a much better job of spending whatever resources are at hand, but even efficiency can only go so far.

This kind of out of the box thinking is more likely to yield results than pining for ideal situation that simply doesn’t exist.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#144

Post by jackmusk »

darth_avocado wrote: post #75

This article is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to get into IITs. I got into one, and I can guarantee that this article pretty much picks and chooses data points as it wants. Yes it is academically challenging to get into IITs, but there's two ways you can get into one: Devote your entire life towards "cracking" the game that's the entrance exams, or just study enough that you've mastered the understanding…

No it is not. Just because it worked out for you doesn't mean it worked out for all of us. I still have PTSD from my 12th standard days... all that mindless cramming physics and chemistry just so I could go to a good college and study CS. Me and my peers were actively discouraged to take a harder subject like economics or CS as the 5th subject so we could focus on Physics,chen and maths.

We went to school then tuitions in the evening and whole days of coaching on the weekend. That didnt leave much time to play around, acquire new skills and hobbies and when we tried our parents and teachers were not exactly supportive of it because we could spend that additional time on cramming more.

Just using a stupid test as a benchmark to get into a country's most prestigious colleges without taking into account if the student even has a passion for the subject is an absolutely broken system.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#145

Post by skybrian »

primitivesuave wrote: post #122
mywittyname wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't write this off as a solely as a symptom of education. Being able to question the judgement of an authority figure / decision maker is a privilege. A squeaky wheel gets the grease but a raised nail gets the hammer. Engineers generally lean more nail than wheel in most orgs, and being a minority or otherwise less respected subset of that group makes you feel even more like a nail. Dotting I's and crossing T's is…

> A squeaky wheel gets the grease but a raised nail gets the hammer. You're right about this. Indian work culture tends toward rigid hierarchical structures, and expects employees to be much more deferent to authority than you would find in a typical Silicon Valley startup. However, even after bringing our startup culture out there (unlimited PTO, stock options, choose your own hours, don't call me "sir"), I still fi…

I wonder if making a game out of it would help? Suppose you intentionally introduce a specification error and challenge them to find it?

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#146

Post by musicale »

Seems like a sad lottery if 1.5M students are competing for 13K slots.

A lot easier to get into MIT or Caltech, but of course there is no way they could process 1.5M applicants.

> No life, no hobbies, burnout, lost childhood — the price students pay for a prized IIT seat

Even in the US there is something wrong when you have to skip courses in (for example) fine arts (e.g. visual arts, music, drama) because they aren't considered serious "college preparatory" subjects and usually won't help your admission chances unless you are a superstar.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#147

Post by random314 »

primitivesuave wrote: post #124
908B64B197 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true of new grads in general. When you complete a course there's an exam, and labs and assignments typically have a set of instructions to get started and a list of requirements. And there is always a domain expert (TA) not far. Now they are learning to become the domain expert in their own (limited) area.

You're right if you're thinking about American universities, but IIT operates much differently (this may have changed, so IIT students, please correct me if I'm wrong here). No student enters IIT declaring a CS major like an American university - they have to first excel at test-taking within IIT across a range of subjects (chemistry, physics, etc), so they can be part of the top cohort within IIT that is allowed to…

IIT students pick their major before joining the university.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#148

Post by primitivesuave »

rkunal wrote: post #127
primitivesuave wrote: post #30

I have been hiring IIT graduates and building a team in India for several years now. They are all really smart people with a strong work ethic, but their approach to work tends to be the same as the approach they needed to succeed in a test-based education system. The engineers will grind until any hour of the night to ensure that all feature requirements are met and JIRA tickets checked off, but nobody will stop to…

Replace word IIT with College. Most of your statement would feel correct nonetheless.

Agree the same mentality can be found in higher education everywhere, but it is especially prevalent in India.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#149

Post by sfashset »

abc_lisper wrote: post #134
akhilcacharya wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's around my line of thinking, pure meritocracy is both too subjective and far too harsh to the people who aren't in the lucky egg club, especially in increasingly global winner take all games (an inevitable consequence of globalization). I'm a failure by meritocracy by nature of losing at all of the tests we use to judge success and merit - test scores, elite school admission, elite institutions etc.

What do you do now?

he's a SDE at Amazon

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#150

Post by blueblisters »

skybrian wrote: post #145
primitivesuave wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A squeaky wheel gets the grease but a raised nail gets the hammer. You're right about this. Indian work culture tends toward rigid hierarchical structures, and expects employees to be much more deferent to authority than you would find in a typical Silicon Valley startup. However, even after bringing our startup culture out there (unlimited PTO, stock options, choose your own hours, don't call me "sir"), I still fi…

I wonder if making a game out of it would help? Suppose you intentionally introduce a specification error and challenge them to find it?

Yeah and also I don't think introducing unlimited PTOs and stock options is the same as tasking people to take responsibility for architecting a product. The likely reason is that India still lacks talent in mid to upper-level engineering leadership roles that can make user-centric decisions and groom entry-level talent.
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