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Comment by kamaal | Hacker News Reader

IIT's admit students, who level down forests for papers to practice for entrance exams. Students who burn midnight oil, feverishly solving every math problem from from 5000 page text book. Students who go to coaching classes from 8th standard(8th grade), who chew half of their pencils and loose half of their hair pulling them out solving physics problems.

I didn't even give IIT JEE, just CET. And at end of the year I had something like several 10s of kgs of paper on which I had practiced math, physics and chemistry. I was forced to beat the exams into my submission.

Those kids go into IIT's to get good jobs, so that they end up like their parents doing small time jobs. To buy homes, cars, to 'become something in life'.

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I dont logically see how your comment is either agreeing or disagreeing with the parent comment. Seems like you went on your own sweet tangent.

Folks can solve all the math problems they want.It has nothing to do with creating a good product and selling it.

IIT'ians or any Indian who generally runs through the grind of going through entrance exams is trained by default to work for long hours under pressure. The competition is generally intense and trains people for a lot of such challenges in the future. And I say this with personal experience. The amount of work I did then as a student helps me till date work under demanding conditions taking pressure for long periods.

And trust me such students make it big. Just because they work for start ups, it doesn't mean they don't make it big.

>>Seems like you went on your own sweet tangent.

I don't see what is wrong with it. Do you have a problem?

Having worked on a few startups now, I can assure you hard work != the key to success in startups.

It's a process of experimentation, constant observation, accumulating knowledge and forging ahead on your own with very little external encouragement.

If you told me IIT kids spent countless hours experimenting and tinkering with their own projects, then it'd be a different story.

But the test prep process for IIT JEE/AIEEE is a very pre-defined route, that EVERYONE is doing, with lots of encouragement from parents and a soul-killing process of cramming - for the singular goal of passing tests set up by a very bureaucratic establishment.

It sounds like the opposite of the preparation needed for risk aversion and creative endeavors.

Totally agree.Furthermore kids that age (17-18) are not supposed to be solving 5000 math problems for some stupid entrance exam.

Personally I flunked IIT Mains because with my ADHD I could not get myself to study more than a few hours every week.Also at the ripe age of 17-18 I did not have enough drive or ambition to stop doing the things kids love to do (chasing girls, watching movies, loafing around etc etc.) But then I am actually proud that I did not give in to the IIT bullshit and did whatever I wanted to do. You will never get that age back no matter how successful you are!

I never appeared for the JEE :)

But what I wanted to say was, traditionally Indian entrance exams have always been soul crushing. Take IAS or CA for example. You practically have to give your whole youth/teenage to make it happen.

Indian civil services are known to be one of the most grinding and testing exams in the world.

>>Seems like you went on your own sweet tangent.

Okay that might have sounded a little mean.Sorry having a pretty tiresome day :)

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