Indian Education System

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suvod
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by suvod »

derkonig,

I'm not saying - IIM all bad, ISB/Ivy League all good. I have no doubts about the quality of education that the IIMs provide. But they do not stand comparison with the Ivy leagues because of the reasons I panned out in an earlier post - a flawed admissions process which leads to largely homogenous classes and a placement-focused approach.

As Raja Bose pointed out, you are mixing leaders with managers. Leadership is not about the number of reports you manage. And that 1 Cr salary says nothing about the quality of your work, that is measured by the impact you've made by doing what you do.

Peer learning is very important. Leadership is more about managing change, managing conflicts, etc. and a talented and suitably diverse peer group brings in a lot of unique perspectives. This adds significant value to the mgmt education. And the diversity that I'm talking about is not of the affirmative action/reservation type, but a recognition of the fact that a leader is much more than a super-duper quant. The mathematics can be delegated to that excel template, but whom will you delegate those people management tasks?

I'm sure the IIMs are a great place to be. But I strongly believe that the ISB is going to be the leading b-school (and by some distance) in India in the near future, by virtue of not only their FT 15th rank but their overall approach to the program, from admission to graduation. And yes, the admissions process at the ISB is much more holistic in nature. It looks for consistent progression in your career and a career is not just about your 99.95 quant percentile. And you don't find business leaders from the ISB right now maybe because the school started just 8 years back?

Someone pointed out that you'd find faculty from top-dawg b-schools in Indian colleges now. But is the opposite happening? Only then will we be able to compare with the Ivy Leagues. Another very interesting question to ask - why do so many IIM alumni feel the need for a 2nd MBA from the US. Is it only to gain access to the US job market or is there some other truth behind this?

I've had the same discussion with IIM alumni and current students too. Insider info is - admissions and the other facets of the MBA programs at the IIMs are quite separate. The best professors don't involve themselves in the admissions process, which is thereby controlled by the sarkari babu types. This maybe the primary reason why the process never changes.

rgds
Suv
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

andy B,

Is that == math. finance? Math. finance has taken a big hit after misguided badnaami of quants as the culprit for current economic woes.

But it is commendable to do the tech. stuff 1st coz the reason why the economic woes came about is a lot due to people using models without knowing how they work and when they should/should not be used.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by suvod »

Disclaimer: Am NOT a guru in anything by any count

Andy,

If the only objective of your masters is gaining knowledge b4 an eventual MBA, then IMO a CFA L3 will serve you very well. You can work, gaining valuable work-ex while pursuing your interest in finance.

rgds
Suv
andy B wrote:Gurujano:

I am currently about to start a mast. in appd finance, decided on it after arguing for a while between that and yeem bee aaa I figured better set up my technical knowledge of finance before going on to do mba. Do we have any BRF people done this sort of a course? Any advise is greatly appreciated.

Dhanyavad.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by andy B »

suvod wrote:Disclaimer: Am NOT a guru in anything by any count

Andy,

If the only objective of your masters is gaining knowledge b4 an eventual MBA, then IMO a CFA L3 will serve you very well. You can work, gaining valuable work-ex while pursuing your interest in finance.

rgds
Suv
andy B wrote:Gurujano:

I am currently about to start a mast. in appd finance, decided on it after arguing for a while between that and yeem bee aaa I figured better set up my technical knowledge of finance before going on to do mba. Do we have any BRF people done this sort of a course? Any advise is greatly appreciated.

Dhanyavad.
Suvod mate thanks,

I did do CFA level 1 and almost died by the end of it... :(( :(( (probably bcoz didnt give up wkend obsessive drinking and compulsive partying :twisted: )

Anyhow the imp bit that I discovered is that I dont want to go the full monty with the CFA as I dont really see myself working as a trader or a fund manager of sorts.

Thus I chose the applied finance which covers most of cfa but gives me more options for project finance and project management....Also going to Uni and classes is a much easier way for me to do it...even though the study amounts are somewhat similar. Plus I dont really think I have the commitement to go through the Level 2 and Level 3 :((

Thanks for the advice,
Cheers.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by suvod »

vsudhir,

ISB placements used to be 1 week 100% type, but from this year, it is being stretched. 2 weekends in January + 1 whole week in Feb. The current batch size is 440, but it has been increased to 560 from my batch.

The student body is a mix - current batch has 19 bideshis (4%), around 20% internationals with Indian passports. Around 70% of the class has international experience. ISB is trying very hard to increase the diversity of the class, but still, the class will have major junta from the ITvity pool.

Visit the http://www.isb.edu for more info. Its very informative. Look in the 'prospective students' section.

rgds
Suv

vsudhir wrote:suvod,

How are placements like at the isb? 100% placement in 1 week types or longer drawn out? whats the batch size?

Whats the student body like? 100% desi or mix of phoreners, PIOs etc also?

