Engineering Mania

I was chatting recently with a friend of my realtive who was searching for a job. He was an "Engineer". He had done his Engineering from a college in remote part of Karnataka. I had not heard its name, so tried googling- believe it or not, the college didn't had a website. That generated in me a new thought series that led to this blog.

We are gripped by "Engineering mania". Everybody wants to be/ their children to be an "Engineer". Without BE you are a shame to your parents, you may not get girl for marriage, you may not get loans and may be you may not hold yourself in good esteem; somewhere down you would be cursing- yourself, your parents, stars or God.

My own friend surprises me with his stupidity. I wonder how he even passed his 10th. But lo, he is an "Engineer". He is not one of his kinds. A relative of mine can't frame a sentence in English and he too is an Engineer. My experience tells me that our farmer, vegetable vendor or auto rickshaw have better wisdom, intelligence and managing skills than we "Engineers".

I have nothing against Engineers and I myself am an Engineer. But due to the drop in the quality of technical education, they are Engineers just for name sake. The tag of 'BE' just creates a fake self image. This is devastating. The states of Karnataka, TN and AP have ridiculous number of Engineering colleges.

My take is, study anything, Engineering or otherwise, but do it in among top say 10-15 colleges of your country (or at least your state), else don't. I feel it is far better doing any other course in a college that has quality that doing Engineering is a poor college. The fields of Medicine, Law, Administrative Services, Defence Services, Threatre, Fashion, Arts, Politics, Journalism etc are like forgotten.

There is scarcity of quality. In a scene from 3 Idiots where Farhan explains to his dad- if I take up photography, my salary might be small, car might be small, house might be small, but I will be happy- has a great lesson for all of us. It is far better being a good photographer than a bad Engineer. Isn't it?

Let's come out of our "follow" mentality as the one who we are following may be blind. Let's be ourselves and do that what's good for us. It's always better to trust our judgment as none knows us better.