India's educational system

[mcgruber]

I'm afraid comments like this will undermine your position and arguments.

It's often easy to get sucked in endless arguments on a "hot" topic like this but let's keep in mind that Quantnet is a profession-based community and well-read by numerous people in this field. Like it or not, each of us is representing the institution we are or will be associated with, be it an MFE program or a financial firm so let's try to put on our best behavior, shall we?

For people like me who do not have first hand experience of the topic at hand, the discussion here is very informative because we get a chance to learn things that we otherwise don't read about daily.

@Andy, I am very well aware of that. But this applies to all not just me. I am not sure why you encourage people like BBW and Darth who are openly passing insults and don't keep them under control. This is not the first time BBW has done this. I have been reading posts on this forum before I created my userid.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

If you see any post by anyone that you feel is out of line, please click on the Report link. They will be logged and dealt with accordingly.

 

[mcgruber]

If you see any post by anyone that you feel is out of line, please click on the Report link. They will be logged and dealt with accordingly.

@Andy, Sorry for pointing this out, but you yourself should have deleted this thread right at at the start and warn BBW. There are so many people on this forum each with their biases and stereotypes. But as an admin its your responsibility when someone's race, country of origin, sexual orientation is under thinly veiled attack in the name of free and open discussion and useless threads.

 

[Cjs]

why is this thread STILL going?

if you dont like bbw's posts, dont read them. what would banning him do? who cares in the first place? education systems suck. they could always be improved. i grew up studying in india, then came to the us in the middle of high school and it was a giant shock. the adjustment period was annoying. could both systems benefit from some changes? yes. does there need to be a 4 page thread with people putting forth silly arguments about who was actually there in a lecture where a professor taught that sin x/x results in x's cancelling and who wasnt? i think not.

while i am all for constructive arguments, the pragmatic aspect of things must be kept in mind as well. i grant you that all it takes is one determined enough man (or woman) to change things for the better but the probability of one of those men being on quantnet fighting a silly war over whose country is better is close to 0. sure things need to change but in a system wrought with corruption (it would be naive and foolish to deny the corruption in india) bringing about a radical change is relatively impossible.

just save the bandwidth. i am sure the universe will thank you for reducing the carbon footprint and andy will thank you for not taking up webspace. also stop getting so freaking defensive. its the freaking internet. we are all on here in part to enjoy the anonymity and in part to be heard on topics we might not be able to talk about otherwise. if you dont want to read what someone has to say, dont. last i checked none of the admins were holding a gun to anyone's head forcing everyone to read every post in every thread. andy tried that with me but i found out it was a water pistol. we had a big laugh and then we had a box of cookies. very tasty.

orrrrrrrrrrrrr continue.but let me go get my popcorn.

 

[Cjs]

@Andy, Sorry for pointing this out, but you yourself should have deleted this thread right at at the start and warn BBW. There are so many people on this forum each with their biases and stereotypes. But as an admin its your responsibility when someone's race, country of origin, sexual orientation is under thinly veiled attack in the name of free and open discussion and useless threads.

it is the internet. sorry for your thin skin. read the disclaimer before jumping on. making andy responsible for anyone elses behavior is just plain silly. this post makes me angry. why are my hands turning green? what the hell is going on?

 

[mcgruber]

it is the internet. sorry for your thin skin. read the disclaimer before jumping on. making andy responsible for anyone elses behavior is just plain silly. this post makes me angry. why are my hands turning green? what the hell is going on?

i am aware of the disclaimer.. I was merely mentioning corrective action that could have prevented all this. go get angry somewhere else.. I was talking to Andy

 

[Devdeep]

I agree with Cjs... let us spend our energy/time on some solid Quant Finance discussions... can someone please tell me where to find some stimulating discussions on Martingales... you can point to Chapter/Book or articles/reports...

PS: Beyond Section 2.4 in Shreve Vol 1 and Chapter 6 of Mark Joshi

 

[Avinash Burra]

This is veering off-topic but when many Pakistanis look at their shambles of a country, they say it would have been better if they had remained part of India. Pakistan is a failed state. India, for all its warts, is not in that category.

That is a topic for discussion on a different blog. I think this conversation has sufficiently veered off to be completely inappropriate for a quant blog in my opinion - doesn't matter if it's even in an "off-off-off-topic" forum; perhaps not with the above statement, but definitely with the one debating the merits or demerits of partition.

My intention in participating was just to point out that both the WSJ article and the title of this thread don't paint a complete picture and are a little too overarchingly general.

 

[Cjs]

my exposure to martingales is limited to this.

http://www.amazon.com/Stochastic-Differential-Equations-Introduction-Applications/dp/3540637206

 

[ashwani]

The dude thinks this is right

 

[Devdeep]

my exposure to martingales is limited to this.

http://www.amazon.com/Stochastic-Differential-Equations-Introduction-Applications/dp/3540637206

Thanks... will look into it... looks like Ch 4 has some...

 

[Cjs]

i MIGHT have something that might help you assuming that your moral compass doesnt point due north. feel free to pm me if you would like to know more about documents secured by means of questionable legality.

 

[darth]

Dear <darth>... Did I "compare" myself with you? Why would you start comparing? Also... how do you know CU is so bad? And what exactly makes you confident that you are much better? This is childish attitude at best... I named my schools 'coz if I am making any comment about a particular system... I must have experienced it... that's all... and I invited you to do so as well...

