Feedback for Engineering colleges

I visit many colleges and universities (mostly technical). Following is my feedback:
1. Research

In most cases, I do not see universities and colleges producing books. They are just consuming books (and research).

Nation cannot grow on imported research. Our universities, should come up with models of genuine, authentic and indigenous research.

2. Startup inclination 

It is good to see more and more students showing interest in  creating their startups, being self-employed and providing employment to others.

But, In some cases, students are less excited about the idea and more excited about the funding. I think, Venture-capitalist-funded-startup is a non-developmental phenomenon, unless backed by genuine product idea. The premise of creating a product cannot be to get money from a third party to burn under the guise of start-up. Nothing can beat a profitable economic model.

Having said that, I don’t want to discourage students taking the plunge. This is only for those, who are not ready to put in the ‘tapasya’ required.

3. The damage done by TCS-Wipro-Infosys and others

I have found students of B.Tech (esp. computer science) as the most confused lot. Popular, bulk hiring companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. had a history of not asking technical questions in their hiring test and interview.

They, in fact select students on their logical and English communication skills. This is because most of these companies are not into genuine research, they provide services and some are into body-shopping.

But because these are the major hirers in IT, they become tantamount to  placements in smaller, not-so-popular (esp. private) Engineering colleges. Their students just don’t have other options.

This has made many students take technology as optional, they do not know what is important. They take english communication classes, they take classes on soft-skills, logic, Some even learn to play guitar just to look cool and add it to their resume. They do everything except engineering.

An entire generation of engineers have been like that. India is not able to produce its own Facebook, Youtube, Google, Microsoft or even Amazon, even when most of these companies have Indians on the top.

Good IT product companies are built by researchers with strong hold on technology. The strength in core computer science concepts, a strong hold on fundamentals is required to build a product.

In past few years, the trend is changing, thanks to the Internet and platforms like hackerrank, codechef etc. They provide a level playing field to students of not-so-good colleges to compete with the best in the world for jobs in top product companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, where strong understanding of core-computer science concepts is appreciated.

I encourage students to get their fundamentals strong and not run for frivolous courses.

4. Teachers are not Gurus

Most private engineering colleges are not owned by educationists but, influential (and rich) people not directly into education.

I think because of this, the business-side becomes more important than the education-side and teachers are not encouraged to carry good-quality research. Instead, a lot of teacher’s time go into operational work like getting admissions, book keeping, etc.

This is one of the many reasons of having poor quality teachers in educational institutes. This quality is reflected in students.

With internet, students can access the best lectures from across the world on his phone. How much interested will such a student be in attending regular college classes, that does not add value?