4 ms·

Its so heartbreaking to read this. And the worse part is that this is the culture that the education system promotes from a very early age. I have seen 6th gr

by devxpy 7y ago

Its so heartbreaking to read this. And the worse part is that this is the culture that the education system promotes from a very early age. I have seen 6th graders divided into tribes based on how well they perform on specialised tests that are essentially tickets to high paying corporate firms. Instead of focusing on teaching kids the value, importance and the beauty of STEM, we're teaching them how to game a stupid test and get ahead in a rat race. No wonder you get such a tribal mindset out of all this! And the scale is absolutely HUGE. We have around half a million students actively preparing for this specialised test, which in practice involves literally leaving school education for at least 2-3 years to prepare for this monstrosity exclusively. There's literally a whole city dedicated to tuitions for this one goddamn test. Just recently India removed the need for publishing Ph.D thesis to get a degree because most of the research was just republication of already published research, after slight modification. And It's only getting worse with politicians getting into this game, and literally manipulating children's textbooks, making an already broken education system into a net negative for society :/

sn41 7y ago
A STEM Ph.D from India here. The subject I most liked in school was grammar. I can tell you why grammar, prosody and poetry are as beautiful (more so, imho) as STEM. But in a third world country with limited opportunities, and for the most part shitty universities (outside a few good engineering and medical schools), had I followed my "passion" as so many ignoramuses on youtube profess, instead of the more sensible STEM option, I would now be nowhere in terms of an assured livelihood. I agree with your sentiment. I hope that in the next generation, India will become economically prosperous and following the subject of your interest will become a viable way to lead your life. Until then, the grind working on a subject that's a distant second choice cannot be avoided. I feel sorry for the kids.
- devxpy 7y ago
  That sounds about right. I am fortunate to have my interests and sense of beauty mostly in alignment with STEM. But the part that I want to emphasize on, is the pseudo-STEM that we as a nation promote. This is a battle that G.H. Hardy seems to have fought before. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Hardy_Tripos.html http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Hardy_Tripos.... Particularly, the description of the Tripos as a "game", full of imaginative tricks and stunts that are merely a figment of human imagination is very much in resonance with the exam we have in India today. In my experience, the "distant second choice" is not a first choice, even for the STEM loving community :(. It benefits no one other than the tutors who earn large bucks by mastering this game, which in reality, is far from the game of nature, that engineers and scientists IMO are supposed to play!
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  (Random fun point of cross over of your interests, writing a parser generator that can consume Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī... )

by devxpy 7y ago

sn41 7y ago

A STEM Ph.D from India here. The subject I most liked in school was grammar. I can tell you why grammar, prosody and poetry are as beautiful (more so, imho) as STEM. But in a third world country with limited opportunities, and for the most part shitty universities (outside a few good engineering and medical schools), had I followed my "passion" as so many ignoramuses on youtube profess, instead of the more sensible STEM option, I would now be nowhere in terms of an assured livelihood. I agree with your sentiment. I hope that in the next generation, India will become economically prosperous and following the subject of your interest will become a viable way to lead your life. Until then, the grind working on a subject that's a distant second choice cannot be avoided. I feel sorry for the kids.

devxpy 7y ago
That sounds about right. I am fortunate to have my interests and sense of beauty mostly in alignment with STEM. But the part that I want to emphasize on, is the pseudo-STEM that we as a nation promote. This is a battle that G.H. Hardy seems to have fought before. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Hardy_Tripos.html http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Hardy_Tripos.... Particularly, the description of the Tripos as a "game", full of imaginative tricks and stunts that are merely a figment of human imagination is very much in resonance with the exam we have in India today. In my experience, the "distant second choice" is not a first choice, even for the STEM loving community :(. It benefits no one other than the tutors who earn large bucks by mastering this game, which in reality, is far from the game of nature, that engineers and scientists IMO are supposed to play!
JulianMorrison 7y ago
(Random fun point of cross over of your interests, writing a parser generator that can consume Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī... )