Inquiring minds wanna know...
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by derkonig »

Raja,
1. The scores of 10/12th in no way confound or complicate the selection process, if anything, it only improves it. These scores enable you to check out the track record of a student.

2. You can argue about the relevance of 10/12th std. scores to the making of an MBA; but the idea behind considering these scores it not to check out how did the candidate fare in a subject but to look for the relative performance of the candidate in competitive exams & thereby try to establish a track record.

3. As for only taking recent scores into account i.e. the UG scores, one can also use the 'relevancy of scores to MBA' argument to dismiss these UG scores as well. So per your approach, no acad score will ever be relevant enough for the selection process. Brings me back to the point that per you, acads are totally irrelevant.

4. IIMs certainly cannot claim to have a perfect selection process, but IMHO its much better than the process the other top b schools follow. Given the uncertainities invloving measuring a person's capabilities, aptitude, talent, leadership skills, etc. its anyday better to go in for concrete scores on as many of these criteria than rely on some subjective judgements. And given that there are no dearth of b-schools in this country, if the IIMs were to be following a relatively inferior selection process, why do they still get the highest no. of applications year after year. Wouldn't the 'smart, mature & well experienced' candidates have started tilting towards other institutes esp. those who are prepared to have a lesser emphasis on acad scores & more on their work ex & other stuff.

5. The SOP is used mainly to mention your purpose in career & how does the MBA fit into those plans. Your track record is at best an insignificant part of your SOP & is solely used to support the plans that you have put forward in the SOP. Your track record is not your SOP. Besides, one may have a great past record & profile & yet not be great at words & thereby lose out on interview calls, while on the other hand, someone with slick writing can get to the interview stage. What happens there on is well irrelevant, as the person with the better track record in general but with a relatively poorly written (or rather a SOP that is perceived as poor due to the inherent subjectivity in SOP evaluations) loses out.

6. Perceptions do matter. Ask the average MBA aspirant adbul/ayesha on the street & they will rate placements as the most important thing while selecting a b-school. As a corollary, they will place the IIMs way above any other India b-school (ISB included). That does not, however mean that very same placement centric thought persists even when one enters into the IIMs.

7. Management & leadership cannot be taught, as you have rightly pointed out. But, neither is work ex any assurance that a person is mature & well equipped for the jobs that they shall take up after the MBA. Work ex. fanaticism is at best playing around with probabilities with the fond hope that people will be able to draw upon their experiences from previous jobs into their next jobs. Pl. consider the fact that most MBAs shift their careers from into a different sector after their MBA. Hence, if you are not knowledgeable enough about the new sector that you have chosen to be in, it doesn't matter how great a leader you are, you will fail. OTOH, knowledge & understanding of the new sector will vastly imporve your chances of doing well. So the first requirement towards doing well is knowledge & understanding. And when it comes to knowledge & learning, few institutes worldwide can beat the IIMs. Period.

8. I am not aware of scores differing between regions in CBSE, but if that is true, then why stop at regions. I am sure scores shall vary vastly amongst schools as well, even if they are in the same region & board. Is there any end to the variances, no. It shall go all the way down to the varinaces in scores between candidates. Which is why taking more acad scores into account just might be better. By doing so, you can cut out the noise(varying teaching standards, school facilities, etc.).
Lets take the example of two batsmen, Craig Wishart & Rahul Dravid. Wishart's highest ODI score is 172 , dravid's highest is 153. Now, if the magnitude of the highest score was the sole criteria to select candidates (like using the GMAT, rest of acads be damned), Wishart will always come out on top. But, most people know better & they will rather point out the track records(the acad track record equivalents) of both batsmen than just fall for the individual highests. And when you look at the whole careers of both of these batsmen, you will undoubtedly see that Dravid outranks Wishart by miles. Why is why looking at the whole acad record is a much more sane & preferable method to select candidates. As for going for scores earlier than 10th, well given the rise in applications for CAT, I will not be surprised if the candidates are required to provide the earlier scores as well.

No offences to Craig Wishart or Dravid. I am not a fan of either, their example is purely for illustration.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by derkonig »

suvod wrote:derkonig,

I'm not saying - IIM all bad, ISB/Ivy League all good. I have no doubts about the quality of education that the IIMs provide. But they do not stand comparison with the Ivy leagues because of the reasons I panned out in an earlier post - a flawed admissions process which leads to largely homogenous classes and a placement-focused approach.

As Raja Bose pointed out, you are mixing leaders with managers. Leadership is not about the number of reports you manage. And that 1 Cr salary says nothing about the quality of your work, that is measured by the impact you've made by doing what you do.

