Indian Education System

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 27 Oct 2009 21:33

After reading the Kota thing I was like

All I can ask : Is it really worth it?

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 27 Oct 2009 21:52

Tanaji wrote:After reading the Kota thing I was like
All I can ask : Is it really worth it?

When folks whine about 80% cutoffs in PCM, this is precisely the point. The coaching centres are 24/7 muggo joints, no school, no play, no nothing. Sure, it is the student's life and he/she can do what he/she wants with it, but then when people go around the system and try to beat it, it is incumbent on the IIT folks to do what they should to re-engineer the system. The whine is because stable equilibrium is affected. Surely, people will try to beat even the new system, but then JEE has always been a horse and pony show. First, they had interviews, then they brought exams, then they brought preferences among PCM, then they brought pre-exams, then they brought MCQs, then they brought optionals/randomizers, then now school marks, it is an evolving system and it will continue to evolve as people get smarter and try to beat the system. The rate of evolution has become so crazy these days, for a long time there was just exams and preferences, the rest of the caboodle all came in the last 8-10 years. People are throwing fancy ideas like interviews for 1000+ ranks into the ring, it is so bizarre. Surely, JEE is no utopia, it has become more miss than hit these days, but what else do we do in this country?

Rajasthan got an IIT allocated, and I am not sure if it went to Kota. But imagine someone from these classes going to IIT Kota, such a person would have hardly seen any other place in his adolescent life.

The remark about 300 females in a class of 8000 is also a reflection of the IITs at large, poor representation from ~50% of Indian population. Sure, we cant have spatial vs other stuff in JEE to have more female representation in IITs, but there are no new ideas for this either. There are a ton of problems, we need creative solutions, if anyone has any, please throw them here, I will forward interesting ones to the people concerned.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 27 Oct 2009 22:14

Seriously, there are no easy solutions to weed out the non-worthy from the entrants. Whatever scheme that could be brought in for an entrance exam or filter the system outside of IIT is going to game it within a few years.

That leaves one nuke option, make the exit from an IIT not easy. This can be implemented for the older ones of the current IITs. It should no more be a traditional BTech centered institution. That role can be taken over by the new upcoming ones, to fill in the entry levels for industry jobs. Why not make the 5 campuses for real misfits to society.

To exit with a degree be it B Tech or MS/MTech something out of the ordinary has to be done, beyond the minimum credits and class work to get the basic foundation. The bar has to be raised a lot to get out with a degree at every level. That will be a deterrent for the 'coasters' through the system.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 27 Oct 2009 22:46

Bade wrote: That leaves one nuke option, make the exit from an IIT not easy. This can be implemented for the older ones of the current IITs. It should no more be a traditional BTech centered institution.

Two things, Mtech vs PhD. There is always a big contingent that wants to do Mtech, even from armed forces. In general, the quality of students is random, you have real smart cookies and so-so also. But to coax the smart cookies to persist with a PhD is essentially an Indic problem, not just an IIT problem. Then there is the other aspect, if someone is keen on doing a PhD, why would he/she prefer IITs over IISc, assuming they want to do it in India? From what I hear, folks are trying hard to project the IITs as research-oriented. But they could take in far more candidates than candidates are willing to do research. Apparently, there is a ton of cash from GoI unused, meant as stipends for PhD folks. And the idiots doing Btech get GoI subsidies. In jest, GoI should probably subsidize only those who persist with at least a basic postgrad degree (IIM or engg). Does nt make sense to subsidize it-vity education esp when they can make a ton of cash. Actually read somewhere that IITs are planning on increasing the tuition to conform with IIMs in the next 2 years, telegraph may be.

That role can be taken over by the new upcoming ones, to fill in the entry levels for industry jobs. Why not make the 5 campuses for real misfits to society.

Ayyo rama, dont get me started. The greenhorn IITs dont even have a campus worthy of name, most of them. Plus they dont have faculty flocking to them either. Even the metro IITs have a big issue. Kanpur is getting left behind because new hires are not keen on living in a "class-B city". Bangalore, Hyd IITs etc make perfect sense, but they put the "Hyd IIT" so out of city limits that they have shot themselves in the feet. GoI mandate was to make the IIT accessible to an aiport (?!), so they put the IIT closer to the airport than the city centre. May have to do with land issues also. But most faculty have spouses who have a job, wont it be a pita to travel 20 kms everyday for work and back. M B & D have no issues as they are right in the centre. K G are slowly losing out. W and the new ones need lot more mentoring. It is a stretch that these greenhorns can chip in any time soon. In India, long-term planning is something that will bring

. They brought the quotas first, then the infra, everything is a$$ backwards with GoI. I cant blame em too much too, they had their own constraints.

