tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post3110509723905271001..comments2024-03-27T14:43:28.040+05:30Comments on Musings of Dheeraj Sanghi: Importance of Placement in Admission SeasonDheeraj Sanghihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06367519409840642182noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-91442638548650842402014-07-05T17:18:30.418+05:302014-07-05T17:18:30.418+05:30I agree with what Mr. Devsuman Sharma said. Coachi...I agree with what Mr. Devsuman Sharma said. Coaching institutes are solely responsible for the increase in the number of uninterested students in various departments. Aspiring students and their parents, during the course of their preparation,start looking at the CSE department of IITs as some sort of a source of unlimited riches, instead of the best available platforms to learn and build a career in Engineering. Coaching institutes use the placement statistics to associate some sort of a "glamour" with the IITs. Parents and students are gullible to this, and start looking at coaching as a necessity. Its a win for the coaching institute, whose business keeps booming, but its a loss for the students (most of them lose their originality, interest in studies and desire to put in hard work once they clear JEE), loss for the IITs, and ultimately a loss for the country!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04168048402982004082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-50883149641381462632014-06-26T14:57:18.101+05:302014-06-26T14:57:18.101+05:30Sir, what are your views on JEE-MAIN conducted by ...Sir, what are your views on JEE-MAIN conducted by CBSE and they used to conduct it in both online and offline mode, and students usually complain and I myself feels that level of toughness of paper is different in both modes, Offline paper is usually tougher then online and many timeit is also reported that there are many other mistake too in offline mode as u can take any number of roughsheets while in offline its not allowed, and generally these are computer centers are not invigilated well too, students say that they can easily talk and watch others screen.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05861822622546131173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-40302659075146522292014-06-26T02:33:06.635+05:302014-06-26T02:33:06.635+05:30Dr.Sanghi,I have been following your blog and I co...Dr.Sanghi,I have been following your blog and I congratulate you for very valuable inputs.<br />I loved your inputs, as my son was preparing for IIT and has just cleared it with a rank of 6200. I was happy to know the result but to my shock he is disappointed and saying that with 6200 he will not get a so called good branch & institute.He is now even thinking of taking a drop.<br />What kind of a selection process we have created ? my son after scoring 96% in CBSE and having qualified in IIT advanced(BITS score 308) is feeling dejected and depressed.There are many such brilliant students,who have got between 4500 to 8000 AIR and still feel downhearted.<br />I am an NRI,I am rushing back to India on friday to meet my son and counsel him.Your article has helped me a lot.<br />I feel the problems are<br />a)There is a blind following(bhed chaal)for some courses like CSE,EEE, etc and there is unnecessary craze created by peers and coaching classes. IIT management is not doing any thing for this strong bias. Even they are corrupting young minds by publishing package data<br />b)Many important engineering streams get uninterested students( I am told that in some branches seats remain vacant) there is no effort by IITs to create awareness or generate interest about those engineering branches.Everything depends on rank,higher the better and you can get the branch without even a simple interview to judge the interest or aptitude etc.<br />c)Very typical of the numerous cram-factories prevailing in<br />our country, whether to manufacture Board exam toppers, entrance exam toppers, doctors, scientists or engineers. Coaching centres at Hyderabad and at Kota, provide excellent examples. This mindset of students and teachers continues for years with clearing exams, obtaining a degree and completing the prescribed syllabus becoming the sole motives of students and teachers respectively. The joy of the process of learning and it’s real-life applications are kept aside.<br />e) Parents and students are "Over-Realistic" They have their entire life-plan figured out. They don’t care one bit what inspired many scientist for inventions.These are high-IQ boys and girls who will ace the entrance exams, get into a top institute to pursue a professional career, only to end up selling MNC products or working in a bank in return for a fat package. In short, doing something that has absolutely no co-relation to their education. In the process, cheating the taxpayer whose money was used to subsidize his/her education and also the institute which strove to provide cutting edge facilities, only to be forgotten later.