Education == Career is a lopsided equation

I was asked by a C-suite person - How were my friends similar to me faring in the job scenario ? I was a little bemused by the question 'coz I realized at that time I did not know any woman wanting to get back into the corporate scene especially after the kind of break I have taken - 8 years ! :)

I have never been one of those people who think that women do not matter the minute they do not earn especially if they have been educated. I firmly believe contribution comes in various forms and the equation Education == Career ( solely counting rungs of the ladder climbed ) views only one aspect of it. To be sure, being financially independent is great and does give a lot of choice and a feeling of empowerment but I have never run down women who take a break or don't take a break. What works for each person / family is different.

Personal choices aside - bringing up a child to be a good citizen is not something that should be looked down upon or taken for granted. Still there are a whole host of people out there who believe "children grow by themselves" and if a woman is educated and does not work - it is a waste educating her. Yes, I have been told this in various forms including by one elder person who honestly should have known better considering how much of life he has seen. Never mind !!!

Getting back to the question - I reeled off ..........

I answered that friends who have taken a break from a formal career - are doing different things now or are entrepreneurs -

• One had opened a book shop, has developed soft skills modules which are being integrated into the Diploma curriculum across the state, has worked with teen suicide helpline and and ....... does so many things I cannot keep track of them since they are so varied ! :) She is now on her latest entrepreneurial venture which will be open soon.

• This friend has opened a pre-school, is being advised by ISB which had chosen her as a part of group of women entrepreneurs within a certain criteria. Prior to this she volunteered in Doorstep school - a school for migrant children.

• Many friends have turned to teaching - be it as Montessori teachers, Primary school teachers. Maths coaching or even a Language teacher.

• Another friend works with differently-abled children and organizes events for them

• In the next circle of acquaintances - some one is into jewellery design, another into saree design, one has opened a toy library, another lady is a fashion designer.

And so ........ I was aware I had not really answered the question since I did not know anyone in the same boat as I was in but I did realize - I have diverse set of friends none of whom are looking at getting back to the formal ladder !!!! ;) 

As an aside - if I were to expand to the next degree [ Six degrees of separation anyone ? ] - I will come across women involved in organic manure, dog training, costume dresses, designer kids clothing, beautician, pastry baking, counselling special kids, webdesign freelancing, book lending library and elder care!

Of jobs and sops

I read the latest gimmick involving grains to the poor. I wonder if these kind of alms will help the party in question. One never knows !!!

Cynically speaking it is easy to see - why this is a PR move - I mean if the PDS system in India was made more streamlined - guess it would not garner that many votes na ? And yet tonnes and tonnes of grains in our country are wasted when we have so many hungry people. Horrible !

As an educated urban person - I was dismayed by the handling of the Uttarakhand disaster. I was even more disgusted to see the flagging of relief material a few days after the tragedy with packets having printed leaflets of the party !!!

Swinging into action would have been more appreciated but I am a normal everyday person .. I cannot claim to know how vote-bank politics works !! Plus we are an emotional lot - and perhaps the pomp and show mean more to us than ground reality of a job well done ?

After all - isn't the hunter who kills the tiger more hailed than the hunter who ensured there would be no such problem in the first place? ( Sending tiger to zoo story ).

There was no statement from the PMO , no message from the party , nothing for quite some time. Appalling !!!  To be honest I am disgusted even by our celebrities who were strangely silent. Reactions were so delayed so as to be non-existent !!

I have never believed that just b'cos a person is older - he / she deserved respect. I prefer to go by actions.

If more people believed that their actions would give them respect and not the number of years on this planet perhaps our older generation would stop pontificating and would do more to understand if not integrate with the younger generation that wants jobs and not sops !!!

There is a dignity and joy in working for yourself , your family and perhaps the society if you are so inclined.

Yes - the class that is abused should be given a helping hand but not handouts ! It is like the age old wisdom - "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day , teach him how to fish and he will never go hungry".

Our vibrant youth should have opportunities to work once they graduate. They should have a hand in the future of the country. They should be encouraged to be entrepreneurs !

Wisdom without the benefit of the viewpoint of the people the future is being built for is useless.

Yes there are always exceptions to the rule. There are plenty of people who would rather cheat than work, or laze than work but we are not talking about the outliers. We are talking of today's youth which wants to enter the workforce - and should be given an atmosphere to do so.