MHRD is now engaging in talks with Hah-vurd types to set up money making machines in India. Sibal saab seems very serious, there is HUGE demand for such places. Telegraph op-ed was whining about the proposed National Univs plan which is trying to relax citizenship rules for these places. In true bhadralok fashion, the op-ed was saying "How can you have two sets of rules for PIO/OCI/other citizens and us true blue Injuns?" That is going to catch a big fancy even with the entrenched folks, IITs hardly ever get a chair position, but the NU plan is supposed to run on such extravaganza. Plan is to rope in biggies, preferably Indic, pay them a lot and bring them in to foster "research culture." Hare-brained the way the op-ed made it sound, I have nt seen any pdf on this proposal floating yet. If it is serious, someone will post it on some forum somewhere and say "react please." Given all this, I dont know. Confusion and chaos, true Indic style.

To exit with a degree be it B Tech or MS/MTech something out of the ordinary has to be done, beyond the minimum credits and class work to get the basic foundation. The bar has to be raised a lot to get out with a degree at every level. That will be a deterrent for the 'coasters' through the system.

Boss, folks dont turn up to classes onlee. The class strength is 100+ and if 20 turn up, fac are happy. And these are the old cookies fond of teaching. The new ones, many I know, say "fck Btech, who cares about them." Kya karen, janaab? Begging for E+ grades has become such a mess. With net culture booming, vid game wars etc is the norm. The spate of suicides in IITs did not come from nowhere. If you ask me, Bansal is evil. Folks setting question papers are at their wit's end to come up with googlies. And every alternate year they throw maaajor googlies in JEE. But it is relative grading, every dork does relatively bad. They need new criteria for picking people. JEE has become such a mess that EIQ + JEE + interview wont be a bad idea, and thats not a joke. It is worth the investment. Or it is better to ditch the IITs altogether and take the better among the research-y ones from the IITs and take them to the NU plan. In either case, MHRD has a big issue on its hands. Truly at a fork-point.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Oct 2009 05:00

Well.....in some cases this mugging and coasting also has to be seen in context. For most of us at BRF we come from comparatively well-off backgrounds (doesn't mean we are all feelthy rich like RM ji )....if you look at the folks who do the whole Super-30 thing, it is a totally different crowd than most of the VMC/FIIT-JEE crowd. For them getting into IIT itself is the big goal since it provides them a quantum leap into a level of opportunity and recognition (which will hopefully turn into clout) which they can otherwise only dream of. For them it is not a question of always pushing for the next higher level at every stage - they don't have that luxury or in a lot of cases even the concept because you can have those thoughts if your basic needs are met but not if you have to plough the fields with your father every day after school (and during harvest season bunk school to pick the crops). Hence, the goal becomes to beat the system or master the system to the level where it ensures a comparatively much higher level of opportunity but not necessarily the highest level of opportunity.
At various stages, there are opportunities which level the playing field for all regardless of IIT, MIT, BIT, NIT etc.
1) Going to massa/elsewhere for studies.
2) After your 1st or 2nd job.
3) Doing a career change.
4) Doing an Yum Bee Aye at a top place.
...
..

However, as many have pointed out the worth of being associated with institutions such as IIT, MIT, Stanford is not their superior education or the superior intellect of their peers. Rather it is the social network - the people you know who know people who know people who get things done. This provides a big cushion and boost for one's efforts (ofcourse some people misuse this to do crappy work but thats a separate issue). For example, a mediocre student at Stanford has a better chance at making it big than a better student at a lesser known place. If Google's founders were not in Stanford, their much vaunted PageRank would be just another academic paper which would be read and forgotten. It is precisely due to the Stanford alumni network, the angel investors amongst them (and thru them the VCs) that they succeeded (that includes the recruitment of Eric Schimdt who as per me is the real architect behind Google's success as a company - PageRank != $$$).

But that being said, I don't see (and never have seen despite all sorts of parental threats) the merit of slogging like crazy, forgoing all the fun of teenage life to get into some "good" college. In the end, it doesn't matter. If I look back at my class 12th classmates - after 8-9 odd years, I don't see any clear demarcation (in terms of job and quality of life) amongst the IIT-JEE toppers (I went to school with the AIR1 and a couple amongst AIR top-10 and top-20 and later on PGM winners), IIT alumni, AIIMS alumni and the non-IIT/AIIMS/other TFTA college fellas and this includes everybody who went to massa universities. How successful one is in life does not seem to be a function of where one went to school, though the minimum threshold of success in the short-term might be a function of that.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Oct 2009 05:34

Pretty good to see MSR India having a whole bunch of talent from IISc. This is a great start.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Oct 2009 08:29

problem is IISc profs are supposed to be real terror in timelines to award Phd. the joke a decade ago was if you enter into Phd pgm there after Btech, you can forget about the next 7-8 yrs, while if you go to massa you could put in the same work and get in 5.
not sure if its still true today. most yindu do have some other goals in life than simply slogging on campus on a stipend for the big guy who constantly moves the bar.

wrt less number of girls - a lot of parents are not wanting to send their girls away for
2 yrs to far off places like kota. if you do not have a good coaching center in your city that can match kota, there is hardly any chance. for metros it is ok in dilli/mumbai/hyd , for anything smaller there is nothing to match.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 28 Oct 2009 10:14

This is what happens when local folks dont step up to the plate. I hope no ddm strikes and says how the iit's and iim's are NOT building local people.

