[greenhorn]

I was the best electronics guy in my college , bun unfortunately for some reason valuators are blind except for what's in syllabus. our third sem paper asked us to draw a voltage regulator circuit. I drew one with am op amp since that was what came to my mind first. Apparently what was in the answer key was a transistor based one. That was the start of a long history of flunking theory exams. I still managed to ace the labs , but 2 labs and 6 theory, so they didnt help much. In the end , when electronics cos came to our college, they wanted the 80%ers. I wasnt even given a chance. I had to help some of the crammers in them wish some of the interview questions. In the end they got jobs with semiconductor and electronics companies, and i got a job with an IT co thanks to my sucky % . I know of people who were aces at mech, but suffered my same fate. The ones who cram get the good jobs and we get shafted.

Those who are crying for the engineers who are being wasted , cry for someone else. The real engineers never got a chance in the first place thanks to the current education system.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by diabloo

I am open to any another field which offers similar benefits as IT. If you feel I am precious and I can be productive, please let me know how.

With companies like Schlumberger hiring actively in India (with 20 lakh+) packages for BE/Btech, things might get better.

[diabloo]

There are few and their numbers is small. But they need PHDs. What should I do? Get Master (2 years) and PHD (4 years) and live those 6 years without pay?

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

With companies like Schlumberger hiring actively in India (with 20 lakh+) packages for BE/Btech, things might get better.

[NetfreakBombay]

They hire straight out of BE/BTech as well. And this pay package is for BE.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by WhiteKnight

You got it wrong. There is no American model, European model or Indian model. The marketplace is realy open.

really?

Good point. So isn't then the Indian firms start with a cost advantage to compete with the rest of the globe? Then why are you saying "Indian companies operating with low margins against the rest of the world minting money"?

yes, they starrt with a cost advantage because

1. they operate on indian model, less strict labor laws, abundance of skilled labor etc.
2. they operate on low margins. again, specific to indian model of working.

Human resource or Human Capital Management is an area where lot of reserch has already been done. HRM team in an organization is there to .....

Good points, though I am not an HR expert. You should have said this first rather than "fire the HR".

[ported_head]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

I was the best electronics guy in my college , bun unfortunately for some reason valuators are blind except for what's in syllabus. our third sem paper asked us to draw a voltage regulator circuit. I drew one with am op amp since that was what came to my mind first. Apparently what was in the answer key was a transistor based one. That was the start of a long history of flunking theory exams. I still managed to ace the labs , but 2 labs and 6 theory, so they didnt help much. In the end , when electronics cos came to our college, they wanted the 80%ers. I wasnt even given a chance. I had to help some of the crammers in them wish some of the interview questions. In the end they got jobs with semiconductor and electronics companies, and i got a job with an IT co thanks to my sucky % . I know of people who were aces at mech, but suffered my same fate. The ones who cram get the good jobs and we get shafted.

Those who are crying for the engineers who are being wasted , cry for someone else. The real engineers never got a chance in the first place thanks to the current education system.

I feel for you brother! I am still getting shafted.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

I was the best electronics guy in my college , bun unfortunately for some reason valuators are blind except for what's in syllabus. our third sem paper asked us to draw a voltage regulator circuit. I drew one with am op amp since that was what came to my mind first. Apparently what was in the answer key was a transistor based one. That was the start of a long history of flunking theory exams.

That sounds like exactly my story. I used to be that top electronics guy in college who wrote a better circuit in the exam and had it, I just managed to pass. And yeah, I aced the labs and barely passed the theory. I mean we were studying history, our syllabus books were 20-25 years old. The only telephone exchange it covered was the ancient crossbar switch. And India had moved on to C-DOT electronic exchanges long back.

Originally Posted by greenhorn

In the end , when electronics cos came to our college, they wanted the 80%ers. I wasnt even given a chance.

I didn't have to suffer that insult, they didn't have campus selections then, except in top colleges like IIT, REC, etc. We had to try on our own.

