Employability of Indian Technical Graduates

[FanaticOnWheels]

There are, however, a few talented guys still out there. For instance, there is this really talented fellow at NITT (his rank at topcoder is the highest by any Indian) who got an offer of 77 lacs pa from Facebook (Abroad), 22 lacs (India) from Amazon, and a few other high paying packages. He ultimately got into Google CA by applying off campus.

There are certain colleges that attract heavy pay packets, and have an equally rigorous selection procedure. I think it is the quality of students in these institutes that outshine the quality of teachers. My view.

[prajwalkashyap]

Even with the low quality of education and a total lack of challenging learning material, the number of graduates who pass with the pass percentage is huge, to say the least. Ever imagined a civil engineer or architect who passed with 35% to be building your house tomorrow? Or worse, MUCH worse, a medical grad having passed with 35% treating your son/daughter/parents. I'd die of nervousness even before I enter the consultation room!

Even if entry levels to education are lowered to allow economically challenged populace have access to better education, the passing criteria must be retained high to ensure that those passing are genuinely smart enough to contribute positively to the society rather than to continue being a liability to the rest of the population. If not, then the whole purpose of providing cheap education to the masses is lost and presents a total waste of precious tax-payer money. Unfortunately, the nation is often run by dropouts themselves who wouldn't realize anyway!

Prajwal

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by FanaticOnWheels

There are, however, a few talented guys still out there. For instance, there is this really talented fellow at NITT (his rank at topcoder is the highest by any Indian)

These people form less than .01% of the graduate pool, we can't draw any conclusions from that.

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

Even if entry levels to education are lowered to allow economically challenged populace have access to better education, the passing criteria must be retained high to ensure that those passing are genuinely smart enough to contribute positively to the society rather than to continue being a liability to the rest of the population.

I don't think the passing criteria was lowered for economically challenged populace. It was lowered because even the teachers are of lower standards. I see that problem even in primary education since I partial live in rural area. The quality of teachers in smaller towns/villages is lot lower than the teachers in Bangalore. My son at 3rd grade had better general knowledge (picked up from parents) than his teachers in small town. But in Bangalore, that is not the case. When I attended a government high school in a village, we used to have drunk teachers who used to just scream at us the whole period. That never happen once I moved to a highschool in Bangalore.

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

Unfortunately, the nation is often run by dropouts themselves who wouldn't realize anyway!

Prajwal

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, so I won't hold that as a criteria. Even my dad dropped out of college because he got a job. Education and achievement are not absolutely related.

[babureddy]

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

Even with the low quality of education and a total lack of challenging learning material, the number of graduates who pass with the pass percentage is huge, to say the least. Ever imagined a civil engineer or architect who passed with 35% to be building your house tomorrow? Or worse, MUCH worse, a medical grad having passed with 35% treating your son/daughter/parents. I'd die of nervousness even before I enter the consultation room!

Even if entry levels to education are lowered to allow economically challenged populace have access to better education, the passing criteria must be retained high to ensure that those passing are genuinely smart enough to contribute positively to the society rather than to continue being a liability to the rest of the population. If not, then the whole purpose of providing cheap education to the masses is lost and presents a total waste of precious tax-payer money. Unfortunately, the nation is often run by dropouts themselves who wouldn't realize anyway!

Prajwal

But don't you see that happening everyday in our country. In the name of quota, lot of people who pass marginally have got into many hospitals. You are talking about a person getting 35% in civil engineering, but the fact is that how many get their house done from a reputed firm or even for that matter check out the marks, and over and above this, we have a new problem with fake certificates... a recent one is of a lady who has just passed PUC i think and her husband was a doc, so she started to treat as a doc... this was on TV a couple of days back

[FanaticOnWheels]

Originally Posted by Samurai

These people form less than .01% of the graduate pool, we can't draw any conclusions from that.

I don't think the passing criteria was lowered for economically challenged populace. It was lowered because even the teachers are of lower standards. I see that problem even in primary education since I partial live in rural area. The quality of teachers in smaller towns/villages is lot lower than the teachers in Bangalore. My son at 3rd grade had better general knowledge (picked up from parents) than his teachers in small town. But in Bangalore, that is not the case. When I attended a government high school in a village, we used to have drunk teachers who used to just scream at us the whole period. That never happen once I moved to a highschool in Bangalore.

