Professor Goldberg, in the video found here talks about what he calls “The Missing Basics”. Things that the average engineer coming out of a technical institution just doesn’t know. As an Indian who flew half across the world in the pursuit of a decent engineering education, I’m struck by how relevant his points are even for an engineering student from India. A typical IITian (a student graduating from one of the seven Indian Institutes of Technology – the premier engineering colleges in India) will have brilliant math skills. Given a question and nothing else more than a piece of paper and a pencil and he’ll probably be able to give you the answer you were looking for instantly. Put him in the real world however and ask him to innovate and come up with creative solutions, and he’s lost more often than not. To be fair, it’s not exactly his fault : from an extremely young age, Indian students are taught not to ask questions. To follow blindly the orders/advice of your parents, your seniors and your teachers. His job is to lock himself away in a box to ‘study’ – memorize the text till you can reproduce it word by word in the examinations. Get the marks, get into an IIT, graduate and get a job to support his family. No understanding required. He is under immense pressure to conform; in India – you are your marks. A 90% is brilliant, a 60 worthless (even if he can play the guitar like Hendrix or paint like Raphael). He doesn’t know how to ask questions, model, decompose or visualize and cringes when he’s asked to communicate more than a few words at a time. This is exactly what ,propels thousands of indians to the far corners of the globe, to pursue more complete educations – ones where you can ask questions, think differently and have your own unique brand of creativity rewarded. So in this regard, I believe Professor Goldberg is spot on. Since we live in a world where the average engineer spends less than 30% of his time using the math, physics and chemistry he learns in college (and taking into consideration the scores of Indian engineers who use engineering as a foundation degree before completing and MBA and jumping into the foray of stock brokers and civil servants, their engineering degree gathering dust on some wall of his office) we need engineers who are both innovative and expressive. Though it hardly counts as a mini-action plan, I plan to become one.
By the end of the semester, I plan to be develop my communication skills, both oral and written. The former by taking the initiative to participate in different public speaking roles and the latter simply by writing as many assignments as I’m able. Additionally I plan on becoming a more extroverted person – simply by interacting with as many different types of people as I’m able: from jocks to DDR nerds. Not very detailed perhaps. But (hopefully) effective.
