[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by speed79

One cultural shock for me was that when they meet each other at parties, they hug each other. Come on, I can hug my close friend, but not his wife. Is it that Indian become highly affectionate after living in US of A? I could not really understand in my limited experience.

This is pretty common even in India these days, especially in metro cities. For me atleast, it’s not strange in any way to hug a person from the opposite gender, not even necessarily friends, even acquaintances when I’m in India. It was normalised since my university days when I was in Noida. However, it is still weird and an absolute no-no for someone from my parent’s generation.

There are many cultural variations in this aspect, in Spain you actually HAVE TO give two pecks on the cheeks between opposite genders or between women (but never between men). It’s actually considered disrespectful to your hosts/guests if you don’t. In Southern Italy, it’s fine between men as well. It’s common in Northern Europe as well but they don’t get offended like Spaniards and Italians if you don’t. There were cases of immigrants refusing handshakes in countries like Switzerlands which I do think is very disrespectful to the host culture.

This aspect is reversed with locals in the Gulf, my female colleague was refused a handshake by a Bahraini man which shocked her but I guess that’s local customs (though its considered fine to give a handshake if the woman initiates it).

[prasha7]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

Was checking the rankings, most of the leading Indian universities are at the very bottom; some of the IITs, VIT and BITS have fared so poorly that they are lumped in the 600-800s. Delhi University is 800-1000
====
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/83355542.cms

I've very less experience from what experienced folks here have, but out of the little I've understood being a CS graduate of few years back and having sibling with Post Graduate from IIT can say that we're way behind in terms of research funding and labs.
Even when we look at our budgets it's measly compared to institutes in abroad and the cut-throat competition pushes students to pass degree with flying marks rather than enjoying the journey and actually gaining knowledge. Given so, I'd also say that our courses(which are generally dissed) are really relevant and make students foundations strong.
I'd never suggest anyone in my peers or siblings to make Indian Institutes their first choice for Masters or further studies if they are really interested for research or delving deep into subject.

[Su-47]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

Was checking the rankings, most of the leading Indian universities are at the very bottom; some of the IITs, VIT and BITS have fared so poorly that they are lumped in the 600-800s. Delhi University is 800-1000

Even the Indian Institute of Science is sub 200 while the Universities of Warwick/Nottingham/Sheffield/Adelaide make it to the top 100.

The same question cropped up in my mind sometime back, and I had a look at the parameters that influence these rankings. IMHO, institutes in India do badly on the following areas (the list is not exhaustive and sorry if it offends anyone or their beliefs):

1. Course completion:
Even top institutes like IITB had lower course completion rates than similarly ranked colleges abroad. Again, I don’t intend to offend anyone, but this may have something to do with our policy of 50% (or more) reservations. We have to figure out a better path towards social justice without compromising on excellence. Easier said than done though!


2. Student satisfaction:
a. Bad quality residential infrastructure: Hostels and mess food are synonymous with hardship! I may be generalizing too much, but as a culture, we tend to glorify hardship during student life. Things like clean hostels, toilets, nutritious and hygienic food are a necessity and not a luxury.
Somehow, the college administrations fail to recognize this and are stuck in a time warp – “When I was a student, I swam across three rivers, killed four crocodiles and ate only stones for lunch. You guys have it easy!”

b. Continuing from pt 1 above, what happens to an “above average” student when you place them in a class with top 0.1% of the country? They struggle and feel unhappy.

3. Research:
Older universities may have an advantage as some of their “seminal or fundamental work” keeps getting referenced and pushes their citation scores up. Also, most conferences require one of the authors to be physically present for paper presentation if their paper is accepted -- sometimes this poses a challenge.

On the other hand, the research-infrastructure (labs etc.) may not be as big a difference as people say– atleast it wasn’t at IISc, where I did my masters.

4. Guidance (or lack thereof, affects satisfaction, number of publications etc.):
a. In our country, what happens when one lags behind in grasping a concept? You are mostly on your own – maybe you go ask your friends and then conclude you don’t get it because you are stupid. You could have gone to one of tutors, but most people don’t do that.

