From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject: Re: Indian software in the spotlight (Was Re: Pressure)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 23:36:21 GMT

In article <1iib1fINN8pb@agate.berkeley.edu>, amit@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Amit Gupta) writes:
> 
> |> According to my dad, this is because the Indian Institutes of Technology
> |> are so single-minded in their approach to teaching engineering: one basic
> |> humanities class followed by straight engineering from all angles, and
> |> homework that combined eats up 18 of the 24 hours in the day.  Perhaps you
> |> net.IIT grads could comment.
> 
> I guess I qualify. 
> 
> One important distinction, as Manish correctly indicates, is that the IITs are
> (more or less) exclusively engineering schools. Only 300 students are admitted
> at each campus every year. The class size is small (30-50 students in a class).
> Undergrad education is stressed. And yes, you need a lot of engineering credits.
> 
> I cannot agree with the comment about the homework. In my view, the students in
> the US do a lot more homework, and spend much more time studying, as compared
> to an "average" IIT student. I do remember that the reading and studying was
> very concentrated... around exam time!! I do not remember many weekly homeworks,
> or reports. Grading was based on exams, usually 3 per course per semester. 
> 
> Getting good grades was a high priority; learning, usually not.
> 
> Of course, I can only talk of IIT Delhi, but I doubt if other IITs were 
> very different.
> 
> Comments welcome. Flames will be ignored, as usual.
> 
> -amit


IIT Kanpur was quite different. At IIT Kanpur, we were required to take
eight humanities and social sciences (HSS) courses during the entire
B.Tech. program. The total number of courses one would take during
the entire program was about 48. Thus about one out of every six courses
or about 16 % course work was non-technical in nature. Remaining coursework
included about 20 % sciences, 20 % general engineering and only about 40 %
of the coursework was in the selected branch of engineering. We had lot of 
homework to do - people were busy overnight many times a semester.

We had several quizzes including surprise one's, two midterms and a final.
In most courses, the homework was weekly. 

We had relative grading system and only top 10-20 % got A grades.
We had A, B, C, D and F - five grade bands.  Competition was tough.
Graders were based on a variety of things - exams, quizzes, term papers,
term projects etc. (Just like in US)

I also studied at MIT in USA. In my observation and experience, IIT/K
educational values and practices were quite similar to those at MIT.
Primary difference being in the difficulty and purpose of homeworks. At MIT, 
the homework as well as examination problems had more conceptual applications
and required considerable creativity and intelligence. The problems we had 
to solve at IIT/K involved a lot of theoretical analysis rather than 
application of concepts and fundamentals in creative ways to solve a 
real-life problem as at MIT.

The education in India is more theoretical in nature even at IIT's.
The education in US has a better balance between theory and application of
theory.