facts about engineering

[mysterious babe]

Here are some hilarious (and true) facts about the life of us engineering students. U can decide for yourself if this is true or not, if u have led or are leading an engineering college life. This is also a chance for those who 'escaped' from there to get a little nostalgic... read on...



[A] Some Basic definitions..



Engineering College : Place where you're punished for getting good HSC marks. Babe : Girls studying in other colleges...for mechguys, anything female. Senior : Guy who got ragged as junior and wanna get some payback... Fresher : Guy who has to ask where the canteen is... Really Dumb Fresher : Guy who asks a senior where the canteen is. Really Really Dumb fresher : Guy who follows the senior to the canteen. Ragging : The unfortunate fate of the previous idiot. Evasive action : Watch the juniors when any seniors come nearby.

(No one runs faster than a fresher. NO ONE.) Lectures : Waste of time.. physical presence is a must.........only meant for sleeping, completing assignments & generally everything Tutions : What you take when you don't waste enough time.... Professor : Person paid to put students to sleep. Lecturer : Unusual variant of previous individual who comes packaged with his own brand of English ("Now you check me our journal." "You out get from! class." "Are you Understand?" "Both of you two come here", "Draw a square of any shape") Practicals/Lab Work : 60 to 120 minutes In which you watch the girls do your experiment, and usually destroy a considerable array of lab equipment.



Hopeless Practical : The practical in which there are no girls in your group (simply look blankly at each other, fiddle with the equipment, and finally copy the readings. from the girls of course...or from guyz who get it from gals).







[B]. The Truth about exams....



Exams : A 3 hour long exercise to find out how fast you can write. Timing : when ur non engineering GF/BF is free to enjoy while u slog with submissions & exams.



Irony : The guy who copied your entire paper passes and you flunk. Critical Calculation : Summing up the marks you attempted worth in the exam... K.T. : Makes you suicidal at first...but later becomes a way of life... Year Drop : Makes dad homicidal. Re-valuation: A cruel joke. (results of which come after you give the arrear exam).





[C]. An engineering student's 10 engg commandments of Life



1. Thou shall study only during the study leave.

2. Thou shall treat all marks above 35 as bonus.

3. Thou shall begin writing thy assignments journals/lab records only on the morning of submission, and only by copying.

4. Thou shall spend as much money as possible and then borrow from girls.

5. Thou shall have at least 70 per cent attendance in the canteen, theaters,clubs,pubs,discos etc etc but not necessarily in class

6. Thou shall pass GRACEfully.

7. Thou shall always be an OUTstanding student.

8. Thou shall give thy attendance without being present.

9. If thou can't convince them, confuse them.

10. Thou shall start every sentence with a four-lettered word. Guys: Thou shall treat and look upon all girls (esp. freshers) as your private property, and propose to as much freshers as you can. Girls: Thou shall write all assignments and lab works promptly and timely so that guys can copy them from you.





[D]. The Years of Engineering



F.E. Fond of Engineering

S.E. Sick of Engineering

T.E. Tired of Engineering

B.E. Balls to Engineering

[ZC]

the FACT:: there are only BOYZ and NON-BOYZ who go to E Schools, shud i say the elite E schools? that makes me ask, if u are the female of the species or a NON-BOY

[ZC]

dont remember the exact thing i read: shall try to reproduce. Once a guy travelling in an air baloon gets lost and after some difficulty finds a guy in a farm. he lowers the baloon and asks, "where am i?", the guy replies, "ur 50 mts above my farm", the one in the baloon says "u must be an engineer, coz the information u give is very much true but is useless". the guy on the ground replies, "u must be a management guy" coz "u dont know where u have come from, u dont know where u want to go and now, its my fault"

[mysterious babe]

ZC that was a nice one. actually i have a commerce background. had a lot of engineering freinds so kind of know their adventures.I dint really get the boyz and non boyz

[ZC]

if u go to IIT, NIT etc u hardly see girls, and the one or two girls u see are so very unattractive, they are called non-boyz

[mysterious babe]

thats an interesting input. r u an engineer??