India's Elite Technology and Management Institutes to Recruit More Abroad
http://chronicle.com/article/Indias-Eli ... _medium=en

dinakar · Post by **dinakar** » 28 Oct 2009 18:26

Singha wrote:problem is IISc profs are supposed to be real terror in timelines to award Phd. the joke a decade ago was if you enter into Phd pgm there after Btech, you can forget about the next 7-8 yrs,

Singhaji,that is not a joke it's the reality. If you do your phd in chemistry it will take minimum six years in IISC that too especially in oganic chemistry.....

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 28 Oct 2009 22:04

Singha wrote:problem is IISc profs are supposed to be real terror in timelines to award Phd. the joke a decade ago was if you enter into Phd pgm there after Btech, you can forget about the next 7-8 yrs, while if you go to massa you could put in the same work and get in 5.
not sure if its still true today. most yindu do have some other goals in life than simply slogging on campus on a stipend for the big guy who constantly moves the bar.

Does nt it depend? If there is something, the issue is at both ends. Fact is some students are lazy bums who would nt get cracking till they hear the "shape up or ship out" message. Some sadistic advisors do exist, but these are more of an exception than the norm. Esp the new youngistani brigade that is getting hired is hardly this type, just my biased perspective. And many students who want to do PhD flock to the youngistanis because of the timeliness of the problems studied, etc., and more. Sure, I have also heard of horror stories about how students have to do home service for prof's family outings etc., and I know of intellectually dishonest people aplenty too. Bottomline is that PhD has little to do with smartness, it is more of sustained hard work. Research was/is/will be rarely a sprint, mostly a marathon. Some problems are just plain hard and it takes an age before people mature and make decent contributions.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Oct 2009 23:05

Hardly a PhD in experimental areas of physics gets out in 5 years, it is more like 6-7 yrs. Only exceptions are in theoretical areas. Some of the experiments in high energy physics and nuclear physics takes even a decade to build these days. If you are not in for the long haul, then it is better to count oneself out of such an endeavor. A PhD and post-doc is a good decade or more and is the norm, before hunting for a real job and usually by then half your most productive life is over.

negi · Post by **negi** » 28 Oct 2009 23:13

And guru log how does one compare making ends meet specially with a family while doing a PhD in India as compared to say in US/EU ? I believe this is again one of those factors which might discourage folks from pursuing higher research in India (I have heard stipend is about 15000 INR in IITs ? ).

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Oct 2009 23:18

Compare that to living with $1000 to $1500 per month for a graduate stipend in the US with family. If you are not in a small village town, then $1500 does not get you very far. In New York and Los Angeles a single bedroom rental would be itself $500 to $800 anywhere close to buslines for daily commute. Life is tough, no family shamily possible for a real talib.

negi · Post by **negi** » 28 Oct 2009 23:23

Fwiw

Came across this blog ,writer is a Professor in IISc

Pay scales in IISc

I have to admit though the 6th pay commission recommendations have increased the pay stubs by a significant margin ; the final figure is still no where close to what a guy with similar experience in private sector would make . Don't know what to say .

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 28 Oct 2009 23:34

negi wrote:Fwiw

Came across this blog ,writer is a Professor in IISc

Pay scales in IISc

I have to admit though the 6th pay commission recommendations have increased the pay stubs by a significant margin ; the final figure is still no where close to what a guy with similar experience in private sector would make . Don't know what to say .

Why do you think so? The guys are eligible for inflation-adjusted government pension, which is enough to put them over the top. The total package here is hard to beat for most people, but sure there will be some exceptions where the private sector will pay more.

negi · Post by **negi** » 28 Oct 2009 23:43

While the numbers look attractive at first glance you need to also see the amount of experience required to become a Professor/Asst. Professor in institutes like IISc . I just think for that amount of experience and nature of job (this does not look like a typical 40hrs a week job to me) the remuneration should be higher , how to achieve this and whether it is viable in the current system are different topics altogether.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Oct 2009 23:57

Why do you think so? The guys are eligible for inflation-adjusted government pension, which is enough to put them over the top.

I thought pension has stopped for all central govt recruitment since the year 2000 or so. So anyone entering now at DRDO/ISRO/IITS/CISR etc is not going to get any pension except the equivalent of the 401k type plans in massa.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Oct 2009 09:30

do robotics courses in qakhanate use custom designed and ordered kits or COTS ?

I have first hand info in iit-guwahati, they used a lego mindstorm kit as of now. some kinda
basic stuff like taking video input and coding obstacle avoidance algorithms etc were done as term projects.

thats way more than we were exposed to 14 yrs ago.

vina · Post by **vina** » 29 Oct 2009 10:04

That leaves one nuke option, make the exit from an IIT not easy. This can be implemented for the older ones of the current IITs. It should no more be a traditional BTech centered institution. That role can be taken over by the new upcoming ones, to fill in the entry levels for industry jobs. Why not make the 5 campuses for real misfits to society

Blasphemy!. Off with his head!.

