Friday, December 22, 2006

Do not blame India or China

Many people seem to have a somewhat hostile attitude toward Indian and Chinese IT workers and engineers. The reality is both countries understand the value of human capital. University educations are not as prohibitively expensive as the are in the west and most are state subsidized. The enterence exams are competative and the institutions of those countries produce fine engineers, doctors and business majors.

Our Universities are a jobs program for lazy Marxists who contribute no useful scholarship. American students are burdened with a mostly useless 64 credit liberal arts base. Indian business majors learn cost accounting and ours read Rigoberta Menchu. In fact a greater case can be made for graduates with useless degrees to have a business base than for business majors to have a liberal arts base. A degree in sociology prepares one to do what, flip burgers, study caligraphy in Saudi Arabia
or watch obscure movies.

Our students leave the Universities with worthless paper and mounds of debt. Meanwhile companies who want workers with valuable skills and training turn to India and China. Their colleges somehow manage to turn out fine hard working graduates who are well prepared and understand teamwork. Even Iran does not add as much political
garbage to their degrees a student takes one or two courses in Islam and that is it.

Human capital, stable governance and respect for law are the key factors in economic growth. India is an example of a rising economy due to the investment in human capital. China's growth has come mostly by ditching Marxism. The political hegemony
is still present but that is due to the fact that Marxism itself was a thinly guised theft scheeme with useless flowery rhetoic. The politicos have entrenched and enriched themselves by ditching the economic bunk while retaining the classic party
cleptocracy. The key to China's growth has been stability and human capital. An investor in China knows his investment is protected by law. There is little such protection under Comwad Chavez and people and investments are fleeing his misrule.

American companies are reacting to the low quality graduates by hiring H1b candidates. Our universities have failed to respond to the global economy by reforming the Liberal arts base and making Professors work for their lofty salaries.

If we do not fix higher education than the Indians and Chinese are more than capable
of providing high quality graduates. Do not blame India for reacting to the global economy and undersdtanding the value of human capital. Those who do not adapt to changing conditions become fossils.

Beamish in 08, Ducky to Gitmo and Superfly John Brown to Bellvue.

6 comments:

American Crusader said...

Well I double majored...one of them being SOCIOLOGY.
Maybe that's why I went into the military...lol.
Not really, it was something I had planned on doing but I understand the point you're making. I did learn some useful information in sociology but unless you plan on being a professor, it doesn't help much on the job front but I believe there is value in liberal arts classes.
Maybe we should cut the requirements in half?
I still believe the best education available is here in United States.
I saw what you wrote about MIT but I can't agree. Maybe when people start flocking to universities in other countries I will change my mind. At least the Saudis and the rest can send their students elsewhere.
Have a great holiday season and MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HANUKKAH!
You're a true patriot and a friend.

beakerkin said...

AC

Ask people who do the hiring if they have a student from IIT or MIT? Top companies seem to favor IIT grads over MIT. Their students take more science classes than their MIT counterparts.

The value of Chomsky on any real job 0.

Always On Watch said...

A degree in sociology prepares one to do what, flip burgers, study caligraphy in Saudi Arabia
or watch obscure movies.


Most sociology majors whom I know had to retrain or attain another major in order to find a job. Others--women--found husbands and had their families.

A liberal arts degree doesn't prepare the graduates for the job market. Part of the reason is that the standards have been dumbed down nearly to the point that a BA is the equivalent of what used to be a high-school diploma.

Too many courses in college are remedial. That used to be a rarity, but now it's the norm--everywhere but the Ivy Leagues. I frankly don't know if the Ivy Leagues offer remedial courses.

Brooke said...

OT, Beak... You've been tagged.

Don't worry, it's a short one! :D

beakerkin said...

At Harvard Business one would still have to endure the liberal arts base.

American Crusader said...

Let's take a slightly different approach. Japan has been accused of being very inventive with American discoveries i.e. transistors, capacitors, LEDs etc. but not very impressive with developing new technology. Maybe the statistics don't bear this out..but I believe it to be true.
I believe part of that because of how we approach higher education. I think a liberal arts education helps develop an overall approach to tasks that someone who has only had a strict technological background.
All I know is that America has been at the forefront of technology and specifically in the development of new technology.