Beyond the software glitter

In the competitive world of being software engineers, skills come at a premium. Gone are those days when jobs were awaiting candidates after graduating as engineers. In the game of software engineering profession, there were a few untruths that were bandied around.

A few convenient Lies:
*There is a shortage of software engineering talent. This untruth has caused a lot of engineers to fall prey to the software glitter.(fact is industry does not like to train students to their needs, and some students indeed take engineering lightly)
*Only 20% engineers graduating from colleges are employable. This partial truth does not hold water as top talent in some of the best colleges will all be employable and most from the batch from a not so good college will all be requiring intensive training. Also since jobs are in short, I am sure god created more talent than jobs suitable for them.

Toh humne socha hum bhi apni takdeer se khel lete hain...

Now the scene has shifted to other sectors of the economy and they loosely say about demographic dividend. How you would not have to feed many mouths since every person would be employed. That assumes there are jobs out there and people with requisite skills.

Raghuram Rajan recently remarked to the outgoing students of Shiv Nadar University not to fall prey to the institutes that award useless degrees. After your engineering a college which cannot promise you a job says that "We never promised you jobs" or "The degree only certifies you that you were able to learn so much and it guarantees that under similar circumstances you will continue to do so". So what do you do?

This assumes there are some responsible people.... who are in control.... out there who have a grand plan, a scheme of producing you to accomplish something.... some purpose.... some task that you and you alone can accomplish.

Most graduates never wanted the branch they end up studying. After very poor schooling students just learns so much in engineering and without much grounding in good mathematics they struggle.
India has had the bad luck of going through an extended crisis of confidence after the disastrous chandrashekhar government and the BOP crisis India as a nation suffered devaluation of its currency.

Along with the rupee we too got devalued. In my native tongue they say "Ruppaye mol na"

 (rupaiye ko mol nahin- rupee not worth the same anymore)

If you find people who are qualified as engineers taking up non-engineering jobs and not complaining about it ... it is their fate... we just remark slyly and move on.

Coming to my experience of being employed/unemployed... Every parent who has let his/her kid study engineering has to understand that getting the degree in hand itself is a horrendous task. After that there would be the struggle to apply for vacant posts. To apply for any positions. If the ward is oriented properly he would take up the jobs easily. It is a different matter to bring the horse to the river. It is entirely different to make it drink. There should be willingness on the part of the prospect to work. Then there has to be willingness to study further and upgrade skills. To acquire knowledge one has to seek. One has to research. One has to undergo certificate courses.

Little did we know most often your purpose of existence was either to give company to your brother/sister or to be a sahara for your parents in old age. The first purpose holds for me at-least. Maine poocha mujhe paida kyun kiya toh jawab mein bole "Tera bhai akela tha"... Hats off mere bhai.... I have even thought how my life would have been if I had not studied. This strand of thought says "Hum unpad hi acche the".

Questions that streaks through my mind now are....What can you do for the society? What can you do for your mother land with the knowledge that you gained. The same society which you feared when you failed in the exams. You were castigated as useless. You were branded as "Good for Nothing" or in chaste hindi "Dharti pe Bojh"(If not explicitly u at-least thought so to yourself).

That sums up the thoughts in me right now and I am sure the same thought crosses the minds of several graduating students.

The man who knew infinity - Sreenivasa Ramanujan

I am in no way knowledgeable about history of mathematics and neither knowing anything of the contributions of Ramanujan, but would like to comment on the shortcomings of the movie.

Mathematics is the queen of sciences indeed. It is a very sexy thing to be a mathematician. 

Ramanujan did study mathematics in his formative years... algebra and other things from text books, which somehow was not shown in the movie. The movie showed him as being overexcited at the mathematical problems written on the board. His actions showed that he was more interested in getting recognition and income so that he can lay his hands on his wife... something, which his mother carefully avoided, which is a very despicable portrayal of a highly accomplished mind.

He mentions to G.H Hardy several times that he has a wife to care for, whom he has left back in India. The most deplorable thing in the movie is that, it does not go in any way to explain the mathematical background, on which his work was based.

People do not like to know details about mathematics. Yet are in awe of those who understand it. It is a cryptic language understood, only by the gifted. We all know about how a single mathematical equation reduces the readership of a book by half. The movie is robbed of its soul because I expected depiction of at least a bit of mathematics, that is in a romanticized manner, easy to understand, presented to inspire youngsters, to take up the subject etc.