Misfits in society should be secluded and sequestered away from sight and civilization in the new IITs that come up in places like Kota and other random places. The current IITs should be left as they are and made better, sort of like a UC B or Stanford, MIT etc.

Surely the current 5 are located in Dilli,Mumbai, Chennai and near Kolkatta precisely for a reason.. It is more for the worldy, "metropolitan" types. Let the "misfits" go to the boonies!.

Seriously. If IITs are going to be only for total wanna be scientists and not for a broad range of all types including street smart hustlers, the sliver tongued gift of the gab, the entrepreneurial , the committed hard core engg /science type and of course the "genius" kind of scientists and of course the total misfits /brilliant thinkers who can ace serious math and physics and all else , including Pill-o-so-pee , you miss out on a who range of things that make the IITs what it is.

Leave the B.Techs alone. (Teachers!. Leave 'em kids alone! , all in all, its just another brick in the wall , you really are talking about 16 to 21 year old kids for heaven's sake). Just make sure that you get a whole range of smart people other than one dimensional geeks who manage to ace an exam and have nothing else in life. The IIT hostels were simply exciting because of the who range of extra curricular and social activites that I am sure not many campuses in India (including St Stephens etc) can hold a candle to. That kind of multiple interests and diversity gets reflected in the final career choices that get made as well. Indeed, many go on to become pure hard focused engg and scientists , researchers and academicians , others go on to corporate life, many become entreprenurs, why some are starting to become even politicos, social activitsts etc!.

Where IITs traditionally were found wanting were in the masters and PhD programs. Those are the programs meant exclusively for fully focused scientist/resarcher types (esp PhD). True, the tradition in IITs is for B.Techs almost always to never go on to do masters and PhD at IITs (going to IISc was okay though) . IIT M had rules against "in breeding" , ie you cant do a B.Tech, MTech, PHD and everything else wholly in one institute without any outside exposure and take up a faculty position !. So, if you want all PHd kind of institute, why you have the CSIR labs and we all know how they have fared. Sure. Get the IITs more research focused. But for that , you need to anlyaze where we failed in the past (immaturity of Indian industry, emigration, lack of money, no industry focus on R&D, bureaucracy etc) and basically fix the MS/MTech and PhD programs.

Umrao Das · Post by **Umrao Das** » 29 Oct 2009 10:15

Tanaji wrote:^^^^ Post graduate Diploma in Library Automation and Networking? WTF???

Information science degrees are often offered by schools that are closely related with Library Science.
University of Michan ist under School of Library sciences.

http://www.si.umich.edu/
Note the picture of desi there.

http://www.gradschools.com/Subject/Libr ... s/217.html

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 29 Oct 2009 16:44

vina wrote:
Just make sure that you get a whole range of smart people other than one dimensional geeks who manage to ace an exam and have nothing else in life. The IIT hostels were simply exciting because of the who range of extra curricular and social activites that I am sure not many campuses in India (including St Stephens etc) can hold a candle to. That kind of multiple interests and diversity gets reflected in the final career choices that get made as well.

Vina, I know exactly what you mean. But sorry to prick the bubble, your days are gone, lamentably so. The IIT we have today is not the IIT you knew of. Some call it ageing, some call it maturation, some call it development, I call it degradation. Sure, twenty years down the line, this generation of iitians will call the future generations doofusi just as I freely label them now. The big problem is diversity as you witnessed in your days and I saw a bit in my days are NO longer there. It has become uni-dimensional in the sense of chalta-hai, coasting, bindaas, you find a name for it. If a robot gets made in a campus, that must be a rarity not a norm. If people sit around and fix things, that must also be a rarity not the norm. If people take books and study, it must be quiz time. Diversity in your days came because people came from different backgrounds, it is no longer the case now because automatons from kota etc., with exactly the same profile land in almost all the iits. Problem sir, big problem. Over the last five years, three people (!) have went to the US for postgrad in one discipline that has say ~50 people per year. And I am not kidding you, this is the exact line I heard from a prof now in iitm, he hardly gets reference requests from students!! The number who apply for postgrad stuff is a bit more, bt many decide NOT to go prefering the easy cash of it-vity.

vina · Post by **vina** » 29 Oct 2009 17:39

Over the last five years, three people (!) have went to the US for postgrad in one discipline that has say ~50 people per year. And I am not kidding you, this is the exact line I heard from a prof now in iitm, he hardly gets reference requests from students!!

Unbelievable. Is this IIT-M as in IIT Madras and not the newfangled one in Maharashtra ?. In my days, in a batch of 50, say 6 people would stay back in India, with one of them going to say IISc or something, the others into industry and one or two to do YumBeeYea from Eye Eye Yum.

Sigh.. You are right. It does not sound like the same IIT-M I went to.

