I was reading an article online and also many blogs in which I was shocked to see the hate-them attitude towards IITians. I would like to offer a few points.
I do concede that a lot IITians have a so-called attitude problem. But no one is inaccessible. Many of my friends complain that when non-IIT people meet them, they say, oh IIT you're so smart! Firstly, thats not always true. Secondly, see me as a person first and judge my intellect skills later.
It is not true that not a single earth shattering invention from an IIT-ian - Sun MicroSystems was co-founded by an IIT-ian. India's premier software service provider was founded by a group of IIT-ians. In IIT Madras, there are many Multi-crore companies that have spawned out of research projects in the final years in the TeNet group and some of these companies supply products that are unique in the world and only they have the patent rights for. Many of them also work for social benefit. Some of the world's fastest Analog to Digital Converters are made in a lab thats ten feet away from where I work. Hi-speed network protocols with hitherto unseen data rates are made a floor above me. Some of the world's most accurate quantum optics/electromagnetics based devices are produced right next to my work desk. Aren't these achievements? True they are not publicized like an ipod or a sony walkman but they are earth-shattering nonetheless. All these are components of products that shake our world. You must remember that research does not always lead to products immediately and while it is the products that get the limelight, none of them would be possible without all these components. Having said this, there is such tremendous scope to expand in terms of facilities and ideas and we really need an environment conducive for this.
Another point should be noted, as a student preparing for the IIT, I spent two and then three years of my life in social isolation preparing for it. I worked very hard. When others were relaxing in well-established coffee joints, I had to sit and prepare for my coaching class tests and completing both school and coaching class assignments. I studied sometimes 14 hours a day and the best part is I would NOT have been classified as the hardest working even with such numbers! I'm not trying to blow my own horn, but my point is, given I worked so hard and sacrificed a significant portion of my life towards getting in, don't I deserve a pay packet that matches the work I put in? Don't I deserve the 2 lakhs the government spends on me? After all, I worked for it.
I do know that all that hard work definitely raised my analytical skills from an above average level to one slightly higher. That is not to say others are not smart, in fact many non-IITians are much smarter than IITians, but my skills definitely got fine-tuned by all that practice. I can't help but feel that it is these skills that companies want when they hire.
I agree with the fact that as IITians we are respected (I think) for our core skills, in fact we are trained in that area. What comes to my mind is what was discussed in the task force meeting for revising the curriculum, you must remember the overall goal of education, it is not to impart you with expertise in a particular area but to develop you in an all-round manner and to give you a skill-set that will help you to 'get better' in any area you wish to pursue. In that respect if an institution is allowing you do that, to find yourself professionally, thats the best thing that can happen.
Also, in my own personal experience, many students after joining IIT have discovered that their set of skills is more suited to negotiating, organizing, procuring, communicating all the time, all skills that are common traits of management. Why should we as a society prevent them from climbing that ladder? IITians have tech skills, and as a person they might want to develop management skills to complement them as well. I don't see why we should prevent them from doing so. Individual freedom should not be curtailed.
Individually, I am more than willing to contribute to my country in its path to progress. But before that, I need to hone my own skills. In my case, it is to develop research based skills : a strong analytical ability to logically work out a path from the problem statement to a solution, which I hope to achieve through higher studies. In my humble opinion, I would want to work in an environment where there are stringent demands on quality of work done and where I receive exposure to demanding needs. When intellectually mature, I can then impose these same demands on anyone I work with professionally, and this is very important when developing our nation as a whole too! This is most achievable outside my country in my particular area. As you can see, the whole thing is entirely individual and for each person his/her decision will vary as per what they want. I do not think any of my friends would say let's just live out of the country thats better for us. They would only say, let's go where we are respected as individuals, presented with challenging problems to work on and are given the necessary means to work them out as seamlessly as possible. These problems could be solving bottlenecks in management and running of companies or solving equations in quantum mechanics or building up infrastructure for our own country. The ideal case is to provide yourself with the "ability" to solve them and develop yourself accordingly, not to get a B. Tech degree and work only in that area and try to make money out of it.
