While I agree that brand IIT is overhyped, I do appreciate people who are willing to put in their best effort and making some sacrifices on the way to achieve his/her goals. However, source of the effort should be his/her passion and personal conviction. What I really hate in JEE system is it the coaching centres, where the students are put in a factory line system contrary to their wishes.

> Can we imagine a world full of book worms ?
I think you are generalising rather quickly here. In-fact what we lack in our society are the class of true knowledge seekers.

>More work does not always produce better results
> Smart work always produces better results

Cannot agree to you fully here also. First of all what you mean by better results is not clear to me. While it is true that smart work have a good probability of turning itself into good fruitful results, one should never underestimate the quanta of work he/she has to put in achieve quality results (think Sachin Tendulkar, Micheal Phelps or Barack Obama). Smart work and hard work are complimentary skills. However, one is not a substitute of other. However, good news is that if you are passionate about something, your perceived work-load reduces drastically.

ps: Let me counter myself by saying that IITs still offer better quality, exposure and opportunity, when compared to most other educational institute in India. So it is definitely one goal worth pursuing if you are passionate about studying technology.

I am not trying to say that IITs are bad or CET is not good enough. The students are misled by the hype.

It was told that If I get good marks in the SSLC exam, my future is safe, but the same was repeated with entrance and with B-tech also. But I never got what I expected from my school, or college. I am sure its the same with many students.

Regarding the smart work comment, all I said is that more work does not always lead to better results. Output is not always proportional to the effort put in.

Thats why the 300 and 9000 rank holders ended up in the same place earning the same salary.

Ill post one more post about this explaining the concept with more examples

These things are personal!!! No one can force other one to live like this!!

In my opinion, best way to enjoy life is LIVE ON YOUR PASSION!

As long as its personal, its fine, but misleading or misinterpreting or hyping too much can result in disappointment and break down.

Unfortunately “too much hypes” are an ubiquitous phenomenon now a days. We are subjected to hypes about our social-personal lifes (eg: TV serials, Movies), we are subjected to hypes about choices we get as a consumer (eg: ads), we are subject to hypes about politicians and policies and the list goes on and on.

More than addressing the issues as “too much hype”, it must be a question of educating the next generation to handle “hypes” effectively.

Next generations will get bombarded with progressively more information than ever. So the key for 21st century success is primarily on handling and processing this information. One of the key things for that to happen, is parents and teachers staying out of decision making process as much as ‘possible’. Kids have to be taught to be independent, a certain amount of cynicism inside them has to be developed so as not to blindly trust what they are taught and at the same time developing conviction and confidence to act on something. In short, the data has to flow through the kids’ mind and skills to make his/her inferences need to be developed and nurtured.

My key point is that one should not readily jump to conclusion about what is best for others. You can point out a possible ill-effects or consequence, but issuing blanket statement about others’ choice or behavioural pattern is wrong.

@ Appu
Rightly said about “Over Hype”

But - if not for this post by Kenney - how many of us would sit and discuss something like “Over Hype”. We would rather discuss things that are over hyped (Like Indian Cricket)…

The whole point of this post I feel is that most of the students out there are not really able to decide what is good for themselves - they rather take the highway with an ill-equipped vehicle - and when they face disappointment in life - are devastated!

@ Kenney
It is really stupid of your cousin - who already has a good rank for IIT entrance. It does not at all make sense for him to re-write the exam unless there is a solid reason - like if he gets the better rank he will be given a big discount on the fee or he might get a specific course (Like aeronautics) that he wants! Just for the sake of better rank wasting one year of your life is pathetic!

Like your other cousin who wrote the CET exam - it does not really make a difference in the end! In the end what matters is your ability and your talent that is unique to you!

By the way - this “Hype” has become a way of life for most of us!

Its all the after effects of Entrance Coaching centres..Who made these entrance a tough Race?who made these students Bookworms?Who made this competition so tough?WHo made CET so much Special?the answer is ENTRANCE COACHING CENTRES .

