Nova Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 ...the H-1B NK0Y9j_CGgM I always hear many people saying that the US educational system is going down the drain, and that more students need to go into STEM areas. On the other hand, the PhD factory in this country is entering stagnation. Too many highly qualified people are not getting jobs in their preferred areas. There needs to be a shift in the mind set and educational culture of kids from a young age. In the US, an overwhelming majority of the work force are only high school graduates. For the most part, they are able to maintain a decent standard of living, compared to developing countries. But I think this is going to change. The US economy in the future will come to a point where college level education will play a vital role, as it now does in India. Reliance on highly skilled foreign workers is okay for now, but the US needs to develop more home grown talent. The lure of the American dream is still attracting immigrants from all over the world, especially India and China, but this won't last. As economies shift and become more globalized in this pacific century, brain drain is likely to cease dramatically and come to a stand still.
maniac Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 ^ good stuff.....I am a big fan of this guy....his bbc documentaries on time are pretty cool too......love the way he simplifies complex scientific concepts.
Clarke Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 He spoke at one of the tech conferences i attended this year. Enlightening words. For instance, check out this fact: "No two democracies ever went to war with each other". Didn't know that, did you :idea:
anotherhawkeye Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 What's secret about it? Its a well known fact.
akshayxyz Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 He spoke at one of the tech conferences i attended this year. Enlightening words. For instance, check out this fact: "No two democracies ever went to war with each other". Didn't know that, did you :idea: And in the history of humanity, what is the sample space?
someone Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 "No two democracies ever went to war with each other". Isn't India and Pakistan democracies??
Clarke Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 And in the history of humanity' date=' what is the sample space?[/quote'] Considering all the conflicts in the last century, isn't it still surprising ? Only the Kargil conflict is the grey area since it wasn't an all out war and the PML govt was clueless about the infiltration or the course of action once we noticed the incursions. 65 - Ayub & 71 - Yahya were obviously non-democratic govts.
akshayxyz Posted September 30, 2012 Posted September 30, 2012 Democracy/diplomacy etc are like - "मुंह में राम, बगल में छुरी." (exchanging sweet words, but real intentions not being as good, to put it modestly).
someone Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Considering all the conflicts in the last century, isn't it still surprising ? Only the Kargil conflict is the grey area since it wasn't an all out war and the PML govt was clueless about the infiltration or the course of action once we noticed the incursions. 65 - Ayub & 71 - Yahya were obviously non-democratic govts. So I stand correct while that guy is wrong. The point is in wars, you really cannot ever assume anything.
Lurker Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 He spoke at one of the tech conferences i attended this year. Enlightening words. For instance, check out this fact: "No two democracies ever went to war with each other". Didn't know that, did you :idea: That's Thomas Friedman school of thought actually. Nothing new about it. But then look close at the some of the biggest names on the world circuit in 20-21st century. US (democracy), UK (monarchy), China (Communist), USSR(Communist). Officially there is only 1 democracy in the list :giggle: I beleive Thomas Friedman calls it the McDonald's effect too, no two countries with McDonald's have gone to war, something like that.
