AIB has just pinched the right nerve of every engineering student in India with this 3 part series

Popular Youtube Channel AIB’s latest 3 part parody on campus placements has gone viral. The third part is most hard-hitting one and is dedicated to the AIB team which comprises exclusively of engineering graduates from diverse branches and different percentage and GPA.

It highlights the mockery of the inflexible and rigid technical education system in India, which puts an extra burden on the students and then in campus placement interviews they are assessed on the basis of personality, spoken English skills, extracurricular activities and other such parameters which many of them don’t get the time to work on. And worse it highlights how such interviews are skewed against students who hail from poor backgrounds, regional language medium schools, and can not fluently converse in English. The social hypocrisy of high respectability towards English speakers is accurately pointed out.

It shows the equally woeful condition in technical interviews because the average joe students cram up all the stuff few days before the semester exam and after the exams forget many key concepts. The emphasis is never on learning, but clearing the exam and somehow landing a decent paying job.

It is a sardonic take on how mechanized system is producing engineers on a mass scale like products are produced in the assembly line of a factory. Individual talent, ability, and skills are never considered and everyone is expected to strictly conform to the same pattern.

There is also a dig at high societal expectations and peer pressure which determines the career choices of many students. A significant section of them doesn’t know what they are doing and why. They don’t have a realization of where their true talent lies. In the absence of awareness of various disciplines and fields, they are made to believe that engineering is the sole career option which will yield high dividends and they should shun any other thoughts.

Even if the students don’t have any technical aptitude, they are admitted in the mushrooming Tier 3 engineering colleges in the country which teach neither technical skills, nor practical knowledge, and at the end of four years award them degrees, if they manage to clear all the 48-50+ theory exams in 8 semesters. Very few care about learning and savoring knowledge, or trying to utilize their technical knowledge is the requisite field. This is because they didn’t have any aptitude or inclination towards engineering in the first place, and after 10th they were first sent to a coaching institution and then to a run-of-the-mill engineering college. As per a survey which was conducted last year, only a third of the lakhs of engineers who graduate every year are employable.

The ending of the video gives an important message that what matters most, after a decade or two prior to graduation, is decent earning, family, good health, and old friends. Also, it touched a raw nerve of social reality that not being content with job profile and feeling frustrated is applicable to all, cutting across the backgrounds and career achievements. Be it a small time electrician, a middle level IT employee, or a corporate honcho, all have their shares of troubles, exasperation, jokes and small joys.

With the success of AIB team, a very important message is delivered that success in life depends on your attitude, mindset, finding your call, and it does not hinge exclusively on school and college mark sheets. There are many examples before us of those highly successful individuals who were underachievers in the educational system.

As Albert Einstein famously said “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will lead its whole life believing that it is stupid”.

Born genius and child prodigies are only minuscule. For the vast majority, it is about following true interests and also being at the right place, at the right time.

Watch the full series here.

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