Its definitely a bit sad that people who do BioTech and Aerospace in IIT end up in generic software companies. True it would be nice if they at least stayed in related areas. But I would also like to know what a person doing his aerospace engineering in IIT Madras would do sitting here, other than a few mid-level companies that do not hire 200 people per year there is hardly anyone who would take them up. The only option if working in their core field is to move where they have jobs and that is outside this country. Again the question arises, wouldn't you as a person want the best environment around you as professionally where you can grow and let others grow with you?
True, money is a driving factor but it is only a means to an end, not the end itself. Money is what enables you to invest in new machines, build new roads, it buys you power, and a lot more. I would like to think that as a professional, I have a certain set of skills attached to me. These may be very good or average or below. If they are exceptional, don't I have the right the charge for them? I guarantee a certain quality of service and a certain advanced skill-set that I provide with the money. Don't I deserve some amount of means to comfort that assuages the stress and strains of my job? That is the whole idea behind paying IIT-ians such salaries I expect. Needless to say, if I were a good manager and I found out that I DON'T get the quality I am paying for, I have every right to remove the concerned party.
It is true that companies with money-muscle power recruit IITians and entice them with high salaries. But these salaries are commensurate with the work they do. In addition, they are not meant to be long term jobs, in the sense that the person concerned will not go far if he/she doesn't take the effort to improve his/her skills further and more importantly shows the willingness to learn and in the short time he does work, he will be subjected to horrible, horrible timings/deadlines. And if someone wants to work in such a place, if he enjoys the thrill of it, then why do you want to stop him?
Lastly, I DON'T think IITians are a waste of taxpayer's money. The 250 billion dollar odd foreign exchange that we have today is in a large part due to sons and daughters sending dollar notes to their parents. The 60,000 jobs a year from Infosys are because of a dozen odd IITians dared to dream and rise against the odds. Even excluding these, IITians contribute tremendously in management circles, Tata,Reliance being cases in point.
For research, you need good infrastructure, talented workers and the ability to spend without expecting anything in return. Our country is only just beginning to support that kind of culture, it is something that has been perfected outside. It will happen but only as we get richer as a nation. Also, it is not easy to perform research after you've just completed your Bachelor's degree, you need expertise, either working in a Core R&D company, which in India is just beginning to show up, or to work with a research group in a university. Also, I do NOT want to do research in a society that awards degrees and accepts people based on what caste they come from. I want to work in a meritocracy. I admit that working abroad will invite racial taunts, but if you have something good to offer, all racial discrimination you'll find will be ignored.
The bottomline is this, if one is going to keep a closed mind, not willing to learn,to not keep his attitude in check, and not keep high standards for himself, he will never grow. That is true whether he is an IITian or not. Such people should not be encouraged. The other side is true as well, I'd like to think that a person who did well and were from IIT would have done well even if they weren't in IIT in the first place. It is the never-say-die-attitude that is very important. You have to be willing to cooperate, accommodate everyone else and communicate yourself well.
Berhael
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8 comments:
A nicely written article. But, do you not feel that most of the students here don't utilize the facilities accessible to them to an appropriate or lets say satisfactory extent?
And for most of the IITians here, unfortunately, money IS an end in itself. Many a times, the core is dropped just because the non-core job is better paying.
There are many IITians who have never been remotely interested in what they call their core courses and are studying or rather mugging them only because their JEE rank allowed them to take only that branch. The very fact that they take up courses they are not interested in, just on the basis of JEE rank, again refutes your money isn't the end, but, only the means to an end theory.
Honestly, most people simply don't see anything above money.