Hey.. Looks like I got the tone of your previous message wrong...Apologize for any offence that you took....But You know I have always lived in India and never been out of the country except for short leisure\family trips...I need not be from CU to know about CU.....I have lots of very good friends who are from CU to DU to IIT . Also the topic of discussion was Indian Education system...IIT is one part of it... All the points I made are experiences by me\friends.. No one will weave castles in air to point out flaws in their own eduaction system....

 

[hariadya]

And for people who think I am not from India...I am a big fan of the song " Saare jahan se achha hindosta hamaara hum bulbule hai iski ye gulshita hamaara "....

?

 

[Devdeep]

Hey.. Looks like I got the tone of your previous message wrong...Apologize for any offence that you took....But You know I have always lived in India and never been out of the country except for short leisure\family trips...I need not be from CU to know about CU.....I have lots of very good friends who are from CU to DU to IIT . Also the topic of discussion was Indian Education system...IIT is one part of it... All the points I made are experiences by me\friends.. No one will weave castles in air to point out flaws in their own eduaction system....

Thanks for the Note... I also apologize for any part of my message that might have offended you...

CU has HUGE administrative issues (I mean... terrible!)... but some colleges under CU have fantabulous professors... most people who leave Kolkata generally do after being fed up dealing with stupid administrative problems... so even if you talk to ~ 20 people... you might not have the whole picture... that's why I generally only comment on system(s) that I have personally experienced... that's all I wanted to say...

Anyway... as people seem to have already agreed upon leaving this topic at this stage... I/we should follow the same... and let's discuss finance/math...

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Glad to see we all took a collective breath and decided not to point our implied gun at one another.

I think one point was quickly touched upon and never came up again: what is the acceptable practice of students who know the professor is saying something incorrect? Do they swallow it and never say something?
What would you do if you see this in your American classroom? Do you question your own intelligence because the professor is always right? Or do you gleefully point this out?

I have seen cases at both extremes and I think it takes some cultural adjustments to fully understand and appreciate both system.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I think one point was quickly touched upon and never came up again: what is the acceptable practice of students who know the professor is saying something incorrect? Do they swallow it and never say something?
What would you do if you see this in your American classroom? Do you question your own intelligence because the professor is always right? Or do you gleefully point this out?

Everyone makes mistakes at the board. Ideally, some bright spark should point it out, the prof should correct his oversight/mistake, and life should move on. That's very different from the case where the prof doesn't have the most rudimentary handle on the subject matter -- and is using his authority and the threat of failing students to keep them in line. This doesn't just happen in India; I've seen it occur in the USA as well. One might even make a case that the incidence of this is growing in the US at the graduate level as a large chunk of the engg/math/physics/CS students are coming from India and China, where obedience and docility in the classroom are the norm, and American profs are taking advantage of this. Again, I have anecdotal evidence to support this but hesitate to present it as a general pattern or law. In general, though, an unquestioning attitude to the prof is much more prevalent in Asian societies -- because of cultural norms (deference to authority) and because of a greater emphasis on uncomprehending rote memorisation.

 

[rishab dhar]

Interesting aside, India and China are both developing nations with strong mathematics/science leaning education desires. You rarely (or maybe I just don't hear about it) hear of Indian students cheating.​

You are too uninformed. The fact is that Indians are too good at cheating; therefore, they get caught less number of times.

Do you even look at the list of countries with highest amount of Black money in other nations?

India has $1.6Trillion dollars! ~= GDP of India. More any any other country. Let alone China/US etc.

Do you even know that many Indians bribe officials of prestigious Institutes such as IITs, DCEs, NITs to give them the question paper (entrance exam) so that they can know the answers beforehand (Don't believe me? , just google). I have lived my entire life in India, and I believe that I am in a better position to comment on whether Indians cheat or not.

I wonder if the pressure to cheat stems from the one child policy and/or specific societal pressure.

Total BS. There is no such 1 child policy in India, still there is corruption from top to bottom in India. As a matter of fact I paid $200 to get my driving license made (without giving any driving test!) because apparently they wouldn't pass me unless I go through the way of a pimp. It isn't just me. Almost everyone, in India, has obtained a driving license in this way. Even passports can be obtained in this manner.

And hey, this is the biggest reason that the traffic on roads in India is totally unorganized, with lane breaking and signal jumping being so frequent that people are, now, rarely fined for it.

 

[alain]

As a matter of fact I paid $200 to get my driving license made (without giving any driving test!) because apparently they wouldn't pass ...

I believe this 100%. I sold a car to an Indian consultant on my previous company and I was scare shitless when I let him drive the first time. I didn't want to sell him the car (I thought he was going to kill himself) but a mutual friend convinced me to do it. That was at noon time. That afternoon he got into an accident.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I believe this 100%. I sold a car to an Indian consultant on my previous company and I was scare shitless when I let him drive the first time. I didn't want to sell him the car (I thought he was going to kill himself) but a mutual friend convinced me to do it. That was at noon time. That afternoon he got into an accident.

Though I have to say that if I drive in any big Indian or Pakistani city I will also get into an accident -- drive according to the formal rules there and this is what will happen. Hmmm ... I think this is a metaphor for life in general there: try to play by the rules there (driving, academic, legal, business, political) and one will always end up getting shafted. Without a social network of influential relatives and friends there, an individual is buggered from the get-go.