Professor Damith seems rather reasonable in this correspondence, and I don't think you are providing any evidence that "innovation is marked down." Damith poin

Professor Damith seems rather reasonable in this correspondence, and I don't think you are providing any evidence that "innovation is marked down." Damith points out that your grade is based on the product, not the process, because he can't measure that; a good product is a proxy for what must be a good process. He might have added, that in the real world only the product matters, and if a process was against all rules of Software Engineering and produced a better product, then the rules of Software Engineering would be rewritten. It is very hard to rate or grade programmers. If you continue in the business you will soon find yourself attempting it, when you interview people to select your employees or your boss. If you can come up with any good ways of doing this, you will go far :) When it comes to "how innovation is discouraged and frowned upon in an Asian context", I would suggest that the quickest way to find anti-innovation sentiment is by looking at any large bureaucratic institution or company, not by looking at ethnicity or region. I recommend to you the book "The Organization Man" by William Whyte, particularly the chapter "The Fight Against Genius". You may find it resonates with your experiences.