I come from a place and generation where your career choices were binary: you either became a doctor or, of course, an engineer. While I was in 12th, I heard a lot of my friends say that they didn’t want to be engineers because, “Aaj kal toh sab hi engineers hain”, and went on to pursue the exact same degree a year later. So if you are an Indian who wanted to or had to go for an engineering degree (trust me, the number is awfully big), then you must have faced the conundrum of brand vs branch in your counseling process. (I mean of course, if you had had the rank).
Recently, a Reddit post from one such engineer ignited this debate online further. What created all this fuss? Of course, it was the 55 LPA salary that the person claims to have secured in their second year after graduation. The post’s author shared that their journey of choosing a ‘non-cool’ branch at IIT Madras landed them a better opportunity than a Computer Science seat at IIT Bhilai. According to the author, despite taking an admission into the metallurgy branch, they had the opportunity to learn the subjects of CS outside of the classroom. The person credits the ecosystem of their peers and seniors for ‘over-preparing’ them for the best opportunities. In the end, the author strictly advised students to choose the brand over the branch on any given day.
Of course, their hard work paid off in a handsome salary, but that doesn’t paint the whole picture. According to many in the comments section, that person is an ‘outlier’, one of the very few who get these dream salaries. They quoted the median salary of their department to be around 15 LPA, thus stating that most of the people who made similar choices didn’t end up with the same fortune.
Another user pointed out that one of their friends bagged a 1CR package in India in placements with CS from ‘not old’ IIT. Thus outliers exist in most of the colleges and their branches, and generalizing the debate with just one person’s personal experience is not justifiable.
Some users found it to be a classic case of ‘survivor bias’. This occurs when we focus on individuals or cases that have passed some sort of selection process or filter while ignoring those who have not. Thus ‘survivorship bias’ generally presents us with incorrect conclusions. In this case, the survivor is the person with 55LPA, but the majority are their peers who didn’t get this hefty salary, not even a quarter of it.
Some of the users found the tone of the post’s author to be condescending. Some of their statements like “I’m making 55 LPA today, not because I followed that tired advice, but because I chose a low-branch in an old IIT over CS in a shiny new one” and “would humble most Tier-2 CS geniuses” made some of the users question the author’s ‘flex’.
However, I feel we are judging things from not the best parameters, that is money. Of course, it’s one of the most important factors in making your career choices, but it can’t be the only factor. Many students prefer persuading their favourite streams even if they have to sacrifice a bigger brand name, and they are not wrong in any way. Many don’t see the merit in taking a subject that they don’t want to study only because it guarantees a hefty paycheck. If only monetary benefits become the single criterion for choosing careers, then how will we get the best of inventions, both in science and arts?
Thus, at the end, choose what makes you happy. And even if it’s money, then go for it. However, I still want to believe what Rancho said in 3 Idiots, “Success ke peeche mat bhaago, excellence ka peecha karo, success jhak maarke tumhare peeche ayegi”.
You can read the post, here.