A Can Can Store 2 Tennis Balls! Cut them to Half, 4 Balls Can Fit into the Same Can! Are Our Competitive Exams Promoting this Ideology?!! Read this Interesting Perspective!!

Dear Friends and Students

One of my LinkedIn members Dr. Joerg Storm posted the following picture! Immediately my mind got connected to the JEE Entrance Examination and how some of the kids are getting trained to crack this examination!  12L try for 12K Seats! Wah!

My son is studying 11^th standard! He is a type of creative mind. Ideally, he is supposed to appear for the UCEED examination which examines the creativity of an individual and provides an opportunity for a Bachelor of Design. My niece is studying 12^th standard. She is linguistically intelligent. Ideally, she should have appeared for BA Mass Communication or IPMAT type of entrance exams (admission to IIM Indore 5-year Integrated Programme in Management leading to award of BBA+MBA degree).

What are these types of children trained for! JEE, which is checking Maths, Physics and Chemistry Problem Solving ability! Their Mathematical Intelligence! However, the coaching is all meant to improve their weekly score (Goal is to get 150+ marks in weekly test).

As a result, within a year, they lost their enthusiasm in creative works or linguistic outcomes! Week on week, they are hard trained on how to improve their scores through elimination tricks, memorizing tricks, selective topic management skills, how to study long hours and most important thing, short-cuts for 10 step hard mathematical problems! 

In IIT JEE 2005, the following questions were asked. If  f(x)  is a differentiable function and  g(x) is a double differentiable function such that  |f(x)|≤1  and  f'(x)=g(x) . If  f2(0)+g2(0)=9 . Prove that there exists some c∈(–3,3) such that g(c).g''(c)<0.  Now you can imagine how the kids with non-mathematical intelligence solve these types of sums! I am not against the process. However, being a mentor, we should be able to guide who fits for these competitive examinations and train those students only. Not everyone can cook every dish right.

They are missing the project work, missing creative assignments, elocutions, debates, essay competitions, art & crafts and many more during 2-year intermediate education! The all-round development is completely missed!

Every skill and craft are made half like the cut tennis ball and crammed into the single Can! End of +2, Can we be able to apply gum and make the original ball? I doubt it!

By the way I gave an option to my ward to get out of this competition and do what he can and wants! Unfortunately, he is still in the dilemma! If you hold on to the same thought for quite some time, our reticular cortex in our brain converts that thought to a permanent behavioural aspect!! Beware of this!!Here is another problem. The peer pressure is so high. You will be seen differently, if you do not write the JEE examination! You will be disqualified as a good friend if you are not into this bracket!

This mindset continues even in the Btech/Professional Degree/Diploma Courses. No wonder out of 30 Lakhs applying, why 9.35 Lakhs students opted for Computer Science related branches, whereas 6.84L Mech, 6.11 ECE, 4.84L Civil, 3.73L Electrical opted in the year 2022!!

Did you also cut your tennis ball and cram it into the Can? Do not, you cannot gum it again!!

Ravi Saripalle

 

Should I join ECE or not? Do I have a Future? This Message is a Response to these Questions! Read this perspective!

Dear Students and Friends

Couple of days back, one of my colleagues asked what are the prospects for the ECE branch and whether his ward will have a flourishing career in this domain or not? I was not confident enough in answering this question. To be honest, I told him many ECE people are coming back to the software route. Then I found this interesting article, “America's chip land has another potential shortage: Electronics engineers”.

Having said that, there is an interesting comment by Dr. Sumit Gupta, Google Senior Management (Head of Product, Google Infra). Dr. Sumit did his Btech in Electrical and Electronics from IIT Delhi (1991-95), PhD in Computer Science (UC Irvine) and Post-Doctoral (UC San Diego).

Dr Sumit says, “CS is completely dominating mindshare among engineering programs in high schooler's minds - I see the anecdotal information as my own kids and their peers consider college. It's almost like the death of Moore's law is followed by the death of EE too!”.