[ZC]

i am a BOY

[CtrlAltDel]

we commerce students are lucky in college...!



relax, chill in the canteen, have the best chicks around, no practicals to waste the afternoons with, easy subjects (but dry)....mmmmmmm

[azazel]

So true, Engg is a all that n a lot more..

arey Ctrl bhanje, thought u were a techie too..

good for u, escaping the worst form of life at times..

[CtrlAltDel]

arey Ctrl bhanje, thought u were a techie too..

i am a "techie" since 6+ years and prospered in it too...inspite of having a non-engineering background.



i am proof that u dont need an engineering degree to write/design good software apps in VB n .Net - all u need is an aptitude and logical skills for it...and engineers are not the only ones who have it.



i feel engineering is better used for areas where complex mathematic calculations are required - machine n tool design, aeronautics, construction, electronics etc etc etc. engineers waste their talents in application development.

[ZC]

engineers waste their talents in application development.

i love that statement i am happy making balls and rods

[mysterious babe]

azazel y do all engineering gusy crib abt it. i think u have had a great tiem in ur hostels studied whenver uall could freaked out have good jobs then y crib...



i agree with CAD college life for commerce students is the best. I must have hardly attended college. rest of the time was spent in the canteen ogling at guys(yes we do ogle its just not the guys domain). We had this amazing canteen in bombay or mayb the best in bbay where we got to c the best of guys and had the best of food. those memories make me so nostalgic. we studied last moment . Life was too good then, not that its not now but then it was njoying life without any tensions

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

if u go to IIT, NIT etc u hardly see girls, and the one or two girls u see are so very unattractive, they are called non-boyz

I really don't know what the good and the bad in this is. The statement is perfectly true (I was in IIT Madras), and back then it was a popular joke in campus - this boys and non-boys thing. You are only 18-19, and haven't yet developed into a mature adult who can put himself in someone else's shoes. None of us (well, me and the friends of mine who used to crack such jokes) had ever thought that looks aren't something a girl could do anything about, and we wouldn't think of what the girls in question must be feeling (the girls all knew this one, and several times someone would say this thing in their presence, too).



If you stopped cracking jokes at others' fallibilites, most humor in the world would cease to exist, and humor is what makes life interesting. So is it justified if you did take such digs, but did it when they weren't around? Or should you simply never do it at all, since good people are those who follow the rules even when the referee is not looking?



Over time, I've realized that most of us do not consider non-goodlooking women as full-fledged vibrant individuals with opinions and aspirations. It takes much longer for them to even register as existing in our radar screen. They'll take a lot of time to emerge out of the shadow of their prettier counterparts, and it's quite cruel. Then, perhaps it's the same for non-goodlooking guys, too.



It's an unfair world.

[azazel]

azazel y do all engineering gusy crib abt it. i think u have had a great tiem in ur hostels studied whenver uall could freaked out have good jobs then y crib...

oh, u see.. Engineers r natural cribbers..

they crib abt everything..

we do have the fun n whatever, i hope i do get a good jo once i get out of college but uve gotto understand that Engineers will crib abt things..]

dont ask me y plz..

[ZC]

Then, perhaps it's the same for non-goodlooking guys, too.

It's an unfair world.

very true so, chahra kya dekh`the ho, dil mein utar kar deko`naaaa. dil mein utaroonga tho doob jaa`oonga

[azazel]

i am a "techie" since 6+ years and prospered in it too...inspite of having a non-engineering background.

i am proof that u dont need an engineering degree to write/design good software apps in VB n .Net - all u need is an aptitude and logical skills for it...and engineers are not the only ones who have it.

Good for u , bhanje.. Keep it up

[CtrlAltDel]

Good for u , bhanje.. Keep it up

aapli dua hi maamujaan...!



i came across the following article in Rediff abt Engineers doin MBA at institutes like IIM. what do u guys think of it:

********************************************

IIM MBAs: Wealth creators? Wealth chasers?



From the high decibel noise that is being generated about the IIM fee issue, one would think that the whole country's economy depends on the IIM and their products. How relevant are the IIMs really, and what exactly is their contribution to the country? Are the IIMs national treasures, or just private clubs and nose-in-the-air gymkhanas ? Are they doing more harm than good?



The IIMs are in the news for the fee cuts in the Post Graduate Program in Management, popularly known as the MBA.



