My Harvard Reunion

WOW
We have havard chowkie among us.I am so,very proud of his presence that I am unable to move my head up to read this article further.Just I am so,very nervous...oh,gosh,How can i handle this Havard educated chowkie ??He is,too,brilliant for an ignorant like me.........

#49 by Zeena on July 3, 2005 9:13pm PT

We`ve also got people like you...so i guess it all levels out...

delhiwalla #46: ``I can assure you one thing no matter where you are in the world(with some exceptions), anybody who is a B. TECH from any IIT in India from any branch would be hired at the drop of a hat.......I have seen a Chemical Engg from IIT Delhi(not very high in the scale) being hired by IBM with a starting salary of $120 base + bonus with no IT experience, except some progamming skills in his area of expertise.``

I cannot agree with this.

There is no university in the world, of any type, whose graduate will be hired at the drop of a hat. I have done an awful lot of hiring for a lot of companies. We always interviewed candidates, then selected and rejected them. No one came in, ``at the drop of a hat.`` We rejected candidates from MIT, Harvard, etc. As well as IIT. In fact, I remember rejecting a candidate with a Ph.D from Harvard, and one with a BS from MIT (with seven years of experience), and selecting one with a degree from Jawaharlal Nehru (?) university, in their place..........I remember rejecting a Pakistani wtih a Ph.D from Boston University, and hiring one with an M.Sc. from Pakistan`s Punjab university in his place.

This was not the normal trend, but it did happen........Degrees, and the institutions from where they are obtained, at least in my book, are the fourth or fifth criteria. The first few criteria are the candidate`s problem-solving skills, domain knowledge, personality and soft skills........And I have found the top 10-20% from any decent college to be equivalent to those from any other college..........

Only an extremely extremely exceptional candidate, will ever get 120k, with no experience. The person will have to have literally invented something. And not too many people with a B.E. degree can invent anything. It doesn`t matter if he got a degree from the moon. Even the brightest Stanford grads, with double majors, and no experience that we hired, never made close to 120k.

The highest we ever paid for an inexperienced employee, was a double major in CS and economics, from Stanford, with one year experience. We paid him 80-85k. Even this was, because it was the peak of the .com boom, and it was a startup with almost unlimited funding. And the candidate was exceptional, with an excellent personality.

We hired an IIT grad with 4 Masters degree (yes 4!!) - two in Chemical Engineering, one it CS and and MBA, and over 10 years of software development experience. He was hired at 120k, with a quite a few stock options...........Both these guys worked directly for me.......Neither ever complained about their salary..........

Kaisa cartoon log aajkal Harvard jaate hai. Maybe I should app as well.

Khamkwa, I must apologise for calling your pi$$-piece the worst written on chowk in recent times. This one makes yours read like TS Eliot.

:))))

Uh-Oh...Captain Clueless has unleashed his I was a super duper IT businessman advising CIO/VP types on setting up their IT departments and my voluntary relocation to canuckistan was a blow for the US shtick....

seyaaneyaN aakheya aey...``Do not boast about what you can`t justify if asked to``.
may peace find you. :)

delhiwala:

Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope this will encourage more people to share their experiences at their alma mater. I wish you had brought in some more personal experiences, such as the shoe-shining incident.

IITs are an oasis of excellence in higher education in India. Most universities, including the prestigious Delhi University, are going downhill for lack of funds and can barely pay for their staff and faculty.

Holy Moses!
This juvenile fascination with HU commencement. Take a break my friend!

#51(Romair):
I have been active in the US IT business since early 90ies and do know almost all of the major recruiting/consulting companies in East and West Coast.
I am yet to see one, I repeat anyone telling me that an IIT(B TECH) being unemployed. I am only talking B. TECH(IIT) course not PHD, not M.TECH or anything else, anyone who cleared IITJEE(Joint Entrance Examination) for a B.TECH course.

I am serious about this it sounds like that you are in recruiting business. Please let me know if what I am saying is untrue.

As far as MIT/Harvard is concerned you are right, I have personally rejected MIT and Harvard students in the interviews when hiring myself due to some shortcomings or lack of experience in a particular area of expertise.

One more college that is high in the ranking in the world is BITS Pilani(Rajasthan), though I have seen BITS grads not being hired for 2 positions in my career.

when the end product of an indian IIT and harvard does not know the difference between ``there`` and ``their``...then it`s better to send your child to a community college... :(

Re: # 58
Mr. Khamkhwa AKA MR. Choudhry:
I do like you when you are sober and behaving sincerely.

Where did you see my typo? Please ignore it. Most of the time I am working on my Treo and I do things very fast and chances are that I make big time typing mistakes.

Re: # 59 Good excuse. The typo is there even in your intro, actually there are a couple more. And there is something called `proof-reading`, all Harvard grads should be impelled to do it i suppose.
peace

Delhiwala,
How many non-brilliant non-rich students do you see in Harvard?

Re: # 59 Forgot to mention, your piece is a good read on the whole. Keep them coming, but i`d re-assert on the importance of proof-reading, do not forget it next time; it is essential for the credibility and overall appeal of any writing i believe.

Re: # 61
probably none.
Like I said before, if you are mediocre like me then you can make it there.

Khams,

Community college students KNOW the difference b/n ``there`` and ``their``...lets not drag them into Delheewallah`s atrocious grammar....