How is the B.Tech student body like these days? Back in my days,there used to be a strong contingent from TN (mostly Mylapore/Mambalam types and rest of TN) and Tams who were from Dilli, Mumbai , Calcutta and other places who made it thru JEE, but whose parents dutifully kicked the down to IIT-M (of the Tams nearly everyone I knew of in my batch except a one or two were Tam Brahms majority from CBSE schools, becuase with reservation and everything it was IIT or bust for them) , a smaller contingent than Madras from Bangalore and and a sprinkling from other parts , and of course Mallus who came in all stripes from not being able to speak a sentence in English, but cussing like a sailor within one semester types , the unfailing robot like answer to "Why do you go to college? " as "I go to Koalej to gain some Knolej" to the oh so so-piss-ticated Kochi and Old Trivandrum types.

The majority of course was from Andhra /Gult . Again a wide diverse set. A lot from Hyd and other urban areas. Some from coastal belt , 3 or 4 from Vizag, the smooth talking ones, the peasant background types, all types really.

And what wide range of interests in everything. These guys would simply crush all other colleges in all events in anything (other than sports of course, where we would get crushed, which is understandable).. There were guys interested in music, poetry, writing, debating, jam, quiz, crosswords, carving, painting . you name it, in addition to their academics. When I look back at some of my hostel mates and what they are doing today (many are absolute top stars in their chosen careers) and think back on what kind of multi facted personalities they were and talents they had, it is just amazing.

Hmm. Maybe you will need to start having multiple criteria now like Massa univs that look at a wider criteria, range of interests and accomplishment for admissions.

But then the problem is that there will be a lot of subjectivity and accusations of skullduggery and bias from those who fail to make it will fly quick and fast.. Why folks like Rahul The Mehta will put forth dark conspiracy theories of NBJPrie and Elitemen conspiring to keep "commons" out of the IITs . This is really a tough problem to crack. There is only so much you can do in terms of creative question setting without going out of syllabus at a K-12 level that "pattern /Kota" type learners cannot catch on in a few years..

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 29 Oct 2009 18:01

vina wrote: Unbelievable. Is this IIT-M as in IIT Madras and not the newfangled one in Maharashtra ?

You heard me right, it is Madras. Very similar trends are seen across Bombay, Delhi and Kanpur, a bit here and there. Similar trends across the branches. There is also the trend of folks earning a bit of cash from it-vity and applying for post-grad, but that number is minuscule at best. You miss the flow of doing post-grad, coming back and doing one is gonna be hard as hell, that is the rate determining step here.

In my days, in a batch of 50, say 6 people would stay back in India, with one of them going to say IISc or something, the others into industry and one or two to do YumBeeYea from Eye Eye Yum.

Most take CAT or go to it-vity or basic engg companies. Recent trend is "consulting" (!), which makes me feel amused at the best and ack thoo at the worst, but happens sir. Some are going for IAS also, more so than before, but the trend is iits have become truly a localized resource generator. If anyone says brain drain from iits these days, I must find a special icon for "wtf are you talking about?" Campus placements are full, I dont know how the downturn has messed things up, but till the time when it-vity were hiring left-right-and-center, all was fine and dandy, internal circulation onree.

How is the B.Tech student body like these days? Back in my days,there used to be a strong contingent from TN (mostly Mylapore/Mambalam types and rest of TN) and Tams who were from Dilli, Mumbai , Calcutta and other places who made it thru JEE, but whose parents dutifully

That changed ages back, AP used to be the highest % just because AP population is far higher and Ramaiah-types set the trend in early days. In my days, AP pop used to be ~50% somuchso that they would win the sac-elections happily and without a fight. The other SI states used to be here and there, random at best, but also correlated with population profiles. These days, the Kota group has swamped the system, I dont have trends or numbers, but hearsay is that AP \approx Kota \approx 30%. If you go to some of the newer iits, Kota >> local populace. Thats why I say Bansal is evil. Of course, I am also white-washing all of Kota as "Kota", but Kota coaching classes in general attract people from all over India, mostly North. Still, when you have internal pollination of ideas and backgrounds, there is hardly any new ideas or diversity as you were speaking of.

And what wide range of interests in everything. These guys would simply crush all other colleges in all events in anything (other than sports of course, where we would get crushed, which is understandable).. There were guys interested in music, poetry, writing, debating, jam, quiz, crosswords, carving, painting . you name it, in addition to their academics.

Bindaas activities still are fine, but creative pursuits are visibly taking a beating. The JEE has become a horrendous mess, more so with increasing the number of seats and number of iits without fixing issues on how to pick the right students, let alone find nuff faculty members. Truly IIT as a system you knew and I knew is NOT what it is today. It is more democratized in some sense, but then a truly democratic system is only rarely going to produce gems, most of it follow the fat middle of the Gaussian. Even in our days, I could see that our batch was not Mt. Everesty-stud types, most were aas-paas-ki-types, including yours sincerely.

Why folks like Rahul The Mehta will put forth dark conspiracy theories of NBJPrie and Elitemen conspiring to keep "commons" out of the IITs .