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, so I won't hold that as a criteria. Even my dad dropped out of college because he got a job. Education and achievement are not absolutely related.

I never mentioned that the entire student community is talented buddy. I did say that there are a few talented students out there who do perform in spite of lack of good coaching (I am yet to see a college in India where the teaching is contemporary, and practical). There are a few excellent professors (I've seen a few in my own college), but then they don't even get their subject of choice to teach sometimes!

As for recruiters out here, at college, zero education is given about the industry. Absolutely zero. It is highly oriented towards getting marks in the university, which itself is nonsensical. I read standard textbooks for my semester exams, and the answers which I give are pretty correct to the best of my knowledge (the questions are not very twisted), and yet I always get 70-80 max.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

WOW.. how do you keep discovering such gems?

I mostly get to hire from students who lost out on campus recruitment, that is how. Fortunately, the HR guys of big firms often reject diamonds in the rough, and I get lucky.

Originally Posted by FanaticOnWheels

I never mentioned that the entire student community is talented buddy.

Nobody denied the existence of geniuses either buddy. This thread is about the majority of graduates.

Originally Posted by FanaticOnWheels

I read standard textbooks for my semester exams, and the answers which I give are pretty correct to the best of my knowledge (the questions are not very twisted), and yet I always get 70-80 max.

Exactly for that reason, I don't trust the BE/Btech marks while evaluating a resume. The girl I mentioned in post#133 was a first class graduate.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by FanaticOnWheels

As for recruiters out here, at college, zero education is given about the industry. Absolutely zero. It is highly oriented towards getting marks in the university, which itself is nonsensical.

IMHO education should not be oriented towards Industry. If it teaches basic Comp Sci, that is more than enough.

Problem is, apart from IIT /REC and other such collages not too many collages can afford teachers who can teach Comp Sci.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I mostly get to hire from students who lost out on campus recruitment, that is how. Fortunately, the HR guys of big firms often reject diamonds in the rough, and I get lucky.

In my experience, online programming tests help a lot here.

And this is not about Topcoder-level problems, but basic problems like Find second highest number in array / abbreviate a name etc. Basically any problem that is :

1. Not from text book
2. Is not too difficult, just requires basic loops and such constructs

And unfortunately a LARGE % of applicants fail this test.

[RaguHolla]

Taking fresher interview is itself is herculean task! My experience with them is

1) Most of them don't know what they studied in 1 semester back. Many don't even know what they studied previous semester itself!
2) Most Freshers can't pick their favorite subject. Only 2% people ever picked algorithm or data structure (these are CS/IT) as their favorite subject.
3) Most do not know extent of their subject boundaries.
4) Most can't differentiate purpose of their subjects. E.g. CS/IT guys have object oriented programing as a subject. And most colleges teach subject with C++ (for practicing the OOP). Now most of the student I interviewed can't recall the subject as OOP, rather they say its about C++.
5) Many can't tell what is their project, without looking into their project report!
6) Many come to interview thinking the job is theirs! Because they have passed the exams!

Many things are forced on to them. They really don't like to be engineers. Someone told them they must do it. So they did it! Its also difficult with a cutoff organization puts (75% aggr). If it was me, I would rather take 60~65% students. Often when we take freshers at this bracket they turn out to be gems rather than one with higher % with lots of ego/attitude!

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by RaguHolla

Many things are forced on to them. They really don't like to be engineers. Someone told them they must do it. So they did it! Its also difficult with a cutoff organization puts (75% aggr). If it was me, I would rather take 60~65% students. Often when we take freshers at this bracket they turn out to be gems rather than one with higher % with lots of ego/attitude!

I have seen companies like Wipro/TCS/Infosys etc., are hung up on percentages. Many MNCs do not care about percentages. Interview matters.
Most of the brilliant computer programmers in our college were 60% ers. The 75%+ new their textbooks with 1989 syllabus back to back.

[RaguHolla]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

I have seen companies like Wipro/TCS/Infosys etc., are hung up on percentages. Many MNCs do not care about percentages. Interview matters.

True, however I don't work for them. Though I work with MNC, but they borrowed the idea (mainly from Infosys, like asking puzzle! Minimum % criteria). I can state some of our managers are obsessed with Infy that they always inclined to hire the experienced working in Infy, blindly!