Peer learning is very important. Leadership is more about managing change, managing conflicts, etc. and a talented and suitably diverse peer group brings in a lot of unique perspectives. This adds significant value to the mgmt education. And the diversity that I'm talking about is not of the affirmative action/reservation type, but a recognition of the fact that a leader is much more than a super-duper quant. The mathematics can be delegated to that excel template, but whom will you delegate those people management tasks?

I'm sure the IIMs are a great place to be. But I strongly believe that the ISB is going to be the leading b-school (and by some distance) in India in the near future, by virtue of not only their FT 15th rank but their overall approach to the program, from admission to graduation. And yes, the admissions process at the ISB is much more holistic in nature. It looks for consistent progression in your career and a career is not just about your 99.95 quant percentile. And you don't find business leaders from the ISB right now maybe because the school started just 8 years back?

Someone pointed out that you'd find faculty from top-dawg b-schools in Indian colleges now. But is the opposite happening? Only then will we be able to compare with the Ivy Leagues. Another very interesting question to ask - why do so many IIM alumni feel the need for a 2nd MBA from the US. Is it only to gain access to the US job market or is there some other truth behind this?

I've had the same discussion with IIM alumni and current students too. Insider info is - admissions and the other facets of the MBA programs at the IIMs are quite separate. The best professors don't involve themselves in the admissions process, which is thereby controlled by the sarkari babu types. This maybe the primary reason why the process never changes.

rgds
Suv
This obsession with 1cr salaries seems to have reached astronomical proportions outside the IIMs now. The 'obession' is a lot lesser inside the campus walls than outside.

As for our selections, you could not be more wrong. We have ourselves gone through the process & we have seen our juniors also undergo the same for entrance. There is no truth in the best profs. staying away from the selection process. I do not know where did you come up with this.

Peer learning is not something that can only happen if the peer group is filled with work ex ppl. I have a fair amount of work ex. yet I always find/found things I can/could learn from freshers/ppl. with lesser work ex than me. This argument of work ex == better peer learning is at best absurd. Not every IIM grad is a quant god, lots of people choose to go into man-management & they ace those jobs as well, prolly more than the grads from elsewhere.

ISB, I am sorry to say, is at best a finishing school for people who just want a certificate which says that the holder is an MBA. IIMs make you MBAs. There is a huge difference between these two systems. Further, MBA@IIMs are very taxing to most candidates. The pressure you handle here at the IIMs pretty much prepares you for any challenge that you shall face in the future. I doubt if any other school can even get close to replicating the pressure & taxing atmosphere that the IIMs do. And believe me, that in the face of extreme pressure, those not used to it, will see their bravado & maturity & leadership & TFTAness melt away faster than a paki jernail in swat.

Also, our classes are not homogeneous blocks. I have repeated this umpteen times, but before laying out such sweeping comments about the IIMs pl. do your research.

The 2nd MBA market is very small amongst the IIM junta & it has barely, if anything, to do with the necessity to learn more.
Someone pointed out that you'd find faculty from top-dawg b-schools in Indian colleges now. But is the opposite happening?
What I meant was that we do have Indian profs (many of them themselves being IIM alums). who taught at the Ivy league & top dawgs worldwide in the past & now have shifted their base to the IIMs.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by andy B »

Raja Bose wrote:andy B,

Is that == math. finance? Math. finance has taken a big hit after misguided badnaami of quants as the culprit for current economic woes.

But it is commendable to do the tech. stuff 1st coz the reason why the economic woes came about is a lot due to people using models without knowing how they work and when they should/should not be used.
Bose saar,

There is a big part of math finance in this course as it is based on the CFA itself (mind you though its nothing compared to something in pure maths degree). Your reasoning is exactly the very essence behind me making the decission to pursue the appd finance degree. I figured if I do this now I will have good working knowledge of the models and what not and then by the time I get adequate experience I can look to do a yeem bee aaa from a good school...btw I am intending to puruse the course at macquarie uni in the land of oz...

I also think that quants are not the actual culprits here unless they do something wrong in calculating or intepreting the model itself. The decission making is not quite upto them the decission is still made by the fund managers and what not AFAIK...JMT
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by gashish »

pandyan wrote:gashish - I assume you got admission to insead paris (pareee only). If so, my 2 cents of unsolicited advice. I would pick this over booth precisely because of international/eyeropean exposure. Would be more valuable if you are planning to move to asia.
Thanks pandyan. those r eggjactly my thoughts too!
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by bhavin »

Interesting coincidence - Just submitted my Booth app today... Also waiting for Wharton final decision.. The wait is agonizing..
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by vera_k »

Re- Insead

As it is an European program, you will likely end up working in Europe. If you are looking to work in the US, it will be easier with a program in a US school.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Arya Sumantra »

vera_k wrote:Re- Insead

As it is an European program, you will likely end up working in Europe. If you are looking to work in the US, it will be easier with a program in a US school.
Totally agree. Study where you want to work eventually. exception - middle yeast

