[Samurai]

According to my friend in KGP, aging lecturers doing PhD are the worst. They have no interest or talent for research, but are forced into it thanks to UGC requirement for further promotion.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by Samurai

According to my friend in KGP, aging lecturers doing PhD are the worst. They have no interest or talent for research, but are forced into it thanks to UGC requirement for further promotion.

Yes, but the QIP fellows are very few, so are a minuscule component.

[ampere]

In fact now IITs (also IISc) has started admitting students from BTech directly to Phd. Average completion time has come down drastically and also the quality of work improved. (My only yardstick for this is that now we see more publications from Indian institutes accepted at premiere conferences).

[androdev]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

In IITs the joke is that UG's are better than MTech students, who are better than PhD students. There are a few notable exceptions of course.

If I can recollect the actual joke, it goes something like this: BTech = product, MTech = by-product, PhD = waste product. There is a lot of undeserved elitist atmosphere in these places but it was funny nevertheless.

Coming back to the quality of technical graduates these days, it is disappointing. The bar to get into engineering (even IIT) is low, the bar to get a job is low, the bar for pretty much everything is low. As a result, there is no pressure to perform. The IIT brand has been milked dry. If you are a hiring manager, you really have to be selective even if you are interviewing IITians.

[Samurai]

Yesterday I was doing the appraisal of a 2012 batch trainee who has completed a year. At the end I casually asked how her classmates are doing in their careers in comparison to hers. The answer was quite depressing.

She: Many are doing online training with Infosys.
Me: What is that?
She: They can get training over Internet while waiting for the call letter.
Me: What call letter? you are talking about your classmates from 2012.
She: Yeah, many are still waiting for the call letter for over a year. So Infosys provides them online training.
Me: Do they get salary during this online training?
She: No. At least this keeps them occupied while waiting.

I really don't know what to say about the graduates who are waiting for a job offer for over a year, or about the company that keeps the carrot dangling for so long.

But I move on...

Me: What about others who have joined some companies?
She: Many who joined IBM are doing tech support.
Me: As in call center?
She: No, they are not taking calls. But more like back-end support.
Me: Anybody in your class who are into development?
She: May be 1-2 in some smaller companies.

In others words, in most cases, the colleges are delivering exactly the kind of people industry needs. Glorified Clerks.

[acurafan]

Originally Posted by androdev

If I can recollect the actual joke, it goes something like this: BTech = product, MTech = by-product, PhD = waste product. There is a lot of undeserved elitist atmosphere in these places but it was funny nevertheless.

I think the original joke is BS = Bull $*it, MS = More $*it, PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper.

[Grr7]

Originally Posted by Samurai

According to my friend in KGP, aging lecturers doing PhD are the worst. They have no interest or talent for research, but are forced into it thanks to UGC requirement for further promotion.

Very true, there are many such cases in DTU (Delhi Technological University) as well. Ageing scientists of NPL (National Physical laboratory), chemical/civil engineers with PWD/government and very many lecturers. All interested in part time Ph.D program so that they can earn an almost free Ph.D some 4-5 years down the line alongwith promotions/increments and all. And if you look at their hypothesis, it is nothing more than "re-inventing the wheel".

A very sad state of research.

[rohanjf]

Reminds me of an incident when I was doing BE. We had Compiler and Assembler Design in 5th semester, and during one such lecture, the professor could no longer tolerate some pranksters not concentrating and doing time pass in the class. She blurted out, "why should I scream every day and teach you all this? Tomorrow you will join software industry and earn more than what I am earning right now".

We didn't bother too much about it back then. Looking back now, I see so much frustration in professors, which comes out in the quality of their lectures.

It was not just the professors' lecture quality which was that way. We had either such professors, or very junior lecturers (just 3-4 years older than us) who took up the job after failing to secure an IT job (possibly because of low marks). They were even more frustrated than senior professors!

Anyway, Computer Science engineering ended up being a self-study for us.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by ampere

In fact now IITs (also IISc) has started admitting students from BTech directly to Phd. Average completion time has come down drastically and also the quality of work improved. (My only yardstick for this is that now we see more publications from Indian institutes accepted at premiere conferences).

There is a shortage of good research students esp in Engineering worldwide. If you look around the Masters programs are getting extinct in the west and are often no more than a fee charged for the certificate after your comprehensive or whatever.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

There is a shortage of good research students esp in Engineering worldwide. If you look around the Masters programs are getting extinct in the west and are often no more than a fee charged for the certificate after your comprehensive or whatever.

Its not just that alone I think. Many good undergrads go to US, because they think they dont want to put 2 more years on MS, esp if they know, want to do a Phd. (Apart from the other usual reason of finding a better institute for higher studies may it be MS or a Phd). Also there are many brilliant students who may want to pursue Phd, but want to do it in India (at the best places) more due to personal reasons.

So it may be good idea to get them on a Phd program faster. Of course the guide should be good too. Because its his dynamism that would attract the undergrad for a Phd more than the stamp of the institute. A pedigree seeker would not come into a Phd program. He/She would rather do an ME/Mtech and leave with a good job offer. I am not referring to the lectures who want a Phd for promotion. I am referring to the fresh Btech who come for a ME/Mtech program. On the other hand, there are many who join for ME/Mtech but convert to Phd in the first semester also.

[bullrun87]

When I completed my Btech in 2009, I remember there was almost 100 percent campus placement for Btech students and less than 50 percent placement for Mtech students. So Btech students had no inclination whatsoever towards pursueing Mtech in India though I have to say that about 10-15 percent of my batch decided to pursue MS abroad(mostly US/canada). Quality of education imparted at Mtech level is bad even in IIt's.

[sgiitk]

Not too many M.Tech students convert to PhD. Hardly 10%. Practically, all intake into the MTech programme is from toer 3 colleges (with a few from Tier 2) who could not find a job, so want an IIT Stamp, that is all. Hardly, PhD material. Also, the craze for Foreign universities is dying.

[APJace]

Story from a bottom tier college (Affiliated to JNTU-Hyd)

While an Electronics & Comm. student, I enjoyed the Microprocessor programming practical course in 3rd year so much that I could create my own programs (yes, not a "Wow" thing, but IMO better than most of my classmates who could only type out readymade programs, and I could even specify which subtle program tweaks were required to make it work on variants of the processor).

Come the exams, I failed and had to repeat the exams thrice, only passing when I went to the previous exam answer guides and reproduced the programs verbatim (some of which I knew to be clearly wrong)

Ergo,
1. Examiners are so pathetic, they can't comprehend anything other than the rote answers.
2. Students have a disincentive against creative thought, if they want to graduate/not fail.

It's a vicious cycle from which I see no exit. The only silver lining I see is that at least some Engineering colleges in Hyd shut down recently due to insufficient intake. Classic example of

Great demand->over capacity built up->price crash -> shake down/players leave

Industry cycle.

Yup, I mourned the loss of 4 wasted years, and went the MBA route.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by APJace

Yup, I mourned the loss of 4 wasted years, and went the MBA route.

And we lost somebody who could actually create something to the system. Sad but true.

[Arch-Angel]

APJace, you aren't alone there. The very same thing happened to me while i used to code programs in c++,c and try out alternative approaches. Once i had scored a zero (yes the one that reads '0') in the programming section because i had written the code on an alternative approach i found out. The justification given by the examiner was that the code should be exactly the same as per the manual or you won't get the output.