Engineer’s Day (September 15) is the birth
anniversary of M. Visvesvaraya. Lakhs of engineering graduates are produced in
India as another Engineer’s Day arrives, from the thousands of engineering
colleges.
Why do so many
Indian people want to study engineering?
(I don't ask
this question to hurt anyone who is an engineer :p)
In most of cases, It is a combination of:
Social pressure + Status + Limited opportunities
Let me explain,
As everyone knows India is a developing economy and engineers play an important role in development of a developing economy and so there is a huge demand for engineers. In such an economy where everyone is trying to become an engineer/doctor or someone with significant qualification you just cannot sit around and be satisfied with doing something little or not doing anything at all. We do not have this luxury. There is huge amount of social pressure to prove your smarts or end up in oblivion.
Everyone strives for status and an inordinate amount of respect is given by elders in the family if you say you are an engineer/doctor. This works in both the cases:
Case 1: You have no engineers in your family. In that case you become a rarity and are respected widely in your tribe.
Case 2: Your family is swamped with engineers and so becoming one is being on the right path to success.
Social pressure + Status + Limited opportunities
Let me explain,
As everyone knows India is a developing economy and engineers play an important role in development of a developing economy and so there is a huge demand for engineers. In such an economy where everyone is trying to become an engineer/doctor or someone with significant qualification you just cannot sit around and be satisfied with doing something little or not doing anything at all. We do not have this luxury. There is huge amount of social pressure to prove your smarts or end up in oblivion.
Everyone strives for status and an inordinate amount of respect is given by elders in the family if you say you are an engineer/doctor. This works in both the cases:
Case 1: You have no engineers in your family. In that case you become a rarity and are respected widely in your tribe.
Case 2: Your family is swamped with engineers and so becoming one is being on the right path to success.
Not a single child dreams about growing up and sitting in front of a computer
trying to solve an obscure bug. They want to be astronauts, scientists,
explorers, musicians, sports men etc. But if you belong to an economy where are
millions of people competing for each and everything you start looking for
security. For every single position on the Nation Cricket team there are more
than a lakh cricketers out there struggling and same goes for each and every
profession. Also India being a developing country doesn't have a huge research
budget and so we don't have that many scientists. The number of institutes
focusing on astronomy is low and so is the case for all other professions.
Contrast it with engineering where every state has 100's of engineering
colleges and the market for engineers is continuously growing with the dawn of
technical age it becomes an obvious choice.
Just to put things into perspective:
Andhra Pradesh which is one of the many states in India has 900 engineering colleges.
Due to all these reasons and the simple economics theory of demand and supply at work, so many students end up going for engineering.
Just to put things into perspective:
Andhra Pradesh which is one of the many states in India has 900 engineering colleges.
Due to all these reasons and the simple economics theory of demand and supply at work, so many students end up going for engineering.
India has an increasingly large number of
engineers graduating every year from the thousands of institutes without the
necessary skill-set/lack of opportunities and so they end up working in jobs
that are not necessarily suited to them. The internet is flooded with numerous
articles talking about Indian engineers working as railway drivers, rickshaw
drivers, sweepers etc. This is shocking but true. These might be one off
incidents blown out of proportion but are good enough to scare the parents and
kids alike to work hard and become over qualified to avoid such a fate.
It is often said:
India is a country where people first become engineers and then decide what they want to do.
Now you know why.
It is often said:
India is a country where people first become engineers and then decide what they want to do.
Now you know why.
