 You know what I find astonishing? What? You heard about another lie from George Santos, the congressperson. Okay. Can you believe a lying congressman? Yeah, I can. Yeah. Josh! Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Rags and Subcorbid. What a shock. Politicians are lying. We can fall asleep in this. Revolatory, I say. Revolatory! Twitter for juicy content. Thanks a bunch for following us, subscribe and like button. Today, we have a video. This is from Asian Boss. Asian Boss. We've seen some videos from them before. This is being a top 1% student in India. So you just street interviews, talk to new students about their college experience being, getting into a top 1% school, the challenges, the different stuff like that. Yeah. It's a good channel. But also. Did they do something where they were talking to people both in India and Pakistan? Is that that same? Maybe. Channel might be. A while back. Yeah. I think we've done one or two videos from this channel. Yeah. Here we go. Hey, buses. It's Kay from Asian Boss. Did you know that some universities in Asia are even harder to get into than Sanford or Harvard? It's not surprising. The Indian Institute of Technology of Bombay, for example, has an acceptance rate of just 1.57% for their undergrad. And that's not a lot. In 2021, according to their website, we've already spoken to some of the top students from Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. But this time, we're curious to hear from students at one of the most prestigious institutes in India. How worried are they about their future? Our Asian Boss reporter went to the IIT Bombay campus to find out. What's your major and which university are you attending? My major is in computer science and engineering, and I am attending IIT Bombay. I am doing civil engineering at IIT Bombay. Metallurgical engineering and material science. My major is applied statistics. I am in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay. How prestigious is this university in India? So basically, there are 23 IITs. So basically, all the IITs are quite prestigious. But among that, IIT Bombay is ranked, I guess, first or second, second in the overall India. And the world ranking is about 172. IIT Bombay is a technical institute, and it is known for its excellence in various technical fields. The ex-CEO of Twitter was from IIT Bombay. The founder of OLA is from IIT Bombay. And like this, we have many of the alums which are excelling in their fields. Everyone in the country wants to study at IIT Bombay. So yeah, it's really tough because the number of applicants are really high and the seats are very less. So it gets really tough. The first entrance exam, J-Mains. So there are around 1.5 million people sitting for the examination. And maybe a 2 million at times. But finally, the number of people getting into IITs is quite low. It's around, probably, 10,000. Out of 2 million. Across all the country, 10,000 hardly. And that's all the IITs, not the seven major ones. So yeah, basically, 1.5 million to 1,000, 10,000. So that's quite a low ratio there. The next level is the J-Advanced Examination. I guess it is one of the toughest examination in the world. I guess it is ranked third or fourth in the world in level of toughness. How hard was it for you to get into IIT Bombay? It was really difficult to get into IIT Bombay. First, you need to join a good coaching for it. Then they have their proper schedules. And from every Monday to Saturday, they have classes. And on Sunday, you will have a test. So in the entire two years, you will not get a break at all. And you really need to work very, very hard for it to achieve this dream. If I was a bit more serious than I was in my 11th and 12 days, I would have excelled much more. It's easier to get into IIT, but you need to maintain a distance from the distractions which are there in class 11th and 12th. Most of the students get indulged in various things which are not supposed to be done in your 16, 17, 18 years of age. So it's quite easy. You just need to have discipline, consistency, and that's it. I always liked studying. So when I went for preparing for IIT, for entrance exams, I actually just wanted to learn and study further. I did put a lot of effort and hard work, but I didn't feel like it at that time. How many hours did you have to study for the entrance exam? Five hours of coaching. And then apart from that, whatever time you get, five to six hours self-study. Including the coaching times and my own self-study, maybe 12 hours a day I used to invest. I would say around five to six hours of coaching and then three, four hours of self-study. Sounds like my hell. Every day probably. Many people, they're used to studies 14 to 15 hours, but I'm not that of a guy. I used to study at max seven hours. So basically, for preparing this exam, I first concentrated on myself, how I can develop myself. I just, I have a study was like 10 minutes. I was like 10 minutes in my routine. When people around you found that you've gotten admission into IIT, what were their reactions? For those who know what IIT is, they treated us like we have done some out of the world thing. They were not, first of all, they were not able to digest that I did this because I was not a very good student from the beginning of class 11th and 12th. So they start to behave differently. They give you a lot of respect and they think that you're really bright. Sometimes it gets weird. How does that make you feel? Weird. The first people who got to know about this were my family and my close friends. And yeah, they saw me studying day and night. I was stunned myself that