The doctoral West
Monday, August 13, 2007 at 11:48PM It was the late eighties. A bunch of mostly Brahmin kids from middle class families attending a Central Board English medium school, in the heart of Madras (Chennai). The school, which has come a long way today, could be termed an "agraharam school" in those days. As part of the school chores was "pooja duty", where kids who had been initiated with their Upanayanam ceremony would perform the priestly duties for the Ganesha Temple, on campus. Let us just say that yours truly, a.k.a. "Sandhana Pottu Sundaram", could not have been more at home in any other school environs, considering his family background and upbringing!
In what way does this relate to the title of this post? Everything and nothing!
Nothing, because that innocent kid in me, did not know much about doctoral degrees, save for the fact that one of his older cousins was in the USA doing a doctorate. In fact I used to think that this cousin of mine was becoming a doctor (like in all Tamizh movies they say MBBS, FRCS, London .. etc.).
Everything because, in a turn of events that were unusual by my internal standards, but usual for similar middle class kids at that time, did end up doing a PhD in a western country.
Now before we proceed further, another note. This post is the serious response to this article. I am not going to generalize the attaction for the western education. This is my personal take on the "doctoral" quest.
Out of my 26 high school mates, I do not know how many actually went on to finish their Ph.D's. I am sure there are at least 3 and one of them is a professor. Of the 28 people who changed my life during my Undergraduate degree in IT-BHU, only two of us went for a doctoral degree. I went on to do R&D in a semiconductor company and my Chai partner has been trying to study the impact of colliding Kryptons with Leprechauns to see if we get super dwarfs, at Fermi Lab for 15 years now (D., I could not resist the joke. I do believe that what you do is fantastic!). Now that those stats are out of the way, I should address the two important questions: Why do a PhD, in the first place? and Why do it in a Western country when it could be done in India?
The doctorate was a means to an end. An ever changing end that did not need the means! I have failed miserably in my attempts to explain this to my mother over the last 15 years. So, I start writing, with lowered expectations.
I cried and threw tantrums just to join IIT coaching classes in high school! My mom did not like the thought of her darling son riding a bicycle from Mandaveli to Mambalam, what with the high instance of PTC(public transport) buses knocking down kids in those days! Grandpa convinced her otherwise. I joined simply because my other classmates used to show off their cyclostyled Balu class homework sheets during lunch breaks! All those neat arrowmarks, greek symbols and force diagrams did me in!
After I went to BHU, I was not interested in going abroad. My uncle was convincing me to start a small scale industry using my metallurgy B.Tech. Once again, it was those damn "word power made easy", Wilfred Funk and this other word book (I don't know the exact title but one of the authors was a Rosenthal or Rosenblum?) that did me in this time. Every Tom, Dick and Harry would be carrying copies of these books to Bihari's chai shop! There were two types of second year students, ones with the word power books in one hand and chai in the other and the others holding their chai glass with both their hands. You tell me, what would a boy in my position do? Naturally, I finished that word power book in one week after borrowing it from a buddy, and actually loved it.
By third year, I decided that these word power books were boring and went on to memorize the CED. I had gotten to page 81 in a month and finished the letter A, when I realized that the dictionary could wait, but the B.Tech. degree would not! At this point, the professors who influenced me the most (the mostly nostalgic idealists who lived in the past and told me stories of how in the absence of photocopiers in the good old days, a group of 8 students copied an entire book from a US visitor overnight in the dorm room.... you get the picture!), convinced me that I should stay in India and do something for the country by either starting a small plant or do my PhD in India and become a professor in the very same department. Yet again, peer pressure and the fear of the unknown forced me to go on and write the GRE.
By my final year, I had written every entrance exam there was to write. It was like a wave and you just got carried with it. Once you jump in, the momemtum of the crowd just carries you though, just like how San describes getting in and out of Bombay trains. You declare your intent to apply for higher studies in the US, and before you know it, you are in meetings where your relative test scores and grades are compared with your classmates and they are discussing clashes when it comes to applying to US universities. I had added oil to a well oiled piece of machinery.
While the deciding factor for most, to tick "YES" on the "Ph.D ?" box, was that it meant assured funding compared to applying for a Masters degree, I ticked this in hopes of actually doing a PhD. This had to do with many chai sessions with junior faculty, who were PhD's and had post doctoral work from BHU, IISc, Oxford (some of these dudes went on to become professors and HOD's). Thanks to their bitching sessions over a friendly cup of tea, I figured out that the waiting list to become a professor in our own department was long and many had become frustrated and gone back to the West or to the Industry after giving up their teaching/research dreams! They also hinted that the wait would be a little shorter if I had a PhD from abroad (32.5 years vs. 44.7 years and I liked the data at the time).