Originally Posted by greenhorn

Those who are crying for the engineers who are being wasted , cry for someone else. The real engineers never got a chance in the first place thanks to the current education system.

Sad, but true. The engineering colleges in India mostly produce mugpots and not engineers. Therefore it is usually up to the industry to make engineers out of them. And most IT companies don't bother to make engineers out of them, they make them process followers, process enforcers, etc. Frankly, why do they need engineers, just for getting H1-B visas.

PS: The only real useful piece of engineering I learnt was during my college project work. There I designed an equipment to test E1 telephony circuits. Guess what I do today, I design various software that runs on T1 and E1 telephony standards.

[jp1]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Thanks jp1 for posting that. People often think it is the same thing. I started programming first back in 1989 when I accidently ended up joining a C programming training. I fell in love with programming right then.

Your story sounds very familiar to mine. Programming has to be a passion. It is like how we get addicted to 4x4 off roading. Any day if somebody ask me what would be your passionate hobby, I would say Programming. I spent average 12 hrs on my laptop, yes I am addicted. I work on all saturdays even though if is off day. I started with Basic (accidentally) in 1985!. Then I switched to Cobol, that is when I got a job to do programming. then to RPG, Then I programmed in C, then it was Oracle Forms, then changed to Informix 4GL, moved on Sql Windows, then to PowerBuilder, then moved onto Java, right now it is Java!. I always worked for somebody except one year in between, so I had to move with circumstances. And my passion was always to code something which never breaks. Past 4 years, not much programming, had to move to management, I hate it, but no choice. That was when the company where I am working hired some consultants to re-engineer our division and they decided, this guy had to be moved away from Programming and has to manage the team. So reluctantly I moved into management, i.e manage couple of projects, then one by one the projects started getting screwed up, so I am back in a mixed mode partly managing and partly coding and fixing those applications!

There is another problem I see today. After 2 years programming, everybody wants to become a PL!. How can we develop or design a good software with 2 or 3 years of programming experience?. If you look at many innovative companies, you would see programmers who are aged 50 years or more. They would be part of core design team, but still they do lot of programming, that is how you get solid application out. Writing a good program is an art.

[bblost]

@Greenhorn:

I know what you write about.

My practicals scores (am seeing my mark sheet after such a long time)
100 * 5 + 99 + 98 + 93 + 87
This 87 was thanks to a teacher who liked me a lot
The 93 was the term paper.

Percentage = 97.44

Total percentage was 75.66.

btw the highest score in Theory papers was in Statistics at 77.

I passed out in 2002, no campus recruitments that year.

[spadival]

Ahhh.. Nice to see lot of like minded fellow "engineers" on the forum share their experiences and frustration !!

I really dont blame the education system.. majority of those left to teach/decide on the syllabus etc at engineering colleges are those who didnt get any other job in the first place !! So how can you expect to learn anything from them or the syllabus they have designed. There are few exceptions - but rarely do you come across anyone dedicated to improving the system. Most of my lecturers (in a supposedly India's Top 10 Engg college) were fresh B.E graduates who were there because they never got placement anywhere else!!

Anyway, its a good thing I didnt study much while at Engg college. I rarely have to use 0.5% of what I studied in my job.

[greenhorn]

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. G B Shaw

Anyway, back on topic, some of my friends who went on to jobs in the core areas - architecture, mech engg, electrical engg, are becoming increasingly dissapointed. Age gap ( most, if not all of their colleagues are at least 10 years older ), Gender Gap- Very few female prescence (if at all) , strenuous and manual work, Official and visible office politics, lesser pay, and they are left to fend for themselves. not much is done to ensure job satisfaction. At least in IT companies, you get a work environment with a lot of peers in your age groups , significant female prescense ( would you believe there are more females than males in our unit!), an HR dept which is at least trying to give an impression that it cares, and of course , last but not least , the $$. It's nice to sit in front of your pc with internet in your cube/cabin with AC and type out that it sucks. Maybe it does. but at least I'm content with the way things have turned out


A few years down the line I might read this post and say, WT* was I thinking when I typed this? But for now , it will do.