"All that univ is internationally well recognized so I will get job in massa" is BS.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by negi »

^ Hain even if you are from INSEAD paree ?
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Arya Sumantra »

negi wrote:^ Hain even if you are from INSEAD paree ?
To work in massa, it is much more easier(immigration and permits point of view) even if you study from a relatively lower ranked massa univ than graduating a higher ranked your-opinion univ.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Singha »

in both cases he will need a H1 sponsor (assuming he is not already GC). so why would that be different?
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Arya Sumantra »

when you study in a country it allows you to apply for temporary work permit which is valid for a year(in kanada).
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

derkonig wrote: You can argue about the relevance of 10/12th std. scores to the making of an MBA; but the idea behind considering these scores it not to check out how did the candidate fare in a subject but to look for the relative performance of the candidate in competitive exams & thereby try to establish a track record.
All competitive or school exams are not created equal. Hard to judge by such grades - goes back to the problem of false positives and false negatives.
As for only taking recent scores into account i.e. the UG scores, one can also use the 'relevancy of scores to MBA' argument to dismiss these UG scores as well. So per your approach, no acad score will ever be relevant enough for the selection process. Brings me back to the point that per you, acads are totally irrelevant.
I sincerely hope they dont look at UG scores for people with 4 or more years of work-ex. UG-scores are used since they are the most recent available. Same thing extends to when you do your Masters or PhD etc...nobody looks at your UG scores then. Again same thing extends to hiring when you have work-ex....nobody cares how much you scored in your PhD/Masters then. At best it can be used as a threshold (like IIT does) but not as a comparison measure.
And given that there are no dearth of b-schools in this country, if the IIMs were to be following a relatively inferior selection process, why do they still get the highest no. of applications year after year. Wouldn't the 'smart, mature & well experienced' candidates have started tilting towards other institutes esp. those who are prepared to have a lesser emphasis on acad scores & more on their work ex & other stuff.
The problem is not unique to the IIMs. If you read my first post on this, the problem is the fundamental attitude in India where grades are God and acads are what makes the man/woman. So the other b-schools you are talking about in India also suffer from the same thing. It manifests itself in many different ways in different selection processes..in both industry and higher education/research. If you are comparing IIMs with b-schools outside India, I hardly think we are at a stage where we can yet claim equivalence with all those dens of thieves such as Stanford, Harvard, U.Chicago etc. I am not even comparing IIMs to other Indian b-schools. There is no point in that. IIMs have to compete amongst top b-schools of other countries as they are the premier management institutes of India.
The SOP is used mainly to mention your purpose in career & how does the MBA fit into those plans. Your track record is at best an insignificant part of your SOP & is solely used to support the plans that you have put forward in the SOP. Your track record is not your SOP. Besides, one may have a great past record & profile & yet not be great at words & thereby lose out on interview calls...
Your entire track record is not part of your SOP, relevant experience always is.
If you are planning to do an MBA, I would imagine you are expected to have better than most communication and writing skills. :)
Perceptions do matter. Ask the average MBA aspirant adbul/ayesha on the street & they will rate placements as the most important thing while selecting a b-school. As a corollary, they will place the IIMs way above any other India b-school (ISB included). That does not, however mean that very same placement centric thought persists even when one enters into the IIMs.
Every average abdul/Ayesha till last year were also willing to donate their body parts to work at Google even if they had no interest in search/algos/optimization/db/gis. Hardly means that somehow made Google the #1 top dog in all computing technologies! Placement centric thought is another fundamental attitude in India - it just doesn't disappear when one joins some institute.
Management & leadership cannot be taught, as you have rightly pointed out. But, neither is work ex any assurance that a person is mature & well equipped for the jobs that they shall take up after the MBA. Work ex. fanaticism is at best playing around with probabilities with the fond hope that people will be able to draw upon their experiences from previous jobs into their next jobs. Pl. consider the fact that most MBAs shift their careers from into a different sector after their MBA. Hence, if you are not knowledgeable enough about the new sector that you have chosen to be in, it doesn't matter how great a leader you are, you will fail. OTOH, knowledge & understanding of the new sector will vastly imporve your chances of doing well.
You may not be familiar with the different sector but the guy with experience is able to use his past experience to figure out how his new industry works. After all this happens all the time, when CEOs are hired from diverse industries into something totally different. In such cases, they bring in a fresh perspective but also bring in their considerable experience. At the end of the day, each industry is still composed of processes, still has a code of ethics, still requires risk analysis and accountability. For a greenhorn these are things taught in classrooms....for a guy who has experience, these are things he has seen in action. Since you have work-ex perhaps it is second nature to you, please remember, for a fresh-out BTech who got directly propelled into IIM, it is not (regardless of his smarts)!
So the first requirement towards doing well is knowledge & understanding. And when it comes to knowledge & learning, few institutes worldwide can beat the IIMs. Period.
Knowledge and learning also implies research. Before the IIMs claim to beat worldwide institutes they better improve this end...otherwise they will become the MBA equivalent of IIT's BTech.
I am not aware of scores differing between regions in CBSE, but if that is true, then why stop at regions. I am sure scores shall vary vastly amongst schools as well, even if they are in the same region & board. Is there any end to the variances, no. It shall go all the way down to the varinaces in scores between candidates. Which is why taking more acad scores into account just might be better. By doing so, you can cut out the noise(varying teaching standards, school facilities, etc.).
It is fairly well-known and observed that scores differ by region by a large amount. In fact as an example, if you look at BITS Pilani (whose admission criteria is basically how high you scored in your boards) why do you think they admit a ton of South Indians who have graduated through CBSE and very very few people from other parts of India who also graduated through CBSE? The guy who topped CBSE (northern region) in my batch could barely scrape through with a 95% aggregate whereas hordes of people from South had 98% and above aggregates, with scores of 100% in English and such subjects :shock: . There was quite some uproar about it atleast in Delhi schools. This variance has been observed only between regions, it has not been observed to extend below that, so scores don't vary by school significantly (no clusters), say within same city etc. Actually adding high school scores to the mix (mind you I have no issues with college scores if the fellow has no work-ex, as that is his/her most recent indicator of performance outside CAT/GD/Interview - though I am skeptical of such intake) contributes to the noise, rather than eliminating it. It just confounds the estimation. Since India has a vast talent pool, even a significant error in selection wont be caught as seats are few, talented are many (just like the number of hot babes in Hollywood, who want to be stars!).
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Singha »