Crookbond Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358804578018531927856170.html At the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi—one of the best engineering academies in the country—we met Shriram, a 21-year-old man who ranked 19 out of 485,000 on the school's very demanding entrance exam. We call him Mr. Number 19. Shriram can tell you the date and time when he found out his test results. The exam—and the preparation for it—dominated his teenage years. He was singled out as a "big talent" at an early age, with an aptitude for mathematics and science. To get ready for the IIT entrance exam, he enrolled at a private coaching institute that prepares students with aggressive drilling in the major testing areas—physics, chemistry and math. Over those two years, Shriram estimates that he studied 90 hours every week. When Shriram arrived at the IIT, he found a class filled with academic superstars. The faculty has high expectations. On the first math exam, his freshman class received an average grade of 30%. Shriram did poorly too but soon bounced back, sacrificing sleep so that he could study. "All my life I wanted to be here," he says. "I knew that if I could go to IIT, major in engineering, work and study hard, my life would be perfect. I would marry a beautiful girl, start a company, help my country advance and deliver on my family's hopes and dreams." :haha: Both India and China have intense national testing programs to find the brightest students for their elite universities. The competition, the preparation and the national anxiety about the outcomes make the SAT testing programs in the U.S. seem like the minor leagues. The stakes are higher in China and India. The "chosen ones"—those who rank in the top 1%—get their choice of university, putting them on a path to fast-track careers, higher incomes and all the benefits of an upper-middle-class life. The system doesn't work so well for the other 99%. There are nearly 40 million university students in China and India. Most attend institutions that churn out students at low cost. Students complain that their education is "factory style" and "uninspired." Employers complain that many graduates need remedial training before they are fully employable. For now, the U.S. university system is still far ahead. But over the next decade, there will be a global competition to educate the next generation, and China and India have the potential to change the balance of power. With large pools of qualified students coming of age, the two countries have made reforming their universities a top priority. How far do they have to go? At the Boston Consulting Group, we have developed a new ranking to determine the educational competitiveness of countries: the BCG E4 Index. It is based on four Es: Expenditure (the level of investment in education by government and private households); enrollment (the number of students in the educational system); engineers (the number of qualified engineers entering the workforce), and elite institutions (the number of top global higher-education institutions). The U.S. and the U.K. are ranked first and second, driven by raw spending, their dominance in globally ranked universities and engineering graduation rates. China ranks third and India fifth, largely on enrollment (Germany is fourth). The reasons for U.S. supremacy are clear: For one, it spends the most money on education, disbursing $980 billion annually, or twice as much as China and five times as much as India. It is also the most engineer-intensive country, with 981 engineering degrees per million citizens, compared with 553 for China and 197 for India. American universities currently do a better job overall at preparing students for the workforce. The World Economic Forum estimates that 81% of U.S. engineering graduates are immediately "employable," while only 25% of Indian graduates and 10% of Chinese graduates are equally well prepared. "Chinese students can swarm a problem," a dean at a major Chinese university told us. "But when it comes to original thought and invention, we stumble. We are trying hard to make that up. We are trying to make technical education the grounding from which we solve problems." In China, Peking University, founded in 1898, is generally ranked as the country's top school. One student there told us in a very serious tone: "Good luck finding a place in the library. You can't find a seat even at three in the morning." Peking University is now part of an effort launched in 2009 to create a Chinese counterpart to the Ivies—called the C9 League. The objective is to attract the best graduates and faculty with an array of super-funded institutions. The schools recently received $270 million each in government funding, and they are also drawing back "sea turtles"—Chinese Ph.D.s from abroad—to lead the renaissance, with relocation bonuses as high as $150,000. :omg: Though the C9 schools have the greatest potential to break into the global elite, Chinese officials also identified 100 key universities at the next level, where they have invested a total of $2.8 billion. The difference in student quality between these tiers is often insignificant. The Gaokao is China's national educational test, given to 10 million secondary students to determine their rank and placement at university. The top scorers become national celebrities. But critics say that the test's emphasis on memorization, fact recall and processing speed can determine college admissions too arbitrarily. "I did not feel well the day of the test," one recent graduate told us. "As a result I placed in the top 10%, not good enough to get into the C9. I felt like my life was over." Compared with China, India has farther to go. A senior dean at IIT Delhi said that he deals daily with shortages of equipment, poor pay for teachers and quotas that sometimes put students who can't read or speak English in the classroom. (The quotas are meant as a remedy for the caste system.) "We are underfunded, we have too few Ph.D.s on faculty, and we have a fifth of our enrollment taken by quota with no remedial programs," he lamented in his hot, open office. :facepalm: One of the reasons for the underfunding is the relative weakness of India's central government, which accounts for only 15% of total expenditure on education. The 28 states that account for the balance vary greatly by wealth and infrastructure. But unlike China, India has significant private education, with nearly 200,000 private schools and 17,000 private colleges. The World Bank and private investors are pouring billions of dollars into education there, and the government plans to expand its best-known universities, as well as community colleges. The current five-year plan proposes higher-education investments of more than $18 billion. Even with the current push, the combined higher-education resources of India and China will just begin to match the $32 billion endowment of Harvard alone. But success in these countries is based as much on attitude as on funds. The IIT's Mr. Number 19 represents a generation of driven, talented students who are intent on improving their lives. In one student's room at Peking University, the commitment to advancement is summed up with a phrase on a poster board: "If you work hard enough, you can grind an iron rod into a needle."
