In the past i’d been thinking a lot about joining IIT and preparing for GATE
again. But last week K, a good friend of mine, joined a training institute (and is
currently under training in Embedded Systems and VLSI) in Hyderabad. This had a profound
impact on my perspective of education,especially formal education. He sent me a synopsis of
the course that he is undertaking(i had asked for it) and when i saw it i was amazed. Yes
Amased if not Astounded. There was C, C++, RTOS, UNIX,Shell Programming, Embedded Systems
Design, RDBMS (and i’m really not talking about basic stuff). All in SIX months!!
During our last conversation W made a statement which left me confused it was this: Any knowledge acquired in
a time bound manner is never complete. So,since we don’t have infinite time then all knowledge, we can posses is still finite.
The Domino Effect continued and i am now sure, in the words of Will(of ‘Good Will Hunting’),
that my “$150 Grand education is just worth $1.50 at the Public Library.” And so is the case with all formal education.
The price is the effort put into acquiring knowledge.
Now if i already have the knowledge that i’d get if i do,say, an M.Tech, what do i gain?
Just a Degree?? So now the question is: Do i spend time(for all Corporate guys: use the time = money principle, that’ll help you understand i hope)
, all 13152(1.5 years)-3288(6 hours of sleep) = 9864hours of my time in learning much of the stuff i already know, just to get a Degree? What’s more: Do i spend so much time as i do now to prepare for competitive exams that would then help me to use up 9864 hours of my life in gaining pretty much nothing but a degree? Those are serious questions for me if you look at the opening statement of this post.
If we are,then, in a position where we are learning as much(if not more) than what we’d learn
during a formal degree course, do you think it would be prudent for anyone to go back and
join a PG course where you pretty much learn the stuff that you learnt while your UG and the
only thing new that you do learn would be in the last few months of the course? Then you’d
have to show your skills doing a project or a Thesis which would use much of the skills you
already had while doing your UG (and usually primary school) because the time required to master
the stuff during a PG is not sufficient enough to be of any use.. at the end of it all we have a Degree.
And TIME is completely wasted because we wanted a Degree and did not want to spend any effort in
learning something we would have learnt for much less time with a “$1.50″ admission to a library.
So what are my plans for the future? Do i keep pursuing my hope to get into IIT or Spend some time learning something new,
doing more with the knowledge i posess, keep on increasing it as well as the skills i now have (and shall continue to acquire)?
I guess, the answer is Self-evident. But does that mean that there is no need of for a formal higher education? Apparently, the answer is yes. Yes its of no use(if that helps it sink in)! At least in a country like india where formal education is just another means of getting a job. Then the house. Then the car. Its the world’s demand that rules formal education. Its just to fulfil that demand that we join the rat-race. If i,perchance, were to join for a formal higher education it would be to get exposed to minds greater and deeper than mine…