I got this good rank because like my exam did not went really well. I got into the entrance exam. Oh no. When I saw my result, I called my best friend. She didn't pick up my phone for a while. Then I was calling 10 times, okay? See, dude, I got where I want to be. I was seeing my family faces like how they happy were for me. Like it's quite a combination of a hard work of me and my family. We show gratitude to so many gods and yeah, that kind of thing happened. So it was quite memorable for me. Well, for me, it was a bit different from everyone else I'll say. So most of my cousins are from here too. They're graduates from here too. Wow. So it wasn't really that good. It was expected of them. So I could have done better so that most of the people said that's how it was. So nothing new for them. Not everyone, but some do differentiate us like some kind of genius we are. But honestly, it isn't that way. It isn't that way. So I'll say everyone is good at something or the other. That's very true. So this year might be a bit better. Absolutely. Everybody's really good at something. It's only academics. Like you might be good at something else, right? So we aren't exactly geniuses. So apparently the gender ratio at IIT says 80% male and 20% female. Do you think that's right? Yeah. Since like that is factually correct as well, apart from my general observation because recently the supernumerary seats were raised to 21% which is the bar. Why do you think the gender ratio gap is so wide? So in many parts of the country, still in typical households. Yeah, gender bias. The boys are encouraged. The girls are not. A girl and a boy around the same age and they have to send someone away from home to study. I mean, in parts of the country, people would prefer to send the boy. Also, engineering is not considered a field for girls. It's mostly for men. A lot of girls probably don't want to go into it. That's not true. You come here and you see that when you actually study here, you see that it's not true. What did you say are the most popular jobs when people pass out from IIT or any other big institutes at the moment in the country? The cool jobs over here are basically text jobs. Software engineering profile or the data scientist profile. YouTuber. Yeah, Uber drivers. Here are cons, consulting jobs. Many people join the software companies, software development companies. Yeah, it's quite common here to be in Google, Microsoft. And also the good fund. We have a friend who works for Google. He also approached here. As per the name, many of them are starting with their startups so they don't join a company. Right. Student from one of the top Indian universities, are you worried about getting a job in the future? Well, I'm not exactly a job person. So I like it more to be maybe a freelancer or stuff. Work for yourself. Yeah, be an independent. That's more like my kind of thing. Not really, because the placements over here are very good. In my last university, we need to wait for like two, three months for even half of the people to get placed. So it was a completely different experience to see my seniors getting placed into numerous companies. Despite recession, even the bottom of the class will get up placements. It's not much of a deal. It's just that you need to focus on where you want to be. I have heard this from a lot of seniors, from a lot of people here. And if you're from IT, you will get a job. But you will do something or the other. You will not sit idle. So I mean, it's not like I'm worried to get a job. So the IT label makes you stand out. People might say that once you make it into a top Indian institution, you're set for life. How accurate would you say that statement is? That's not completely accurate, because even when you come here, there's a fierce competition. And you have to work hard and you still have to put a lot of effort. It's not like your efforts end when you enter IT. Right. It may not always be true. One thing is, IT gives a lot of exposure because I have seen my friends who have completely changed their field. Like they have nothing to do with engineering or nothing to do with anything technical. They say, this is my passion and I'm going in that sense. So life is not set. Life is full of obstacles. In the future, I've also seen people who got a job and lost them. So things are unpredictable here also, but because the resources are nice, the probability of things working out is more here. I think owing to the recent mass hiring and then mass firing, and added to that the recession and all going on, I think at this point of time, it is pretty competitive. Like pretty competitive and pretty scary as well because essentially no one has job security. So you might have heard that a lot of IITians are unemployed or they're doing non-engineering jobs and stuff like that. So I think one major reason for that is the competitiveness of the job market. It's not like the IIT and TAG brings you everything. There are a lot of other things, other skills that you need to build to get a particular kind of job. Most of the people who expect quite high paying jobs, they somehow take it up in foreign countries. We can't actually blame them. So yes, India doesn't exactly have much of job opportunities for the top class which are highly graduate and highly skilled. So that's why they go to foreign countries, I guess. Would you consider going abroad to find a job after passing out IIT? Yes, I will. Right now, that's not my plan. Mostly because of family and I don't want to leave my family right now. For me personally, I'm predetermined I would work for my country itself. I may try for