Why the best and brightest students in India choose to be engineers

http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedagogy-and-choice-of.html

by scritic • 16 years ago

19 34 16 years ago

cogsciresearch.blogspot.com

edo• 16 years ago

With the internet Indian students can overcome their innate geographical disadvantage. Students in western countries don't have to.

The internet knows no boundaries or geography, that's why.

suraj• 16 years ago

Social pressure. Being an engineer or doctor is considered the most prestigious thing in India.

netcan3• 16 years ago

That just begs another why. Any ideas?

bluesmoon3• 16 years ago

Engineers get a much higher paying job. Computer engineers (both hardware and software) get paid 10-20 times as much as other professions. MBAs get more. Note that even students who do Mechanical & Civil engineering try to get software jobs. That's where institutes like Aptech and NIIT come in (they're now global franchises, but they started as tiny training institutes in an Indian city). I once met an auto-rickshaw driver who had a Bachelor's degree in science. He started driving the rickshaw because 2 years after graduating he couldn't get a job. If he'd done engineering, his college (or training institute) would have placed him somewhere.

When I graduated high school, and was in line to submit my college application, I heard a bunch of people mention that they'd applied for engineering and medicine and would take whatever they got.

Another reason, specific to guys is that it increases their chances of getting a bride from a "good" family, and also the potential dowry he could get. Software jobs tend to take you abroad more often than other jobs, and, believe it or not, there are some communities in India that will raise dowry prices based on the number of US immigration stamps you have on your passport. Yeah, officially dowry doesn't exist.

Lastly, some people study engineering simply because they're really good at it. I've encountered hundreds of people who really had the aptitude to be engineers.

Disclaimer: I'm Indian but I studied Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. No one would give me a job after I graduated even when I cleared all interviews and written tests.

plinkplonk2• 16 years ago

"That just begs another why. Any ideas?"

Money. Respect in society.

luckystrike• 16 years ago

If someone starts earning Rs 25000 (~$550) per month after college, generally it is almost equal or close to what most middle-class parents earn themselves.

Being an engineer always provided a possibility of getting a decent job, but the trend was accentuated after the advent of IT Services companies thriving on outsourced work. This in conjunction with a large number of private engineering colleges setup in the 1990's, meant engineering became an easy ticket to getting a decent paying job. And at the end of the day, money matters especially in a poor country. (Btw I'm an Indian living near Delhi, before someone thinks I'm just trying to bash the country.)

On the positive side, things are changing for better. Post economic liberalization in 1991, there are plenty more opportunities for young (& old) people to earn a good living. Overall, economic development coupled with information revolution are paving the way for this and the future generations to take more risks and do what they want, rather than worry about basic necessities of the life.

I was around 10 in 1991, and I have literally seen things/attitudes change in front of my eyes. (May be everyone thinks the same ..). I am very hopeful and optimistic that more people would now start getting in to different things/professions.

helwr• 16 years ago

risk free 'Exit' path to the big world. How many Phds in history are needed vs CS people? What would Indian history major do to pay the bills after she graduates?

In US a history or philosophy major can survive, and even run big companies (like LinkedIn) or go for a law school

avinashv• 16 years ago

Ignoring the external factors in a country like India, where familial and social pressure are extremely driving forces, doesn't present a great answer to the question in the title of this submission.

argv_empty• 16 years ago

It also seemed odd to me that it said, more or less, "Pedagogy in both places is the same, so let's examine the effect of pedagogy on student interest." Holding some factor constant won't tell you anything about its effect.

akgerber• 16 years ago

It claimed math/science pedagogy is the same, but other pedagogy is different inasmuch as everything else is rote thus boring.

That was its core thesis.

shrikant• 16 years ago

The title of this submission is not a question.

arethuza• 16 years ago

Perhaps it is something with societies in ascendancy - Britain in the 19th Century, the USA in the 20th.

I can't see Britain producing engineers with the status of Brunel anymore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel

fab13n• 16 years ago

Becoming a software engineer at Infosys or Tata is likely to make you several times wealthier than other "reasonable" jobs in India (and BTW, working in those huge CMMI-crippled corporations must be boring as hell: I don't think that fun of working/studying plays a huge role in people's choices).

This is not true in OECD countries (unless you give up the technical career path and become a start-up founder): taking up an MBA or cardiology will multiply your odds of becoming wealthy, but engineering will not.

asimjalis• 16 years ago

India and Indians have a long tradition of mathematics and science. Mathematicians like Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) have iconic status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_mathematicians

lolcraft• 16 years ago

Europe (Euler, Gödel, Erdos, Hilbert, Einstein) and America (von Neumann, Shannon, Feynman) have comparably long traditions and cultural icons. I don't think lack of them is the cause.

kraemate• 16 years ago

1 word. money.

On a more serious note - opening of the IITs allowed mathematically gifted students to become sought-after engineers who emigrated to the US and made loads of money (atleast for the people back home).

