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Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

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11–20 of 25 posts

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#11
As Mark Twain said, never let your schooling interfere with your education.

Nor should you let your schooling make you cynical, or drain you of your love for learning, or kill your ambition. Because you will continue to encounter resistance in the form of people, culture, and institutions that seem to exist solely for perpetuating mediocrity and fake work. They may operate that way, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

Steve Jobs quotes are practically cliche now, but, stay hungry. That tenacity is what will make you if you channel it into creating something.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#13
Hi I wanted to put this up:

I was in a very very reputed AIEEE university in one of their fit for nothing dual degree programs. And trust me most assignments and project work comprise of plagiarized and glue code. It had more than 75 % compulsory attendance, after which grade drops happen.

There are some good students...some really good students... who do well in really getting at the essence of programming.But everyone else is lost.

You find disinterested people working on projects. And if you are in one dual degree program and work on other field's projects ( on our own ) you get letters from the dean and your department head reprimanding you to invest your time in your field. BTW, all these fields I am talking about are about simple and elegant software.

Result : I quit.

I am pursuing a B.Sc Degree in IT from SMU-DE. Yes it is not the same as from the above institution. But it lets me participate in community development better. It gives me time to participate in SPOJ, TopCoder, Directi's CodeChef.And it doesn't prevent me from participating in GSoC. It doesn't threaten me and stop me from attending NASA's Summer Internships. And most of all, I don't have to succumb to their policies.

I find solace from learning through MIT OpenCourseWare, Stanford's Online Classes in AI, ML and DB. My github and other projects feed my resume. Yes, there is a unrest at home about where I am headed. But I know where I am and where I am headed.

I was clear that this institution was not worth 1.5 lakh per annum from my parent's life savings. I quit, in my second year.

But trust me. If you move out, you will have to face immense mental pressure from the family. And if you can work from your college, do so at all costs. Moving out will create new problems that you cannot predict now.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#14
I understand your frustration. I too graduated from such a private college with a CS degree in 2003. Here is why I think you should complete your degree:

- You are being forced to study the core areas in CS. You will probably soon specialize in your work/research, so learn the core areas when you still have the time.

- Unless you have already created exceptional products, regular employers will not consider you unless you have a degree; these employers are a good fallback if nothing else works. The degree is a baseline to avoid being filtered out.

- If you want to go to graduate school to do research, either now or in the future, an undergraduate degree is essential.

- Getting a B.Tech isn't hard. Put in the minimum effort if you want, but it isn't tough to pass, nor is it a time sink.

Yes, the teaching can be unimaginative, professors may strictly adhere to a syllabus, and the exams test rote memorization, but one can still be stimulated in this environment. I would unceasingly ask questions to fully understand algorithms being taught in class, often challenging professors (and finding holes in the thought process). The database class helped me understand normalization and other ideas of good DB design (and their rationale), which I used for my web projects. A queuing theory class helped me understand performance of a system I later built.

There is no doubt you need to go beyond just getting the degree. Do you have fantastic ideas for products? Maybe a bit of freelancing will help? I created websites for clients abroad while doing my undergrad (just get a low bandwidth internet connection from a mobile company for this). I interned with companies/organizations during the summer. For my final year project I wrote a simd+cluster version of a program that I ran on all the computers in the department's lab (and tripped the ups!). I also realized the importance of a degree and tried to stay close to the top of my graduating class.

The challenge is to stay motivated to get the degree, while also finding an outlet for your passion. Both can be done. Freelance during the semester working nights and weekends; work with a company during the summer; participate in CS competitions in your region; find a local conference in an area of interest and publish a paper (this isn't hard!). It's really up to you to get motivated and rise above the rest.

While I sometimes wish I had done my undergrad elsewhere, I was eventually able to work in an area of my interest. I went to graduate school abroad and am now working in a research department in industry doing what I love.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#15
post #13

Hi I wanted to put this up: I was in a very very reputed AIEEE university in one of their fit for nothing dual degree programs. And trust me most assignments and project work comprise of plagiarized and glue code. It had more than 75 % compulsory attendance, after which grade drops happen. There are some good students...some really good students... who do well in really getting at the essence of programming.But every…

And btw, this is not the case with private universities alone. You find students with a very very small Body of Knowledge even in very reputed places. They were good with their High School Education, and not with undergraduate interests. Perhaps, this is because fear is a major incentive to pass. And they have no real good incentives to learn.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#16

Been there my friend, I too passed out from a so called reputed private University.and too bad I came to know about hacker news only in the last year of my college :(

and add to it , My University restricted the internet Usage to 20 MBs,didn't had much money to afford my own internet connection :(.

thats why I'm still there and pursuing my degree. They don't have restrictions on bandwidth or speed but for some time blocked some very useful sites.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#18
post #13

Hi I wanted to put this up: I was in a very very reputed AIEEE university in one of their fit for nothing dual degree programs. And trust me most assignments and project work comprise of plagiarized and glue code. It had more than 75 % compulsory attendance, after which grade drops happen. There are some good students...some really good students... who do well in really getting at the essence of programming.But every…

Yeah, B.Sc IT gives us more freedom. Still my course helps me with core CS areas which I'm interested in.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#19
post #14

I understand your frustration. I too graduated from such a private college with a CS degree in 2003. Here is why I think you should complete your degree: - You are being forced to study the core areas in CS. You will probably soon specialize in your work/research, so learn the core areas when you still have the time. - Unless you have already created exceptional products, regular employers will not consider you unles…

thanks for the motivation. Yes I'm working on some ideas with some friends and would soon release a web app. And i'm doing freelancing for my friends and relatives.

Re: Private Universities in India provides you just a Degree- A student rant

#20
You say you have finished 3 semesters of your graduation. But I think 4,5,6 semesters are where you learn most of the core of CS, atleast as per Indian curriculum. Give yourself some time.

Start a CSE club at your college. Organise lectures with the help of your serniors. Or each one of you can start learning about a technology and start sharing it with each other in the meetups. Organise programming contests, organise hackathons. You can also try and collaborate with local LUGs and get lectures conducted. Your institute will slowly start seeming to be full of buzz where there is lot of knowledge flow. And then it will all seem great.

Try and

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