Clarke Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 China takes the macro-level steps on a war footing, no doubt about that.
Lurker Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 A senior dean at IIT Delhi said that he deals daily with shortages of equipment, poor pay for teachers and quotas that sometimes put students who can't read or speak English in the classroom. (The quotas are meant as a remedy for the caste system.) "We are underfunded, we have too few Ph.D.s on faculty, and we have a fifth of our enrollment taken by quota with no remedial programs," he lamented in his hot, open office. Poor pay and lack of facilities aside, this Dean must be one of those knowledgeable fools who has worries about students who are bad in English. Since this article compared India with China and US, perhaps the honorable Dean would do well to realize China has excelled because of Chinese and not English, and even in US a student who does not know English but is bright enough is never lampooned for the lack of knowledge. In fact many immigrants, East European for example, will spend an entire life carrying on their accent and nobody cares.
Crookbond Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Poor pay and lack of facilities aside, this Dean must be one of those knowledgeable fools who has worries about students who are bad in English. Since this article compared India with China and US, perhaps the honorable Dean would do well to realize China has excelled because of Chinese and not English, and even in US a student who does not know English but is bright enough is never lampooned for the lack of knowledge. In fact many immigrants, East European for example, will spend an entire life carrying on their accent and nobody cares. :two_thumbs_up: I shared one of trysts with an IIT professor in another thread and he has lamenting that students are "no longer quality these days". Typical, Hamare Zamaaane Mein JEE yeh woh and all that lasungiri he was telling us. I promptly asked him that even if they are not top 1% they are still top3% or 5% so stop being a Sangakkara and do your freaking job! :whack: But, Lurker I must add that the English barrier will ALWAYS hold Chinese back. Also, they are folks who just DO without much creativity. I have first hand experience and they are not even able to communicate their ideas & thoughts. It is a BIG advantage for Indians but we continue to squander it due to mismanagement.
Clarke Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Poor pay and lack of facilities aside, this Dean must be one of those knowledgeable fools who has worries about students who are bad in English. Since this article compared India with China and US, perhaps the honorable Dean would do well to realize China has excelled because of Chinese and not English, and even in US a student who does not know English but is bright enough is never lampooned for the lack of knowledge. In fact many immigrants, East European for example, will spend an entire life carrying on their accent and nobody cares. I'm not sure if language has anything to do with it. The Dean might be right/wrong about proficiency in English among certain students but his larger point is about lack of infrastructure/funding and a higher level of meritocracy that is required to make an institution among the best in the world.
Lurker Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 But, Lurker I must add that the English barrier will ALWAYS hold Chinese back. Also, they are folks who just DO without much creativity. I have first hand experience and they are not even able to communicate their ideas & thoughts. It is a BIG advantage for Indians but we continue to squander it due to mismanagement. Your observation, quite apt, has little to do with language though. Chinese typically are very good in taking orders and then fulfilling it. That said we can also make the argument that right now the state of China is such that they want to come up to the world level, and they are definitely there now, without debating much on the creativity. Indians, on the other hands, perhaps spend too much time debating it is the right or wrong thing to do, without even starting the work. In the end it comes down to different approaches. I obviously lean towards Indian model but Chinese model is also worth looking, and perhaps learning at the right contexts.