<br />This race like selection process of IITs,based only on AIR is causing emotional and serious damage to many bright students and they have developed a wrong mind set about higher education.While linking jobs to degrees is important for other institutions, but institutions like IITs should be focussing more on innovation and research. IITs have the best laboratories in the country,Why no truly path-breaking research has stemmed out of the IITs ? Why has India not produced any Nobel laureate in Science,since independence? other Indians were not Indian citizens when they received the Nobel Prize. Why,in spite of all the hype, none of the,IITs feature anywhere in the top institutes in the world? Where exactly does the fault lie?<br />We(the parents) and you(the teachers) need to initiate changes so that IITs become truly world class institutes with significant achievement and contributions to science/technology/re-search etc.<br />. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15154591236823607776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-80681825379637990102014-06-25T20:05:39.108+05:302014-06-25T20:05:39.108+05:30Dr. Sanghi - one good thing that many of these hig...Dr. Sanghi - one good thing that many of these high paid jobs nowadays are actually in the tech, or related sectors. Mostly in CS, some in EE, and many in the oil/energy sector where they actually do some field engineering work even if it is routine. Even some of the really high end finance roles are on the HFT Computational side. <br /><br />Many of the people who start off time to do an MS/PhD, with these jobs will quit in 2-4 yearsstartup or an MBA. <br /><br />Though the initial motivation isn't all that pretty, I think this is preferable to the situation for batches graduating till early 2000s where there were almost no proper technical jobs available and old-fashioned sales/marketing jobs like ITC, HLL were most prized. That, I believe is a more upsetting situation.<br /><br />Also, when people are confident that their field has a fair number of jobs (and high paying ones) they'll feel more confident doing a PhD (or perhaps an MS) in the area after some work-experience. Which is one sees a disproportionate number of CS/EEs go and do a PhD, even if it happens after a couple of years - <br />never mind the fact that the initial motivation for the branch was purely monetary. <br /><br /><br />Prashbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10032810264029125901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-26162805333767949712014-06-25T09:58:53.191+05:302014-06-25T09:58:53.191+05:30As Varun mentioned about Prof. Sohoni article and ...As Varun mentioned about Prof. Sohoni article and this blog talked about placement. Here is his working paper related to it.<br />http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/sel.pdfAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03688475916147603603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-83565395138960023772014-06-25T06:44:08.080+05:302014-06-25T06:44:08.080+05:30@Vikram, I have my doubts about the safety part. T...@Vikram, I have my doubts about the safety part. There are many programs in various IITs which have 90% and higher placement consistently for many years. They aren't treated as equal by the applicants. And you see the questions on various social media and other places, it is not about whether everyone gets a job, but about salary. Hardly ever a question on the type of job even.<br /><br />When I look back to my times, the choice was equally irrational. It was primarily based on last year's closing ranks for want of any information. We did not know what to optimize. In such a scenario, it was possible for someone to tell his/her parents that I have an interest in this or that, and I am not going to follow last year's closing ranks. Since no one knew what was being maximized anyway, the parents would only ask whether it was "safe" or whether a decent job is available at the end, and generally the answer was that yes, everybody gets a job sooner or later after every program, the parents would give in. So you had a fairly significant minority willing to try their interests, since the goal was "adequate" return in some sense. And many people changed their fields of study after under-graduation, and so on.<br /><br />But now with everyone trying to maximize their returns, the number of such outliers is much smaller, and the stress of maximizing returns can be seen not only at the admission time, but also during the four years, in choosing electives, in cribbing about being forced to study chemistry or biology.Dheeraj Sanghihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06367519409840642182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-64305827746384164832014-06-25T05:19:29.201+05:302014-06-25T05:19:29.201+05:30Dr. Sanghi, no matter how many letters are written...Dr. Sanghi, no matter how many letters are written asking students and parents to think more holistically about choosing a field of study, the end results will be more or less the same until the current examination structures and limited degree offerings at the IITs remain in place. The typical 17-18 year old just cant tell what career path he/she should choose.