So the offer to do a MS at IIT Madras and the two local job offers were dropped in favor of a PhD program in the USA! It was actually a tough choice financially and emotionally. It was not seen as an easy way out from a doing the PhD perspective. It was only seen as an easy way out for becoming a professor, in India! At that time, I seriously thought that doing a Ph.D. in India would be easier than doing it in the US! Hindsight tells me that it would have been a lot more difficult, just going by the number of pages of printouts I took during my grad school years. Also, text searches on online library catalogs here in the US were much faster than the manual cross referencing we did for our undergraduate project! Just the literature search alone would have taken me an extra year in India. (Now the internet has leveled this difference! but remember, there was no www when I started my degree).
And now to finally answer my mom's question. "Sari, PhD pannarennu ponE. Professor aaga porennu sonne. Professor aaga ishtam illena, mootaiya kattindu thirumbi inge vara vendiyadhu dhane? Inge eththanaiyo college thirakkara. Evanaavadhu oru velai kudukka maattaana enna? Onnum illena Balu Sir aatum IIT coaching class nadaththu!"
(okay, you went to do a PhD to become a professor. Now that you are not one, why not pack your bags and come back to India? They are opening a lot of colleges here. Won't someone here give you a job? worse case, you can start teaching IIT coaching classes like Balu Sir!")
Life just takes you through a lot of paths, that you were not planning on going through! At least, it has been true for me. I like what I do for a living and actually enjoy it.
Would I have ended up doing this without a PhD ? Maybe not, it was part of my first job requirement!
Do I do things differently at work because I did a PhD ? Definitely. I have a different way of approaching problems (perspective, timeframe, complexity, documentation!) simply because of my experiences while doing the doctoral research and more importantly, writing a thesis. (Would actually recommend Master's students who have a thesis option, to take that option!)
Could I not come and teach coaching classes in Chennai? Sure I could, but do not know if I will be happy doing that!
In summary, I can point to lots of things, but it is mostly a middle class dude's aspiration to compete and show that he is capable of doing what is considered the best thing to do(at that time and place) that put me where I was over all those years! Just my take...
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India, Ph.D., doctor, education, western education
Reader Comments (11)
sundar, perhaps you already know this, but there's been a recall of the Barbie and Tanner product by Mattel (http://service.mattel.com/us/recall/default.asp?recall_id=52432). I thought I saw it somewhere on your blog.
dont know how many people actually read this long post..
I know my wife did and she liked what she read!
The point was that there is no single generalization on why a person chooses to go study abroad instead of in India!
I didnt really judge it from a "this is easier to do than that" perspective!
it was just a bunch of random decisions at various points in time! with one thing leading to another....
.... considered the best thing to do...
Yeah if it is done in a good university!!
anon, agreed!
:)
Hi Sundar,
You are absolutely right that we can't generalize for the selection. Sometimes important decision taken just like that.. But sometimes just buying a soap (just come for 2 weeks) we may take more time in shopping..
Most of the time media, magazine try to generalise put that as a heading of the story..
I can 100% understand the emotion u went thro that time of choosing between...
Great posting...
Hi,
This is Sudharsan from Dubai. You have fantastic writing skills. I am serious, that you should start write something like Sujatha did in his days. Bcoz most of the time, I feel the same when I read your blog (recently come across your blog and your writing attracted me to read ur complete blog in 2 days in between my work)
You have a abilty mix humour in ur writings.
Bye
Sundar - That was a fantastic post. LOL.
Now I'll try to prod the ego in you ;). You said, having a doctorate helped you do things differently, as a result of the training that one gets while dong research. I presume that generalization is also one of the skills that grad students acquire along with their degree (a generalization?); so you could generalize about factors that entice students to go abroad for their studies?
Are the opportunities for a Ph.D from the West more than for a person with a Ph.D from India?
If getting a Professorship is more difficult in India than in the US, does it mean that the Indian professors are the best?
A related observation/opinion (mine)-the IITs, IISc and BHU (you could also include the IIMs) are 'good' because of the quality of students and is not necessarily related to the quality of the faculty. Of course the faculty in these institutes may be the best in India.
Now a hypothetical question: Had you done your Ph.D from India, what would you be doing now? (multiple perceived endpoints are allowed).
I know of at least 4 Phd's from our class possibly more. Doing Phd's in India for some strange reason has not been considered a worthwhile thing to do. Check out this post about what Prabhakar Raghavan thinks what he considers to be India's biggest infrastructure problem.
http://valleyblogzine.blogspot.com/2007/08/indias-infrastructure-woes.html
Sudharsan, thanks a lot.
:)
I am very serious in my work life. so I cannot be serious at home!
:)
Geech, guess that is you as SVB! we will chat soon. edho ariyaadha vayasula puriyama pannittom..
Visitor, Kanaru vetti boodham vandha kadhaya ille ayiduththu..
two questions.. one long answer. now twenty questions..if I give one more long answer, you will ask me 200 or worse 400!
naa varala paa vilayattukku!
:)
OK Ok relax :)
Hey , Sundar.
Thookkam varala nu , google panna.
Aavani Aviitam date parkalaam nu.
Last year i went to Komala Vilas.
So date and time check pannalaam nu search panna, i happened to get into your blog, Interesting. Especially comments from people.
Ok!! Yethavathu info irunthaa sollungha.