Some questions on what the IIM MBA is all about:



Does an MBA measure his professional success by how much he earns?

An annual ritual (currently on) in all the IIMs is the great tom-tomming of the pay packets of their fresh MBA graduates. How many professions have you heard of where so much noise is made of the starting salary of graduates?

If this is how an IIM graduate's success is measured at the start of his career, no wonder he uses money as the measure of his success throughout his career. And this is what his institute has taught him. By this yardstick, if a company is doing badly and its low-paid manager turns it around and makes it profitable, he is less successful than a highly paid manager of an already successful company.

If an IIM MBA is ever in the news, it is for how much he earns. Have you ever seen a newspaper headline like 'IIM MBA manages difficult turnaround of sinking company'?



Can only engineers manage?

For some strange reason, IIM entrance tests are designed so that you have a greater chance of getting through if you an engineer. Typically, 80% of entrants to IIMs are engineers. Does this mean only engineers can manage? What if you are a lawyer wanting to manage your law firm better, or a journalist wanting to manage your newspaper better, or a biochemist wanting to manage your R&D company better? The IIMs have already decided that you are unfit to be a manager. IIM-B's web site on the contrary says 'candidates from diverse backgrounds are selected.'

The MBA course is either designed to impart business skills to engineers, or the entrance tests are flawed. If it is the former, why not make an engineering degree mandatory for admission? If it is the latter, the tests must be redesigned.



Why do you need engineers to sell shampoo or manage mutual funds?

Typically, 80% IIM entrants are engineers, but only 10% join engineering companies. 90% sell consumer products, manage mutual funds, or join IT companies.

When they do their engineering courses, these people obviously have no intention of becoming engineers. They are using their engineering education merely to give them an edge over other competitors at the IIM entrance examination. Incidentally, 30% of them are from IITs and being an IIT-IIM graduate is considered to be a badge of honor.

The world over, engineers do an MBA to acquire skills to manage their engineering industry better, not to switch to alternate high paying careers.



If the army promotes a raw NDA graduate as a general will you have any faith in it?

The NDA teaches a person the theory of fighting and managing the army. After this he typically puts in about 35 years actual fighting on the front, logistics management, man management, etc before he can become a general.

If you have started work at the bottom rung in a company (that's if you were not fortunate enough to be the heir to an existing business) you know that it takes a couple of years before you can get a reasonable grasp of what is going on around you. It can be many more years before you are good at the job.

Seventy-two percent of IIM-C's graduates in 2004 have no work experience, and 20% have two years experience. After a one-and-a-half year course, the fresh MBA is thought fit to advise company presidents on how to run their business. How can you run a business without knowing what the business is all about?



Exposure can never replace experience.



Does the IIM turn out hares rather than tortoises?

An MBA is never in it for the long haul. He looks for instant personal gains. This is probably the reason why MBAs prefer to work for consumer products, finance and IT companies. You will seldom find them in manufacturing; power or telecom industries, where gestation periods are long and you require perseverance, patience and a long distance vision. The typical tenure of an MBA in a company is 2 to 3 years, while the gestation periods in the these industries are measured in decades.



Is an MBA the proverbial rat which deserts the sinking ship?

Every business has cycles, and has its ups and downs. The down cycle does not mean that it is sinking. It may happen because of external factors like the country's economy. You are unfit to handle a business if you cannot take the downs with the ups. An MBA is generally known to be a fair weather friend, joining a company on its rising curve and jumping ship when the going gets tough. He is trained by the IIM to be self-centric rather than company-centric.



Why should the government subsidise engineers who sell toothpaste?

It is a reasonable assumption to make that an engineer joining an IIM has studied in a government subsidised college, and the government has spent Rs 400,000 on him for the course (Rs 800,000 if he has studied in an IIT. This means the taxpayer is paying for the engineering education of a person who has no intention of using his engineering. This definitely is not the intention of government subsidy of engineering education?



Why don't MBAs join manufacturing companies?

Manufacturing requires technical knowledge, man management and business sense. It requires dirtying your hands, leading from the front and talking straight. Maybe MBAs are incapable of this? Typically, less than 5% of IIM graduates get into manufacturing. IIM-A's professed aim, in its own words: 'It also aims to professionalise some of the vital sectors of India's economy such as agriculture, education, health, transportation, population control, energy, and public administration.' How many MBAs do you find in these areas?



