What’s that you really want after 4 years at IIT?
Here at IITs, most students have high ambition, aspiring for the best. But once they arrive at the system, most fall into preparing for placements, optimizing CGPA for placements, and working for a “dream” company.
How come most people aspire to get a job? Even animals are born and die. They also get territory, find partners, take care of children and die. What makes you different from animals. What is the benefit of you being so intelligent, gifted with reasoning? Is being able to feed yourself is the primary goal?
I am not arguing that working for placement is terrible. That’s an admirable achievement in itself. But why do we limit ourselves to the placement mania? We are supposed to be builders of the nation.
Maintaining a good CGPA and getting an attractive profile at IITs requires consistent efforts. But I believe the amount of effort we put into courses goes mostly to competition. Students are mad for marks. We will do whatever it takes to get that one more mark out of 100. Recent uncertainties during covid showed enough of these things. Who is to blame?
Working on creating jobs is yet to be democratized in IITs. When someone says he is working on a startup idea, the first impression any fellow student will make is, “He must not have got internship/placement.”
No wonder what IITs end up producing is job-hungry individuals migrating to the US at the very first glance of opportunity if they can. Of course, there are notable alumni of ours making huge impacts, but the number is scarce. We want to build the nation, make a difference in people’s lives, and create a hardworking, inspiring generation. We need people who will come out of the placement preparation course and try to solve some problems and inspire others.
Why getting placed at #amazon #google is fancier than working on some problem that millions of people face. Why working on startups is not a new normal? Why are we still job-hungry?
Whether bill gates said so or not is a different story, but why not? Why there isn’t something comparable to Microsoft in India? We have such a vast population, but most stay unemployed or work overqualified. Isn’t the reason apparent that we don’t have enough jobs at higher profiles? Why don’t we make efforts to create jobs rather than get jobs?
Most IITians are trend-driven. They want the best of all. By best, I mean what is desired by most of the population. Sadly, that’s getting a high-paying job, going for PhD in top university, or settling in the US. Until working on/with a startup is the next trendy thing, IITians will not work for it.
We need to democratize working to empower people. We should dream of building unicorns. Sadly most of our mind is occupied with getting that one more mark in the next exam or trying to rephrase the regrade request or optimize CV.