temporary work permit which is valid for a year(in kanada).

hmmm...is the OPT valid for 2 yrs now, but a deadline of 3 months to find a job or move out?

if that deadline is there, its not much better than nothing.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

OPT is still 1 year with exception as follows:

If you have a higher degree in STEM(Science, Tech. Engg. Math.) and your company is part of e-verify, then you can get a 17 month extension (for a total of 29 months). However, in those additional 17 months, if you change job you can only be employed in a firm which is part of e-verify.

Re.employment I dont know what happens if you get laid off during OPT. However, there is a rule that you need to be employed in a job relevant to your field of study within 3 months of graduation, otherwise you have to leave the slippery slopes of massa.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

Allah be praised! I crossed the 800 mark in number of posts, due to rapid arguments with derkonig-ullah bin-taleb al-manageri on this dhaaga.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by derkonig »

congratz mullah bose..AoA..
errm....will reply to above post in a few days, talib has some serious work to do now...
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by vera_k »

negi wrote:^ Hain even if you are from INSEAD paree ?
Yes. Mostly it has to do with companies and recruiters preferring to hire from certain schools. Quite a few US companies will never recruit from INSEAD and I presume the Euros have a similar caste system for US schools.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

Caste system is everywhere in massa...academia and industry. If you are associated with the 'right' people (even if you just hung around washing that person's chaddis), you can be propelled straight thru to onsite interview/presentation stage. Last week, I interviewed on behalf of another group, one such mofo from UCB whose Pee Yech Dee advisor is a big shot (also involved in "grassroots" :roll: projects in South Yindia via Intel Research). This fella (the student, not the advisor) had done some pretty benign stuff for his Pee Yech Dee and hardly anything that can be considered novel or state-of-art....yet he was able to land up for onsite interview. What finally ticked me off was the attitude of the fella who thought his shit didn't stink. Needless to say, he got tossed out but it still cost the co. money to pay for his useless visit and wasted 45 mins. of my time - a time when I usually browse B-R such as now. Yet there are plenty of students who have innovative work who get left out just because they are from slightly lesser-ranked schools (which at Pee Yech Dee stage doesn't matter as long as your advisor is sound) and don't hob-nob with the elite. The sensor networks community of Comp. Engg, in particular is notorious for this. In fact in all of their top conferences/transactions you will usually see a clique of universities whose papers keep getting published regardless of quality (Once I actually saw a paper on IPSN (the "top" conference in Wireless Sensor Networks with avg. 15% acceptance) from MIT/Brown/UCB or some such place whose ground-breaking contribution was how to save sensor reading logs in CSV format for display in MS Excel!! :roll: )