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Most of the brilliant computer programmers in our college were 60% ers. The 75%+ new their textbooks with 1989 syllabus back to back.

+1, agree totally. My friend has meager 54% aggr (with 12 back logs)! However he is most successful programmer! He can switch between any number of technologies! Strangely he even failed one of the programing subjects (all his solution in the exam are correct, actually they are improvised solutions. Like Samruai stated, it is not as per model answer sheet!).

[prajwalkashyap]

Originally Posted by Samurai

These people form less than .01% of the graduate pool, we can't draw any conclusions from that.

I don't think the passing criteria was lowered for economically challenged populace. It was lowered because even the teachers are of lower standards. I see that problem even in primary education since I partial live in rural area. The quality of teachers in smaller towns/villages is lot lower than the teachers in Bangalore. My son at 3rd grade had better general knowledge (picked up from parents) than his teachers in small town. But in Bangalore, that is not the case. When I attended a government high school in a village, we used to have drunk teachers who used to just scream at us the whole period. That never happen once I moved to a highschool in Bangalore.

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, so I won't hold that as a criteria. Even my dad dropped out of college because he got a job. Education and achievement are not absolutely related.

I thot there were reservations in place for economically challenged students who are either given grace marks or have a lower % for passing compared to their peers. Has this changed? I haven't kept track recently.

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, no doubt. Even Thomas Edison failed in his classes. But they were geniuses and were exceptions. What they contributed to knowledge is what we study today. And we are not discussing about such exceptions here. We are talking in general where students are not that smart in their schooling and who are not employable and who are dependent on a job to survive. This is a disastrous combination and which forms a HUGE population of graduates. This was what I was referring to.

Prajwal

[vina]

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

...

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, no doubt. Even Thomas Edison failed in his classes. But they were geniuses and were exceptions. What they contributed to knowledge is what we study today. And we are not discussing about such exceptions here. We are talking in general where students are not that smart in their schooling and who are not employable and who are dependent on a job to survive. This is a disastrous combination and which forms a HUGE population of graduates. This was what I was referring to.

Prajwal

There are several misconceptions:

Microsoft was started by Bill Gates and friends at Harvard - all of the guys were quite accomplished (or they wouldn't get into Harvard in the first place) and Gates's parents were lawyers - helped him quite a lot monetarily as well as business wise. BUT as far as engineering goes he relied on great programmers who were NOT college dropouts.

Steve Jobs had friends/cofounders who were not only not college dropouts, but actually had years of experience in the industry.

Both stole technology from Xerox PARK developed by PhDs from top universities.


This "college dropout" always seems too good to be true and almost always is. Media needs its heroes and they make them heroes.




Coming to our own graduates, there is a myth these guys are smart to begin with - most are actually pretty stupid and a lot of times it amazes me they passed school leaving exams. Almost no engineers today (leave out IIT and half of NIT/DCE/BITS grads) can integrate even simple polynomials without doing it wrong a couple of times. You can go around MNCs and will find that without an advanced calculator like Excel they can not calculate EMI for their housing loan - not even in ballpark numbers (and this used to be taught in CBSE's 8th grade maths).

to make it worse - their knowledge of world affairs, economics, history .... everything except last week's cricket match is so pathetic sometime you wonder what is the advantage of hiring a guy who finished his four years vs. one who just entered college - you need to train anyway, and these guys lose the most basic intellectual curiosity in the four years.

[download2live]

I wont't name this Govt Engg college. But in that college they were still teaching FORTRAN 77 as computer education for all the students. This was in 1999. It was so obsolete that even the books were not available for FORTRAN 77. Market had FORTRAN 97 I guess by that time.

Even in my school in 11 and 12 they taught C++ and OOPS.

This is the extent of rot in our college system.

Needless to say that all the students from that college are well placed. But it was through their own hard work. They learnt the latest technologies in the market kept them selves abreast of the new developments and moved on. BTech degree was just a piece of paper which allowed them to appear in the interviews. Value addition was zero.

[Samurai]

I got lucky again.

Today's candidate claimed 20th century was 2000-2010, so she wanted to discuss mobile phone as 20th century technology. Just out of curiosity, I inquired and found out that century is made of 10 years, and 90s were 19th century.

