An IIT Success Story?

From Business Standard interview:

What was Harvard like?

It was sort of classic. You always feel you're going to flunk in the first month. They give you so much to do that you say this is impossible. But once I got over that initial scared feeling, it was relatively easy. Because the IITs give you a wonderful education, better than you get anywhere, actually.

Rajat didn’t elaborate on the wonderful education he got at IIT, but my guess is that he did well at Harvard because he is very bright and not because of IIT background. Attributing one’s success to IIT is very common. (Notice the use of the word ‘actually’ at the end. What does it tell you about Gupta’s actual feelings on this matter?) It makes fellow alumni proud and the professors more so.

Before I cover Gupta more let me quote me a passage from an article on IIT Bombay Convocation that cracked me up:

He emerges from it dressed in a beige gown with orange lapels and walks down the aisle with the entire IIT-B faculty to the chants of Gyanam Paramam Dheyam (Knowledge is Supreme).

Recently I saw him an article on IITians that quoted him as:

"We had some really brilliant professors" but goes on to add that "I am not the right guy to talk about them because I hardly met them". He rarely attended class and claims he doesn't remember a thing he was taught.

He and Rajat would have probably done well even if they attended some other institutes. If we look at Rajat’s case, let’s say for some reason he attended Delhi University instead of IIT. Most likely he would have taken part in plays, would have done well in studies, would have been some sort of general secretary there and then would have attended Harvard Business School or equivalent successfully following up by job at McKinsey or sonme similar place.

For bright students in India, IIT is the biggest safety school. If you are good in marketing and really want to pursue marketing as your career, and by parental and teachers’ pressure you took JEE and were able to do well on that because you are bright, most likely you will be forced to join IIT. You will be told to join IIT because after that your job prospects are good and if you really want to go for marketing could take it up after graduating from IIT.

Therefore, while some amount of gloating over its alumni’s success is understandable, it should be kept in mind by the IITs that it really didn’t contribute much to success of people like Rajat Gupta, Nandan Nilekani. In fact, it can be argued that in a scarce (teaching) resources economy like India, it would have been better if these gentlemen had studied somewhere else thus freeing up seats for others who could have benefited from a technical education.