In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#181

Post by tathougies » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

thewhitetulip wrote: post #171

tathougies wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the list is quite extensive. I called out Sun mainly because it is a class above Google and Facebook. Also, Sun contributed significantly more than just Java: Solaris (one of the first widely used kernels that had containers), SPARC, VirtualBox, OpenOffice, ZFS. I think it's really sad that people have forgotten the contributions of the first-generation of large computer companies. I rank Sun Microsystems w…

https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/unicorn-universities-where-mos... The top school on the list, Stanford University, claims 51 unicorn founders as alumni while runner-up Harvard University has 37. Rounding out the top three is the University of California with 18. This is the truth but I can just tel you the truth, I can't make you believe it.

I'm not sure what there is to believe. Obviously, Stanford and Harvard are at the top of the list when it comes to founders. However, you claimed that IIT has never produced a company the likes of Facebook or Google. I pointed out a few companies that are in the same league. Moreover, the source you linked to points out that IIT is the fourth highest unicorn founder producer. This is quite notable, given that it's an institute in a relatively poor country. It's more notable given that Indian graduates are at a disadvantage when competing in the united states as well, due to extra regulation on foreign companies or the overhead of immigration.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to prove with your graph. I never claimed that IIT produced more superstars than Harvard or Stanford, only that it does produce some.

You said:

> Tell me how many googles, facebooks have been started by IIT grads.

The number is 18, according to your data, which makes it #4 in the world, which is a very respectable position.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#182

Post by rakamotog » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 3:40 AM UTC

devang1994 wrote: post #57

rakamotog wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Exponentially in last 10 years. When I took the exam a rank of 2.5 k was almost equal to not getting a rank. But now a rank of 10k has better opportunities! Colleges mushroomed from 6 to 23!

Getting CS at Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Madras etc still requires a rank under 500 or so. Correct me if I am wrong but all the headline grabbing salaries are still restricted to these courses and institutes.

Not exactly. CS in tier 2 IIT's also gets you those headlines. Basically the numbers decrease (1 from IIT Hyderabad vs 5+ from IIT B IMO)

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#183

Post by RandomCSGeek » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

The problem is not with the exams. When millions try to get past the bottleneck with width of 10K, the competition will obviously be intense. And a developing country like India cannot afford more institutes like IITs, even those that currently exist(the newer ones) need a lot of improvement, especially funding for research.

IMHO, the problem lies with the parents who push/force their children into a race that they don't want to be a part of. Then it doesn't matter if they excel or not, they feel lost and hopeless. The number of classmates I had during engg who had no interest in engg/CS was huge.

Solving this problem would solve a lot of issues. It's getting solved as people are getting disillusioned from Engg == Money. The number of students applying to engg is gradually decreasing every year (80K less this year).

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#184

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 1:09 AM UTC

worldexplorer wrote: post #175

scarface74 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credentualisn hasn't gotten so bad that if I see a resume with certifications, I take that as a negative signal when I am interviewing candidates. On the other hand, I've done a few certifications in my day but mostly to force myself To learn something. I usually leave the certifications off of my resume because of the stigma. I will talk about projects that I've done using the technologies.

I am curious what do you think about Coursera certificates. For example Coursera (Deep learning specialization)doesn't allow you to complete assignments and projects of the course without subscription. Also it just feels good to have a token of your weeks of effort. Would you reject someone's resume if he showed this certification?

I didn't say I would reject their resume, I said it would be a slightly negative signal.

That being said, I just got my AWS Architect Associate certification this past weekend. The entire journey of me getting it, wasn't about the certification. I already had a job and probably by the time I am looking for a new one, I will have to renew it.

It forced me to learn about platform that I was just starting to build on and I was able to talk the talk - that's very important when you are an "architect" by name and/or responsibility.

In 2009, I did the same thing with respect to the MS architect cert - I took 6 tests got the certifications but by the time I was looking for a job, I had let them expire. I was transitioning from being a C/C++ bit twiddler to being an "enterprise developer". It forced me to learn about the technology.

In both cases, the certifications were about learning, not the certifications and in both cases, I was able to apply what I learned on the job. I put the projects on my resume - not the certs.

I would say the same thing about the Coursera certs. If they force you to learn and allow you to apply that knowledge to a real world project, preferable on the job but at least with a side project, it doesn't hurt.

It's a lot like when I was training to run a half marathon. It wasn't about the race, it was about the training. After I did them two weeks apart, I was never motivated to do that distance again.