One of my friends ended up doing some coursework at Stanford, so he was able to compare Stanford and IISc side by side and he said that the support provided by the tutors at Stanford was just in a different league. If they see you struggle, they try another way - it’s as if the system there is designed to bring up everyone at a good level provided one is willing to put in the work. Some people get there quickly, some take time and effort.

b. Another place you can see this happening is in closure of the research topic. This may have to do with “glorification of hardship” concept again, but I could see Ph.D. students being asked to “figure it out”. In contrast, folks who did Ph.D from US found the system to be better defined. This is also reflected in time it takes to complete a Ph.D.

[vishnurp99]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

Was checking the rankings, most of the leading Indian universities are at the very bottom; some of the IITs, VIT and BITS have fared so poorly that they are lumped in the 600-800s. Delhi University is 800-1000

If you are looking at the QS rankings, you should look at the rankings by subject for the engineering topic. I believe the original IITs ( B,D etc) will be in the top 50 if you do.

if you are looking at the management school rankings, look at the FT rankings. You will find the top indian schools (original IIMs (A,B,C) & ISB) in the Top 50 of that list.
https://rankings.ft.com/home/masters...administration

The Indian schools don't do well on broad rankings since we are not well-known and our broad universities are not well-funded but when you compare apple to apples, the IITs & IIMs give the best bang for the buck globally along with some German schools.

American schools & British schools have the best rankings but they are also the most expensive ones by a mile.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

Was checking the rankings, most of the leading Indian universities are at the very bottom; some of the IITs, VIT and BITS have fared so poorly that they are lumped in the 600-800s. Delhi University is 800-1000

Even the Indian Institute of Science is sub 200 while the Universities of Warwick/Nottingham/Sheffield/Adelaide make it to the top 100.

In the course of my life, I have dabbled a bit in education, especially post graduate institutes, I do not know what to make of the poor state of rankings earned by the universities in India. I know research output is, and should be an important determinant in these rankings and some of our traditional universities (read DU, CU, JU etc.) still have some catching up to do, but the IISc leads the world in this regard according to the link below. Some of our technical institutes like the IITs are no longer behind either when it comes to research.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/83355542.cms

The so called RANKINGS is my pet topic. Let me share my 2 cents:

1. We should not put too much meaning into rankings is what we normally hear from lot of people. It is unnecessary pressure on our teen kids. But I personally feel that we should set the bar very high so that our kids would achieve. We need to monitor them very closely as aspirations and aptitudes of different kids are different and we should take the advise from a professional education counsellor before we push them to achieve the high targets.

2. My kid did his 10+2 in a very normal CBSE school in Bangalore. My son is also normal as his education of primary and middle schools are in USA in Cupertino. All his batch mates in Indian school are extremely brilliant with some gold medalists in international Olympiads. My son has started to adapt to the competition in a typical Indian atmosphere. He started working very hard of almost 18 hours per day. The personal guidance from an education counsellor (ex Stanford) helped him in a right path.

The JEE and SAT results have finally come. Many of his class mates have USA citizenships. All the toppers in his class including some 2 digit JEE ranks are expected to be in IITB. But most of the guys have got perfect scores in SAT and finally landed in top 5 USA universities. Now the most important question is which university to choose when one gets admission offers in all top 5. My opinion is that these rankings are hyped up by various ranking organisations. All the top 5 are equally good or bad but the preference is given to the ones as per the tuition fees and the weather (sunny Southern California compared cold north east).

3. I chose a public university ranked number 4 for my son as I am the guy who needs to send the wire to USD from INR. By God’s grace, he completed his engineering in 2 years saving me a lot of money. In under 5 years, he completed PhD in AI and started to apply for faculty positions in so called all the top 5 universities. Tenured Faculty interviews are not like typical corporate jobs. The universities spend a lot of time and effort to choose a right candidate as they typically choose a candidate to have a relationship with him for the next couple of decades. At this juncture of a career, a particular university is preferred as per the area of specialty and not by ranking (it is by chance he landed up as faculty in so called 3rd ranking university).

