The great leveller

I had many friends in school and college who used to really struggle to get through even the simplest of subjects. Today, they're all doing extremely well, which is rather surprising. In college, perhaps not all subjects were easy enough or the students didn't pay enough attention. But in primary and high school, I got to observe some of these people in great detail over a number of years and have to claim my judgement was quite accurate. There were others who were really smart all through, but they're doing equally well in most cases. Not far far better as expected.

So, there is a great leveller that has worked over the period of time, like the storm that flattens everything in its path, big or small, beautiful or ugly. It is attitude, hard work and to some extent fate (don't want to get into that debate about fate vs free will now) that must have brought about this change. I also attribute this to the IT, ITES and other such industries that provide umpteen opportunities without really needing much of creativity or lateral thinking. They need solid workers, dedicated to specialized tasks, like a manufacturing industry robot in the assembly line. I've heard of a few cases that stand out, of people known to us who took 10 yrs to complete their phd. They're the ones now heading Education & research depts. at global IT majors! Phew!

This scenario is a huge contrast to our previous generation. When jobs were limted to Govt. organizations and opportunities abroad and awareness levels were much lower, differentiation between the bright and not so bright would be clearly seen. The smart ones got into Govt. R&D jobs or academic institutions for teaching. The not so fortunate ones got enrolled into more mundane professions.

Today however, most people blindly pursue engineering to come out as zombies and get into run of the mill software jobs. That is where the beginning of the end of differentiation of intellectual levels starts. Other factors work their magic over a long period... things like taking the right decisions, EQ, being opportunistic, knowing the right people, belonging to the right caste/region and so on.

What is the conclusion then? People must evaluate their intellectual level and get into suitable professions. Today nobody needs to despair. Even the dumbest can get to be the CEO of a top company. The smartest might end up writing lines of code all his life, impacting some obsolete legacy system somewhere.

Life... the great leveller :-)