Team-BHP - IT Industry and Employability of Technical Graduates
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue_V (Post 3972660)
I don't know what percentage of mechanical graduates are actually doing design work in India. Might be a small percent.

It is kind of chicken and egg problem. Unless we have enough graduates who are very competent in design work, such work won't come to India.

Some colleges are aware of the problem, especially the ones that are headed by managements that care about education. But they don't know how to fix it. They have the will, they have the means, but the regulatory/statutory constraints don't allow for any major experiments.

For example, colleges that are affiliated to a government university don't have any say in the syllabus. Even if the college is part of a private deemed university, they are still shackled by the rules of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

A professor in US/UK can define his own syllabus, teach it, set the exam questions, and grade it. I didn't realise the massive impact of it until I experienced it as a graduate student of a UK university. Here the professor can have detailed plan to transfer knowledge, and execute it. The professor can decide the scope (depth & width) and set the course syllabus. Then she can pick her most effective method to teach that course. She can constantly tweak the content based on the student feedback. Then she can set the exam paper that is most likely to test the knowledge she has tried to impart. Then she can grade the answer papers seeing whether the student has successfully demonstrated the understanding of the course. The pedagogy is entirely under the control of one person, who if competent enough will be constantly improving it as a matter of pride.

In India, it is done by 4 different people. So there is complete disconnect. The syllabus forming committee/person designs the syllabus based on a certain criteria. The lecturers who teach that syllabus have no idea about that criteria. The exam paper setter may neither knows the syllabus criteria nor the teaching technique. And the examiner who grades the paper is neither aware of the criteria nor the teaching method that was applied nor why the question was asked. Frankly, we don't have anything that can be called as pedagogy. In fact, we don't even use that word. I didn't hear the word pedagogy until my graduate studies.

Even if we have a brilliant lecturer who successfully makes her students internalize the concepts of the course, the exam paper setter can ask question suited for memorised answers. If the students who understood the concepts well, write brilliant answers, the examiner would compare it with standard answer and give a big zero. In other words, we have a grid locked technical education system that cannot produce good engineers. Good engineers are mostly self taught or trained later by the industry.

We can't abruptly shift to a new system either. The education industry is full of people who can only survive in the status quo. There are only handful of teachers who can create syllabus, teach, set papers and grade well enough to transfer real knowledge. Because it requires deep practical knowledge of an industry segment. These days most knowledgeable engineers only have bachelors' degree, few have master's degree and very very few have PhDs. According to AICTE rules, most of these won't qualify to teach. Also, industry pays lot more than universities. Therefore, people in the industry who love to teach, can't switch to full time teaching because of lower pay and inadequate educational qualification.

Unless and until AICTE rules for faculty is drastically changed to allow experienced professionals to teach using their own pedagogy, and without getting hobbled by formal qualifications, nothing is going to change.

I think I have an example to sum it up ::

Teacher :: Please let us know the basics of designing a wall with curvature of x degrees.
Student :: Sir, this is out of syllabus.

This actually happened in our engineering college and the student was (considered) a topper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 3973002)
For example, colleges that are affiliated to a government university don't have any say in the syllabus. Even if the college is part of a private deemed university, they are still shackled by the rules of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
In India, it is done by 4 different people. So there is complete disconnect. The syllabus forming committee/person designs the syllabus based on a certain criteria. The lecturers who teach that syllabus have no idea about that criteria. The exam paper setter may neither knows the syllabus criteria nor the teaching technique. And the examiner who grades the paper is neither aware of the criteria nor the teaching method that was applied nor why the question was asked. Frankly, we don't have anything that can be called as pedagogy. In fact, we don't even use that word. I didn't hear the word pedagogy until my graduate studies.

Even if we have a brilliant lecturer who successfully makes her students internalize the concepts of the course, the exam paper setter can ask question suited for memorised answers. If the students who understood the concepts well, write brilliant answers, the examiner would compare it with standard answer and give a big zero. In other words, we have a grid locked technical education system that cannot produce good engineers. Good engineers are mostly self taught or trained later by the industry.

We can't abruptly shift to a new system either. The education industry is full of people who can only survive in the status quo. There are only handful of teachers who can create syllabus, teach, set papers and grade well enough to transfer real knowledge. Because it requires deep practical knowledge of an industry segment. These days most knowledgeable engineers only have bachelors' degree, few have master's degree and very very few have PhDs. According to AICTE rules, most of these won't qualify to teach. Also, industry pays lot more than universities. Therefore, people in the industry who love to teach, can't switch to full time teaching because of lower pay and inadequate educational qualification.