Anyway kenney dont blame ur cousin… as IIT is not like CET … and if he gets there not at all a Small thing,he would get a good exposure there…

“The whole point of this post I feel is that most of the students out there are not really able to decide what is good for themselves”

I disagree to this. I do believe they indeed are in a position to make a decision (and they should be the one who is making the decision), only that the elders do not give them a chance. In-fact, our society in general has an attitude of paranoia towards education. The engineering entrance frenzy being an apt example of it. Sixteen years is not that young an age for a person to decide what might be good domain to learn for the next 3-4 years and it is also an age when someone can afford to take some time out and reapply themselves to something they want. Heck, some of the major work of the prodigies were completed before they finished their teens (Since the example list is long let me pick a representative case of Alia Sabur, credited as the youngest professor in the world, at an age of 18!). However, in our society a parent decides (and injects the notion) that a child has to go to English medium school, enroll in hazar tuition classes, take ICSE or CBSE syllabus, take coaching classes, become an engineer (that to IT or CS), take up an IT job, get married to a girl or boy of their choice. There is a systematic denial of child’s choice in each step. And surprise, surprise! the reason they quote : “he is too young/immature to take the decision him/herself”.

I had my share of indecision when I finished my schooling. I could not decided whether I should opt for a BSc in Maths or a B-Tech in Computer Science. The common wisdom was to opt for B-Tech. However, my elder brother and uncle had a patient and systematic talk with me. They detailed out a table on what to expect , the path ahead and possible outcomes of both the options. I put all the options in a tabular format and played around with various permutation, and I chose BTech in Computer Science. However, the sense of empowerment it gave me while making the decision myself was profound.

If someone has made a decision to give up something he/she do not want, however in popular demand in common wisdom or to give a shot at something he could not achieve first time around, everyone in the neighbourhood is quick in making axiomatic and absolute judgment. We have to resist this tendency. Losing a year, is also one phenomenon which is over-hyped. We, as a society has a crazy and incorrect tendency to look down on a person who has lost a year.

I had got the chance to interact with many CEOs, managers and educators around the world. One general opinion I get when asked about India’s chance to being a IT and knowledge power-hold is that, Indian’s are good implementers, however they lack in two vital skills. Providing the initial specs of the project and the final assembly and presentation aspect. In short, most of our workers expect (and infact sometimes even demand) to be hand-held through the process. I expect the main reason of this to be cultural, mainly because these are soft-skills which are ‘nurtured’ rather than picked up from ‘nature’. Unfortunately, our system does just the opposite. Kill the space of making the decision by your own.

> We would rather discuss things that are over hyped (Like Indian Cricket)

Ah! This is what I love about university life. 80% of the time, we are debating and discussing, mostly arbitrary things ranging from syntactical relevance of Yoda speak to more serious socio-political things. In-fact, most of my soft skills thus the road to the more concrete knowledge base I have build up can be attributed to some of hidden qualities I picked up from my peers and teachers during my discussions.

“they rather take the highway with an ill-equipped vehicle - and when they face disappointment in life - are devastated!”

I forgot to address this part of your statement. What is the source of their disappointment ? It is the unreasonable expectation set so as to satisfy the outcome of choices that are put on you by someone. Again, this happens when the choice is being denied, and the child sees that he has no option left. The psychological reason for the devastation is conveniently brushed under the carpet.

I just love this line from Batman Begins
“And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

Is it so hard for a responsible teacher/parent to re-iterate such a message to the kids once in a while ?

@ Appu

Rightly said. It is rather the parents and the system that is not allowing the student to make their own decisions.

as for you learning a few things during those discussions - there is always a good and bad side to everything - you seem to have worked yourself into absorbing the good side - but that is not the case with lot of people out there!

[...] This comparison is of significance because, in this world time and money are limited resources. This post is inspired by comments in an earlier post about some things that doesn’t make any sense. [...]