Monday, October 22, 2007

Acronym Bazaar

Do you want to learn SAS, SAP or ABAP? Or perhaps you want to get certified as a CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, or MSCE? (yes, strictly speaking the latter ones are abbreviations, not acronyms) Then you have come to the right place. On both sides of this street are numerous buildings with all kinds of computer related classes.

I hope you will excuse me for posting more than one photo today.


This building is on the main road, not on the street pictured above.

There are no strict zoning laws here which separate businesses from residential areas. So in a building like this, typically the ground floor and the first floor are set aside for offices and businesses, and the floor above for residential flats/apartments. But in this case, even the floors above have been occupied by businesses as can be seen from the sign boards. In some of the flats/apartments where there are no signboards, you can see laundry hung out to dry.


The right side of the building above. (I don't know how to "stitch" these photos together).

There are computer classes all over the city, but here there is a concentration of them. And then there are national chains (not in any of these pictures). Education is big business in India - from English and computer classes to Engineering schools, all are minting money.

Students who enroll sometimes have no clue about which classes to take. They go by someone else's recommendation about what will help them make more money, and it doesn't always work out that way because the quality of the classes and the student's own lack of proper educational background can mean that the student has wasted the money on these classes. Some of these classes offer "live experience", which means they put the students to work on projects which have been outsourced from clients.

Most companies here look for at least 1-2 years work experience when they hire people. And when people don't have that work experience, some fake it on their resume. Companies have gotten wiser and in order to weed out the fake ones in the interview they ask not only academic questions but also questions about the exact location (e.g. which floor) of the company where the candidate claims to have worked, and not only the salary they got there, but also how much tax they had to pay on that salary!!! Recently one of the big IT (Information Technology) companies here let go over 500 people because the company found that they had doctored their resume.

" "Technology" is what we call whatever didn't exist when we were born."
-- Alan Kay, computer scientist at Xerox and Apple

"Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession."
-- Kingman Brewster, diplomat and president of Yale University

12 comments:

david mcmahon said...

Interesting that we have both posted about acronyms today! By the way I thought your comment about Sioux City airport was great.

Spent time in Hyderabad on a couple of occasions, back in the days when I was Associate Editor of a weekly magazine called Sportsworld.

Do keep in touch.

Jules said...

SAIP - (Such an interesting post)

QAN - (Quotes are neat!!!!)

Isn't it terrible how people take advantage of the vunerable. it also says a lot about the desperation people will go to to get a job.

sonia a. mascaro said...

Hi! Just dropping by to say hello and thanks so much for visiting my blog and leaving your comment. I will return tomorrow to see your blog and photos. See you soon!

Web-OJ said...

The pics of the buildings are similar to those in Mumbai. But that street pic is really awesome! As an Indian I can identify with everything you have written (and written it well!).

I also like the pics you click because you click a lot of streets and, how should I say, pics that have a lot of details in them. I hate pics of things that are zoomed into, like a bird or flower, or someone's mustache etc. Sometimes it's nice to see these things but when it's a City Photo Blog it's better to see a lot of stuff in the pics. No?

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that the one other thing that I really like about your blog (apart from the pics, ofcourse) are the quotations you add at the end. Why didn't I think of that first. Damn! ;-)

P.S. Ek picture of Sania Mirza ho jaaye! (One pic of Sania Mirza pls!)

NorthBayPhoto said...

Great photos and wonderful descriptions of the area.

Thanks for visiting my NorthBayPhoto blog.

zakscloset said...

hahaha! acronyms are taking over the city! that's an interesting fact about the fake CVs. i guess that shows how competitive it is to get into the IT industry in india.

smilnsigh said...

What a lot of advertising happens, when it is allowed to do so.

And yes it is sad that there are so many people who will take advantage of anyone. About the not-so-good classes, I mean.

Mari-Nanci
Photos-City-Mine

FĂ©nix - Bostonscapes said...

I am absolutely speechless. Never seen anything like that.

Anonymous said...

OMG! LOL. ROTFL. KUPTGW (keep up the good work)

maria elisa said...

excepcinal photograph

Neva said...

I am with Fenix...I have seen nothing like this!

Anonymous said...

Chaotic banners adorning the the facades of the building aptly sums up the present situation of the educational(be it computer courses or primary)system in India.Education here is served in crash course capsules-no time for us to stop and think.