4. I asked my son why our IITB is not in the top rankings, he said in general our Indian universities are not focused on research and cannot even compete with our near by countries like Singapore , HK or China. Just to give a comparison, my son’s google scholar citations are more than 2000 in his teen age. This is a very high number and is a impossible feat if he did his PhD in India.

5. I myself did research in a Government engineering college 40 years back and conducted international conferences on engineering education in those days. In India, it is a serious concern that students choose randomly the branches as per the ranks in competitive exams and the institution ranking. They finally land up in a job that has nothing to do with one’s specialisation wasting valuable money invested by Government to subsidise the tuition fees.

6. Amongst many ranking systems out there, my personal preference is www.csrankings.org

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Su-47

1. Course completion:
Even top institutes like IITB had lower course completion rates than similarly ranked colleges abroad. Again, I don’t intend to offend anyone, but this may have something to do with our policy of 50% (or more) reservations. We have to figure out a better path towards social justice without compromising on excellence. Easier said than done though!

The alternatives aren't great either...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/n...inflation.html

The sharp post-pandemic spike in grades is not unique to Yale. At Harvard, 79 percent of all grades given to undergraduates in the 2020-21 year were also A’s or A minuses. A decade earlier, that figure was 60 percent. In 2020-21, the average G.P.A. was 3.8, compared to 3.41 in 2002-3.

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by Su-47

1. Course completion:
Even top institutes like IITB had lower course completion rates than similarly ranked colleges abroad. Again, I don’t intend to offend anyone, but this may have something to do with our policy of 50% (or more) reservations. We have to figure out a better path towards social justice without compromising on excellence. Easier said than done though!

I find this hard to believe, I did my undergraduate from an IIT 15+ years ago and almost everyone( about 99%) graduated barring 1-2 from reservation categories. At that time I think reservation was 15-20% I think.

Off Topic: Love your user name, the below scale model I built a few years back is dedicated to you

Originally Posted by Foxbat

The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut (Russian: Сухой Су-47 Беркут, lit. 'Golden Eagle') (NATO reporting name Firkin)

1:72 Scale Sukhoi Su-47 'Berkut'

[Su-47]

Originally Posted by Samurai

The alternatives aren't great either...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/n...inflation.html

Agree, and grade inflation will make things worse. I have no first hand data about it, but perhaps the first-year preparatory program offered by some of the IITs sounds like a reasonable step.

Originally Posted by Foxbat

I find this hard to believe, I did my undergraduate from an IIT 15+ years ago and almost everyone( about 99%) graduated barring 1-2 from reservation categories. At that time I think reservation was 15-20% I think.

Thank you for sharing your first hand experience. I tried looking for data that pointed me in this direction, but couldn't find the article with the detailed data. But, it was something like this:
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/in...-11864591.html

I also remember seeing this as a parameter at some ranking site, so went to US-News to check it out. There, I saw NUS and NTU over MIT in global rankings and VIT over IIT-Kanpur/Guwahati/Roorkee and BITS-Pilani. If I didn't know several students studying at VIT first hand, I would be saying "Wow!", but since I do, it simply adds fuel to what others have been saying on this thread about the ratings being gamed. Basically, gave up on it

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Off Topic: Love your user name, the below scale model I built a few years back is dedicated to you

Yours is nice too :-) And, yes what a beauty it is - not just the plane, but your scale model as well. Thanks for sharing.

[NiInJa]

Here is some first hand, fresh experience I have been getting on this topic of school and education. I can only speak of primary and secondary (up to 10th standard in India) as that is my friend's and acquaintances' circle.

I migrated to the U.K. last October and I've documented my initial experience here (Emigrating to a Foreign Land!)

Before that, a slight digression and one thing everyone has to agree on, whatever be the personal opinions. Wherever you migrate, no one warns you about this: you will get introduced to new germs.

I have been falling sick every three-four weeks and with viral and bacterial infections manifesting in ways that I had never experienced while in India. I wanted to write more after my initial post, but fell sick again, coupled with additional workload for both of us. Anyone who is used to a living in a specific climate and moving to a completely new climate needs to take it slow. You will fall sick, and your body needs time to adjust and adapt, there is no escaping it. I, for example, have started with slight nose bleeds in the mornings, something that never happened in my entire life. I've already talked about the NHS and had a not so great experience once again during this time. But I digress.

