My Autobiography: How did an Engineering Degree help me?
In NO WAY. In fact, it has only harmed me and I took a long time to unlearn the propaganda of the Education mafia, and learn the necessary skills required for adding professional value.
Me, like millions of other Indians, have suffered a lot, wasted a lot of money, time, skills, etc. by deciding to do that SILLIEST of courses here – Engineering. That very word gives me nightmares.
Four years is by no means a little time. And all I did during those four years was to memorize many words and equations just before the exams, all of which were promptly forgotten the next day.
The irony is I passed in all the exams without a single arrear!
Had I studied something like Literature, Journalism or Visual Communication, I could have determined my career path earlier and by now I would be competing with the best in the industry, instead of still grappling with the basics.
Frankly speaking, a 30-hour After Effects course I am doing in Udemy for Rs. 700 or so is a thousand times more valuable than my expensive degree.
I guess the situation is slightly better for my friends who chose to become software engineers, which BTW was the only option available for most engineers back then. At the least, the degree helped them get into a job.
But of course, what they did (and doing) in the job is totally unrelated to what they studied. Then why study a specialized ‘professional’ course in the first place?
If academia has no clue about what skills are required in the professional landscape, why start and run engineering colleges? Back then, I guess, starting engineering colleges was one of the ways to become a billionaire from a millionaire. Get rich quick. Nowadays there are so many colleges that you’ll only become bankrupt from being a millionaire if you try opening another 🙂
My biggest surprise is, why would Indian parents encourage this trend of joining their ‘kids’ in engineering colleges even after having learned a lot of life lessons? Did they not get the signals of this education ‘business’ being a scam?
Or is the pervasive question of ‘what their son or daughter is studying/has studied’ so compelling that they were OK with being cheated of their hard-earned money?
I find that Indian society is hell-bent on misguiding people to go through the same hell that they’ve been through. They even call it KARMA!!
Destination Infinity
Agree with you 100%. It is not only Indian parents in India. It is also Indian parents in foreign countries like USA. They all want their children to study Engineering or Medicine.
Wanting one’s wards to study ‘lucrative’ courses is one issue, but here the bigger issue is no one gets any value out of what they study in Engineering colleges!!
Destination Infinity
Which college did you passout from?
Ha ha.. nothing wrong with the college in particular, it’s about the University syllabus in general.
Destination Infinity