Crookbond Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Your observation, quite apt, has little to do with language though. Chinese typically are very good in taking orders and then fulfilling it. That said we can also make the argument that right now the state of China is such that they want to come up to the world level, and they are definitely there now, without debating much on the creativity. Indians, on the other hands, perhaps spend too much time debating it is the right or wrong thing to do, without even starting the work. In the end it comes down to different approaches. I obviously lean towards Indian model but Chinese model is also worth looking, and perhaps learning at the right contexts. I did not mean to imply language helps creativity or vice-versa as you mention. But, I have found these guys wanting. Your debating argument is perfect - as we move at snail pace. Actually, India/China are two extremes and US is more like somewhere in the middle! However, my point about China still holds - given an option between an Indian and Chinese with equal skill sets there are a lot of people who would go for an Indian if the job requires some degree of creativity. On the other hand, if it is a work-horse environment Chinese would be preferred - so I guess that's the context.
punjabi_khota Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Poor pay and lack of facilities aside, this Dean must be one of those knowledgeable fools who has worries about students who are bad in English. Since this article compared India with China and US, perhaps the honorable Dean would do well to realize China has excelled because of Chinese and not English, and even in US a student who does not know English but is bright enough is never lampooned for the lack of knowledge. In fact many immigrants, East European for example, will spend an entire life carrying on their accent and nobody cares. Kya phata baja bajate rehto ho. Instruction english mein hoti hai aur jo english nahi jaante they are at huge disadvantage at every stage: grades, job interview, grad school admissions (GRE), MBA interviews. 99% of all important research in the world happens in and is published in English. Aapke hindi gaane gaane se koi farak nahi padega research ki duniya mein. Chinese stadium mein bhar bhar ke logon ko english sikha rahein hain, aur aap yahaan chitrahar dikha rahe ho logon ko.
Lurker Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 Kya phata baja bajate rehto ho. For a guy who pretends to be "cool" you are awfully judgmental dude. Stop reading my post dude, why start criubbing every single time. Why Instruction english mein hoti hai aur jo english nahi jaante they are at huge disadvantage at every stage: grades, job interview, grad school admissions (GRE), MBA interviews. 99% of all important research in the world happens in and is published in English. Another brainwashed IITian eh (see how two can play this game?) There are a lot of people who come from not-so-good English background and they do very well in high level environments, thank you very much. And if anything it is folks like you who may have stacked odds against the hardworking people. You are right that an "English" toting 10 ranker will get a job, while a vernacular topper wont! And whose fault is that by the way? Ever seen in US that a low ranker gets the job ahead of top ranker in the class? No. Why does it happen in India? McCalauy-bhakts like you maybe the reason :) Aapke hindi gaane gaane se koi farak nahi padega research ki duniya mein. Naa pade, tum lage raho Angrezi bhakti mein lol. Humne kab kaha bhaiyaa ke hamari duniya aapke hisaab se chale? Or vice versa? Chinese stadium mein bhar bhar ke logon ko english sikha rahein hain, aur aap yahaan chitrahar dikha rahe ho logon ko. You must be another of those colonial lovers I presume :winky: Chinese to kahin pahoonch gaye solely Chinese park kar, aur ab log wapis bhi jaa rahe hain. Tum lage raho angrezi ke pyaar mein. Maybe time to get back to Snoop Sog now :hysterical:
Lurker Posted October 1, 2012 Posted October 1, 2012 I did not mean to imply language helps creativity or vice-versa as you mention. But, I have found these guys wanting. Your debating argument is perfect - as we move at snail pace. Actually, India/China are two extremes and US is more like somewhere in the middle! However, my point about China still holds - given an option between an Indian and Chinese with equal skill sets there are a lot of people who would go for an Indian if the job requires some degree of creativity. On the other hand, if it is a work-horse environment Chinese would be preferred - so I guess that's the context. Not really. It depends on who you ask. Look Chinese and Indians, immigrant population wise, are right there at the top. However if you have to pick one you would probably go for the former. In fact if you read up more about immigrants going back it is generally Chinse going back, or to HongKong, Taiwan etc. And that is causing worries in the West. I have no data to prove this but Indians have not quite joined the bandwagon of going back..yet.
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