What should students pursue, interest or money?

I was attending the 47^th North American Power Symposium during 4-6 October in Charlotte, North Carolina when I had this interesting conversation with a professor from another university. I told the professor that I did my Masters in Electrical Engineering and then I moved to Engineering Education to pursue my PhD. The first reaction which the professor had was in form of a comment in which they told me that it will not be very beneficial for me in terms of the salary which I will earn after graduating from my degree program. I think the assumption which the professor made here was that a graduate with an education degree will earn less than the one with an electrical engineering degree.

There might be some truth in what the professor said (although when I compared the salaries of professors from Engineering Education and Electrical & Computer Engineering departments at Virginia Tech, I did not find much difference between them; but for now, let us go ahead with the assumption that electrical engineering professors earn more than their counterparts in engineering education). It might be difficult for me to compete with electrical engineering graduates in terms of the salary which I will earn after my graduation, but is that all I want from my education? A big fat salary? Or does it have to be more? Is there a bigger purpose for me and for others that leads us to pursue higher education?

If I look at the current narrative about the higher education, it seems like students see it as an investment in terms of time and money and the expectation is that this investment will pay off once they graduate from the university. And this is why a lot of their time and energy is focused on taking classes or engaging in activities that help them secure a high-paying job. This is not to say that all students look at higher education only as a means to get a high-paying job but the number of students who do so is significant. And this is very evident in my own discipline, engineering. In fact, I have myself fallen into the trap of taking classes and engaging in activities that, I thought, would eventually help me get a high-paying job.

I am not against having a desire for a high-paying job. In fact, with the rising costs of higher education, one needs to ensure that one has a well-paying job by the time they graduate so that they can payback their student loans. Issues arise when people start constructing their academic lives around money and jobs; and ignore various avenues of learning which are essential for personal growth and development into a responsible citizen. Moreover, there are other issues with focusing one’s higher education entirely on getting high-paying jobs. The economic landscape is changing rapidly and it is possible that the sectors which are high-paying now will no longer be high-paying a few years later and vice versa. So, if students pursue money while they are in college, there is no guarantee that they will succeed in that pursuit as there might not be many high-paying jobs in their fields few years down the line. Moreover, the charm of money fades away after some time and if one does not find their work interesting and satisfying, one might encounter dissatisfaction with their career and life.

In my opinion, students should follow their interests while they are pursuing higher education and try to get into careers they love. Even if they do not make a lot of money as compared to those who pursued money, they will still love what they do and hence live meaningful lives. And when the going gets tough, doing what they love will keep them going.

I Wish I Could

This happened last Wednesday and the moment it happened I thought of giving it a place on my blog page. There was this guy called Rajeev at Nirmaan office. In the first site, he was a usual high school boy, though he looked somewhat older in age and was very shy in speaking. He had come with his brother and wanted to get admission in Nirmaan Classes. Manish Sir started talking to him and all his replies were quite and shy. And then through the conversation, I came to know that he had failed the CBSE class 12 exams twice (2009 and 2010) and this year too, he didn't hope to pass the exams. And the reason for his low self confidence, shy replies and downward looking eyes became very clear to me. It is really difficult for anyone to face and go through this kind of mental pressure and we cry about our boring jobs, slow progress at office, intolerable boss and what not!

It was clear to Rajeev that he just wanted to pass his board exams and wanted to get admission into DU, doing something in Computer Science. But Manish Sir was constantly forcing him to choose engineering over his dreams of getting into DU, constantly giving the tender mind the fear of future. DU se Comp Sc karke kya karoge? Engineering k bina koochh nahi kar paaoge!


During the conversation, I came to know that Rajeev was a good student in Class 10 and then after that, he lost interest in studies and stopped studying at all. I immediately thought that the problem lied here and started inquiring him about what lead to this disinterest. He told that he got interest in playing cricket and used to run away from classes to play cricket. Further, I asked him about the marks he obtained in different subjects, which made the picture more clear for me. His scorecard in class 10 looked like this:

English: 90
Hindi: 86
Mathematics: 76
Science: 78
Social Sciences: 84

By looking at the marks, Manish Sir later told me that he was just an okay kid. But I still differ on this. Someone who gets almost 83% in 10th board is not okay, but he is good. The problem was that he was just okay in Maths and Science but brilliant in language and social studies.

Through our conversation, I learnt that he liked watching television sitcoms, National Geographic, reading newspaper and was more updated on Libya front than anyone of his age. The ailment became clear, the only problem was that the patient was not visiting the right therapist. Engineering was not the cup of tea for him, rather he should have tried to become a journalist, or done something in mass communication. Even a regular literature graduation would have served him good, but not engineering. Anything, but not engineering.

And when Manish Sir convincing his about being an engineer, I wanted to shout "Engineering is not for you. Don't get admitted here. Go, do something good for your life! And if you don't know how, I will help you do it".

But alas, I couldn't say anything and had to witness one energetic student getting into the yoke of cruel engineering career! I wish I could do something for him!