Random Thoughts on Engineering, Medicine and Sciences in India - Part I

Since all of you would have finished with most of the competitive exams I thought I would pen my thoughts .I think the entrance examination for AIIMS and JIPMER are still due .THINK OF THIS ARTICLE AS AN ATTEMPT TO KINDLE LOST INTEREST IN CORE FIELDS FOR THOSE ENTERING ENGINEERING in the wake of drifting away to consulting ,finance jobs .

As with most things in life ,some people score more than others and end up in IITs and some dont .Most things in this world have a narrative that is binary in nature .For example :Good and Bad ,Success or Failure etc .What we fail to understand is that any nature ,quality is actually a continuous spectrum .This is a cognitive bias which most of us are subjected to .Why am I speaking this here ?It so happens that every year after the placements happen the media which sensationalises most issues in our country covers " IITians gets 2 crore salary " well most of you would know what this pay package would encompass ,must of you would also know the magnitude of people getting this sort of packages and most importantly why such a pay package is given in the first place .But the media is insensitive .Think of the psychological impact it has on other IITians ,think of the kind of bashing that a non IITian guy has to receive from his parents for not making it to the IIT's .Though the IITs have got nothing to do with a X gaining Y crores of salary (It 's mostly due to his own initiative and skills that he would have landed a job ) .IIT ' s are the perfect examples of illustrating correlation does not imply causation .What media doesnt show is that most IITians lose tremendous interest in core fields .If Make in india has to happen its only through core fields .Your branches are a result of your ranks not your interest and more importanly true engineering skills can be mastered with lot of patience ,time ,professionalism ,interest in one 's field .I will write a separate post expressing my thoughs on the ailing medical training system in India .Lets focus on engineering in this one .Assuming u land up in a 4 Year course,the firsy year goes away in learning what u already know and is essentially crap like Bhel Puri containing all vegetables .The second year goes away in compulsory courses .In the third year people take some electives to further their understanding and in the fourth year its the projec .In india honestly engineering is also taught like science with scope for creation not encouraged in the curriculum .There is also no effort to showcase the link that concepts have from basic sciences .The Chebychev and Bessel filters .In every engineering branch there is wonderful interplay of various fields .Biotechnology is sort of relegated to a second level preference amongst youngsters with Genome sequencing (See Eric Lander ) the kind of stuff happening is amazing .so is the case with civil engineering .The delhi metro which is one of the most efficient transport systems ,The KRS Dam ,The Bombay Worli sea link .I mean its such a wonderful field .The other day while travelling in a local BMTC bus someone was discussing about a subject called strength of materials that comes in 2nd year or so and was amazed that he confessed that he copied the entire paper without even having put efforts ,This is scenarios in IITs NITs and every engineering college .The IITs have some of the finest scientists but most engineers are found in rural India to be honest .My electrician friend seems to have more knowledge that my electrical engineer friend .My electronics engineer friend who is well versed with Moore 's law isnt able to build a simple circuit without the help of my amateur college drop out robotics friend .The construction guy has precise knowlegde of how much cement to be used and advises against buying more cement despite his master civil engineer 's requests .My point is Indian society has to reward good practical knowledge because engineering is all about creation (Sristhi) as popular Quoran Balaji Vishwanathan says .Many of you who go on to be IITians in future I think should think of rejuvenating the love for these core fields and create opportunities .

Majority of our engineering colleges are useless and they don’t teach any real engineering.

Fundamentally, an engineer should be able to build things. If you don’t have the joy of breaking & building things, you are NOT an engineer. Simple.

Engineers have an unique job. We have the job of srushti - of creation. Of bringing things that never existed. Doctors and mechanics have to merely fix broken things. Lawyers and accountants have to merely keep up with rules and fineprints. We don’t get involved only when things go wrong. We can get positively involved to get things right from the start. None of this scientific revolution would have occurred without us.

Physicists and mathematicians can dream of things [this is why Sheldon, you are not as good as an engineer!] but only an engineer can bring to life. If physicists are like fathers of an idea - just bringing the sperm, engineers labour it like mothers - through all the pain to bring that kid into existence.

If you want to be employed as an engineer, you have to truly love that job of creation. You have to get to work in the morning excited about the new thing you are going to bring to life. You have to get your hands messy with experimentation. You have to constantly think how you can make your baby better and better and better.

If you are a real engineer, that creation is not a path to something. It is the destiny. The creation is not a reward for something “bigger” - say drawing strategies in thin air like a consultant or doing excel sheets like an investment banker. The reward for a real engineer is greater and better challenges to solve.

If you want to be an engineer, tell me what all are you creating. How many hours per day you are creating? How crazy are you about creating? If you create truly crazy stuff 5–8 hours every day of your 4 years of engineering, you will get into the top jobs regardless of what college you studied. If not, good luck. If you just give an excuse that you cannot spend that much time on creating every day because of some stupid college assignments or other useless distractions, you are not cut for it.

This is what Balaji Vishwanathan had to say on Quora for a question. What do you guys think?