@SDK
Thanks for your comment. :) I do feel that many students do not spend enough time in labs, but I would not want to force it one anyone, if someone feels that Cul-fest/Tech-fest organizational work is more likely to contribute to his/her growth as an individual then so be it I feel. Whatever works for anyone. I honestly feel that many students who first join the institute, do not even know what the various branches of engineering are about. In such a case media hype and peer impressions play a big role in what people choose. It was mechanical engineering 15 years ago, computer science 10 years ago, electronics a little while earlier and management now. I've written before that one profession that is most likely to take off in the future in a big way is Civil Engineering. Designing for our country is a massive challenge for anyone up for it. Yet, it stands in the bottom of student's wish-lists. Like you said its probably because of the well-publicized six figure salaries that you see, but I've also seen from my experiences with those 10 years older than me that in the long run, job satisfaction, the "Man! I have done something in my life after all" feeling are what seem more worthwhile in the long run, and if you are enthusiastic and love your job... money will come... and yet be irrelevant. I was told by a prof here (and I took him seriously) that look to enjoy what you are doing, thats what is important, all this entrepreneurship, ceo, genius bits come later. :) This point may vary from person to person though.
Hi Berhael,
Nice blog and I would agree with a lot of things that you have written. However, my past experiences with IITians really hold me back:
1. You mention that "As a student preparing for the IIT, I spent two and then three years of my life in social isolation preparing for it." I don't see the point here - I was a Economics graduate in a top college in India - even we studied really hard - I remember staying awake overnight on so many occassions to ensure that my research papers where high quality. (but the problem and issue with IIT is that it generalizes excellence - in a significantly misleading way)
2. I have lots of IIT friends, some of them are very nice and some are...well... rotten would be too good to describe them. The problem again - IITians tend to judge people they meet as Non-intelluctuals vs intelluctuals - and for a vast majority of IITians it is clearly equivalent to Non-IITians or IITian. For the same reasons, they tend to form cliques - and this is true about my nice IITian friends as well. (if you say thats basic Human nature - so whats so great about being an IITian - they all are just another human being - possibly forced by parents to work hard and study at IIT - so do they even have an independent human existence???) Iknow I am being too harsh but it is much more rational and reasonable than the behaviour meted out by some IITians. There are exceptions but alas, very few.
3. My problem - if anyone wants to succeed in any field - (corporate world or academia) - being a non-IITian makes it twice as difficult. (People still do manage to succeed - my IIT friends usually do count me one among the few who succeeded without an IIT tag - but it has not been easy). So by promoting the "clique" called IIT, the other colleges are being deemed lower (which is not always the case) - that is my biggest problem with IIT - I never even sat for JEE - heck, I was not even a science student - but I did pay the price for a long time in my life. Thats my problem with IIT and IITians - it generalizes excellence and it demotes other top Indian undergraduate colleges as sub-standard.
IITians are good and they should be promoted, but not at the cost of creating such generalizations and cliques.
nice post :)
to counter and to add to a few points of yours:
1) iit as a brand has surpassed all other brands in india. it is very firmly ingrained in anyone who knows about iit that it is an institute into which the best brains get into. no doubt about that. but it is annoying to the non iitians when people try to compartmentalise india into iit and non iit, which also translates into brilliance vs. not so brilliant for most people. so i think the animosity is directed more towards those who deem iit as the be all and end all of life than at iitians themselves
2) iitians are not a waste of tax payers' money. as sashi taroor puts it, iits and iims have a very strong link to building brand india and if they are going to up the reputation of the country in the world, then we might as well invest in them
3) it is unfair to say all the iitians do not stick to their core line of work and end up grabbing management seats/ landing up in the USA and contributing to their economy. i think at 17, it is impossible for any person to make up their mind on exactly what they want to do for the rest of their life. if at 21, they want to change their line, why should we stop them? everyone is equally entitled to change their line fo interest. besides, how long are you going to harp about serving the country? lets face it: at the end of the day, a majority of us are selfish; we are only thinking about fulfilling our ambitions and those of our loved ones. its not as though only iitians are disappearing abroad- agreed their passage is much easier, but look at the bigger picture: enough and more non iitians disappear as well. and i think if people can leave for reasons such as improving their leverage in the marriage market (people is USA can command more dowry) then i think some of us can also leave to actually puruse some intellectual interests abroad. anyway, with the future of US looking quite bleak right now and India growing at the rate it is, we might see more and more people investing their time and money in this country itself. including iitians :)
4) it is really up to people to use their common sense to realise that iitians <> great humans. thats not really the fault of iitians. i am not justifying the arrogance of a few iitians, but on the whole, it is indeed our own perception of these people that lets them think they are great people. if anyone feels iitians are treated unfairly, then they can either a) get in themselves or b) succeed on their own. in the end, nothing succeeds excepts success itself :)
sorry for the delay.. not been maintaining my blog
@anonymous
1) your hard work definitely is something you should treasure and i respect you a lot for it. i think your issue has also something (even if vaguely) to do with engineering/medicine being a so-called only preferred job. every field has its own group of hard workers and that break through threshold for non-iitians is much higher i admit.. :) we have it easy in that sense but also the expectations are high.. its true for life in general
2) you weren't harsh.. it should never be like that and if you form a clique you risk losing out on potential stars or even life-friends.. better to be open minded i feel, need not be bosom buddies with everyone but be open-minded.