the short term period but I won't be getting settled in foreign countries. I want to work for my country itself and want to contribute in its growth. If you see from the perspective of the country then it's, yeah, it's brain drain is definitely a thing which the country is facing. A lot of highly skilled individuals are going for US and Europe to pursue their dreams. But if you see from the perspective of the stakeholder who are students who have worked their entire life, it's like they really start from their 10th grade. So they are seven, eight year into the process. So definitely they want to make a hell lot of money. So yeah, they will look for the jobs which pay them really well, get the life they want to have. India still needs to grow in the sector where highly skilled people can showcase their talent. What India needs to do is they need to increase what the amount of money they are giving and what kind of facilities they provide. If India will provide them opportunities definitely they'll work here. If you could go back in time would you still have gone to college or pursued another path? Knowing what I know now if I go back in time I think I would have pursued something a bit different because when I was a kid I didn't know. I didn't know much about life, anything that's out there about the world. Now I know some things. So I would apply that and I would certainly pursue a different path. Can you tell us what it would be like? I always like to draw. I think it would be related to that. Do it. I would have wanted to do something you're very passionate about. Yeah, something I'm very passionate about. With the many resources you can find online these days do you think it's still worth going to college in 2023? Yes, very honest. It depends, yeah, of course. It depends on what you wanna do. I've been handed online resources to study and whatever. I feel going to college is very, very important. Studying from a teacher who's standing in front of you who's able to gauge your expressions and see if you've been able to understand. Oh, I much prefer in-person class. It's very important and very helpful. It legit helps you grasp things better and make more sense out of things. Sure. College is not just about studies. Right. College is much more than that. Interpersonal development is about sex and drugs. That's right. Yes, it is worth going college. Watch Animal House. That's what you go to college for. I was an average student and I came to IT. I saw various things. I explored various things. So now I have a clear idea of what I have to do in my life. If you have some idea or you have that specific talent that you can counter everyone else and you can do something of your own. So you do not need to go to college. So it is preferred to go in college but it's not mandatory. You can excel as well without going to college. Yep, great video. It's about what I've heard about from the competitiveness and the amount of importance Indians and Indian households put on education and getting into college. You obviously see the pressures of it all and how it affects people. Yeah, which is a question. Is college still necessary? I mean, it just depends on what you're... It depends. If you want to be a doctor, obviously. Right. If you want to be an engineer, obviously you need college. Of course. Yes, you do. I'm always a proponent of pursuing your passion. Yes. Whatever that passion is. Do the thing you want to do. About doctor, engineer, whatever. But also if you want to be an artist, do it. And you may have to do things you don't like to do to get to the place where you can be doing the thing you're passionate about. Your life is short, man. Life is short. I forgot his name. He's a really great motivational speaker who consistently does personal development things for people in terms of career. Remember him speaking at, I think it was a TED Talk or something of that nature and he was telling CEOs, stop telling your employees to work the way you do. It's not their company, it's your company. Exactly. And the other thing he said recently was this. He said, I know people who make $45,000 a year. They're living within their means. They save up for two vacations a year and they're extraordinary, really happy people. And I know other people who have hundreds of millions of dollars and they're miserable and hate what they're doing. We need to start redefining what it means to be wealthy. And I've said that to Andrani over and over and over again. Contrary to what it says about my net worth on the internet, which I'm nowhere, we won't be close to being anywhere in the conversation of being a millionaire. Not even six figures, friends. If you wanna be honest about that. And that's not the point because the quality of life that I have is better that I'm so much happier than so many people who make 25, 30 times what I make. And I loved, some people go to college and then they get there and they realize after three years, that's actually not what I wanted. I thought that was what I wanted to do but actually that's not what I wanna do. Or they do both, like the guy from Hangover who is a doctor still practicing but he's a stand-up comic and movie actor. The boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I poop on company time. Nice, you ever heard that? Never heard that. I've always been a big proponent of what you said about stopping, expecting your employees to work as like you work. It's ridiculous. I always hated when companies say we're a family. No we're not. You fucking pay me. Exactly. And I work. Exactly, this is not a family. I've always been this way like my, I've never had an issue