Atlas Shrugged!
Atlas Shrugged!
2006-12-15T23:14:00
Sandeep gave a talk at GECT today on his experiences as a M.Tech/PhD student. The idea was to make students understand that after doing a B.Tech in CS you have much more exciting options than joining Infy/Wipro/TCS/XYZ company and writing/fixing some stupid code. Because its so easy to get an `IT' job these days, students (even the best ones) have no ambition other than landing up a `cosy' job. This is going to cost us dear in the long run.
One thing which may dissuade potential candidates from choosing a career in research might be the misconception that researchers are forced to become `sanyasis' because they find it difficult to make a decent living out of the money they get paid for all their `research'. Even being a PhD student, especially in a foreign university, is a good financial proposition, according to Sandeep. Most of his talk was aimed at convincing students that you can do exciting intellectual work, and still thoroughly enjoy life.
Being an ex-MS employee, Sandeep had to answer the inevitable MS vs RMS question. He made it clear that he started out as a Free Software advocate but later realized that MS was not doing a bad thing after all. He agrees that Ayn Rand has had a role to play in this `transition'.
I still believe that Sandeep has not studied RMS as clearly as he has done Ayn Rand; the day I finish reading `Atlas Shrugged', I will have a big fight with him!