Youth - disengaged and jobless is a danger to any country.

Comparing CS50x and 6.00x

I am comparing the two free edx courses - 6.00x from MIT and CS50x from Harvard. I think this comparison may be unfair - since I did not complete 6.00x. The more apt title would probably be - why I stuck to CS50x and not to 6.00x.

I should make it clear - I think the 6.00x course is great - the course syllabus, lectures, the problems and the quizzes too.  May be I will look it up in the future.

A.  MIT - 6.00x

1. Time commitment is on the higher side. Needs a lot more time.

2. Tougher - more scientific bent.

3. Lectures cannot be easily downloaded. The HTTP downloads for about 400 MB files do not work out well when uninterrupted net connections cannot be taken for granted. Torrents would have helped.

4. Stricter deadlines for the problems / quizzes. Was difficult to handle this along with other commitments. I do not consider this something bad / good ; just something that did not allow me to complete the course.

B.   Harvard - CS50x  - If I had to use a single line for this course's USP I would say it was their making the classes at CS50 alive for the masses. It was like stepping into a live classroom at Harvard.

1. Vicarious pleasure ! :-) - This probably is the closest I will ever get to the hallowed halls of an Ivy League Institution. Doesn't that sound sycophantic ? :) But .... it is true ! Unlike 6.00x - this one made me feel like I had actually stepped into a live class! Fantastic!

2. Fun !!! Cannot underestimate this part. It was like being back in college .. made it easier to stick to it. Nostalgia pangs anyone ? :)

3. Truly aimed at beginners. I thought their introduction of Scratch to learn the basics of programming was a genius move !

4.  Self paced and doable. Can be managed with other commitments because the only true deadline is the last date of the course. All problem sets, quizzes and the project can be submitted any time at all. Plus they have a simple schedule which based on the date you have logged in suggests various dates for all the items that you need to submit.

5. The walkthroughs ! These introduced the problem sets and gave direction.  A fantastic idea especially when one does not know where to start; which is almost always ! The Psets are imaginative and more importantly - the pointer to real life scenarios was appreciated.

For e.g - we had to code a program to recover lost jpeg files from a RAW image. This was the 'forensics' Pset.  Another to zip and unzip files based on an algorithm - the Huff 'n' Puff Pset. Very much enjoyable.

6. The introductions to W3C validator, gdb, valgrind and usage of js/css scripts from other websites, standing on other developers' shoulders. Real life software development is not always completely self-contained.  These were great inclusions I thought.

7.  They had short intros to various items - like the different types of sorts, SQL, jQuery, HTTP, gdb, valgrind etc. These were short videos that explained something in slightly more detail that in the main lecture. These were very helpful and they had these funny bits at the end ! :)

8. Sections - There were 2 types of sections - one called hacker edition type for those more comfortable with programming and the simpler one for beginners. These were in addition to the lectures, here problems were worked on and doubts clarified. Helpful again.

9. The vibrant student community !! This simply amazed me. So many people - always willing to answer queries. When stuck for a few hours on a problem, all I needed to do was go to the discussion forum. Mostly the Q would already be answered but I got replies for all the queries I put up online. Fabulous support !

10.  The lecture videos that I could download easily via torrents. I watched most of the lectures/shorts/sections/walkthroughs on my phone while waiting for my daughter's classes to finish. While I did not use captions whenever I watched the lecture online I liked the inclusion of the same. Very thoughtful I would say.

11. CS50 appliance - All my work for the course was done via their Virtual Machine. The code was backed up in Dropbox - and all this is a part of the setup for CS50x. Including dropbox - is another brilliant move. Who thinks they can lose their work ? :) And beginners ? No way .... !!!  More importantly - a seamless backup apart from being helpful is a pointer towards professional development.  Version control was the only thing missing and perhaps not really applicable to these Psets.

I had no problems with the appliance itself and I went through 2 laptops and a Windows upgrade :) Easy to set up and work with. And no no-availability problems.

Areas of improvement

1.  The sections should also have torrent downloads.

2.  I would like a T-shirt with "I took CS50x"  -  similar to the one Zamyla wore in one of the walkthoughs. now how do I get that ? :)   I wish they would make this possible.