Are IIMs turning out wealth creators or wealth chasers?

There are wealth creators, and wealth chasers. A wealth creator has a skill that enables him to create something. An organization develops around this creation, to produce and sell it and make money out of it. The creation could be a newspaper, an automobile, medical services or a thousand other things. The creator must be a highly skilled as a journalist, an automobile engineer, a doctor etc. A typical IIM MBA joins the course after 1 or 2 years of experience in industry. This is not enough to learn a skill to create anything.

This is the reason that you rarely find an MBA entrepreneur. Someone else always has to create an organisation, which the MBA is then happy to manage. IIMs are not about creating entrepreneurs, individuals with a passion for ideas, for risk taking.



Just 4 the of 209 IIM-B graduates this year plan to start their own enterprises or join their family businesses. Impressed?



Are IIMs creating managers or leaders?

A leader sets the direction, a manager follows. A manager takes care of where you are. A leader takes you to a new place. It is unlikely that you'll see an IIM MBA taking you to a new place. The professed aim of the IIMs is to create 'world-class business leaders.' They have only succeeded in creating business managers, with 'world class' being debatable.



An IIM graduate is unlikely to ever be an Ambani, a Tata or a Birla.



So what are the IIMs all about?

About branding yourself? About getting placed in a high paying job when you graduate? About converting engineers into non-engineers? About churning out risk-averse job hoppers jumping from one safe ship to another? Are they about education at all?



The IIMs want autonomy from the government. Autonomy to do what?



They do not seem to be clear about what they want to do.





The author can be contacted at sriharionmove@rediffmail.com

[azazel]

[ZC]

every parent wants their child to be an engg/doctor. unless the country comes to a stage where all areas are treated equally..........its bound to go to the dogs...................

[Mona Lisa Smile]

Another article from rediff. The author seems to have targeted Bangalore .. doesnt the same ring true about Hi-tech City as well ?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bangalore: Silicon Valley or Coolie Valley? March 01, 2004



Politicians, bureaucrats and residents of Bangalore take pride in the fact that they live in what they call the Silicon Valley of the East. The city is considered high tech because of the number of software and software services companies located here.



But is Bangalore really Silicon Valley?



California's Silicon Valley



In 1933 Frederick Terman, a professor of engineering at Stanford University, mentored two undergraduates named Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, and was instrumental in getting them to start a company.



They went on to form the company Hewlett-Packard. This was the first seed from which Silicon Valley grew.



Today around 2,000 electronics and information technology companies, along with numerous services and supplier firms, are clustered in the area.



Silicon Valley contains the densest concentration of innovative industry that exists anywhere in the world, including companies that are leaders in fields like computers, semiconductors, lasers, fiber optics, robotics, medical instrumentation, and consumer electronics.



Some products that went from dream to reality in Silicon Valley are the first video game, the ink-jet printer, the video recorder, the mouse, the personal computer, and much else that we take for granted in the information age.



Here's a sample of some Silicon Valley firms, familiar to most of us because of their products: Adobe Systems (Acrobat Reader), Apple Computer (computer), Hewlett-Packard (printer), Intel (the CPU in your PC), Netscape (Internet browser), Seagate Technology (the hard disk in your PC), Yahoo (Internet portal), VeriFone (credit card terminals in shops), Symantec (Norton anti-virus software), etc.



Such firms are called technology companies, because their chief resource is the technologies that they develop and own, not the real estate that they are sitting on or the equipment that they possess. Stocks in a technology company are called 'tech stocks.' Scientists and engineers working in these companies are called 'techies.'



Indicative of the inventive spirit is the fact that residents of Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose and other Silicon Valley computer hotbeds, were granted 27,617 patents during the 1990s.



Silicon Valley thrives on risk. Business in the Valley is about placing bets on people, ideas and inventions.



If the Silicon Valley were an independent country, its economy would be about the tenth largest in the world.



Bangalore or 'Coolie Valley'



If you ask the president of any of Bangalore's software development companies what his company does, he'll say "We provide end-to-end solutions for Xxxx." Xxxx could be any or all of these -- e-commerce, banking, telecom. . .