This is absolutely true!! Just for your information, “Moore's law, a prediction made by American engineer Gordon Moore in 1965 that the number of transistors per silicon chip doubles every year.” Raja Koduri, Executive Vice President and general manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group at Intel presented an interesting statistics about Computer Science vs. Electrical & Electronics Engineering College Enrolment.  

During 1964, Microprocessor was having the highest popularity among EE students (100%). By 1974, this plummeted by EE students (70%). By 1984, PC boom came but EE popularity further fell down (45%). By 1994, in the Internet Era, EE popularity gained back (70%). By 2004, Cloud Era started and EE Popularity/ enrollment decreased to 15%. By 2014, the Smartphone era started but popularity was stagnant at 15% and with the advent of AI, the popularity decreased to below 10%. On the other hand, CSE 0% in 1964, 15% by 1974, 65% by 1984(PC Boom phase), then 55% by 1994 (Internet Era), 90% by 2004 (Cloud Era), 80% by 2014 (Smartphone Era) and 85% in AI Era.

How does this popularity impact the semiconductor world! Where does it lead to? Intel needs to find 6,000 people to fill the roles in the United States and 3,000 to take up positions in Germany in coming years! In Texas, Samsung will need to match more than 2,000 people with high-tech positions for its factory that is set to open in 2024. Japan needs roughly 35,000 engineers in the next decade. You know what, Intel, for instance, has vowed to spend $100 million to improve semiconductor education and research in the United States. Experts say that, “there is a need to improve the experience for interns and first-timers in the industry.” This would help to fill this gap. World needs chip architects and HDL engineers, particularly when considering firms like Nvidia, Qualcomm, and AMD that only focus on chip design. VLSI is going to get traction in the future.

Students, it is not just your Python or Go or Java, but Verilog, (a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems) can also give you a lucrative offer in future. As of now the demand is high in US/Germany/China/Japan etc, hoping and wishing India catches this market when we start setting up our own semiconductor fabs/manufacturing units.

Hence, I am changing my response in favour of ECE with a great hope for the future. There is a future however, aspirants need to be highly focussed in specific domains (Embedded Systems, VLSI, Telecommunications, Signal Processing, Automation) and develop patience to go deep into the design side.

Read more at

https://www-theregister-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/07/08/semiconductor_engineer_shortage/

Ravi Saripalle

 

The Best Medicine for all Kinds of Problems in our Lives is to Leave the “Wheel Lock and Wheel Together” and Move On! Read this Interesting Perspective!!

Dear Students and Friends

Couple of days back one of my connections forwarded me the following picture! Initially it looked funny to me but as I see this, it teaches a big lesson. I am sharing my viewpoint with all of you so that my conceptions become strong and try to implement them in my life, which may be helpful to a few others as well.

As you are all aware that “Wheel locks” are designed to prevent thieves from stealing rims off your car. Security guards use this for wrong parking as well. What if the owner removes the wheel itself, fits the spare and moves on! Of course, there is a little cost associated but it was OK!

Wheel is an “Expectation in our Life”! Wheel lock is a “Hindrance to that Expectation”. When Expectation is not met in the form of Wheel lock, holding on to the “same expectation with a hindrance” is not a great solution! Sometimes it is foolish as well.

We should be able to remove the expectation in our life, attach it to a new expectation and move on! Multiple times I experienced the wheel lock syndromes in my life. I was holding, becoming morose but did not use/understand this philosophy. As a result, we lose time, peace and energy! We should not make this mistake.

JEE results are around the corner! If you don’t get into NIT/IIT (wheel lock), remove the wheel and join a local engineering college and prove yourself! If you do not get a placement in your dream company, remove the wheel, check your skills and attach a new wheel. If you are having a “Heart Burn”, remove the Wheel, attach a new one and move on! Holding on to it only causes psychological trouble. Your car remains in the same parking lot forever!

 

Of course, preaching is easy, practicing is difficult but trying is our dharma!

What are your “Wheel Locks” in your life at this point of time? Job or Rank or Life Partner or Health or Family or Abroad or ???

Remove the “Wheel and Wheel Lock together” and Move On! The Panacea to all Problems

Ravi Saripalle