For the last couple of days Satya and I have been interviewing rookie programmers - people with less than one year experience for a certain activity we are going to get into. We are not particular that they should be Engineering graduates, or MCA etc. But you find them everywhere and we have received resumes of people with either an Engineering degree or an MCA. They have completed their last degree just an year back.
After talking to them on other things, we ask them to solve a few simple Math problems. This is really revealing. I give below the questions.
One candidate with a B.Sc (Comp) and MCA couldn't solve a single problem above. His answer to the first question was "1". In fact three candidates all gave "1" as the answer to the first question. Then on further prompting and helpful hints, one came up with 1.4, another 1.414. One person came up with an amazing method, which resulted in sqrt(35) reaching close to 12.xxx. No one could touch the quadratic equation. One candidate solved all but the last problem.
The degree we are giving out is worth shit.
After talking to them on other things, we ask them to solve a few simple Math problems. This is really revealing. I give below the questions.
One candidate with a B.Sc (Comp) and MCA couldn't solve a single problem above. His answer to the first question was "1". In fact three candidates all gave "1" as the answer to the first question. Then on further prompting and helpful hints, one came up with 1.4, another 1.414. One person came up with an amazing method, which resulted in sqrt(35) reaching close to 12.xxx. No one could touch the quadratic equation. One candidate solved all but the last problem.
The degree we are giving out is worth shit.
Read More... [Source: Badri Seshadri's Pages]
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