What he means to say is this: 'We'll do the software coding in any of these areas for you. Just tell us what you need. We have a huge mass of engineers who know various programming languages.'



These companies do not develop any technologies or products. They provide development services. They have engineers who specialize in programming languages rather than in technologies.



Their chief resource is the huge mass of low-cost labour that they have taken the trouble to recruit.



Ask them about patents, and you get the reply "Huh, what's that?"



These companies start with zero risk. They do not bet on their ideas or inventions. A company is started after getting some contracts in hand.



A typical engineer in these companies has no specialization in any technology. He does not use his engineering knowledge. You could say his body is employed, but his brain is severely under-employed.



Here is a sample of some prominent Bangalore software companies with what they specialize in: Tata Consultancy Services (end-to-end solutions), Wipro (end-to-end solutions), Infosys (end-to-end solutions)



DSQ Software (end-to-end solutions), Kshema Technologies (end-to-end solutions), Ivega Technologies (end-to-end solutions), MindTree Consulting (end-to-end solutions).



The comparison



Silicon Valley companies are based on 'know what.' They know the market, they know the technology and they know what products to make to earn money.



Coolie valley companies are based on 'know how.' They do the software coding for other companies that have the 'know what.' If you tell them what to do, they know how and will do it for you.



Silicon Valley companies invest huge sums of money on R&D. They generate new ideas and are constantly developing new ways of doing things.



Coolie Valley companies have nothing called R&D. They do not generate any new ideas.



A typical Silicon Valley engineer is a specialist in a particular technology, like inkjet printing or virus detection. He spends all his life working in this technology area.



A typical Coolie Valley engineer is a specialist in a few languages. He is not concerned about the technology that he is working on and is willing to develop any software with the languages that he knows.



A typical Silicon Valley engineer's education and work experience all relate to a technology. When he changes jobs, he changes to another company working on the same technology.



A typical Coolie Valley engineer's work experience does not teach him any technology. He may be a mechanical engineer currently working for three months on banking software, and then the next three months on shoe retailing software.



Silicon Valley is all about the excitement of creating things out of nothing. Companies like HP actually started in the garages of their founders.



Coolie Valley does not know the meaning of creativity. Some companies are started by people who quit other companies and take some of the parent firm's software development contracts with them.



Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs bet on people, ideas and inventions.



Coolie Valley's entrepreneurs bet on certainties. They start a firm after getting software development contracts.



Silicon Valley's firms are about technology management.



Coolie valley's firms are about man management.



It is extremely presumptuous to compare Bangalore with Silicon Valley, so all you Bangaloreans, please do me a favour and



Don't call your city Silicon Valley ('pub city' or 'garden city', I have no problem with -- lots of pubs and lots of trees, but very little silicon).

Don't call one of your new software companies a 'high technology start-up.'

Don't call your engineers 'techies.' They've forgotten their engineering long ago.

Don't say you've invested in 'tech stocks' ('body stocks' maybe ?).

If you are from Delhi or Mumbai and encounter a Bangalorean 'techie' spouting off about his work or about his Silicon Valley, you no longer need to develop an inferiority complex.



G V Dasarathi is director of a software products development company

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

I think several parts of the above article on IIM graduates are unjustified. I have never liked articles which take just one side and argue it out, often coming up with plenty of crap just so that it makes for good copy.



So IIM MBAs haven't done anything for the country?



Would the stock prices of companies like HLL, Infosys and ICICI trade at whatever values they are today if it were not for the fact that they are brilliantly managed?



So what's the big deal about stock prices trading high, you ask? It's just that when stock prices are high, investor morale is good. If you know that your portfolio is doing good, you are more likely to go out and spend. When you do that, several companies need to produce more, which means they hire more people, buy more raw materials, and, eventually, buy more capital goods. Which is, like any infant of macroeconomics would know, good.



Several companies in India, and specifically several among the ones that compose the BSE sensex, trade at much higher P/Es than they would otherwise have because of the fact that they are very well-managed by several IIM grads. This causes a ripple effect that helps the entire economy and helps you and your neighbour stay employed, and makes several normally commonplace skills, coveted.

