[Ilugc] Fwd: [ILUG-BOM] Interview of Linus Torvalds; He Also Speaks Of Sad Situation Of India
- From: girishvenkatachalam@xxxxxxxxx (Girish Venkatachalam)
- Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 17:43:43 +0530
On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Arun Venkataswamy <arun289 at gmail.com> wrote:
Another reason is that students in college are not taught anything
practical... ?There is no direction, no vision, and no purpose..
That's why I never went to college.
;)
I am totally self taught ?and converted my favorite hobby to work.
I would compare this to actors like Rajnikant who cannot be imitated even by
Simbu or by taught by any college. ( I don't think he knows how to
act or dance but he sure can deliver a hit movie)
For instance an MBA does not know what all troubles I go thro' in
business. The social
stigma, the poverty and so on.
Likewise autodidacts are special. There is a certain impish charm in their
struggle and the adaptability.
Since they learn all on their own their survival instincts are very high.
In life nobody gets to do what they studied. You always learn new
things later. And more than learning what counts is learning ability.
Coming to Arun who I happen to know well for the past few years, I
would put him at a much
higher level than the best educated people I have met. So I concur.
OK, then I did have my father's company to work for (small 8 member
engineering company then). But it was the single most important decision in
my life.
In India, we all want to make our parents proud. Fundamentally our
value system places a lot of emphasis on education and I do not talk
about any particular community or ethnic group.
This seems to be a cultural trend in this subcontinent.
Consequently choosing the educational stream is the most important
decision for all of us.
I am not asking people to not to go to college, but the crux of the matter
is, nobody can teach you programming or an OS. you need to do it yourself.
Computer science, and theory, yes, a good mentor or tutor makes a
difference.
Well Arun, I will share you told me in private. I hope you do not mind.
Arun used to teach computer science basics(not sure if it was
programming) to a girl who is now one of the top guns in Google, USA.
Yes, some innate inborn talent and appropriate initiative taken at an
individual level
is a must.
The point both Arun and I are trying to make here is that blaming
educational institutions is not very appropriate.
It fundamentally rests with individual and of course the atmosphere.
India lacks both. Committed motivated individuals are less and hard to find.
And even the good ones that have initiative are killed by the system.
Be it college or industry. Both are kaput in India. I have worked in
IIT Madras EEE department(not for IIT) for around a year and I have
worked in the best corporates in India(Bangalore and Chennai) and
surely some correction is necessary at all places.
As to my college days, yes I felt that the curriculum was extremely
competitive and appropriate the evaluation system was not.
This observation may partly be due to the fact that I never did well
in college. ;)
Definitely our educational system does not reward people like us...
I will leave at that.
Unless you get a kick when you see your program compile without errors (at
least at some point in life) or when you see the output of a well designed
algorithm, you should not have career out of it. The problem is, almost
entirely, the IT pool in our country we are talking about does not relate
to this...
It is like this.
Many Indians( I get reminded of Neeya Naaana programme in Vijay TV)
are doing engineering under duress. They are not really passionate.
Today America is facing problems in basic education and they wonder at
the math and language skills of Indians.
That is a very deep cultural thing. Nobody can erase it. Nobody can improve it.
We are born that way. The same way we are born with a certain nose and
have a certain height.
Though I am not happy with the availability of local talent for high
technology work this is due to various factors like brain drain, lack
of sustained interest in engineering, poor recognition for technical
people and so on.
Despite all this I think that Indian engineering and technology has a
bright future.
Even today do you have a single Indian technical innovation that can
stand up shoulder to shoulder with the world's best?
Most of us only want to do third rate services work in companies like
CTS, TCS, Wipro.
This has to change. And this will not change overnight.
Only then you can expect technology people to thrive and attract others.
How does someone get attracted to say something like and IIM MBA?
Only when various articles are published about how IIM guys make crore
salaries and have car, bungalow, power and so on.
Similarly we want success stories coming from millions made by top
technical talent in India.
This I think is a much bigger problem than out academic institutions.
-Girish
--
G3 Tech
Networking appliance company
web:
http://g3tech.in ?mail: girish at g3tech.in
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