RM is amply qualified to fix this mess if he can. He is from the same place, he knows the ladaai in the system

.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Oct 2009 19:39

I have seen lot of btechs work in industry for 3-4 yrs, do MS from a better univ (top univ) in khan than s/he would have managed right after btech, then join some khan co over there.

very common for people from good non-iit colleges for whom its tough to get schol for MS right after btech.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 29 Oct 2009 20:10

Misfits in society should be secluded and sequestered away from sight and civilization in the new IITs that come up in places like Kota and other random places. The current IITs should be left as they are and made better, sort of like a UC B or Stanford, MIT etc.

Pipe dreams.

It will look more like IIM than IIT in a few years time. The misfits I allude to are the ones who do not necessarily fall into the tight fits of the JEE system, Kota coached or not. The Kota ones are exact fits for the current IIT culture. This has been true from what I noticed right from 1987 days too. This tooling around and doing nothing was quite common among BTech even then. (There was a EE guy called toolie, who was always found in the common room, evey hostel even had a guy named pondy

in those days) In fact in our wing in Mandak, we had 3rd and 4th year BTechs who could be found in their hostel rooms at anytime of the day, discussing pee-lo-sopie of American constitution and graduate school admissions loopholes.

It was a rigged system with huge QBies to ace the GRE at 99.999999% level for most subjects. In fact applying for fizziks MS/Pacchadi among the JEE geniuses from EE was common, as general RGing was high to get into good schools in EE with full scholarship, considering the inflated GRE scores. So a GRE physics score of 95% or so could get them to some good schools. Most have disappeared from the physics, which is true for MSc types too considering that the attrition is higher than engg to get a faculty position in a reasonable time.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 29 Oct 2009 21:14

Bade wrote:I thought pension has stopped for all central govt recruitment since the year 2000 or so. So anyone entering now at DRDO/ISRO/IITS/CISR etc is not going to get any pension except the equivalent of the 401k type plans in massa.

I thought so too, but the prof who wrote the blog says -

The retirement age for all purposes is now 70. However, if I retire (hopefully !) from IISc in 2019 after 20 years of service at the age of 50, I will get pension for the rest of my life at 50% of the basic that I get at 2019. The pension will increase with increase in DA.

negi wrote:While the numbers look attractive at first glance you need to also see the amount of experience required to become a Professor/Asst. Professor in institutes like IISc . I just think for that amount of experience and nature of job (this does not look like a typical 40hrs a week job to me) the remuneration should be higher , how to achieve this and whether it is viable in the current system are different topics altogether.

The blogs says that CTC after 14 years of experience would be 25-30 LPA. That's not very different from the private sector especially after you add in the present value of the pension. Of course, if the gripe is that some other government employees get this kind of money for working 40hrs a week (the blogger mentions that humanities faculty gets paid the same), then that's a different issue. Another issue is that there will always be exceptions to the rule in the private sector who make far more than the median compensation - don't know if the government has a similar mechanism.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 29 Oct 2009 21:24

As the good Prof opined...

if I retire (hopefully !) from IISc in 2019 after 20 years of service at the age of 50, I will get pension for the rest of my life

...if one back calculate, he started his IISc tenure in 1999, so he is grandfathered into the pension system. I think the transition to the new pension less system was sometime in 2001-2.

Stan, do you know more details on this as you seem to be well connected with young academics who may have returned recently.

nelson · Post by **nelson** » 29 Oct 2009 21:49

^^^bingo.
The new pension scheme is effective for all CG staff except armed forces, paramilitary and some central force personnel
...enrolled on or after 01 jan 2004.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 29 Oct 2009 21:53

vina wrote:There were guys interested in music, poetry, writing, debating, jam, quiz, crosswords, carving, painting . you name it, in addition to their academics. When I look back at some of my hostel mates and what they are doing today (many are absolute top stars in their chosen careers) and think back on what kind of multi facted personalities they were and talents they had, it is just amazing.

Interesting you should mention that coz my father says the same thing (PS: Maybe you are as old as my father? (....runs away....)). The problem is that IIT has been conveniently reduced to just IIT-JEE by the myopic desi mentality where exams are end-all and be-all. So the average abdul today thinks that acing the IIT-JEE is what it is all about - when in fact the actual training only begins once the abdul gets into IIT. Thus, you see the robotic Kota types prevail which also has a backlash on the enthu profs. (esp. young ones and the star old ones) who after a few attempts at resuscitation just give up - I know 3 new faculty in IIT (Powai and D), all massa returned, all graduated around the same time as me and none of them had anything good to say about the general BTech intake in their first year on the job. And with all these cram schools grinding them 24/7/365*2, the fellas (even if they were good to begin with) are too tired after the JEE effort to be creative or innovative. Tired minds can rarely afford to be innovative.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 29 Oct 2009 22:05

Singha wrote:do robotics courses in qakhanate use custom designed and ordered kits or COTS ?

I have first hand info in iit-guwahati, they used a lego mindstorm kit as of now. some kinda
basic stuff like taking video input and coding obstacle avoidance algorithms etc were done as term projects.

thats way more than we were exposed to 14 yrs ago.

