April 11, 2007

SINGAPORE

Talent Recruitment

I was one of two students to actually show up for my fluid mechanics tutorial this morning, so I took the opportunity to question my tutor about several academic idiosyncrasies.

There is a disconnect between the testing technique of many academic subjects and the actual application (i.e. the real world). For example, exams are designed to rack-and-stack students so that employers can develop an idea of who has the most potential. This sounds good in theory, but let's have a closer look.

Here is the standard procedure:

1) Administer an exam that is not meant to be solvable

2) Grade students on their attempts at solving each problem

3) Apply a bell-curve so that grades become normalized

Here are the inherent flaws:

1) One must be 100% sure of an answer in the work force; a bridge will not stand if even 1% of the calculations are off. Why teach students that the process is what counts when, at the end of the day, it doesn't count? Money is what counts, and let there be no confusion about the following: businesses are after money, and money follows from results.

2) A university is supposed to teach students what they need to know in order to work in their respective field of study. Universities are paid tremendous sums of money to achieve this because talent recruitment is the key to any business' future. Unfortunately, universities have unjustly usurped the right to apply their own ineffective scale in determining which students are most promising.

How so, you ask? After all, the smartest students will figure out the system and do well under any circumstances, right?

Wrong.

There is an historical disconnect between examination results and real-world success. Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sim Wong Hoo (the founder of the Singapore-based company, Creative), never even earned good grades, much less graduated from a top university. I chose these four people because they are proven leaders in fields where surely an education matters: technology and the sciences. If we delve into the business end of the issue, then finding talent is really a crapshoot. It is common knowledge that successful businessmen come from the most unexpected places, and it is impossible to predict who will "make it."

So why on earth are universities continuing with this facade when the input does not equal the output?

Because it has always been this way, and it takes a visionary to see the opportunity in such a system.

Let us not forget: success comes from breaking the norm and producing results, and you just can't teach people how to do that.

I only ask that we stop kidding ourselves about this.

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