Indian FTs themselves also admit their own engineers unfit for software development

[mikechan]

Taken from Quora:

Deepak Mehta
working professional since 2013

[What are the reasons it was said that most of the Indian software engineers are unfit for development?]

India has a quality problem in education and not a quantity problem. If you look at the data maintained by AICTE (All India Center for Technical Education)

and focus on the 2016–17 numbers for Engineering and Technical courses, you will find that there are huge number of empty seats and that:
* More than 50% of seats go unfilled
* And only 40% of graduating students get placed

Every year, about 1% of institutes are closed due to not meeting the minimum requirements set by the Council (67 institutes closed last year).

One needs to remember that the Indian education system has a huge infrastructure gap. 15 lakh young people are set to graduate from engineering every year, yet only a handful of them get will do so from good colleges (IITs, NITs, BITS, Anna U, etc.), about 30–40,000 (2–3%). A lot of bogus colleges are cropping up to take advantage of the students’ dilemma and make money.

So when such colleges that are just a husk and a lot of fluff churn out graduates who technically have a degree, are they going to actually be employable?

I studied from BITS and graduated with a Computer Science degree. I had no prior coding experience, having taken up both Maths and Biology in 12th. When I started, things were already difficult since quite a lot of the folks in my batch had the basics of programming nailed down.

In my first year, I only had one course pertaining to programming (focusing on C). And it was not taught well. In the second year, we had a bunch of them - algorithms, data structures, and database systems. None built on what was taught in the first year. Everything was theoretical. There were courses on microprocessors and Electrical sciences I loathed but had no other choice than to study. I can understand how they are peripheral to the field of programming, but they aren’t crucial. If I was to graduate with a coding job, I needed to focus on “how to” instead of “what happens at the back-end”, “what is the history of programming etc”.

By the time the 3rd year rolled around, I was screwed beyond recovery.

Our coding examinations were paper-based. In a world where everyone has access to compilers and debuggers, and there are answers to all basic issues that programmers face, there is no need to memorize the syntax. Coding is as visual an exercise as it is theoretical, but the focus was always on the latter.

So, India’s premier private college churned out a useless graduate with a degree who can’t code to save his life. I shudder at how bad things are in shell colleges who do not care about education, whose teachers are incompetent, and whose student intake is mediocre in quality.

 

[mikechan]

Meraj Ahmad Siddiqui
Former Platform Engineer at Lucid LLC (2018–2019)

[As many say, 'Are Indians really unfit for a software engineer job?' If so, what are the main reasons for this?]

It feels offensive to write about my own profession, but unfortunately its true. Whether its me or others. But most of Indian engineers and I think more than 80% of them are unfit for jobs. Who is responsible. I would say 30% family, 20% education system and 50% the person is responsible for themselves.

I don’t blame competitive exams, I think it helps in one way or other. I myself am a big fan of competitive exams and I rarely find people who did not qualify any competitive exam and are good. There are, I have met few people and do respect them for their talent but they are rare.

Family: In Indian middle class, family only wants an engineer, a doctor or a government employee no matter what one does as government employee. The less no of good engineering colleges was a major problem in achieving this goal, so there cam market of private colleges. All you have to do is pay money and get enrolled. So the candidate had achieved first level of success by money. That’s why I said family is responsible for 30%.

Education System: We all like to blame education system and unfortunately its true. I remember in my 7th semester there was a teacher who said every one should have a brown cover on note books and of-course a sticker with name so you can’t change the cover with others. I was student of a government engineering college. Seriously.. I remember my HOD hated me lot because once I did insult him in the class. What he did every day brought pdf of notes and read in the class, no explanation and nothing, So one day there was some problem with the projector and he asked me to fix it and he was using Adobe Reader, you all know. I fixed the issue and `CTRL+ Shift + B`, By this command adobe will speak the text. He was pissed at me. So they all focus on theory exams, marks etc and does not matter what you learnt. So it has a contribution of 20%.

Candidate: Who does not like being in relationship, partying out, going on trips, movies, every one loves it I love it. But doing this 90% of candidates forget they have a career to make ahead. Most of them have not decided what they want to be. They just want to complete bachelors with a degree and a girlfriend/boyfriend. It does not only include middle and back-bencher’s but also include the front rows. They only focus to get highest mark and not what they have to do in future. (I am a back-bencher). Once they complete graduation if they got placed in TCS, infosys, wipro great otherwise they would go for M.tech or SSC or other exams. Without any fixed target. So that’s why I think candidate is responsible for the 50% of it.

I think one should have a target from class 10th or 12th only that what they want to be. It should be clear. Family should control the money and force the candidate to be dependent on their own except essential expenses like fees, hostel. College/School should focus on what their students are going to do rather than what is the color of the cover on notebook. And do not do M.tech just because you will get 12,000 /month or because you did not got a job. If you want to do job then do evaluate why at first place you did not get the job try, try hard, improve your self. If you are really interested in teaching then only go for higher education and don’t do same thing what your teachers did. Don’t do M.tech to force students to have some specific format of note book, specific cover or shitty things.

 

[blackmondy]

Shitskins are only good as background dancers in Bollywood.

 

[steffychun]

Just study at Uptron UCL.