The IIT experience

Ref swarrier #30

[Jang , stop your needling. IIT`s were not designed to produce economists, or peaceniks or photogenic men with bushy hair and moustaches.]

Several years ago, I saw an advertisement for Sri Ravi Shankar Ji`s meeting in California. The ad mentioned he graduated from IIT.

I am not sure this is the ``Art of Living`` Ravi Shankar. But then Ravi Shankar seems to be favorite pseudonym among sadhus, musicians, etc.

So yes, IITs do produce men with an aura of bushy hair surrounding their face.

Re: # 34

Then maybe the next big step is for the IIT`s to move from technology to flower power. -) Would that Ravi Shankar had started `Technology of Living``, but it doesn`t have quite the same pizzazz to it, does it?

Bongdongs,

Thanks for the correction.

Jang,

There`s a clear diff between science and technology. Technology is supposed to solve technical problems whereas science is supposed to deal with thoughts and realities though inextricably linked with experimentation i.e. proper scientific process....

Technologists therefore cant produce a theorist for eg say theoretical physicist i.e by analogy a thinker of Einstein variety.

whatever, but saima shas point is has IIT produced a thinker like say gandhi or prof. huntington or einstein or even amartya sen? the answer would be a no IMO. now narayan murthy is a doer..not thinker.

Re: # 28
Jang , stop your needling. IIT`s were not designed to produce economists, or peaceniks or photogenic men with bushy hair and moustaches. They were supposed to turn out engineers.
That they have produced people who do a lot of other things is their fault. -)

How many Einsteins did the Swiss Federal Polytechnic produce? They made him a good patent officer.

That way that Satya Sai Baba bloke is also a thinker. Dunno what he`s thinking of though. Maybe IIT should produce one of those types.

#26

Sandeep (not Sanjay) Pandey of ASHA.

I bit too political to be altruistic (he gave up his magsasay award money because it was ``tinged`` with US money)

but one must respect a lot of what he has done.

Warrier,

Altruistic reasons! Ditto Sanjay Pandey, an IITian, US-returned and a Magsaysay awardee.

#24
Have a friend who was at IIT Bombay who actually after his BTech worked at Baba Amte`s ashram for quite a while setting up their administration etc. Bit off the beaten track that.

Warrier,

I know of Karmaker of Bell labs and read abt his invetions. Read abt Netravali and George as well.

I also read of one IIT-B guy - a Kerala Catholic who got 800/800 in GRE but didnt go to the USA for masters. These IITians are performers but as u siad, IITs produced thinkers as well.

VRV
There are people like Karmarkar, Netravali, George Varghese etc and quite a few more. I`m only looking at engineers. You might say they are there inspite of or because of the sytem.

how about praful bidwai?

Re: # 21

Jang, is it? I dont know.

I met Mr. Gupta as a roommate at a Paris Youth Hostel. Though he came as India`s rep for a seminar in Paris (which makes him eligible to stay at a 5* hotel) he stayed in the Hostel as his daughter also came from another EU country to see him. I really didnt know then that my roommate was Arvind Gupta.

We spoke abt space science and abt my deep interest in astronomy till late midnight. I also told him abt Jayant Narlikar`s articles that inspired me as a kid. We spoke abt Indian science till late midnight. Next morning I saw his bag and baggage to be a collection of garbage from Indian streets. (Though I kept that opinion to myself). I must visit him at IUCAA at Pune, one of the several centres in Indian where study of astronomy is being conducted.

Later when I came back to London I found his name as a person touring Pakistan popularising Science education. Then I googled and I found a lot abt him. Inspite his age he`s the glint of a childish curiosity in simpler things, which he uses as tools to popularise science. He too studied in an IIT but didnt join the rat race for better jobs but stuck in writing books for children in vernaculars for popularising science. Great Soul.

``Five point someone`` succeeds because it`s funny. You can identify with teh lead characters, ``mediocre`` though they be.

This is just a sophomoric essay with no humour, no nostalgia, no sentiment at all. You may well have been writing an essay on ``The Cow`` (The cow has four legs. It eats grass. People everywhere except Hindus eat it, etc.)

BTW, the RECs (not RCEs) are now called NITs (National Insst of Technology)

Nabebendu`s article reads like a power point presentation. -)

Re; Saima Shah , I don`t think the IIT`s were built to solve all the problems of the century. They were built to create a bunch of people who would help industrialise India.

Plus I don`t think the IIT regimen is against thinkers. Pressure cooker situations are there in many good schools in the West too. However to some extent they do not have the same time pressures as most schools in Asia.

You cannot join any professional college in India for a graduate degree beyond a certain age (I think it used to be 21). You also have to clear your courses in a specific degree of time.

I think the biggest problem is the price our society puts on failure. To succeed as a creative thinker one must not be afraid to fail. All that is effectively drummed out of us at a very early age, the penalty for failure is too high.

And that starts very early in life, long before the IIT`s.

Unlike other places there is no social net to catch you if you fail. Your time runs out by the time you are in your early 20s.

The IIT`s are much better than many other colleges. There are a few creative thinkers that they have produced in the 50 net years of their existence.

Re: # 17

Yes, I agree with you--it is true, my judgement is very harsh. But, the lens I am using is the current crisis of the industrial era. There are bigger things afoot then the industrialization of a country. I believe that there is a global crisis of knowledge. And one of the reasons is schools that completely annex the old economy out of the curriculum as though it is a useless waste of time. I am afraid that the values that industrialization teaches (yes, there are values) are environmentally and socially unsustainable. My opinion is that these schools produce the greatest do-ers, who don`t know what they are doing and why. Now, that is fine if one views people as capital and input. It isn`t fine, if we view people as the beneficiaries of an economic system.

Regards

Saima

Re: # 32

Saima
I don`t entirely disagree. But the same blame could be laid on any educational institution in the world today or in the past. People have never completely thought out the consequences of their actions while doing scientific research because the urge and the joy to solve a problem is more important than the related consequences.

Again any business or technical school is only interested in turning out graduates that will be able to improve the it`s brand name. This is as true in the West as in India or elsewhere.

In today`s world where specialisation is important the amount of time spent in learning a vast body of work that already exists in a chosen field effectively reduces the time one requires for reflection, if one has to think from a humanitarian perspective.

People still do but after they are able to have some time or money at their disposal. The Bill Gates Foundation would not have happened if Microsoft had not become the behemoth it is today. Sort of Yin and Yang. -)

Cheers