with taking my work home with me. Obviously acting's different, obviously. That's a whole other thing. Yeah, it's different. It's not a normal job. No. Like a normal job of like, you know, looking at emails, thinking about stuff. I've always been able to shut it off immediately. Absolutely. And then do what I need to do and then come back and work really, work hard and excel at what I do everywhere, like normal job Starbucks or whatever. I've always been able to get up to management without really even trying. Right. Cause I don't, I'm just, if I learned to do something, it's probably my ADD brain. If I learned to do something, I could do it probably better than anybody else can do this job. But also, I don't care. Yeah. I don't care about your company, you're paying me. How did your parents address with you, whether it was directly or indirectly, expectations or lack thereof about college for you? They always wanted me to go, but they also, they knew me growing up. They knew what kind of student I am and how I've literally always hated school. And so luckily I was on the GI Bill cause my dad. And so I essentially got paid to go to college because they paid you housing and they paid for all your books. And so I kind of got a free ride for a while. So that's the only reason I actually went to college. Somebody paid me or else just, I'm not a good student. My ADD just doesn't, ADHD does not agree with college. It doesn't interest me. And you know, it's whatever, it's what it is, but I think all my other, my brother got a degree. It was a musical theater, so it's basically not a degree. Right. My youngest two brothers, my step brother who's three years younger than I am dropped out six months before he got his degree, which I was like, you're a fucker. Why not just finish out the six months? You're a fucking idiot. Just finish it out and then do what you wanna do. You're already that close. You're that close, even if you hate it, just do the six months. But he's now a small, yeah, so he's doing what he loves. So that's great. And then my youngest brother's the smartest of all. He's getting like a criminal engineering degree or something like that. He's the smartest, he's the youngest. So he's actually always been kind of interested in actual school and stuff like that, where the rest of us were always a little more artistic in our brains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So luckily my parents are very kind and just they kind of just let their kids do what they wanna do. Obviously, when I moved out, I was responsible for myself. My parents weren't paying me or like I had to pay for my phone bill, all my bills were my responsibility if I wanna do what I wanna do. But they did pay for college if I wanted it. Obviously, luckily the GI bill was there. My youngest brother, he's almost done with his, his four years bachelor. Yeah, so they're paying for that. But once the four years is up, if he needs more, that's his responsibility. That's great. And so I think they paid my oldest brother, got a little bit of the GI bill as well for my dad because he was a thing if you were active duty. And that's the other thing that I don't understand at all and I'm sure it's better in India than it is in the United States is cost of college for kids. Obviously, everyone's gonna get free rides if you're at the top of the class and a lot of disciplines irrespective of what it is. But as I'm sure you know, even if you don't live here, the cost of an education in America is as ridiculous as the cost of healthcare. Any people go into six figures, sometimes seven figures worth of debt in the pursuit of a college degree. It's insane. And obviously we know the pressures that are in Indian hospitals are unlike anything else. Yeah, irrespective of engineering. It's just the pressures to go to college. And it's also like part of your status is like if you don't speak English. You know, it's gonna affect where you can go, which is something obviously we as Americans are very privileged in the fact that we don't have to think about that. Unfortunately, the way the world is, everybody kind of speaks English because they know the Americans won't and this is where the money is. Yeah, it just happens to be that way. It's an unfortunate reality. I wish we had a little more, you know, even though Spanish is probably the second most learned language here, obviously. But it's still not like a thing that in India, everybody knows three languages. No, virtually everywhere else in the world, people know two, three, four languages. It's a common denominator other than in America. And that's because sadly, too often America thinks there's nothing else more important than America. Yeah, yeah, but that was a great video. Great video, it's always interesting to see actual people going through it. And there, I'm sure some of these are stupid babies, I hope. Yeah, if you are, say hi, let us know. And when you have to study, make sure you've got our stupid reactions on, it'll help. It doesn't just help the algorithm, it helps your grades. You're like, oh yes, I can't be that stupid, I need to study hard. That's right. I promise you, the answer to three fourths of the questions you're asked will be marked correctly if you just fill in the blank with Shahrukh Khan. If you answer C for everyone, you're bound to get at least a third of them right. And then when you hand your paper in, just look at your instructor and say, that's juicy content. No, that's juicy content. Anyway, it's a great video. Instructors like to be called Ben Shudd. Yeah, I think so. Let us know what other videos we can act down below. Juice!