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The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

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Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#61

Post by PeterisP »

eriksank wrote: post #14
kamaal wrote: post #10

Firstly being entrepreneur and going to college are not orthogonal goals. Secondly for any poor person in India, without any funding or support. No infrastructure, no exposure and having to fight a historic burden of poverty in the family. Not getting a college education means, the guy will eventually end up working at a tailor's shop or a garage or driver. Working whole life only to hope his son breaks of the cycle…

>> Getting a decent "education" is the easiest way to get a job The traditional education system WAS the easiest way to get a job. Nowadays, it is the easiest way NOT to get a job. Step 1: Download the 10 books x 4 (years) = 40 books of the average university degree. Step 2: Unless it's mathematics, it is just literature. Read it. Step 3: Sit the 10 x 4 exams at an online college. In most developed countries, you hav…

If you get thousands of job applicants, then it's appropriate to throw 90% CV's out in the first filter by a cursory browsing of the CV. If you don't have a degree, then in such a situation you won't even get an opportunity to be interviewed.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#62

Post by rayiner »

So my family is from Bangladesh. My aunt and uncle moved to Toronto. My cousin wants to study business and get an MBA, but his parents want him to study electrical engineering. I didn't get it, until I realized its all about risk aversion. An engineering degree is a secure path to the middle class. A business degree isn't, and entrerpeneurship certainly isn't. The business degree might have a higher potential reward, but middle of the class engineers still get jobs.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#63

Post by DjangoReinhardt »

kamaal wrote: post #10

Firstly being entrepreneur and going to college are not orthogonal goals. Secondly for any poor person in India, without any funding or support. No infrastructure, no exposure and having to fight a historic burden of poverty in the family. Not getting a college education means, the guy will eventually end up working at a tailor's shop or a garage or driver. Working whole life only to hope his son breaks of the cycle…

I really wish I could upvote your answer more. This is the side of the discussion that most people seem to be missing.

This does not take away anything from the author, his entrepreneurship and his overall success, mind you. However, the points made by ~kamaal and everyone else in this thread are extremely valid. They represent the part of India that is not so 'shining'.

I myself fall in the same category as the author. I chose to drop out of my Masters in Physics (with an elective in Astrophysics) and went to work as a Radio Show host for a commercial radio station. It was made possible only because of an invisible fallback option that my parents provided. Without it, I would probably be working away at a 9 to 5 job writing uninspired code for some company rather than sitting at home trying my hand at programming with Python.

Wait.

Oh, shit.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#64

Post by 16s »

I really dislike articles that generalize based on race, religion, sex, etc. It's inappropriate and says nothing about individuals (all of whom are unique).

When you're researching a large nation with more than a billion people, you'll find a lot of people who have degrees and a lot of people who do not and a lot of people who like chewing gum and (again) a lot of people who do not.

The only thing the results should tell you is that there are a lot of people there. They say nothing about the average individual.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#66

Post by Isamu »

Since many of the comments here seem to miss the op's point:

He is saying that Indians seem to think that you need a degree to be successful, and discount the entrepreneur category by itself. He clearly thinks this is untrue and a counterproductive attitude, but there it is.

He is probably bringing it up because it is hard enough to be an entrepreneur without people constantly telling you that you will fail for one arbitrary reason or another.

By the way, this holds pretty much true in the United States -- most middle- and upper-class people think you need a degree to succeed.

But the entrepreneur category is probably given more respect. E.g. my friend's daughter is postponing college to work on her startup - she mostly getting very positive reinforcement all around.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#67

Post by r0h1n »

weland wrote: post #48
r0h1n wrote: post #30

The fact that a formal engineering/MBA education isn't a prerequisite for business success is almost a tautology now, especially among software startups. So there is nothing new here. There are some half-truths though: > For some reasons, Indians just can’t deal with the fact that someone without pedigree can get somewhere in life. - Airtel, India's largest telecom company, was started by Sunil Mittal, armed with jus…

There are many countries, just like India, where exactly the same thing happens. There are countless examples of people who live a wealthy life (this tends to be the common denominator of success in societies where poverty is rampant), but most of the middle- and lower-class inhabitants are convinced you can't get anywhere unless you're at the top of your class. Folk statistics doesn't work the way you describe it. I…

I agree. The preference for stable, well-paid, predictable careers is a global phenomenon, and especially in poorer countries.

And had this article been nuanced about that (as many earlier articles and posts on this topic have been in the past), it would have been okay.

Instead it reduces it to some kind of peculiar Indian trait ("The Indian and his insatiable...") while painting the second most populous country in the world with the widest of brushes ("Indians just can’t deal with the fact that someone without pedigree can get somewhere in life").

My statistics weren't meant to prove the opposite, that India is somehow very startup/failure friendly (it isn't, not by a long shot), but to only disprove the author's sweeping claim that the lack of a pedigree is some unsurmountable obstacle to succeed in India.

Sure the average VC or bank manager or prospective in-law might value an education over none (assuming ceteris paribus), but let's not use that to completely devalue the importance of a formal college education totally.

Is all.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#68

Post by vinceguidry »

r0h1n wrote: post #67
weland wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many countries, just like India, where exactly the same thing happens. There are countless examples of people who live a wealthy life (this tends to be the common denominator of success in societies where poverty is rampant), but most of the middle- and lower-class inhabitants are convinced you can't get anywhere unless you're at the top of your class. Folk statistics doesn't work the way you describe it. I…

I agree. The preference for stable, well-paid, predictable careers is a global phenomenon, and especially in poorer countries. And had this article been nuanced about that (as many earlier articles and posts on this topic have been in the past), it would have been okay. Instead it reduces it to some kind of peculiar Indian trait ("The Indian and his insatiable...") while painting the second most populous country in t…

> Instead it reduces it to some kind of peculiar Indian trait ("The Indian and his insatiable...") while painting the second most populous country in the world with the widest of brushes ("Indians just can’t deal with the fact that someone without pedigree can get somewhere in life").

Large, densely populated areas tend to be more culturally homogenous than smaller, more spread-out ones. So the idea isn't totally outlandish.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#69

Post by lilpirate »

Well, you were lucky your parents let you skip out on college. I was kind of forced to do engineering. Even when I got into a rather crappy college (I had started working for a start-up which never took off rather than study for entrance exams). But hey, whatever.

Re: The Indian and his insatiable appetite for the college degree

#70

Post by vinceguidry »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #52
aortega wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I could go on. You should, and in the way cite some statistics or else you would be falling for this common logical fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

A single counterexample is enough to refute a universal claim.

It certainly isn't a universal claim.
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