Have you ever seen a newspaper headline like 'IIM MBA manages difficult turnaround of sinking company'?

How many times in the last 10 years have you seen ANY headline saying ANYONE managed a difficult turnaround of ANY sinking company? These things, even if they happen, do not get written about in a newspaper, since newspapers usually write about the top 20 companies in India. Sorry, dude, bad question.

IIM entrance tests are designed so that you have a greater chance of getting through if you an engineer.

IIM entrance tests are designed to get out students with the highest analytical skills. It so happens in India that most of the students with the highest analytical skills are in engineering colleges at the UG level - they do not go for arts or commerce. That's simply the Indian culture. Why do you blame the IIMs for it?

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

After a one-and-a-half year course, the fresh MBA is thought fit to advise company presidents on how to run their business. How can you run a business without knowing what the business is all about?

Wrong, dude. The fresh MBA does not advise company presidents. He does the analytical part of the job - collecting data about the company and its competitors, crunching it, using it to understand the main problems of the client and the opportunities, and suggesting several possible solutions to his manager. The manager, who is an industry expert with at least 5-6 years behind him, then weighs various options using HIS understanding of the industry, the client's particular needs and sentiments, and handles the final presentation - doing the actual "advising".



Too much half-baked knowledge being used to write on rediff.com, what?

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

An MBA is never in it for the long haul. He looks for instant personal gains. This is probably the reason why MBAs prefer to work for consumer products, finance and IT companies. You will seldom find them in manufacturing; power or telecom industries, where gestation periods are long and you require perseverance, patience and a long distance vision. The typical tenure of an MBA in a company is 2 to 3 years, while the gestation periods in the these industries are measured in decades.

People all over the world do the thing that best rewards their skills - not just MBA graduates from the IIMs. You are making people working in manufacturing look like saints and those in services like greedy, unctuous scrooges. The people working in manufacturing industries are doing that simply because they cannot go anywhere else - not because they are martyrs for a cause. Why should working in manufacturing be holy and working in services be scurrilious self-interest? Don't give crap like manufacturing is what sustains the country. Services drives 50% (right) of India's GDP today, and accounts for almost 85% of all new employment. It is what is taking out country into the next era.



You require perseverance, patience and a long distance vision even in services. Was Infosys built without these? And any gestation period that you take, a service industry far outstrips manufacturing today on every parameter - wealth creation, employment generation, contribution to GDP, everything. Are you going to say that if we take a 30 years horizon, Tata Steel is going to do much more for our economy and employment generation than Spectramind or Nipuna?

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

He is trained by the IIM to be self-centric rather than company-centric.

Yes. And the name of the course is: "Urinating On The Smouldering Grave Of Your Employer, Taking His Assets At Bankruptcy Court, And Then Taking His Wife Too, 101"

[ZC]

good points PMoW, particularly i agree on...... it just happens that people with good analytical abilities enter engineering...............would u like to comment on This is the reason that you rarely find an MBA entrepreneur. Someone else always has to create an organisation, which the MBA is then happy to manage. IIMs are not about creating entrepreneurs, individuals with a passion for ideas, for risk taking. every event on start-ups i attended and everyone i have heard to, say......."its all done by techies".............its a general european belief that if u have IT in u, u will do it, therez no need for an MBA, u learn everything on job, agreed to a certain extent, now-a-days, even they are saying, probably an engineer needs to go to b-school after working for a few yrs!!! coming to disagreement.......... i dont agree with ur point, people r there in mfd'ing coz they have no where else to go...........probably true in India, but upto an extent. thats sounds something like, u r in mfd'ing means u didnt get another better job, which falls in the same line as, u r not in India coz u r not capable to go to US !! is it? we just cant generalize ............isint it ? IIM guys are self centric, i would like to ask the writer of the first article, ofcourse .....r u not? r u not interested in making money? no fundaas please ..........as long as there is population (intellectual) explosion in only one or two sectors...............the country is destined to go to the dogs !! and finally, most of IIM student dont have any experience, thats the worst part of the top notch b-schools. they are basically helping people to change lines/careers, but are not training best people in all industries(thats seems like business being done by the institute itself rather than doing service to the society) ........