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This article is clearly biased and (not to put down the original author) borders on hero worshiping of India and her engineers. Some glaringly partisan comments

by prayag 15y ago

This article is clearly biased and (not to put down the original author) borders on hero worshiping of India and her engineers. Some glaringly partisan comments "liberating Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) from Pakistan’s colonialism", "India manage to fight (and win) two major wars just a couple of decades after independence", "slog through med-school, do a post-doc specialization, an internship, become an assistant, and finally 15 years later, in-debt, start your own medical practise.(sic)" There are large number of problems with the engineering system in India (especially about the number of engineers and the quality of engineering education) and the author just sweeps them under the rug. Poorly written. Full disclosure: I am an Indian Engineer now studying in UC Berkeley. Almost a perfect fit to the model described (except that I didn't graduate from the IITs).

hardik988 15y ago
Thanks a lot for your comments, and I see where you're coming from. In retrospect, there may be a slight bias, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I write my next article. My aim was not to glorify engineering in India; very far from it, actually. The aim of the article was to provide a really shallow look into the history of engineering culture in India. There's a lot more that I really haven't even talked about - how politicians set-up engineering schools since that was a major way to pick-pocket the middle class, the (alleged) abundance of black money in many "premier" institutes of engineering, and in general, the way engineering in India is taught is plain wrong. I graduated in 2010 from an "NIT", and I am fully aware of how bad the engineering system in India is.
- lotusleaf1987 15y ago
  >there may be a slight bias Slight? I agree with most of what you were saying, I just felt most of those editorials were not only unnecessary, but distracting.
- korussian 15y ago
  The bias wasn't slight -- in fact, it made it tougher to get through the whole article. It felt like the whole time I should be picturing the Indian flag waving majestically in the background, as India single-handedly picked itself up by its bootstraps and liberated its neighbors in wars of conscience, and literally rocketed itself into space, all via an army of Indian engineers (the gifted superior students), doctors (the snobby rich kids), and lazy good-for-nothing B.As. Viva India, who can do no wrong. Even when the article makes a minor allowance for less-than-stellar engineering performance -- why did it take longer than expected to develop nuclear power? -- the answer given is not anything to do with engineering, but only that Indians were too peaceful under Ghandi and simply didn't feel like going nuclear. I'm a big fan of India and Indian innovation and potential. I would just have liked to read a more balanced article that didn't bother with the nationalistic stuff. Viva Indian engineering in the 21st century!
- goombastic 15y ago
  "I went to <$xyz> school. I am good." Short answer: No. Some of the best coder/hacker types I've met in India were self-taught. I have never met/interviewed a truly outstanding candidate from any of the "top-line" schools ever. Sad, really. What was worse was the arrogance of some these so called grads.

by prayag 15y ago

hardik988 15y ago

Thanks a lot for your comments, and I see where you're coming from. In retrospect, there may be a slight bias, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I write my next article. My aim was not to glorify engineering in India; very far from it, actually. The aim of the article was to provide a really shallow look into the history of engineering culture in India. There's a lot more that I really haven't even talked about - how politicians set-up engineering schools since that was a major way to pick-pocket the middle class, the (alleged) abundance of black money in many "premier" institutes of engineering, and in general, the way engineering in India is taught is plain wrong. I graduated in 2010 from an "NIT", and I am fully aware of how bad the engineering system in India is.

lotusleaf1987 15y ago
>there may be a slight bias Slight? I agree with most of what you were saying, I just felt most of those editorials were not only unnecessary, but distracting.
korussian 15y ago
The bias wasn't slight -- in fact, it made it tougher to get through the whole article. It felt like the whole time I should be picturing the Indian flag waving majestically in the background, as India single-handedly picked itself up by its bootstraps and liberated its neighbors in wars of conscience, and literally rocketed itself into space, all via an army of Indian engineers (the gifted superior students), doctors (the snobby rich kids), and lazy good-for-nothing B.As. Viva India, who can do no wrong. Even when the article makes a minor allowance for less-than-stellar engineering performance -- why did it take longer than expected to develop nuclear power? -- the answer given is not anything to do with engineering, but only that Indians were too peaceful under Ghandi and simply didn't feel like going nuclear. I'm a big fan of India and Indian innovation and potential. I would just have liked to read a more balanced article that didn't bother with the nationalistic stuff. Viva Indian engineering in the 21st century!
goombastic 15y ago
"I went to <$xyz> school. I am good." Short answer: No. Some of the best coder/hacker types I've met in India were self-taught. I have never met/interviewed a truly outstanding candidate from any of the "top-line" schools ever. Sad, really. What was worse was the arrogance of some these so called grads.