BTW, I was born in the 16th century... Wish I had visited Hampi then, could have seen it in full glory.

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

In my experience, online programming tests help a lot here.

And this is not about Topcoder-level problems, but basic problems like Find second highest number in array / abbreviate a name etc.

I give them simple C programming tests, like replacing a character in the string. Nobody has passed those tests since 2009.

Originally Posted by RaguHolla

Many things are forced on to them. They really don't like to be engineers. Someone told them they must do it. So they did it! Its also difficult with a cutoff organization puts (75% aggr). If it was me, I would rather take 60~65% students. Often when we take freshers at this bracket they turn out to be gems rather than one with higher % with lots of ego/attitude!

I simply ignore the BE marks. I look at them, but just out of curiosity. It is never a deal maker or deal breaker for me.

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

I thot there were reservations in place for economically challenged students who are either given grace marks or have a lower % for passing compared to their peers. Has this changed? I haven't kept track recently.

Never heard of this before, this was in which state?

Originally Posted by prajwalkashyap

Microsoft and Apple were started by dropouts, no doubt. Even Thomas Edison failed in his classes.

I know they are exceptions, that is why I mentioned my dad too, who is not an exception. My dad's generation, lot of them used to drop out if a suitable job was available.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I have worked my way through the entire thread, so here I go. I will say that about 85% or so of Engineering Graduates in India are unfit for employment. ...

Really good points sir. I would like to post my experience of the same. First, I started my education(B.Eng.,) in India and went to Germany in an Exchange program. What I noticed:
1. Education(engineering) has to be learned with interest and not by force or by parents will.
2. One needs to be exposed to practical applications and has to made to think on his own to be a good engineer.
3. Student projects and company internships should be done seriously and not for the sake of time pass or that its a mandatory one.
4. One must be persuaded to come to the exams expecting anything to everything. No mugging up and vomitting stuff.

To support my above points, here in Europe people are quantified at their 8th standard what level of education they will receive and based on their aptitude they are streamlined. And for Bachelors in Engineering(Diplom in germany 10 semesters equivalent standards of any international masters), just to get a seat in a university, one has to undergo a 6 week practical course(a worksmanship course, in any manufacturing process or an industry) prior to the course commencement. A 20 week internship is mandatory during the curriculum and the work done is taken very seriously. Regarding the diploma thesis or Bachelors Thesis(note: They call it "Thesis" like in the PhD because they take it pretty seriously and every word is looked upon) has to be done in a company or inside university under a professor. It will be mostly a live project. The final report and the presentation is done very seriously, such that, every word we speak and every line written in the report is scrutinized for individuality and truth. Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v is dealt with very rudely and even a ban. The syllabus is never a standard, rather professors change it for every semester and new learnings from projects or industry are immediately added to the lectures. The exams force oneself to learn the concepts and not mug anything from the books, well professors never recommend one single book rather one has to look into atleast 4 books for a single chapter in the syllabus. Exams are very short, I have written exams with just a couple of questions and each carried 50 marks! Story writing in exam is strictly prohibited. They are mostly calculation oriented or questions will be formulated for single line answers. Typically German!

I finished my degree came back to India with a eagerness to use it for my country. What I got? As we all know, the same treatment from AICTE. I wanted to work in the defence sector and I am not allowed to! I was looked upon as an alien and a terrorist. Finally, I managed a job in the private sector, well got fed up with the way things are going in India and decided to come back for a Masters.

I feel that though our engineering syllabus is capable of churning out good engineers and we have pretty good professors, but the sheer number of engineering colleges and the number of students in the engineering makes it nearly impossible to churn out quality engineers. If one takes a look at the engineers from the 60's and the 70's, when there were only one or two engineering colleges in every state, I am sure todays engineers cannot stand upto their skill and knowledge and most important their practical approach to any problem. Its very sad that today every student who enters engineering, has a decision in his mind to end up with Infy or TCS or Wipro or other IT giants and nobody or very less want to stick to core engineering.

Personally, in my own family I am looked upon as an idiot because I am fighting to stick to my core engineering and not land up in IT at any cost. Nothing against the guys in IT, but I seriously find it irresponsible(its my personal opinion, no harm against anyone and their situations) when one studies mechanical engineering and ends up programming in C or Java.