[tsk1979]

Greenhorn,I also had a sucky percentage in college. The only subject where I saw 90+ was the labs, with barely passing theory.
However I will not claim that I drew better circuits in exam papers, but it was because I found reading SciFi on exam night more interesting that the coursework. However labs were really nice and I looked forward to them. I also started getting addicted to Software and neglected electronics and concentrated just on ICs etc., as far as my course was concerned.
Due to that I was out of bounds for WIPRO,CISCO etc., which had 70% cutoffs. At 64% I was in bottom 15% of my class.

Lucky for me, because the first company I got eligible was a Semiconductor giant, who clearly told us, that they don't care 2 hoots about %.
But I guess now even semiconductor companies have changed, with more than talent % is being valued.
We had brilliant guys in our team who were Diploma holders and did not even had a B.tech degree.
LAter company sponsored their M.Tech.
They came on board because they were very very talented.

But nowadays, for a fresher all that matters is the %, talent be damned.
Its a sad sad state.

BTW time period I speak about is upto 2001 when semiconductor was trying to get a foothold in BLR. At that time some of the best brains(without academic stars) went into those companies.

Before that in mid-late nineties, companies like Sun pioneered the trend among MNCs where they did not even both what kind of colors your mark sheets posessed.

They would just ask you how to code towers of hanoi using assembly lanugage or some other really twisted problem like that.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by diabloo

So the Manager fights back, duh hah

lol. no dude, am just an individual contributor. As you can see from the responses my one post evoked, i am not a people person

Originally Posted by bblost

Yes Sir, we are code coolies and quite proud of it.

The only guy who will replace a code coolies is another code coolie.
Try picking up just another guy and get him to write code.

Good for you that you are proud of what you do. By the way, look around you. Code coolies are now found in every nook and corner now. Someone told you to write code for a = b + c and you wrote it. Good for you. Writing a code and solving a problem are two different things. Thats what separates the coders from the programmers.

Originally Posted by Spitfire

What's your point?

Everyone is easily replaceable. Do you think an MNC will come down on its knees if one person left? Its about ethics man. But i think you wont get it. And i am talking for both the manager and the employee.

My point is that its not very wise to assume that the work one individual is doing in an organisation is so important that no one else can do it. Forgive me but i know what ethics are... perhaps much better than the guy who quit his job just because he was made to realise that he doesnt deserve a vvip treatment for writing code.

[jagan0677]

Originally Posted by spadival

Ahhh.. Nice to see lot of like minded fellow "engineers" on the forum share their experiences and frustration !!

I really dont blame the education system.. majority of those left to teach/decide on the syllabus etc at engineering colleges are those who didnt get any other job in the first place !! So how can you expect to learn anything from them or the syllabus they have designed. There are few exceptions - but rarely do you come across anyone dedicated to improving the system. Most of my lecturers (in a supposedly India's Top 10 Engg college) were fresh B.E graduates who were there because they never got placement anywhere else!!

Anyway, its a good thing I didnt study much while at Engg college. I rarely have to use 0.5% of what I studied in my job.

Quite True!!! I remember one of my professors during engineering, who had finished his auto engineering in my college(effectively, my senior) 20 years back.
More than 90% of the material/notes he used to teach us were the ones made during his engineering days. Even if one takes the conservative view that most basics/fundamentals do not change over long periods of time, there was nothing substantial / incremental over and above that.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Good for you that you are proud of what you do. By the way, look around you. Code coolies are now found in every nook and corner now. Someone told you to write code for a = b + c and you wrote it. Good for you. Writing a code and solving a problem are two different things. Thats what separates the coders from the programmers.

Are you making fun of me or are you being plain rude or just an ***. (I put the stars on my own, because what I had in mind will end up getting changed to stars anyways.)

The tone of your post makes it feel so derogatory to call one self a code coolie but that is your call and I frankly don't care.

You may go ahead and put a reply to this post of mine but I am not replying to it. So I suggest you make it really good so I can repent not answering back.