Coming back to the topic. School and education.
We are clear on one fact that these cute little creatures bring all the viruses known to humankind home and make adults sick. The other thing to know is in U.K. schools are assigned based on the area one lives in. So we had just two options: one school was proper catholic and other one was, for a lack of better word: non-catholic, where all major festivals from different countries are celebrated. We chose the latter.

Schooling approach here is different compared to Indian system. Both are right in their own context. Our Indian academic education is pretty fast paced while here it is slow. My kid was already reading full sentences and 2 digit math when he joined school here. What he learnt here well is some extremely important practical life lessons. For example: He knows how not to cross a street or walk on a live road. How to press the stop signal button at a Zebra crossing. What does a fire symbol mean, where is the alarm button in case he gets locked out of a room (which he did once). It amazes me how kids strictly walk on the footpaths and don't step on the road even once.
I am not saying he would not have learnt this back in India, adults would teach them anyway. The point is schools just emphasize this more.

Another thing I observe is that a lot of effort is put by the schools on making kids vocal and expressive about their emotions. Example: Kids are made to write/draw what they feel about their peers, parents, teachers etc. My kid's notebook is filled with love letters for his mom and dad and his cousin, and some critical opinions about some kids he doesn't like and his teacher discusses those with him and work out a solution. The writings are full of spelling mistakes and reversed letters, it has stick figures as well, but the focus is not on that. The important point is the kid is able to express his feelings and the by-product is he is learning to write and draw! Last month, they were shown the movie 'Wall-E' which depicts human emotions using a robot's eyes and body-language. I can say this for sure, my kid can gauge another person's (not just his close ones) mood based on the person's facial expressions, tone or body language. This is an extremely important but easily missed learning.

They have a 'me-time' tent in their classroom. If a kid gets overwhelmed by other kids for whatever reason: loud noise, unable to concentrate, not in the mood to talk, one can go and sit inside that tent till he feels better. Math is taught with practical examples. They go out in the garden and pluck flowers where the teacher asks to count them, or they work as a team of two or three fixing a toy car while the teacher asks how many tyres they need and how much money they need to pay to buy them. Practical first, theory later is a slow process as all kids need to be involved and interacted with, but I feel it works better in the long run.

There are small assessment tests, there is no pressure for doing home assignments and no ranking at Primary level, but based on whatever I've heard, academics become more 'serious' once kids reach P7, that is about 8th standard in Indian context and if the kid has not grasped the basics well, it can become a problem after P7. So it is better to keep a watch on how the kid is doing in his primary level although there is no 'tight' control like we have in India.

When it comes to secondary schools, there are private schools if one can afford them, and Grammar schools which have more focus on academics and has better chances of getting into Oxford-Cambridge or other universities. In Scotland, the percentage of kids getting into any universities is lower, but there are few good secondary schools. I will talk about it later.

There is a entrance exam for getting into Grammar school, and as you must have guessed it already, Indians and Chinese/Korean/Taiwanese kids crack those relatively easily. In short, if you move to UK when your kid has done up to 4th or 5th standard in a decent Indian school, he will be able to get into a grammar school easily as he is better prepared academically. That means, he will make it to the university with much less pressure (not efforts). Competition is not that high compared to India.
This is perhaps the biggest reason why Indian middle class tries to get into the UK and stay here. I am one of those willing to give it a shot.

The secondary school conundrum:
When the kids are growing up, education and the environment they are getting exposed to makes a lot of difference. In India, we the middle class share the same value system and there is a uniformity in what the kids collectively get exposed to when they are in school. Since in the U.K, schools are decided by the council, one does not really have options to choose from different schools. I see various parents coming to pick kids up. We may not agree with their way of life and it becomes a new challenge. Example, I see moms picking kids from school while smoking cigarettes. Or a loud-mouth dad using bad words in front of the kids. This has impact on their growth, they might get exposed to unnecessary distractions. Secondary Schools in central Glasgow have a very low university success rate of about 40-50%. Meaning, out of 100 students, only 40 will make it to college in the first attempt.
As a result, there are some places in the outskirts where Indians and the Chinese have settled and the schools perform relatively better, with almost a 90% success rate. Going to U.K. does not automatically ensure good education. It depends on which area you choose to stay and how much effort you are putting into monitoring and shaping your pupil's academic progress. I think the same can be said about migrating to other countries, like the USA.