For an institution like IIT, using Lego mindstorms to teach robotics is like using a HotWheels car to teach an adult driving. Plus those Mindstorms kits are really expensive. In khanate, most good places have intelligent machine design type classes where you build your own robot from scratch (i.e. using servos, MCU, sensors, etc.) and write your own software to control it. You even design and build your own housing (usually the most expensive part if custom built). While one does not need to go all TFTA like the massa courses and put all sorts of bells and whistles in it (stereo vision, ultrasonic gee gaws, solar panels), making a student design and build something like this on his/her own teaches him basic engineering, design skills and solid concepts. Doing drag-and-drop on some shiny Mindstorms kit is not going to teach him anything except turn him into another Java programming cubicle monkey - for that you dont need IIT (heck you dont even need a 4 year engineering degree college). IIT profs have enough contacts with massa colleagues to source some of the stuff cheap from them (CMU cams etc.) but all the other basic hardware stuff you can easily get cheaply on the likes of Bhagirath Place/Chandni Chowk in Delhi/Calcutta.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Oct 2009 22:58

that was what I was worried of. if someone disassembled the whole thing to nuts and bolts - they wouldnt be able to put it together, unless chankian concepts like taking a photo after every few steps used.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 30 Oct 2009 05:19

Singha wrote:that was what I was worried of. if someone disassembled the whole thing to nuts and bolts - they wouldnt be able to put it together, unless chankian concepts like taking a photo after every few steps used.

If they take apart the RCX computer brick then there is probably no force in the world that can put it back together again - Lego bricks are pretty hardy. BTW if any jingo knows how to open up the RCX brick, let me know - I want to get at the ARM inside which probably has lot more stuff which hasn't been pulled out to the toy sensor/actuator connectors on the outside.

James B · Post by **James B** » 30 Oct 2009 05:39

Singha wrote:problem is IISc profs are supposed to be real terror in timelines to award Phd. the joke a decade ago was if you enter into Phd pgm there after Btech, you can forget about the next 7-8 yrs, while if you go to massa you could put in the same work and get in 5.
not sure if its still true today. most yindu do have some other goals in life than simply slogging on campus on a stipend for the big guy who constantly moves the bar.

Not true any more. Now CSIR/UGC and other Institute scholarships for the PhD students has a cap of 5 years i.e. you have to finish PhD in 5 yeasr or else you will be not paid full stipend. They will be paid only honorary stipend of Rs 2500 or so against the full stipend of Rs 15,000. After this cap was introduced, many of my M.Sc classmates have finished PhDs within 5 years and some within 4 years depending on work. I hope they will reduce the cap to 4 years as the facilities in the IISc and other institutes increase and timelines required for doing experiments and finishing PhD also decrease.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 30 Oct 2009 09:02

that got them moving. in my days some 'life inmate' type phd students ruled the roost, would be working in the day, then old monk and card sessions in the hostel at night. only marriage could get them to finish up.
those days (95-97) stipend for mtech was around 2200/pm and Phd around 5k perhaps.

vina · Post by **vina** » 30 Oct 2009 10:19

Bose Babu wrote:(PS: Maybe you are as old as my father? (....runs away....))

I am, only if you happen to be 4 1/2 years old!

Admit it. You are closer to 40 1/2 than 4 1/2

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 30 Oct 2009 10:44

vina wrote:
Bose Babu wrote:(PS: Maybe you are as old as my father? (....runs away....))
I am, only if you happen to be 4 1/2 years old!

Admit it. You are closer to 40 1/2 than 4 1/2

Nope I am closer to 4 1/2 - (you didn't mention mentally or physically and anyhow my GHQ will swear that I am closer to the lower bound as opposed to the upper bound).

vina · Post by **vina** » 30 Oct 2009 10:51

Bade wrote:Pipe dreams. It will look more like IIM than IIT in a few years time.

Hey, that wont be too bad if they can get all the gopis in like the somehow manage to do with the MSc and M.S programs!. Life will be a lot more colorful and more emphatic and hopefully less of total argee at the madrassa!.

The misfits I allude to are the ones who do not necessarily fall into the tight fits of the JEE system, Kota coached or not. The Kota ones are exact fits for the current IIT culture.

I have to disagree with that. The "Kota types" were part of a diverse pool in those days. They were not the overwhelming majority in those days and tended to be a minority I think.

This has been true from what I noticed right from 1987 days too. This tooling around and doing nothing was quite common among BTech even then. (There was a EE guy called toolie, who was always found in the common room, evey hostel even had a guy named pondy in those days) In fact in our wing in Mandak, we had 3rd and 4th year BTechs who could be found in their hostel rooms at anytime of the day, discussing pee-lo-sopie of American constitution and graduate school admissions loopholes.

Well that was round abouts my time there as well and I do remember 'em folks. The Mandak toolie was notorious really (he was not my year though). There used to be one or two toolies and pondies in every year, that is par for the course. Not as it seems whole sale now as Stan seems to imply.