Going back to the UCB fella I mention above, I remember a scene I witnessed in 2007 involving his advisor. During the VLDB 2007 conference (a very well known conference in Databases), his advisor was giving the keynote address. At some point in the talk, he started mentioning how he was "bringing WiFi to the rural masses" by talking about some WiFi project he did for some Netralaya in Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately for him while gassing away, he gave the impression that somehow they had to teach Indians how to use WiFi since they had no expertise in that area and his students had to fly in from USA to fix even minor issues. To cut a long story short, there were some profs. from IISc and one of them just stood up and told the keynote speaker that there were many such projects in rural India such as what he was claiming. So, if he had bothered to do some prior art search he would have realized: (a) What he was doing had already been done and ongoing on a much larger scale. (b) There was no problem finding trained people in India to install and manage community WiFi networks and they were not waiting for a Berkeley professor and his students to come teach them that! (last part is verbatim) After that said keynote speaker was very :oops: :oops: (he is not a bad sort at all as a person) but it highlighted the problem where there is sometimes an arrogant attitude amongst the elite schools to assume that if they thought of it, it must be novel! This rubs off on the students also who then propagate it. This fella I was interviewing also mentioned this WiFi in rural India project and gassed away about it, little realizing I had personally witnessed his advisor getting his musharraf smacked over this, two years back. :rotfl:
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Raja Bose »

derkonig wrote:congratz mullah bose..AoA..
errm....will reply to above post in a few days, talib has some serious work to do now...
derkonig-ullah, no worries. No need to respond, work is more important (its just I have a bit of slack time this week, being a bit ahead of schedule in my work). We can agree to disagree. However wishing you all the best in your IIM studies and hope you can prove me wrong by going on to innovate great things when you graduate and exhorting your fellow classmates to do the same Insh'allah! :)
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by gashish »

Arya Sumantra wrote:
negi wrote:^ Hain even if you are from INSEAD paree ?
To work in massa, it is much more easier(immigration and permits point of view) even if you study from a relatively lower ranked massa univ than graduating a higher ranked your-opinion univ.
True, INSEAD is not very well known in US, probably except in consultancy firms. Most INSEAD grads get placed in Londonistan since it has relatively easier work permit process. Also, mba is primarily anglo-saxon concept.

I had enuf of massa and intend to move to desh via europe.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by putnanja »

Friend in, ministry in dark - Arjun panel that chose CBSE chief had no education official
Arjun Singh kept his own ministry in the dark over the selection process for the top job at India’s largest school board, allowing him to recommend a friend.
...
..
Arjun’s recommendation followed a selection process that broke with convention and proposed potential appointees without interviewing any applicant. The objective was to hurry and beat the declaration of the poll code of conduct in early March.

The standard procedure — followed even by the ministry in past appointments including those of CBSE chiefs — includes “personal interaction” with candidates. But the break with practice wasn’t limited to the selection process.
...
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by derkonig »

ISB placements:
http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... kh/350840/
Most compensation packages have fallen to Rs 13-15 lakh a year, compared to the Rs 18-20 lakh of last year. And, students have had fewer offers to choose from than last year.
Considering the fact that ISB has people with 3-5yrs work on an avg., this is a big huge drop.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by KrishnaMu »

Great work by the spanish teenagers captured space(stratosphire) images with 70 euro equipment.

http://translate.google.com/translate?c ... pair=ca|en

when I was doing +2 in govt. college, my other college mates never ever seen any test tube in their high school. I hate our education system measuring everything against theory marks dont give rats about practical knowledge at all. It all most applies 80% high schools across the country ..?? am I alone on this one ???
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Singha »

my high school (upto 10th) had no labs to accomodate the large classes and
state board did not require lab practicals in 10th. so "lab" consisted of the
teacher doing the experiment to prepare oxygen or c02 and us watching and
taking notes from the gallery.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Arya Sumantra »

KrishnaMu wrote: when I was doing +2 in govt. college, my other college mates never ever seen any test tube in their high school. I hate our education system measuring everything against theory marks dont give rats about practical knowledge at all. It all most applies 80% high schools across the country ..?? am I alone on this one ???
I had this idea sometime back. Why not create an online or offline simulator for lab experiments. For example you could do titration experiments or O2/ CO2 generation or physics experiments. Make it very realistic in simulation like introduce instrument reading variation and errors etc. Setting real facilities might be expensive but setting up virtual facilities is not. Imagine how much one could do then with a computer lab at school or even by students browsing from home. Computers are becoming important for students but let them use it for something beyond Info collection.

Besides some of experiments are not allowed for younger school students either because of safety issues of chemical handling or because equipment is expensive but when things are virtual people can handle things on their own. Even expensive equipments SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope), TEM(Transmission Electron Microscope), XRD(Xray diffraction) could be simulated for training purposes in university. Multiple display screens could be used for the Equipment simulators. In university nobody would allow untrained students to touch expensive equipment and that leads to students remaining untrained. These days even MBA schools have market simulators to train students so why not simulate these physical experiments?

Experiment simulators and Equipment simulators are easiest way forward for resource crunched country and standardization of quality of education across country.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by negi »

Arya , that's a novel suggestion however I think that we need to differentiate between simulations and experiments ; the former can be only used to improve comprehension/understanding of a physical phenomenon/equipment one cannot use computer simulations as a substitute for 'experiment'.

