Quick, name a technical school that has a more vaunted acronym than MIT? How about the
Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT)? I came across this 60 minute
segment that profiles this esteemed institution of higher learning created by independent India's first prime minister Jawalharlal Nehru to set his new nation on the path to modernity in 1956. Interviews with Vinod Khosla, the famous Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and Narayana Murthi, founder of the software giant Infosys, give testimony to the major impact of this prestigious school on the American economy by emphasizing the number of jobs that Indian entrepreneurs, graduates of IIT, have created in the US market. Khosla claims anecdotally that it's in the "hundreds of thousands" and many would be hard pressed to contradict him. The admission rate is a measly 2% and children begin preparing for the entrance examination at an early age, some as young as 3, and are goaded along every step of the way by their eager parents who sometimes provide them with extra tutoring sessions that run from 4am to just before the start of school; such is the degree of competitive ferocity that at both illustrates the disparity of the Indian economy and the enduring resilience of humanity. The student body is 90% male with the curriculum narrowly focused on science and technology (there is no music curriculum). Lesley Stahl, the journalist hosting this piece, goes on to interview four young students at IIT Bombay who are all eager to seek employment in the US and view their IIT degree as a stepping stone to a better life in the west. It is revealed that almost two thirds of graduates leave their homeland and one must ask what the cost of this massive brain drain is to India, whose government heavily subsidizes these state-run schools (the yearly cost for room, board and tuition is just $700). Brilliant, ambitious, and talented young engineers are India's greatest export; much to America's benefit.
Yesterday a couple of my friends and I had an impromptu idea to drive, in the middle of the night, to the coast of Massachusetts in order to witness the
Perseids meteor shower. This annual event always occurs around this time as Earth's orbit moves through a trail of comet dust left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle near the constellation Perseus (hence the name, Perseids). These debris, some moving extremely rapidly (up to 132 000 mph), penetrate the Earth's atmosphere where thereby they proceed to disintegrate in a blazing spectacle. News
reports had suggested that viewing conditions would be ideal especially given the fact that August 12th is the first day of the new moon meaning the sky would be pitch dark which indeed it was. And so we set out at midnight with our pillows and blankets in tow and drove 40 miles to
Rockport where we found an enchanting setting on the rocky coast; with the Atlantic waves crashing below us, we laid down on the terrain and looked up to behold the heavens. The sky was awash in stars pulsating to the rhythm of the universe as we lay there mesmerized, gripped by the cosmic awe that we were priviliged to behold. I picked out Mars as a distinctive bright red dot amongst the many white jewels and we witnessed several spectacular meteors, many of which left behind an unavoidable trail across the black sky. We also believed that we could see into the plane of our Milky Way galaxy as a finite dusty band visible in the night sky. Among the many thoughts whirling through my mind in that hypnotic state, I couldn't help but become acutely aware of humanity's insignificance amongst this great, vast ocean of space which one is totally unaware of while in the daily midst of our routine urban lives. While I have written several entries in this blog about the mysteries of the cosmos, here I was finally beholding it in all its majestic glory. My two companions and I spoke of many things as we lay in rapture: the wonder of evolution that gave rise to our eyes and brain that has enabled us to sense this, our melancholic realization that in our brief lifetime we would never get to experience what lies beyond our solar system, and the sobering cognizance of just how short our time in this world really is. So rare are moments like this in a graduate student's busy life when one gets to truly appreciate the utter vastness of time and space.