5 ms·

I agree that nationalism is ruining India. But, this article paints quite a one-sided picture. You can see that in this sentence: "Indian students are taking th

by lake99 13y ago

I agree that nationalism is ruining India. But, this article paints quite a one-sided picture. You can see that in this sentence: "Indian students are taking their useless Indian liberal arts degrees and going abroad to get real ones that signify a real education". See? That's just it! Most people who do well in high-school get pushed into technical fields. My cousins are mostly engineers or doctors, and a few are lawyers. "Liberal arts"? That's something that children of rich parents do when they are not too good at studies. Some girls do it when they want to be housewives when they are done with studies. I have a bachelors in EE (E&C) and have worked for a few multinationals. I have had to work with western-European and American colleagues. If I were asked for my subjective evaluation, I'd say that my EE colleagues at this level are more or less the same. Yes, the degree mills of India do churn out engineers by the millions. 10% of them understand what they have learnt. The others memorize and regurgitate their notes. It's fairly easy to screen people at this level. And that's why I find my colleagues comparable. Leaving aside medicine, about which I know nothing, a masters degree from India in science or engineering is mostly useless. Academia, with the exception of IITs and IISc, is mostly a joke. To conclude: Yes, education here is generally bad, but not as bad as this article paints it out to be.

jbattle 13y ago
I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?
- lake99 13y ago
  I'll clarify. I'll make no comments about medicine - I know nothing about education in this field. The bachelors programs in the IITs are great, by global standards. IISc does some cool work too. Leaving those aside, a BS in engineering (called BE or BTech here) is not bad. We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc. But for most of our courses, we use the same textbooks as Americans, Brits, Australians, etc. I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too. Academia (includes bacherlors, masters, PhD, post-doc, professorship, research papers, conferences, journals, funding, etc.) in India is generally terrible. ME/MTech in India is mostly useless. BE/BTech in India is not bad.
  - manish_gill 13y ago
    > I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too. No! Not by far. The "lab sessions" in a typical non-IIT Indian engineering institutes are a joke. Ever heard of the Borland Turbo C compiler? Yeah, that's still used to teach students C/C++, with outdated (and non-standard) code. I've had similarly horrible experience in any and all labs, be it circuits and systems, networking, or whatever else you might think of. Thank god for the Internet, otherwise I would have never have known better.
    - lake99 13y ago
      This is a random sample. How different was your lab session compared to http://engr.case.edu/merat_francis/eecs245/EECS%20245%20Syllabus.pdf http://engr.case.edu/merat_francis/eecs245/EECS%20245%20Syll... ?
      - manish_gill 13y ago
        The mere fact that the instructor has a schedule put up and sticks to it makes it better than any lab session I had. Oh, and it's not just something I alone experienced, so writing it off as a "random sample" makes no sense. This is /the/ situation with most colleges here. Which is kinda the entire point of the article.
        lake99 13y ago
        > The mere fact that the instructor has a schedule put up and sticks to it makes it better than any lab session I had. You seem to be impressed by the oddest things! FWIW, our labs adhered to a schedule too. Engineering colleges in India fall on some range within the spectrum. You seem to have studied at one of the poorer ones. k4rtik, below, seems to have studied at one of the better ones. When I made judgements, I made it on the basis of the output of Indian and western colleagues. Compiler versions are a non-issue for me. µA741, though outdated, taught me well enough.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        > This is a random sample. Some pedantry: It was an anecdote. A random sample is multiple data points drawn randomly from a population. GP only provided one, and you suspected it might be an outlier.

by lake99 13y ago

jbattle 13y ago

I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?

lake99 13y ago
I'll clarify. I'll make no comments about medicine - I know nothing about education in this field. The bachelors programs in the IITs are great, by global standards. IISc does some cool work too. Leaving those aside, a BS in engineering (called BE or BTech here) is not bad. We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc. But for most of our courses, we use the same textbooks as Americans, Brits, Australians, etc. I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too. Academia (includes bacherlors, masters, PhD, post-doc, professorship, research papers, conferences, journals, funding, etc.) in India is generally terrible. ME/MTech in India is mostly useless. BE/BTech in India is not bad.
- manish_gill 13y ago
  > I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too. No! Not by far. The "lab sessions" in a typical non-IIT Indian engineering institutes are a joke. Ever heard of the Borland Turbo C compiler? Yeah, that's still used to teach students C/C++, with outdated (and non-standard) code. I've had similarly horrible experience in any and all labs, be it circuits and systems, networking, or whatever else you might think of. Thank god for the Internet, otherwise I would have never have known better.
  - lake99 13y ago
    This is a random sample. How different was your lab session compared to http://engr.case.edu/merat_francis/eecs245/EECS%20245%20Syllabus.pdf http://engr.case.edu/merat_francis/eecs245/EECS%20245%20Syll... ?
    - manish_gill 13y ago
      The mere fact that the instructor has a schedule put up and sticks to it makes it better than any lab session I had. Oh, and it's not just something I alone experienced, so writing it off as a "random sample" makes no sense. This is /the/ situation with most colleges here. Which is kinda the entire point of the article.
      - lake99 13y ago
        > The mere fact that the instructor has a schedule put up and sticks to it makes it better than any lab session I had. You seem to be impressed by the oddest things! FWIW, our labs adhered to a schedule too. Engineering colleges in India fall on some range within the spectrum. You seem to have studied at one of the poorer ones. k4rtik, below, seems to have studied at one of the better ones. When I made judgements, I made it on the basis of the output of Indian and western colleagues. Compiler versions are a non-issue for me. µA741, though outdated, taught me well enough.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      > This is a random sample. Some pedantry: It was an anecdote. A random sample is multiple data points drawn randomly from a population. GP only provided one, and you suspected it might be an outlier.