Hmm. Mandak aye, so you actually spent your time in a B.Tech hostel. No wonder you seem to know such a lot about the B.Techs and typical B.Tech "secrets". Did you get friendly with the B.Techs? I think it must have been fun if you did.. The typical experience would be like Muttuks and B.Techs paths just glide past each other like ice floes. Muttucks typically hated living in B.Tech hostels . For Muttucks, B.Techs were literally an alien race (immature, speaking in Inglees, Bidesh focused and ultra uppity, largely from middle to upper middle class), while for B.Techs, Muttucks were boring dorks whom they simply connect with to even have a conversation, stingy "pr**ks' who keep whining about hostel establishment charges (btech spend 4 years, while muttucks spend 3 sems, so I can see the whining point about establishment charges) and that too when they get paid an allowance etc.. etc and in fact the few muttucks who connected were the stray B.Tech who turned Muttuck.

It was a rigged system with huge QBies to ace the GRE at 99.999999% level for most subjects.

As for the QBies etc, it is like an arms race. If the other guy has it and you don't you are toast. Everyone at the Madrassa used them and yes, acing AGRE (or GRE Subject) was a done thing. But think of it. Everyone in the hostel had access to it. So no one got a real competitive advantage that way. So it was equal opportunity really. The stupendous hit rate for IIT Madras in grad schools you must agree was largely due to another very unique thing about IIT-M. I doubt other IITs had it (I havent heard about it from others) and that is what is taught in Biz Schools in high falutin terms as "Co-Opetition".

The entire "apping" scene was so thoroughly organized, it was unbelievable. There was a list of a history of aid giving univs, hum-int from entrenched spies (aka seniors there) on whether aid was available and the actual scene on the ground. The entire class meets, puts up a list of everyone who wants to app by CGPA and GRE scores and everyone got atleast one "safe" univ where a guy with a higher CGPA and GRE didnt apply to compete with you. Of course , no system is perfect, RGs did happen with massive heart burn when some higher GPA guy "poondaxed" .. all par for the course. But my word, what a beautiful system , and at the end of the day, it delivered massive hit rates.

In fact applying for fizziks MS/Pacchadi among the JEE geniuses from EE was common, as general RGing was high to get into good schools in EE with full scholarship, considering the inflated GRE scores. So a GRE physics score of 95% or so could get them to some good schools. Most have disappeared from the physics, which is true for MSc types too considering that the attrition is higher than engg to get a faculty position in a reasonable time.

.. So that is the real takleef aye ? Surely Muttuks can compile their own QBies in their own hostels cant they ? After all, they are competing with the B.Techs in applying for the same Pacchadi (my god Bade Saar, you do remember the lingo. I havent heard that particular word in the better part of over two decades!) in same univs . So equal equal onree no ?. Is it the fault of the B.Techs that they are more organized and co-ordinated and single minded (like an army of ants) in going for the kill?

But what about the other definite case. B.Techs ,especially those with lower than class avg GPAs used to positively salivate in signing up for Muttuck courses (which we were allowed to do from 6th sem upwards). That was one surefire easy way of getting the GPA up. Because of the way the RG system worked ,the Muttucks used to get crushed in the grades. I know it used to be a terrible ArGee becuase Muttucks needed to maintain an A average or something for them to retain funding, but hey, it was competition fair and square. Even you cant deny that 'em B.Tech were really clever and committed devils.

As for Fyzziks GRE and scoring 95percentile, you have to hand it to them really. Remember, they did go beyond 2 or 3 courses in Fyzzicks and as far as I can recall, I havent seen any GRE Physics QB in my hostel (I didnt need it anyway so didn't hunt around for it maybe it existed, I dunno), and if they can go head to head on equal terms against people all over the world with undergrad Fyzziks degress, then it is creditable onree no ?

vina · Post by **vina** » 30 Oct 2009 10:52

Raja Bose wrote:Nope I am closer to 4 1/2 - (you didn't mention mentally or physically and anyhow my GHQ will swear that I am closer to the lower bound as opposed to the upper bound).

Aww.. Mentally/Physically , doesnt matter !. Over 25 --> Over the hill.. Welcome to the middle ages bro

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 30 Oct 2009 10:52

raghunath wrote: Not true any more. Now CSIR/UGC and other Institute scholarships for the PhD students has a cap of 5 years i.e. you have to finish PhD in 5 yeasr or else you will be not paid full stipend. They will be paid only honorary stipend of Rs 2500 or so against the full stipend of Rs 15,000. After this cap was introduced, many of my M.Sc classmates have finished PhDs within 5 years and some within 4 years depending on work. I hope they will reduce the cap to 4 years as the facilities in the IISc and other institutes increase and timelines required for doing experiments and finishing PhD also decrease.

while there's that cap, the institute's can continue the stipend of its own pocket beyond that time period. then there are students who are funded by overseas projects that don't have any time cap. I hear there's one person in IITK who has been there for 9-10 years.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 30 Oct 2009 11:12

vina wrote: Muttuks and B.Techs

Did I hear that right, mattaks and buttocks?!