3) i'd like to say.. if something is twice as difficult its also twice as fun! :) Even though i was in iit i had to work hard for my projects otherwise the next batch would not get the chance to work with the same people as i did.. i'm not saying all iit-ians are stars.. i'm saying all stars are not from iit.. :)
All the best
But aren't majority IIT-ans gay and mentally unstable? I hear they love sexually assaulting and abusing their juniors through various activities, like anal penetration, anal rape, gang sex/rape acts, fatal beatings with sharp and heavy objects, and even murdering them? I think your article has missed one major aspect, which is the fact that IIT-ans are not hated for their talent and superior paychechques, no, that would be more of jealousy and less of hatred. The hatred exists because of their sadistic and mutated nature which has led to the ruining, and even deaths of too many lives to list here. Obviously, there's the age old lame excuse coming from majority IITans which goes something like "Oh none of that stuff ever happens here, it's all blown out of proportion by media and exaggerated by the travelling word of mouth." And when that lame argument is countered rationally, the excuse turns into something more aggressive like "You don't f*cking understand, we need respect from these new b*stards, besides, we need to make them smart and ready for life! Life is not what they think it is but it's what we show them! And we all become good friends later, for life". Ridiculous, only as Indian 'fundas' can get.
Honestly speaking, the headlines which the IITs have made over the years speak for themselves. Suicides, homosexual assaults, murders, people being pushed off the roof and thrown into disability, people being sexually assaulted day in and day out, forced into drugs and alcohol, ragged to death etc.
I'm pretty sure you too are one of those sadistic lunatics who has picked up the art of hiding one's true character behind some light worded paragraphs on a blog. People read your perspectives subtly put forward, and think "wow, nice guy with a valid point". Get over it, and stop pretending.
@ChandanK
Relax dude :)
too long to read!!!!
Keep it short plz
anyway,i hate iit and iitians!!
i am from iit but dont like to be called an iitian
Reasons::::
1) stop the grunting abt being the best,most of these guys are pure crammers,noone wants to learn..all want to just top a test stupidly
2) stop saying abt the inventions iit hv done,
a) opening a company is not related to iitian education and should not be coming here,they want to just waste engineering degree,is no accomplishments of iit
b) you said so much stuff abt iit inventions(better than ipod???)
where are you???iit delhi has one word for vrything technical...FRAUD!!!
3) best brains??...all i see are crammers...they even cram down the proofs in mathematics!!!...nobody wants to learn..they may be sharp and quick...but brains i beleive corresponds to IQ....
4) vry intern app i hv seen includes iit abv the students name(u knw wht that means)
they come to iit since they are told that iit is full of money,,,,like hungry mongrels....they hv no respect for technology,most come to waste an important engnring seat.
FACT:::: tech fest in iit delhi is unknown to vryone......it passes by as a silent wind...and for cul-fest...college gives holidays...and ppl spend nights for it....
iit is an utter waste of indian talent....
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