Unless and until AICTE rules for faculty is drastically changed to allow experienced professionals to teach using their own pedagogy, and without getting hobbled by formal qualifications, nothing is going to change.

I'd like to share my observations about your comments.

I studied at one of the best technical institutes in the country. 'Pedagogy' was a word that we were well aware of. Our Professors updated the curriculum every semester and they invited industry professionals to give us a perspective of how what was being taught would be used in a factory. This was true for all our courses, except the ones where programming was involved-there we were given assignments that required us to solve an industry case study based on actual industry data (for example, designing a distillation column for a refinery). Never did we feel out of sync with the outside world. The tragedy was that even in such an environment, many of my batchmates felt the curriculum was irrelevant because they wanted to get into consulting companies, where technical skills are rarely appreciated. Or into finance, where engineering aptitude does not really matter (except the basic mathematics proficiency, which is ensured by the super tough entrance tests). My project guide actually felt sad that so many of the engineering graduates had no interest in the field- this is true for most fields except computer science. Very few people who graduate with a degree in Electronics and electrical communications engineering actually care about how the chips are fabricated or designed. They just want that 'Brand value' out of the college to get into a good company with a managerial profile. Most of them are now doing an MBA at an IIM or in some highly ranked US B.School.

I worked in a manufacturing company implementing six sigma projects for 2 years. There I understood how valuable technical knowledge is. Communication skills help you present well, create good reports and participate in strategic discussions. But the actual ground work has to be done by someone who knows what the mass transfer relationships are in the different sections of the process. Only then can someone analyze the variation, identify root causes and undertake improvement measures. Consultants, even senior ones, are usually good generalists who know nothing about the process and only contribute to a streamlined presentation of the results.
I'm saying this because I came to study at one of the top universities in the world last year. I expected that the curriculum would be drastically different-that is not the case. Subjects are taught in a much more theoretical manner here. Yes, the templates used for the slides are more suave, Professors are more decorated, but the value that a student gets out of the experience is not very different. In fact, I'd say that I enjoyed learning more in my previous experience.

Feedback is something that many Indian colleges are sensitive to. The template that they use is also similar (at least it is for me). It is not that the grass is greener on the other side. It is just that here, students care about engineering. They learn to love what they learn. And very, very few people aspire to go to a consulting company despite the fact that they pay well. People want to develop expertise in a particular domain and then broaden their skill set. In India, our focus is on the immediate gain after a phase of education is complete. We look at education as a qualification and not an experience. This is perhaps because societal pressure to earn well and do that early is very high in India.

While working I also realized how little our HR's understand about the necessity of technical qualifications. Yes, being able to communicate, solve riddles, analyze and present case studies well is important. But good candidates with a PhD or a M.Tech can be good at these things while knowing a bit more about a domain, and yet you hardly find PhDs in corporates outside the R&D departments. I wondered why, and a HR manager once told me that it was because people with a higher education take more time to 'blend in'. I wonder why 'blending in' is important-the priority should be on creating value. Since there are few PhD's in the industry, the possibility of an average PhD teaching with an industrial experience behind him is quite rare.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nissan1180 (Post 3973094)
I'd like to share my observations about your comments.

Very interesting to hear the stories from the other side. Thanks for sharing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nissan1180 (Post 3973094)
I studied at one of the best technical institutes in the country. 'Pedagogy' was a word that we were well aware of. Our Professors updated the curriculum every semester and they invited industry professionals to give us a perspective of how what was being taught would be used in a factory. This was true for all our courses, except the ones where programming was involved-there we were given assignments that required us to solve an industry case study based on actual industry data (for example, designing a distillation column for a refinery). Never did we feel out of sync with the outside world.

Wow, I studied in the much maligned Bangalore University in the 80s, when job ADs regularly used to say Bangalore university graduates need not apply. Fortunately, I read Feynman's autobiography in the college library in 86-87, which changed my way of thinking. I started searching book shops and found books on electronics that gave me conceptual understanding. This was important for me as I am incapable of memorizing large volume of text. This is how I could catch lecturers saying wrong things in the class. By 3rd year, some lecturers has figured out my secret. They saw me with books they didn't recognise, borrowed it, browsed it, and then bought their own copies. However, I had to pay the penalty for all this conceptual understanding without memorizing anything. My marks really suffered, and I ended up graduating in 2nd class. Can you imagine my job prospects after graduating 2nd class from the notorious Bangalore University? :D And to make it worse, Saddam took over Kuwait just as I finished my final year exams and Indian economy faced bankruptcy. :Frustrati