To summarize, I feel the primary and secondary school situation in U.K. is no different from India. In fact, up to 10th standard, I feel India's private schools are at par or even better in some cases than government controlled schools of UK. The only advantage is Grammar schools and lesser competition due to lower population in general compared to India which makes it easier to get into universities which are no doubt better than our colleges.

While on topic of UK, a situation of staff shortage is currently prevalent here in most services: Schools, mail office, railways, road transport, healthcare etc. I am not sure how long it is going to stay that way, but now is a good time to become a teacher

[VtechSupreme]

Thought I'll share my experience here as well, maybe it'll give some younger people some perspective on whether or not to pursue undergrad in the US.

I went to the US to do my undergrad, after which i worked in the US for a little over a year before returning to India. I'll breakdown some of my thoughts and some anecdotes studying and working in the US as someone starting their career.

I was sold on the idea when I was in highschool, that going to an American University is going to be the defining factor in my life, as if doing my undergrad there would set me up for the rest of my life. However, the school counselors selling kids on this idea would only talk about the infrastructure, the program, etc. What I failed to realize was the purpose of going to college, which is to get a job or start a business. No counselor ever spoke about the perils of getting an H1B, how difficult it would be to get internships as an international student or how you can never start a business in your lifetime on a visa. One thing I also didn't realize was how you're going to graduate at a specific point in time, so you need to pray that economic conditions and labor markets are favorable at the time of graduation.

The Universities are actually pretty good, you get to meet a lot of people. The facilities and infrastructure is top notch. You get to join clubs, participate in events, make friends. I would say even the education system is pretty modular and lets you have a more holistic experience. You can take classes in psychology, or world history while studying engineering. Group projects and collaboration is a big part of every class, which genuinely helped me get over my fear of communicating and public speaking and made me a more confident person in general. However, one downside is that the quality of professors has been diminishing at these Universities, even those like Harvard have lesser tenured professors than they did before to save on costs. You can only expect to have tenured professors teach you in your final 2 years, and assistant or associate professors in your freshman and sophomore year.

Coming to the time when I graduated and started a full time job. I had to probably apply to over 1000 companies to get 3-4 interviews out of which I landed 1 offer. You get 90 days from your date of graduation to get a job, Luckily I managed to get one within a week. The job itself was pretty monotonous, just data crunching, not something I had expected I would be doing. Midway through the year, I was visiting my family in India, and I got the news that I had been laid off. So now I was in a situation where I had to either find a new job while sitting in India, or pay the entire year's lease, firesale my car and other stuff, pack up everything and move back. Through hard work and fortune, I landed another job before time ran out. However, my H1B didn't come through. There is only 60,000 visas for undergrads and over 600k applications, so you can calculate the odds. So now I was again on a ticking clock.

When people used to hear how much I was making they would do the conversion into rupees and assume that I am living it up, however, with the cost of living in the US. I found my lifestyle to be pretty mediocre. Yes, you can afford better materialistic things like a phone and clothes but those lose their vanity very quickly. All those trips and restaurants started feeling monotonous. The actual conveniences were very expensive, I still had to evaluate whether or not to take an Uber and I spent one day of my weekend doing chores. I am also pretty young and extroverted, but still when I was working it was hard to make friends and I was mostly confined to my apartment.

Since I have moved back to India, I actually really enjoy not hearing the word H1B. I am also doing something I enjoy for my career. My lifestyle is the same if not better compared to when I was there. I also feel closer to my community and more comfortable socially. I am starting a business as well, which is my only shot at making real wealth.

