Comment by ishansharma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ishansharma | Hacker News Reader

I'm an engineering student (IT) and I think there are two problems that cause this:

First, as the article says, people lack motivation.

In India, the decision of choosing IT/CS does not come from children, it is often influenced by family or friends. Tell anyone that this field pays well and they will be happy to join it without second thoughts. This happens with majority of people.

Second is education system. Article clearly states:

  I don't blame the quality of education here. That's a common
  excuse. If a person is motivated, he'll surpass that
  constraint.

Well, motivation is one thing but when you have non-programmers teaching programming courses, it becomes hard to surpass that constraint. Last semester, we were asked to make a project in a class. I was really motivated as I had a side project idea (a personal attendance tracker) and wanted to do it. When I presented it to teacher, the response was this:

"Why are you building a 2 page project? Others are making big projects, expand it and make something big!"

I tried to explain that it would take time to nail down UI and design and it was good enough for a single person project. But teacher just didn't understand. And in the end, I ended up making a "Learning Management System" using WordPress.

And in final viva, the questions asked were these:

"What is SSL?" "What does "collapse" button do?" (This is a standard WordPress button, just hides the menu)

Since number of students was large, no time was given to explain/present it! This system of having such people as teachers kills any motivation one has. I can't say about others but for me, spending 6 hours in an environment like this and then staying motivated about programming is very very hard!

Add to this that you need to be an expert in Physics, Chemistry and Maths to get to the top institutes (IIT, NIT) even if you want CSE/IT course. This filters majority of people with interest in programming. I have been programming since 9th standard but I wasn't good in Chemistry and Physics, so I couldn't go to a good institute.

Quality of education is a big factor. The education system is blurting out engineers who are experts in cramming and lack any interest in programming.

Edit: Spelling and grammar.

No offence but if you have to use PHP or Wordpress for a university level engineering course then that is a major indictment of the school. You could get a better education from MIT OCW and Coursera. Also I don't see a problem with requiring an interest/aptitude in math to get into a CS program since CS is applied mathematical logic, although physics and chemistry are less relevant unless you want to work with applied scientists.

Can you explain a bit about how using PHP is an indictment of the school?

Imagine an environment where PHP is considered cutting edge and where 90% of students (and 80% teachers) don't know even C properly. That is the environment we have! PHP is something that is completely unknown to teachers and considered cutting edge.

And I don't have any issues with Math. Mathematical logic is indeed required. BUT Physics and Chemistry are totally irrelevant as requirements! Unfortunately, they have 66% weight!

Using PHP for anything is not an indictment in my opinion, but making it the focus of an _engineering class_ is, imo. My point of view is that formal education should be for things you would have a difficult time learning on your own, and I don't see writing a Wordpress app as something you can't learn on your own. The only reason to take such a class is to boost your average, which is fine, but you're not expanding your way of thinking at all.

Anyway I completely agree that physics and chemistry should not be heavy requirements like that.

Physics is often needed for many CS programs. I was a bit worried when I applied to UW CSE with a 2.9, 3.2, and 3.7 in my physics reqs.

Allow me to explain the Physics/Chem part of his comment.

The education system in India offers a fork-in-the-road twice:

1. Grade 10 - at which point you get to choose the general direction you want to head in (primarily Arts, Science, or Commerce streams)

2. Grade 12 - at which point you get to choose a slightly more specific stream, pursuant to the stream you chose in grade 10.

Science students continue to study Physics, Chemistry and Maths until the end of grade 12 at which point they are presented with the above fork-in-the-road. To get into a college that offers an engineering degree (or any applied-sciences degree, for that matter,) you need to have a good score in PCM, i.e. Physics, Chemistry & Maths. It is in this context that your Physics & Chemistry scores are relevant.

Also, one of the basic requirements for getting into a engineering course is that you should have graduated from a Science stream. Someone who has completed grades 11 and 12 in the commerce stream can't get an applied sciences course.

>although physics and chemistry are less relevant unless you want to work with applied scientists.

I agree with you. In India, the top schools for undergraduate education are Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) and National Institute of Technology(NIT). There are 16 IITs and 30 NITs across India, each with their own campuses, faculty, etc. Both conduct two nation wide exams namely IIT-JEE and AIEEE with different formats where IIT-JEE is hard to crack than AIEEE. In both the exams, there are only three subjects - Maths, Physics and Chemistry. So, if one has to make into one of these fine institutes, one has to be good at all of these. I have seen many who couldn't get into these instis even though they were very good at two subjects but sucked at the third one.

Source: I got into one of the NITs.

Add to this that you need to be an expert in Physics, Chemistry and Maths to get to the top institutes (IIT, NIT) even if you want CSE/IT course. This filters majority of people with interest in programming. I have been programming since 9th standard but I wasn't good in Chemistry and Physics, so I couldn't go to a good institute."

This is universal, for the best technical universities anywhere in the world you need to be really good at natural sciences. They are not trying to churn out programmers but scientists, including computer scientists. This is by design. While teaching programming might make you understand some programming platforms, a scientific education teaches you to effectively learn about nontrivial and unknown concepts.

What the heck are you talking about? Most of the best universities in the world are in the states so let's start there. Most CS programs don't require any chemistry at all, and you would be crazy to take chemistry and compete with all the really grade-savvy pre-meds anyways. Now, that leaves math and physics, which are reasonable gates for CS and many other kinds of engineering.

CS is not a natural science, and even physics has a very tenuous relationship with it. It is more like a math or an engineering discipline, with a bit of design thrown in.

Disclaimer: I studied CS for around 10 years, getting a PhD out of it and doing "real" science.

My point was that you cannot expect to get into top CS programs by being a good programmer, but yeah, I didn't really specify that chemistry is not important.

CS is definitely not a natural science, which why I didn't even remotely suggest it.

My friend absence or presence of a degree from IIT or NIT makes no difference. I have enough experience in this industry to tell you the IIT guy has only one advantage, the IIT brand. The brand is extremely powerful, and the alumni network is large enough to secure you a life time of jobs no matter how bad you are in your work.

I've seen practically a little to no difference between IIT folks and folks from other colleges. They just happen to know how to stuff books in their brains to clear competitive exams and interviews. Besides that, when it comes to the ability to get things done they and every one else are just the same.

You will see nothing changes in the industry when you pass out. Chances are there you will see IIT folks get big ticket salaries, though they don't do 1/100th the work you do. Or easily shift jobs, because their seniors are well placed there.

True meritocracy is a far fetched dream in India.

I agree with you on most of the facts, but education system's incapabilities can't be ignored as professors here are not interested in either Research based or Open Source Project Contributions. Donno how much more talent will be wasted.

I have been through that in my collage days but recently we developed a quite complex module of large Enterprise application for US client and our head of enterprise department(who has been a programmer in the past) evaluated our work on the basis of the number of pages in the application.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com