But my habit to seek conceptual understanding truly paid off in my career. I didn't work in electronics after I graduated. However, conceptual understanding is still there. I am able to interview electronics graduates even now, and I am dismayed to notice that fresh graduates know less than what I remember after 26 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nissan1180 (Post 3973094)
The tragedy was that even in such an environment, many of my batchmates felt the curriculum was irrelevant because they wanted to get into consulting companies, where technical skills are rarely appreciated. Or into finance, where engineering aptitude does not really matter (except the basic mathematics proficiency, which is ensured by the super tough entrance tests). My project guide actually felt sad that so many of the engineering graduates had no interest in the field- this is true for most fields except computer science. Very few people who graduate with a degree in Electronics and electrical communications engineering actually care about how the chips are fabricated or designed. They just want that 'Brand value' out of the college to get into a good company with a managerial profile. Most of them are now doing an MBA at an IIM or in some highly ranked US B.School.

It is truly gut-curdling to hear this. Those of us who wanted to be nothing but engineers got bad engineering education. And the majority of IITians who get the right kind of engineering education, couldn't care less about engineering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 3973610)
......
It is truly gut-curdling to hear this.............

..........And the majority of IITians who get the right kind of engineering education, couldn't care less about engineering.

Seen it all first-hand. Of all my IIT-bound class-mates from school, only ONE stuck to his discipline (Statistics and Computing, I believe) because he was really passionate about it. Every single one of the others got an IIM MBA straight after and are investment banking flunkies (or some such) as I type this.

Call it sour grapes, but I see it as them wasting valuable engineering education that could've actually helped someone else who truly cared about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nissan1180 (Post 3973094)
They just want that 'Brand value' out of the college to get into a good company with a managerial profile. Most of them are now doing an MBA at an IIM or in some highly ranked US B.School.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 3973610)
It is truly gut-curdling to hear this. Those of us who wanted to be nothing but engineers got bad engineering education. And the majority of IITians who get the right kind of engineering education, couldn't care less about engineering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao (Post 3974391)
Seen it all first-hand. Of all my IIT-bound class-mates from school, only ONE stuck to his discipline (Statistics and Computing, I believe) because he was really passionate about it. Every single one of the others got an IIM MBA straight after and are investment banking flunkies (or some such) as I type this.

Call it sour grapes, but I see it as them wasting valuable engineering education that could've actually helped someone else who truly cared about it.

Actually the scene is not really that pathetic.
The amount of technical work and expertise required to carry out that work - which happens in India - is something that even a 12th pass can, if he has interest in the subject. Most of the technology developement (except perhaps in software domain - I am not well versed with it) happens in "Developed countries" - where most of the IIT grads (well at least they used to many years ago) head over to, to obtain their MS and PhDs ... and do some justice to their degrees.

Most people go to IITs not to study Engineering (not many have real identified interests in life by the time they are 17, except earning money and scoring with girls) - but to compete and defeat countless others in getting a stamp of approval.
The same happens at the IIMs.

Stamp of approval of being competitive.

Recently I saw this news article, and got me some hope. May be they will remove the need for educational qualification and replace it with industry experience. It is really stupid to believe that a PhD holder is a better teacher to engineering undergrads than somebody with industry experience. Yet, this is the current policy.

Just to mention some recent experiences with BE graduates...

1) The candidate had maintained above 90% in 10th an 12th, and near 80% in BE. This is what the engineering colleges would call a brilliant student. However, by sheer accident I ended up asking a strange question. Seeing that the candidate hailed from an unfamiliar part of the town, I asked the general direction to that place from our office. The brilliant candidate totally blanked out. We had to cajole for the next 10 minutes with lot of hints (is there a landmark nearby, is there a major highway nearby, is there a bus-stop nearby) to get an idea about where the candidate lived. This performance was no accident, candidate's project work was a bigger disaster.

The above experience shook me up so much, I asked the same question to next candidate whose home was 4 times further away. He gave a surprised look and then belted out the directions in 15 seconds. What a relief!

2) We demand candidates submit their resume in PDF format to avoid dealing with different word formats. However, some of the aspiring software engineers don't even know how to create a PDF file. They just rename the extension from doc to pdf and upload it!!!

3) We once asked a candidate about the impact of technology on education. This is how it went:

Candidate: There are pros and cons.
Panel: Ok, please describe one pro and one con.
C: Pro is...Now we can communicate with lecturers via Facebook.
P: Huh!
C: Con is...Students install FB and whatsapp on their smartphones and spend too much time on it. So they don't focus on studies, get less marks and then commit suicide.
P: <too dazed to react>

Keep in mind these are not exceptions anymore, they form a significant portion of the candidates we get. And they are from colleges where most teachers have PhDs. And many of these colleges, who can't turn out a decent undergrad, have Phd programs too.