What the director/script writer did not skip showing was glorification of the trinity college. Boasting about how great newton was and their library, and their treasure trove of knowledge and history of brilliance. It also showed the culture in the college. Ramanujan was roughed up by the racists that too in a country which calls itself tolerant.

If you would like to learn about mathematics, invest in a book instead of taking the pains to watch the movie. If instead you want to know how cruel the world is to the gifted, who deserve better treatment, and want to be saddened by watching the movie, go ahead at your own risk.

At risk of sounding outlandish, I feel a Tamil movie by name முடிவிலி அறிந்த மனிதன் which would do justice to the character should be made. When Ramanujan's mother speaks chaste English it sounded very very strange. I felt the same while watching slumdog millionaire. How street kids were able to speak chaste English beats me.

PhD in Computer Science

Tone of this post may seem very authoritative but to be frank I am a rookie pilot not yet taken off
Being on top of the world university rankings is a great achievement. Maintaining your position there is still bigger job and getting your stature to rise from there is the toughest thing to do. Rankings show that no Indian University appears in the list, within the top 200

•  IISc is between 251 to 300.
• IIT-B is between 351 to 400.

Another eight come between 400 to 600 while seven more in the 600 to 800 range.

Totally 2+8+7=17 in the top 800. Under these circumstances if you want to pursue a PhD in any Indian University its worth would be seen through this prism(context). So there you are working as a faculty in another institute by the side of a road which is in a/leads to a mega city(ironically its the city that you quote to be recognized). Life seems utterly worthless. Over all this the societal pressure to achieve something or be someone. People laugh and make fun of you,  

couldn't think of a better job?

First mover advantage has its own value. Indian Universities most of which came into existence not long back have a large distance to cover to reach the top. What if were to start running long after the gun shot. After each and every global competitor has passed by and nearing the finishing line.

You run anyway....

India is a place where people take birth to dream of going abroad. Any fish which tries to swim against the tide has enormous odds to face. Alas... its not the road less traveled ... Its the road untraveled.

Enough of philosophy I think. Coming to the title... i have been dabbling in several fields at once. I have handled subjects not in anyway related to each other. I think I am a jack who dies in the movie titanic.... Jack come back... Jack come back...(ringing in the ears)

Jack is not a master of any trade. Ravaged by time, Once upon a time he was a young graduate not sure of where to go or what to do...

Opportunities knock many times. Doing nothing I thought I was conserving my intellectual energies. I thought to myself, I will somehow struggle till 50 or 55 and then do what i really like to do.

Off late it has dawned on me that I(or We) cannot be happy in a job that I(or We) do not like. Its not that I do not like teaching. I had this picture that life of a teacher is a bed of roses. Hours and hours of free time to do whatever seemed interesting to you. You could pursue your intellectual curiosity. You could do research(had faint idea what it meant to be a researcher, then). It has only dawned now that it is a very very slow process. Slower if you are lazier. Your capacity to think reduces as you age.

The first synopsis I wrote for PhD came a cropper. It was written in haste and never reviewed properly by anyone. It was on "Cryptography" a topic I chose just for the heck of it. I thought such a vast field can accommodate another PhD very easily. The synopsis never went beyond a survey on current research and did not have any proper problem statement or methodology.

There you are the first bit of knowledge that I glean. Even a synopsis should have a well defined problem that you think you can crack. Then a way that approximately leads you there, is the methodology. Have these two things right and your synopsis is going to sail through.

The problem may be a small one, does not matter. Recently I met a professor whom I consulted for advice, reviewed my profile and found that I have been going from one guide to another without any proper process or due diligence. He advised me to handle the subject related to the topic on which I propose to work.

If that were to be a barometer on which I choose the topic, then I should be doing research on Graphics. Related field of Data Compression a topic which I have handled once is also a good choice of research for me. I once taught in class that one of the holy grail of image/video data compression was the generation of a human face which would read news. The input to the program would just be text and the lady would generate sound and look like uttering. I guess that text book was surely outdated and the state of the art has moved well beyond this. If your PhD has to be state of the art it has to be path breaking. I hve always been a perfectionist and a procrastinator and hence my reluctance to register for PhD.
One more thing... The role of the industry in shaping the academic environment is quite inadequate. There has to be more relevant research and our industry due to government policies had never achieved the maturity that the present times demand.

One more piece of advice before I end, get all papers you reference and look at their citation count. Find which papers are more important. Categorize the papers that you have into groups based on certain criteria.(have many things to say about this but some other day)