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One of the articles linking from this one (https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut-out-for-high-skill-programming-jobs/ https://qz.com/9648

One of the articles linking from this one (https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut-out-for-high-skill-programming-jobs/ https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut...) made me laugh: > More than two-thirds of the candidates from the top 100 universities in the country were able to write “compilable code,” or that which does not throw errors when compiled into machine-readable code. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean? Most devs make typos or errors when writing new code at some point; the compiler spits out the reason (or your IDE helpfully points it out), you go back and fix it. > One reason for the poor performance is the dearth of good instructors as well as misaligned college curriculums. “The school curriculum focusing on MS-Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc., rather teaching programming using elementary languages such as Basic and Logo is also the culprit,” said Varun Aggarwal, the co-founder and chief technology officer at Aspiring Minds. Basic and Logo? What in the world?

grad_ml 9y ago
This is plain BS. I don't recall any CS department in India (and I know 100's) teaching, MS-word, Logo, Basic, Powerpoint, excel etc. However, I did TA'ed at Rice University, TX, Excel course for freshman.
- mdani 9y ago
  Here school means elementary, middle school,high school etc. where they teach MS Word etc. In India, CS departments are in “colleges” also called “schools” in US so this may not be bullshit for the reason you stated.
  - grad_ml 9y ago
    Fair observation. I missed that part. My bad!
- jackmott 9y ago
  they don't teach excel in the comp sci department at Rice.
  - shagie 9y ago
    You might want to check out their course catalog: https://www.clear.rice.edu/comp100/17-spring/ https://www.clear.rice.edu/comp100/17-spring/ COMP 100 teaches students how to use common software for organizing, searching, and computing on information, with an emphasis on business-related tasks. It introduces engineering design via a medium-sized team project. The course examines databases — Microsoft Access spreadsheets — Microsoft Excel
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
murukesh_s 9y ago
What is said is partially true. The curriculum wont get updated soon enough to catch up with industry trends. However Basic and Logo or Excel is not true. I graduated in 2004 and Java was the most prominent language we used, followed by C++ and then C. All of these are very relevant even today. However it was upto the students to explore more outside of what is taught in the curriculum. Even if you are not willing to actually learn programming you can still get good enough marks in both theory and practical exams. We had four practical projects but most of the projects were widely "purchased" from ready-made shops instead of the students doing it themselves, and the instructors were not competent enough to figure out if the projects are copied or self-made. What should be taught in modern day schools should be Assembly (to get the basics), C/C++, ML/AI, Java, Algorithms and Data structures (Can't stress this enough - even a full year can be dedicated for this) and have at least one project each semester and have all projects scrutinised by external faculties.
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>The curriculum wont get updated soon enough to catch up with industry trends. No instituition. Not even in the US or any part of the world, will rewrite their syllabus and text books every time something the equivalent of React or Angular JS comes along. You generally teach the base skills from which much can be learned and grown. Also I don't understand this thing about asking colleges to train people in the latest tech that is out there. In almost all cases I have seen, you are way better off hiring good generalists than one trick ponies.
  - murukesh_s 9y ago
    > Not even in the US or any part of the world, will rewrite their syllabus and text books The situation is different in India.. Our schools, though are called the same name as institutions in US, are basically skill training workshops. Last time I checked there are 100000 graduates coming out of school in each state, and there would be at least a million engineering graduates produced every year throughout whole of India. Remember there are no strict rules and things have to change with the changing world. India needs to think different than the rest of the world. Did I mention Angular or React? I mentioned ML/AI, and latest Data structures which is 100% relevant for any recent graduate to learn or at least be aware of. React and Angular are just libraries and any one can learn them if they have solid programming base. But ML/AI is a very different beast as they require you to have good solid understanding of mathematics, statistics, probability theorem etc, which is difficult to acquire outside without spending considerable amount of time.
shagie 9y ago
There was a HN post about that “study” ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156547 - be sure to read the how it works at Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/66kb3c/95_engineers_in_india_unfit_for_software/dgj9pid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/66kb3c/95_engi... ). There were some very questionable aspects to it and using it as a reference doesn’t reflect well.
- blindwatchmaker 9y ago
  Wow. I'd fire anyone who used these people to assess candidates.
otakucode 9y ago
When I was in college, back in the late 1990s, my university hired a new professor in the Computer Science department. He had 2 PhDs. In addition to wanting us to copy and paste all of our C++ code into Microsoft Word, blow the font up to 32 point size, and print it out in order to hand it in, he taught us the incorrect way to use cin, assigned homework to use it, and then informed the class that if you looked the answer up in the book and your code worked, you would get an F for not following his instruction. Needless to say, I and a group of my fellow students went immediately to the department chair. He was fired shortly thereafter. He was an astounding example of total incompetence. I decided to look into these "2 PhDs" he was supposed to have. Both were from Bangalore University. It didn't take much to find their CS department website (which looked like it had been built by an elementary school kid) and the academic requirements necessary to get such a degree. To get a basic CS bachelor's degree you needed high school level math and 2 classes about CS. To get a PhD you needed a full year. As far as I could tell the school had a good medical program, and decided to open a Computer Science diploma mill on the side. I was stunned. Some good came of it, though. After that, every prospective candidate to become a new professor had to give a presentation to upperclassmen on a topic of their own choosing and submit to being questioned by the upperclassmen. To replace the inept man with 2 PhDs we hired a guy who only had a Masters degree but who had several years experience in the industry, so he could bring some manner of "this is how its ACTUALLY done in the real world" to things. Worked out great, at least from a students perspective.

