Ex-IIT Delhi Director, Dr. V Ramgopal Rao states, “most IIT aspirants want to tread the beaten path. They want to pursue computer science and land a job immediately after college. This mentality is hurting innovation and depriving talent for research programmes”.

A myth prevails in the minds of the youth that Ph.D. degree is only for those who are aspiring to be professors. What they are overlooking is the fact that Ph.D. actually acts as the gateway to interesting research programmes for which academic expertise and in-depth knowledge are required, and there lies the utility of the said degree. This knowledge and expertise lead to new innovations thereby creating new products, new technologies, and the like. Such experts are thus recruited by the tech hubs, the companies like IBM, Intel and others to do research on their future products and technologies.

To encourage such deep-technology innovations, Indian Government will have to take apt measures, for instance, rewarding those institutions which are encouraging innovations and industry partnerships, making the Ph.D. programmes attractive, paying students and funding research properly, providing facilities for high-quality research, and the like.

It is understandable when a student with a weak financial background, opts to acquire a B.Tech. degree in CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) in order to quickly secure placement and start earning immediately after graduation. But, students whose financial backgrounds are stable, must be discouraged to tread the conventional path of getting enrolled in B.Tech in CSE with the motto of landing well-paid jobs immediately after graduation and thus drop out of studies after acquiring the B.Tech degree. Due to their obsession with such a stereotypical career choice, they are actually repressing their innate potential which has the capability to benefit the country and the world at large through the creation of disruptive products, technologies, and even unicorns. This way they are also overlooking the ample career scopes in the domains like Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Quantum Technologies, and the like.