<br /><br />I dont think most people choose CS/ECE out of a pure income maximization objective, the overriding criteria is 'safety'. With CS, you can get a decent job almost surely. It is the same reason why IAS/sarkaari naukri was the career of choice earlier.<br /><br />More efforts should definitely be made to reach out to parents and school children and letting them know the kinds of jobs that exist in society. But as long as the current entrance system, based on ranks remains, it will keep producing the same structure. If the JEE instead told aspirants that your CS aptitude is of B grade but that in verbal communication is A+, with a list of possible career paths, things might change. Note that the correlation of ranks with branches also greatly constrains the ability of the IITs to offer flexible branch programs. <br /><br />But to start, the JEE Advanced definitely needs to include CS (perhaps a logical reasoning paper ?) in some way.Vikramhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15184698535624088994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-53840026899108307292014-06-24T19:01:36.513+05:302014-06-24T19:01:36.513+05:30I think IIT's should consider giving the prosp...I think IIT's should consider giving the prospective students a seminar explaining them about the topics which are taught in the different degree courses by relating those topics to what the student's knowledge is after passing the 12th standard.. And complimented with some data on the placement and salary because a less preferred stream can attract students only if they offer a reasonable salary along with the degree..Mrityughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09924547648703565777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-11559837125840178002014-06-24T00:06:31.417+05:302014-06-24T00:06:31.417+05:30Wow !!! I really loved this post. I wish I had rea...Wow !!! I really loved this post. I wish I had read this, when I was making the JEE counseling choices in 2004. <br />My criteria (actually my family's) for choosing the branch or institute was solely based on potential job opportunities. In hindsight I think I could not have been more wrong. I am confident that an average IIT'ian is smart enough to create his/her own destiny and see opportunities in any field. Pigeonholing oneself in a branch at a young age of 18 the worst mistake that anyone can commit.<br />Coming to the point, I think IIT's should postpone the branch allocation to the end of first year. I think this will allow students to become more mature, and in turn would help them make a more saner choice while choosing their branch. I am also confident that a big chunk would still gravitate towards the popular branches and would spend the better part of their undergrad preparing for CAT, but atleast a sizeable minority would make a well informed and a wise decision.<br />Besides this, I think this wonderful article (http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sohoni/cseaVP2000.txt) penned by a wonderful person should become a part of mandatory reading for all students of all the colleges belonging to any age group. It is the modern day "Gita Saar" for the students and would help all of us see things with a better perspective :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07855251110515944369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-13527498292351073622014-06-23T23:39:40.084+05:302014-06-23T23:39:40.084+05:30Maths and Computing course makes sense if you have...Maths and Computing course makes sense if you have an interest in Maths and secondary interest in CS. It also makes sense when you are not getting any core CS program in any IIT. Otherwise, do a core CS program.<br /><br />The Economics program in IITK is that of 4-years, with an optional 5th year only if you want to get a Master's degree. The value of any program can only be asked by those companies which are core for that program. I do not know which companies you have asked in, but our students don't have a problem in getting jobs.<br /><br />I do not have any idea about IIIT Bangalore 5-year integrated program.<br /><br />Dheeraj Sanghihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06367519409840642182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4273139713770751485.post-87081736495772531812014-06-23T22:53:31.790+05:302014-06-23T22:53:31.790+05:30Sir, Glad to see you back on blogger after a long...Sir, Glad to see you back on blogger after a long time. I just opened your blog today to just ask some questions. Please reply ASAP as students have to freeze the choice.<br />1. In recent year or two I have heard a lot positive about Mathematics and Computing. being more specific is it makes sense to preder a four year B.S in this @IITK ahead of core CSE in BHU or guwahati.<br />2. I am also a big fan of this economics thing but some of my friends in Industry says that companies don't treat Integrated Economics courses like the one in KGP with that great value.<br />3.Also your views on the 5 year integrated course started by IIIT Bangalore as previously it wasn't involved in the UG courses.<br />Siddharth Jainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11247226392748180538noreply@blogger.com