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My Indian Engineering college had no course on ethics and nor were ethics mentioned even once. While Ethics was a mandatory course in my Masters abroad. Indian
by iamshs 3y ago
My Indian Engineering college had no course on ethics and nor were ethics mentioned even once. While Ethics was a mandatory course in my Masters abroad.
Indian engineering colleges really need to start cleaning up the detritus, it is time to provide healthy base for the young ones. Once a culture builds up, the managers at consultancy will feel ashamed to cut loose on ethics even under pressure. Or not, but a start has to be made in this aspect.
- mikelovenotwar 3y agoWorked for TCS, such 'courses' were mandatory, however as with all of their training cheating was rife.
- pooper 3y agoI have never worked for TCS but just want to put this in context. Training cheating is not just an "IT" department problem. previously on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38432752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38432752 Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process (buzzfeed.com)
- triceratops 3y agoPeople are taught "Don't steal" at age 4 or so. Revisiting that lesson in college isn't going to make a lick of difference. It's a problem of corporate culture and incentives.
- dotnet00 3y agoEngineering ethics is quite a bit more than just "don't steal".
- triceratops 3y agoThis particular case involved stealing. Engineering ethics is knowing what's right or wrong when performing engineering work. Children develop a pretty decent sense of right and wrong. It isn't rocket science. A 22-year old ordered by their manager to falsify data in their first month on the job knows it's wrong. They aren't going to refuse because they took some course in college. Whether or not they do it is more likely a function of how prevalent that behavior is in the organization, how often it's caught, and how publicly it's punished.
- GabeIsko 3y agoI think we should stop framing this as ethics. TCS tried to get the best outcome for their client. CSC decided the client should suffer because they didn't win the re-compete. That's basically retaliation. Also a Texas Jury deciding that an Indian company should give 210M to an American company? If you take a step back, none of this is about ethics. Now, with this kind of money and scrutiny you have to follow the letter of the law, whether it is productive or not. TCS should know better. But we can't pretend that this is about ethics.
- splitstud 3y ago[dead]
- dotnet00 3y agoA 22-year old ordered by their manager to falsify data knows it's wrong, but doesn't know how to handle the situation. The point of ethics courses is to teach students how to handle situations like that, else they'll just continue to be exploited until they learn how to handle things on their own.
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoI don't really think ethics courses works even if you just ignore the facts that all ethics are subjective. Most companies I have worked with has ethics training with quiz in the start and it is obvious what the answer should be for each question and you are supposed to select that, not selecting what you would actually believe.
- SadCordDrone 3y ago> Once a culture builds up, the managers at consultancy will feel ashamed to cut loose on ethics even under pressure. As if the engineering grads make these decisions and not managerial types with MBA degrees and "connections". Indian engineering colleges already have 2-3 such courses in curriculum and don't need to fit yet another subject which nobody cares about, instead of teaching actual skills. The actual knowledge of average Indian Engineering grad is very low, except in leetcode.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> yet another subject which nobody cares about This is the root of the problem.
- SadCordDrone 3y agoIt's delusional to think humanities / ethics courses fix these problems. It's managers who usually make these decisions, not engineers. Doesn't the ruling elite of most countries study humanities courses? Does that prevent them from commuting much worse attrocites than this? To be clear, I see more "gaming the system" behavior in India, but it's purely a result of more cut-throat competition in the market. "Ethics" and "morality" courses have shit to do with it.
- chris_wot 3y agolol - my friend once marked a paper from an Indian student about ethics... they wrote that ethics should be the sole concern of the ethics department because "everyone is too busy and nobody has time to do ethics".
- manojlds 3y agoMy BE CS course in India did have ethics. Which university are you talking about?