Where do the best programmers come from? Not from India. That was no surprise. But I was quite disappointed to find out we are not even in the top 10.

http://www.cio.com/article/3134504/a...ogrammers.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 3973002)
Unless and until AICTE rules for faculty is drastically changed to allow experienced professionals to teach using their own pedagogy, and without getting hobbled by formal qualifications, nothing is going to change.

I doubt that AICTE will allow too much leeway in this matter.
Their bigger concern is probably enforcing a minimum standard and ensuring some degree of consistency, and ensuring that all the commercial institutes out there with idiot lecturers expose their students to at least something useful. Imagine if all those lecturers who join engineering colleges because they couldn't get an IT job were allowed to control the whole process :Frustrati. India does need talent, and this is a good enough model that can scale.

Let good colleges be deemed universities, and let the others stick to the factory model

Does anyone here use sites like Hackerrank.com or Codeground.in to give online tests to screen candidates? I have used 30 minute hackerrank tests in a free trial - but I find their paid plans just a little bit expensive. 300$ a month for 15 tests. Are there any other sites which provide functionality similar to hackerrank but are cheaper?

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn (Post 4243214)
There are plenty of folks high up who somehow ended up their by sheer luck, and then decide that their ignorance is superior to your knowledge.

While that is a fact, what is the relevance of that to this thread? This thread is about employability of tech graduates, and not about seniors. Bringing that up is like dragging a red herring in the discussion.

If you want to discuss ignorant seniors, they are are being discussed in the recession thread. :)

I am a recent BCA graduate.
I was recently rejected by a startup for an internship, because i couldn't come up with a good algorithm for checking for palindrome in a one way(single) linked list. This interview was over the phone. My first solution was haphazard, because the only thing i could think of, while holding the phone in one hand: was copying the entire list into an array and then checking. This is just one instance, there were many like there.
These mushrooming startups want cheap labour, either unpaid or the stipend barely covers transport cost: but the candidate should know everything at his fingertips. I could've come up with a better solution, thought of time and space complexity, but not on the phone, and definitely not in 2 minutes time.

Not wanting to offend anyone, and my views may be extremely naive, but this is what I have been through recently.

Another case I can think of is, a large company rejected me because I am a BCA graduate, but took in the a B.E guy I was competing against, just because he was a B.E IT.

On the one hand, companies complain about poor quality of candidates, and on the other hand, have a poor filtering process. I don't claim to be the best, but im definitely good enough if not better, for an entry level IT job

Quote:

Originally Posted by kkkkkaran (Post 4278284)
I could've come up with a better solution, thought of time and space complexity, but not on the phone, and definitely not in 2 minutes time.

If I were recruiting a fresher (I don't), I would most certainly expect him to come up with a solution which did not involve copying - and a couple of minutes should be enough to come up with this.

You need to be prepared for a Data Structures & Algorithms interview. You should brush up on this & also go to hackerrank and other sites & get fluent in coding.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4278290)
If I were recruiting a fresher (I don't), I would most certainly expect him to come up with a solution which did not involve copying - and a couple of minutes should be enough to come up with this.

You need to be prepared for a Data Structures & Algorithms interview. You should brush up on this & also go to hackerrank and other sites & get fluent in coding.


Maybe in an interview room, which has been scheduled properly, i couldve come up with a better solution. But, it was an unscheduled random conversation over the phone, with network issues. I did ask for 10 minutes off the phone, but he obviously thought I will google for the solution, and refused. What he was probably expecting was using pointers and recursion.
I also did mention pushing everything to a stack, which again is practically the same as copying to an array.

I am a BCA graduate, data structures and algorithms was a subject which was taught for a grand total of 50 hours during my entire course. Time and Space complexity wasn't even part of my syllabus( and this is from the 3rd best BCA institute in India, which again proves that ratings are a farce)
I was applying for an internship for android programming.

I have been hired now though, so its not a concern anymore.

agree with you that startups have high expectations, but then again, there are people falling over to join them. There are institutes which take payment from freshers to make them work on live projects, and call it live training. But at the same time, when you prepare for a job, look at what a job like that would demand, and don't be constrained by what your course taught you. If you would have gone through this thread, you'd have realized that expecting educational institutes to impart education is kinda unrealistic, and its upto you to figure out what you need to learn, and then do that.

At the same time, I'm not asking you to learn everything under the sun, but to make sure that your career options, career preferences, education, knowledge, skills etc are all in alignment, and to close any gaps in them.


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