In fact the word 'experiment' refers to actually trying out the idea/theory in the physical world .
I am unable to imagine as to how a simulator will help a child learn the nuances involved in 'simple salt analysis', 'finding the refractive index of the prism' or say 'finding the focal length of a convex mirror'.

Having said that simulations/flash presentations will definitely assist teachers/faculty while teaching biological/physical/chemical processes or say how to go about setting up the apparatus for an 'experiment' ; but the experiment itself will have to be done in the physical world.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by KrishnaMu »

"Simulation" is always as it says in the word. Simuluation may not be the end of the answers. Little minds need more food then us grow. Rules of this forum would permit to use my kind black and white language otherwise i could explain my self better. Anyway, "Practice makes man perfect" unless yor really handle with your hands, we CAN NOT have reasearch and development higher level as the student progress.. I just cant blv it at the age of 7th std with group of students we made oxygen. My frnds catched that bloody frog to disect at 11th std. Just look at that PCB making from the link, i always wonder in Microsprocessor lab "HOW do i make a PCB?" despite i can remember 8085 instruction set in my mind my dream of making my circutary never came true because college professors/asst. lectures are use less to explain me how to make it. Even the bloddy multimeter is secreat device at that time..pfff... Stupid theory always gets me heads in. Theory is for arts or math history/political science it is NOT applicable for science students. Science student should experiment!! am i the only one here??

It has to change if you want stand out of the crowd....

even so called BITS/IIT's are more into theory rather hands on stuff for few semisters(am i getting slughter by the esteeemed iitians here)??!!
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Singha »

its a broad failing in all schools and colleges. some of it is resource limitations but some are poor teaching methods and syllabus that gives little priority to experimental things or "see what you can do on your own" as opposed to "cover xyz chapters of what others did".

I was asked to interview a candidate a fresh passout from a famous pvt tech instt in rajasthan.
absolutely pathetic level of knowledge and sheer laziness to learn anything more on his own.
and he definitely was a state level topper in 12th to have got in. gave 2/10 and F...who wants to
die having to sit and teach C to BE passouts ? :evil:

people have become very complacent with easy campus placements in the best companies. they are busy
enjoying life. they havent got the beatings we got to get anywhere when things were not rosy (80s 90s).
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by shaardula »

negi,

i would assume it would be possible to simulate reactions rather than experiments. since properties of elements are down to a science, you need only write about principles of interactions. i would guess. i bet there are chemistry packages that do this. i mean, people crunch their way through navier stokes, i bet simulating molecular interactions is not such a big deal.

i have seen some kids use simulators for circuits. i once played around with this. the intuitive logic part - design testing and probing and the debugging - remains the same. only you dont have to deal with faulty components and wiring and finger tips bruised from using spring boards.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by SriKumar »

Singha wrote:its a broad failing in all schools and colleges. some of it is resource limitations but some are poor teaching methods and syllabus that gives little priority to experimental things or "see what you can do on your own" as opposed to "cover xyz chapters of what others did".
This goes beyond poor teaching methods and syllabus. It is all about the attitude that teachers (and the society at large) have towards education. Education is (unfortunately) seen as an accumulation of a body of knowledge rather than as a means of thinking, understanding nature and solving problems.
Last edited by SriKumar on 21 Mar 2009 08:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by SriKumar »

shaardula wrote:i would assume it would be possible to simulate reactions rather than experiments. since properties of elements are down to a science, you need only write about principles of interactions. i would guess. i bet there are chemistry packages that do this. i mean, people crunch their way through navier stokes, i bet simulating molecular interactions is not such a big deal.
The core idea behind an experiment is to let nature teach you. Using a program in lieu of an experiment is akin to reading about something rather than doing it.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by shaardula »

Education is (unfortunately) seen as an accumulation of a body of knowledge rather than as a means of thinking, understanding nature and solving problems.
well said.
The core idea behind an experiment is to let nature teach you. Using a program in lieu of an experiment is akin to reading about something rather than doing it.
this is also correct. but to make this point you reduce the value of simulation. i used to be a TA for courses in controls, probability and stochastics. i have seen many a students get glow solving well designed simulation problems and some even get orgasms when they understood that the probability mass/distribution functions may be thought of as a compact way of encapsulating all the information contained in a statistical record. others got orgasms, when they wrote two lines of code to realize how processes look like and ran it over and over again and realized and realized how correlated processes look like and what correlation means.

well that way textbook problems are also simulations. in real life there are no well posed problems. there are no problems like x =2, y =3 find z = x + y. you go around normal life without ever formulating the problems you have as a geometric series. and yet solving z = x + y is rewarding.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by negi »

Shardula sir, I believe I haven't made myself clear (probably due to my poor command over the kaffir language). Probablity, digital system design, automata etc are all logical in nature they do not deal with the nuances of the 'process' itself i.e a simple salt analysis involving a brown ring test for 'nitrates' or say finding a unknown resistance using a meter bridge are pretty tricky experiments which will be mere cake walk while simulation ; in real world the longer one takes to find the balance point higher will be the probability of 'error' in the final reading as the voltaic cell potential drops over the time period, the sheer number of variables in the real world would mean simulation package would have to be robust and inturn more expensive than the apparatus itself . Experiments are required for one to apply pure science to day to day problems and that is why simulations can only compliment the actual 'experiment'.