grad_ml 9y ago

This is plain BS. I don't recall any CS department in India (and I know 100's) teaching, MS-word, Logo, Basic, Powerpoint, excel etc. However, I did TA'ed at Rice University, TX, Excel course for freshman.

mdani 9y ago
Here school means elementary, middle school,high school etc. where they teach MS Word etc. In India, CS departments are in “colleges” also called “schools” in US so this may not be bullshit for the reason you stated.
- grad_ml 9y ago
  Fair observation. I missed that part. My bad!
jackmott 9y ago
they don't teach excel in the comp sci department at Rice.
- shagie 9y ago
  You might want to check out their course catalog: https://www.clear.rice.edu/comp100/17-spring/ https://www.clear.rice.edu/comp100/17-spring/ COMP 100 teaches students how to use common software for organizing, searching, and computing on information, with an emphasis on business-related tasks. It introduces engineering design via a medium-sized team project. The course examines databases — Microsoft Access spreadsheets — Microsoft Excel
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

murukesh_s 9y ago

What is said is partially true. The curriculum wont get updated soon enough to catch up with industry trends. However Basic and Logo or Excel is not true. I graduated in 2004 and Java was the most prominent language we used, followed by C++ and then C. All of these are very relevant even today. However it was upto the students to explore more outside of what is taught in the curriculum. Even if you are not willing to actually learn programming you can still get good enough marks in both theory and practical exams. We had four practical projects but most of the projects were widely "purchased" from ready-made shops instead of the students doing it themselves, and the instructors were not competent enough to figure out if the projects are copied or self-made. What should be taught in modern day schools should be Assembly (to get the basics), C/C++, ML/AI, Java, Algorithms and Data structures (Can't stress this enough - even a full year can be dedicated for this) and have at least one project each semester and have all projects scrutinised by external faculties.

kamaal 9y ago
>>The curriculum wont get updated soon enough to catch up with industry trends. No instituition. Not even in the US or any part of the world, will rewrite their syllabus and text books every time something the equivalent of React or Angular JS comes along. You generally teach the base skills from which much can be learned and grown. Also I don't understand this thing about asking colleges to train people in the latest tech that is out there. In almost all cases I have seen, you are way better off hiring good generalists than one trick ponies.
- murukesh_s 9y ago
  > Not even in the US or any part of the world, will rewrite their syllabus and text books The situation is different in India.. Our schools, though are called the same name as institutions in US, are basically skill training workshops. Last time I checked there are 100000 graduates coming out of school in each state, and there would be at least a million engineering graduates produced every year throughout whole of India. Remember there are no strict rules and things have to change with the changing world. India needs to think different than the rest of the world. Did I mention Angular or React? I mentioned ML/AI, and latest Data structures which is 100% relevant for any recent graduate to learn or at least be aware of. React and Angular are just libraries and any one can learn them if they have solid programming base. But ML/AI is a very different beast as they require you to have good solid understanding of mathematics, statistics, probability theorem etc, which is difficult to acquire outside without spending considerable amount of time.

shagie 9y ago

There was a HN post about that “study” ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156547 - be sure to read the how it works at Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/66kb3c/95_engineers_in_india_unfit_for_software/dgj9pid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/66kb3c/95_engi... ). There were some very questionable aspects to it and using it as a reference doesn’t reflect well.

blindwatchmaker 9y ago
Wow. I'd fire anyone who used these people to assess candidates.

otakucode 9y ago

When I was in college, back in the late 1990s, my university hired a new professor in the Computer Science department. He had 2 PhDs. In addition to wanting us to copy and paste all of our C++ code into Microsoft Word, blow the font up to 32 point size, and print it out in order to hand it in, he taught us the incorrect way to use cin, assigned homework to use it, and then informed the class that if you looked the answer up in the book and your code worked, you would get an F for not following his instruction. Needless to say, I and a group of my fellow students went immediately to the department chair. He was fired shortly thereafter. He was an astounding example of total incompetence. I decided to look into these "2 PhDs" he was supposed to have. Both were from Bangalore University. It didn't take much to find their CS department website (which looked like it had been built by an elementary school kid) and the academic requirements necessary to get such a degree. To get a basic CS bachelor's degree you needed high school level math and 2 classes about CS. To get a PhD you needed a full year. As far as I could tell the school had a good medical program, and decided to open a Computer Science diploma mill on the side. I was stunned. Some good came of it, though. After that, every prospective candidate to become a new professor had to give a presentation to upperclassmen on a topic of their own choosing and submit to being questioned by the upperclassmen. To replace the inept man with 2 PhDs we hired a guy who only had a Masters degree but who had several years experience in the industry, so he could bring some manner of "this is how its ACTUALLY done in the real world" to things. Worked out great, at least from a students perspective.