Pros of the US:
-Better material affordability
-Infrastructure (roads, parks, highways, even things like Walmart) add to better quality of life
-Public Services
-Cleaner air
-Civic Sense
-Exposure to more cultures

Pros of India
-Convenience ( human help is cheap)
-Social Comfort Zone
-Economic Opportunities
-Citizen rights and Certainty
-Food

[Theyota]

Originally Posted by VtechSupreme

You can only expect to have tenured professors teach you in your final 2 years, and assistant or associate professors in your freshman and sophomore year.

A fulltime Associate Professor is a tenured position. In all the good universities in the US system, when they get promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, they get tenure.

Who is scheduled to teach a freshman course, or a grad course has nothing to do with their job grades. If you always had an Assistant or Associate professor for your classes, that could be because the composition of your department could be relatively younger, or the early years courses don't match the specialty of the available senior professors.

[VtechSupreme]

Originally Posted by Theyota

A fulltime Associate Professor is a tenured position. In all the good universities in the US system, when they get promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, they get tenure.

Who is scheduled to teach a freshman course, or a grad course has nothing to do with their job grades. If you always had an Assistant or Associate professor for your classes, that could be because the composition of your department could be relatively younger, or the early years courses don't match the specialty of the available senior professors.

That makes sense. Even still, US universities cost way more compared to institutions elsewhere. So I assumed that even during early courses, I would be taught by senior professors who would deliver unique insights rather than reading out the same 5 year old presentations.

I would still not completely discount my academic experience, I do think that as a whole I had a more holistic development compared to what I would have had if I was in India. I don't think I'll ever regret doing my undergrad from the States or discourage people from doing it. However, it is super important for 18 year old kids to know the realities of life after college to make an informed decision.

[avisidhu]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

......Kids are made to write/draw what they feel about their peers, parents, teachers etc. My kid's notebook is filled with love letters for his mom and dad and his cousin, and some critical opinions about some kids he doesn't like and his teacher discusses those with him and work out a solution. The writings are full of spelling mistakes and reversed letters, it has stick figures as well, but the focus is not on that. The important point is the kid is able to express his feelings and the by-product is he is learning to write and draw!
....

That's a great summary and echoes lot of our experiences with public schooling in Canada as well. Another manifestation of what you mentioned above, is that kids are enthusiastic about doing these activities outside school too. For instance, I have noticed my son loves to write story books, design board games with kids his age, and they all participate enthusiastically. This positive mental association with school activities is a big factor that I feel most of us Indian parents fail to appreciate, and we only bemoan lack of academic rigor (although the Indian in me still thinks schools should do a better job of teaching maths/science )

Another thing I have noticed but is purely anecdotal: I have talked to a few kids who moved from India during grades 8/9. Surprisingly, they universally said they find schooling in Canada tough compared to India! I could not gather specifics, but seems it has to do with working in projects, doing independent research on topics, presentations and working in teams. I suspect part of it might also be due to cultural adjustments at school, navigating the social circles at this age can be brutal for an outsider.

[458]

I lived in the US as a kid for many years, it's a great place to live but as an Indian, it's best to go there for work, enjoy life, save money and come back to India.

Getting permanent residency is a difficult task and prevents you from settling down, buying a house etc..

Also public schools in the US are great for kids when it comes to learning and interacting with people from different cultures, but it's best to live in a good neighborhood so you get access to top schools with good kids. To add, these are completely free for all kids till the 12th grade.

When it comes to higher education in America, I feel it's a waste of money especially if you don't have a full ride scholarship.
To be honest it's an expensive vacation for rich Indian kids whose families see a western degree as a status symbol.

For me America is not a big deal, but a lot of people have aspirations attached to these western countries.

It only makes sense to go there on a vacation or for work, at a high enough salary.

[vj_torqueaddict]

Hello esteemed members, I have a query which perhaps might be trivial and discussed before.

Those who are outside India , how do you guys manage to pay bills in India ? For example : electricity bill, water bill, broadband bill etc here in India? I searched for some answers on the net , which took me to some third party payment app website which deal with foreign remittance. However I am looking for some easy way. Has anyone used BBPS system from RBI?