To summarize I found CS50x - Fun .... and eminently doable !!! :)

I took CS50(x)

So ..... I took up CS50x .. a Harvard course free on edx.org. I have finished all Problem Sets and all Quizzes. Additionally did a small project towards the course completion. Today I am waiting for April 15th 2013 ...... the day after which I should get an honor certificate from Harvard ! :)

Now - I have worked in the IT field so why would I take up an introductory course in computer science ? Well - how about 'Just like that' ? Yes and then - I was intrigued and honestly wanted a certificate from an Ivy league institution. That I would get one for free was like icing on the cake.

David Malan - the course instructor

We all have dreams - some fulfilled and some not. If I had had my own way - I would be teaching in Harvard / Stanford / MIT / LSE / Princeton / IIM / Cambridge - after I had completed my doctorate and an MBA of course. :) Strangely enough the IITs were never in my dreams. At least this was one of my dreams ! :)

I am not sure how much value the honor certificate has and to me it does not matter now.  I had fun doing the course and while I did not expect it when I signed up - I felt like I was in a live class at Harvard. Definitely a bonus !

I have learnt C eons ago and it was like going back to college ! Sorting algorithms - bubble sort ( God thought I had left that behind me! ), malloc, pointers ! :) I struggled .... especially in the memory management zone.

Pointer logic / Sorting algorithms were demonstrated with students

My curiosity first led me to MITs 6.00x ( especially after the 6.002x ) - but I  dropped it midway.  These were the only 2 courses that I tried and I preferred the Harvard course.

For my project while I first had another in mind - I ended up doing something that was much simpler. I struggled;
not because of the project requirements itself but because suddenly everything seemed to fall apart. My laptop's hard drive started emitting a strange whining sound - which I thought was a sign of an imminent hard drive crash and it became very very very slow !!!

I had to use another laptop - install everything again. I decided to do a mini Android app and this environment is not part of the CS50 appliance. The ADT ( Android Development Tool ) is tedious. There must a lighter version somewhere but I did not have too much time to explore so I went with the one provided by google.

And then the second laptop did not have audio !! LOL .. so while I did the video editing there with my app - I recorded the audio on my mobile and integrated it with the video and cross-checked on my first laptop !

And now of course - since all submissions are over - the whining hard drive sound has stopped on my comp !! Really !!!!! :)

Tommy and Rob - two teaching fellows for CS50

Anyway here's the link to my project submission - http://youtu.be/sGWY8kxvqfc. It has to be within 2 minutes.

All in all - I had fun ...... Now looking to see if I can deploy this small app in the real world. The php page is after all written inside the CS50 appliance which will not be available to the outside world.

Civic sense ?

Education and Civic sense rarely go hand in hand ..

Recently I was talking with a taxi driver and the conversation veered to civic sense and he made a comment "Ma'am it is the educated people who behave worse than the people who don't know" .... I thought about it ..... I don't think the comment was wrong .....

Education and civic sense ... rarely seem to go hand in hand ..... I remembered some instances of such behavior by the so-called-educated people ... this includes Gen Y too ....

• Coming to the ICU ward/waiting room with a bad case of viral conjunctivitis ....
• Entering the society premises on a vehicle at 70km / hr ..... especially in the evening .. prime time when small children are playing / running / cycling.
• Asking to divert money that has been donated for charity to be used for other sundry activities ...
• One person is admitted in the ICU .. 26 people turn up in the ICU waiting room plus they have the gall to wonder if the other people really are relatives and all the 26 people want to enter the ICU ward en masse .... !! Jeez ...
• Spitting gutka within hospital premises ...
• Leaving plastic bottles and gutka wrappers on pristine mountain sides .....
• Throwing water/garbage from the balcony on to the road ..... with no care towards the people walking below
• Physically pushing children ..... in a crowd ( mall, after movie rush etc )
• Flight announcement is for parents with children and elderly people .. yet everyone rushes and makes a crowd at the gate !!!!
• Keeping the lift waiting ..... while busy chatting to someone outside their door .. uncaring of the people within the lift
• Of-course loud ring-tones / talking .... in inappropriate places ...
• Driving in an inebriated state ....

 ...... And so on ..... am sure there are many more examples of such uncouth conduct ...

I am not even touching the serious side of what education should bring about in areas of dowry, education of girl children, corruption, bride burning, land grabbing etc ...

I think ... education should also mean refinement and civility .... but is it asking for too much ??? Money, education and class .... rarely go together I guess ...