Probability , Digital system design and automata to me are pure sciences hence problems relating to them can be simulated with robust software; physical/chemical phenomenon at the end of the day have to be confirmed and validated in the real world itself.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by shaardula »

negi sir, i see what you are saying. its a bit tricky teaching schools kids. you dont know where they are going in life. hopefully they go with an appreciation for scientific methods and apply them in real life problems.

in a way i agree. but i might be biased. i mean, our time was different, but now, there is a possibility to excite kids into the possibilities and ideas in science, without bogging them down in mechanics of experimentation. why not get them going. eventaully, when it comes to it lab and scope side manners they can acquire more quickly than they learn to appreciate nuances of the science.
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Re: Indian Education System-2

Post by Arya Sumantra »

negi wrote:Arya , that's a novel suggestion however I think that we need to differentiate between simulations and experiments ; the former can be only used to improve comprehension/understanding of a physical phenomenon/equipment one cannot use computer simulations as a substitute for 'experiment'.

In fact the word 'experiment' refers to actually trying out the idea/theory in the physical world .
I am unable to imagine as to how a simulator will help a child learn the nuances involved in 'simple salt analysis', 'finding the refractive index of the prism' or say 'finding the focal length of a convex mirror'.

Having said that simulations/flash presentations will definitely assist teachers/faculty while teaching biological/physical/chemical processes or say how to go about setting up the apparatus for an 'experiment' ; but the experiment itself will have to be done in the physical world.
Negi, I am talking of a largely graphical replication of experimental environment. School and even many UG level "experiments" are not those research type of experiments. These are experiments where the teacher or Prof knows what the end result is, it is only unknown to student. When you do research you do experiments/simulation on something that outcome is unknown to everybody.
Also this will NOT be like a FEM(Finite Element Modeling) type software like Ansys or Abacus where you mesh everything, define loads and a solver takes 3 hours to give results. Every "experiment" will be like a different program inside the virtual environment.

In the proposed simulator, the computer will know the refractive index of slab or focal length of convex lens or the salt to be analysed. Only the student would not know.
For Salt analysis- Let's say the computer chose NH4Cl(Ammonium Chloride) out of a group of salts for the student to analyze and find out.
Now because of database built in into this salt analysis program it knows what will be the reaction of each available reagent on virtual shelf with the given specimen solution.
When a student does a silver nitrate test on this solution by virtually adding silver nitrate and dilute Nitric acid and click icon for results and program GUI would show white precipitates at the bottom of virtual test tube confirming the chloride.
Similarly when he adds Nessler's reagent, clicks "outcome" icon, the GUI will turn solution brown or give precipitates to confirm Ammonium ions.

If some coloured gases or even colourless fumes arise by addition of a reagent even that could be shown graphically.
After all the computer knows what reagent you are virtually picking and its reaction with specimen solution(unknown to you but known to program) from the database of reactions between reagents and solution.

Now touch and odour outcomes cannot be conveyed by computer to the student. So the program will have to give pop-up that reads "pungent smell" or if addition of a reagent is exothermic then pop-up will read "test tube hot". If excess reagent was accidentally added by student it could virtually "crack the test tube" and reset the experiment for student.

Similarly the refractive index experiment with glass slab can be simulated. The program randomly generates a number between say 1 and 2 for ref index. You pick up slab and place 2 pins virtually along a line and rotate the view to see through slab. Click the program to generate the view of pins through slab of given ref. index. OK this would need some kind of solver but not as elaborate as Ansys. You can simplify by reducing number of options such as place pins along a predefined line only and at predefined points only.

The Pan, zoom , flip, rotate controls for 3d space visualization can just be like in those CAD/CAM/Ansys software.

Nothing beats actual practical set up but the luxury to repeat experiments as many times you want to do and at your own study time and opportunity to do trial and error on expensive set-up are made possible only by such simulators. Would need good graphics supporting hardware and software like gaming stations perhaps.

If distance learning is to succeed and if we want to bring quality education to remote villages this would have to be incorporated. Add to this the pre-recorded lectures from really good teachers and that's it. Any Eklavya or modern day self-learner could become a top notch student through self-effort inspite of non-availability of good facilities/teachers in countryside towns
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