Thus it's all relative, engineering as career option bloomed because of IITs were set up. Other disciplines haven't had the same 'luck'.

blizkreeg• 16 years ago

The engineer/doctor story is more of a middle class phenomenon in India. If you look at rich and/or elite families, business or finance dominate their choice of profession. The poor sadly, have no access to even basic education.

Education is/was the ticket for middle class families out of their "predicament". To them, (arguably so) few disciplines require an intellectual rigor as much as Engineering or Medicine do. It is like a badge of honor for them. Being a Historian might be regarded interesting out here in the US - over in India, it would be regarded more as "...ah poor thing, he didn't amount to much". The arranged marriage system driven by tradition and on-paper worthiness more than anything added to this - an engineer or a doctor's value shot up instantly in the market (but I hear things are a changing)

Eventually, I think it is market-driven. Lack of opportunities elsewhere force the rest to take up professions that serve more as an insurance policy than a passion. It is changing though.

patio11• 16 years ago

Engineering -- specifically, computer programming with the intent of working for a body shop -- is a reliable path to comparative material prosperity and financial security in India in a fashion that it is not in the United States. That is really all there is to it.

(Engineers are not poorly paid in the US by any stretch of the imagination, but the career choice doesn't strictly dominate e.g. teaching, law, working for an arm of the local government, or generic white collar labor. By comparison, Indian engineering salaries were quite recently increasing by 50% every six months.)

Dellort• 16 years ago

I am guessing this is the case as well. I think people in general choose to enter into "safe" professions.

gacba• 16 years ago

is a reliable path to comparative material prosperity and financial security in India in a fashion that it is not in the United States.

And if you've ever visited any city in India and driven around, you'll see that these tech schools are heavily advertised on every lamp post, wall, and posting board. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy (tell everyone to be an engineer and they just might do that) and a path of least resistance for those who can run the gauntlet.

michaelcampbell• 16 years ago

Yup; my experience has been pretty simply, "the money". Which leads to some of the broad issues seen with outsourcing engineering and comp sci jobs; many do it not because they enjoy it or are particularly skilled at it, but rather it pays well. That occurs in the US too as well of course.

pw3• 16 years ago

What's a body shop?

subud• 16 years ago

A temp agency:

http://www.idinews.com/bodyshop.pdf

pw0ncakes• 16 years ago

1. Most people have figured out that large companies (esp. banks) reward those who are able to finagle a way to the top over those who are simply good at doing their jobs, which means that it's economically optimal to spend one's college years making connections and learning how to socialize with rich people. It's hard to do this if you're in a demanding major.

2. Most people with the talent to pursue science degrees would actually rather be star professors making $150k in complete autonomy than Wall Street star traders making $20 million; at that level, money's fairly irrelevant. However, if look at the median outcome, finance wins. The mediocre Wall Street person still reaches $1 million/year by age 40 or so, while the mediocre engineer is lucky to crack $100k, and the mediocre professor is lucky if he has a job at all.

3. A lot of Indians and Chinese want the option of coming to the US, at least temporarily. We need engineers, so it's easier for them to get into the country.

4. Grade inflation, especially in elite colleges. As notorious as the Ivy League is for grade inflation, this is mainly in the humanities (and economics, because they need to have watered-down economics courses for the wannabe banker-douches) and far less prevalent in the sciences. Math courses give a B- or C for mediocre work. Humanities courses give a B+ or A- for mediocre work. The result is that a lot of people walk away thinking they're "just bad at math" because of the B in linear algebra, because a B in their humanities departments is a bad grade, whereas a B in the math course is average or even above average.

wheaties• 16 years ago

"In particular, I am interested in understanding why the best and the brightest high school students in the United States usually choose not to become engineers or scientists..."

Really? I guess my experience was different wherein I saw most of those who couldn't cut the math/science classes going different routes. I wouldn't consider those the "best and brightest" by any stretch of the imagination.

scritic• 16 years ago

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I don't really disagree on the "external factors" (getting a job, providing for your family, etc.). I think their role is overwhelming, and I say that in the post too. My point is simply to consider the role of pedagogy (and contrast the pedagogies of non-mathematical subjects in high schools in the US and India) and wonder if that has a role to play in the fact that so many "bright" students in India end up being engineers and doctors.

Perhaps, there's also a relationship between the external factors (probability of getting a job, job prestige, etc.) in a developing country and the style of pedagogy in schools that cater to the middle class, although at this point, I can't really think of a mechanism that makes things the way they are.

bluesmoon3• 16 years ago

I don't believe pedagogy has anything to do with it. I've had classmates who were really good at history and civics but only one of them went on to become a lawyer. The rest of them either became deck officers in the merchant navy or computer programmers. Both professions associated with a lot of money and foreign travel.

Why the best and brightest students in India choose to be engineers

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