Although rather unfortunately, while
the academic councils or boards of most of our Universities take years to
change syllabus, technologies change with an ultra-rapid speed turning the life
we have planned for completely over its head. We are living in a world where
even the Moor’s Law which states that ‘computing power doubles every 2 years’
is going to be dead within a few years. And the future? Well, we are looking at
three-dimensional carbon nanotube chips which can multiply the processing power
of today’s average computers manifolds. Then there is a possibility that we
will get the optical chips which may help you put a super computer inside your
laptop.
We started talking about
junking half or more of college education, so why this talk about computing
power?
Because its ultra-relevant for you, something which
your teachers are not telling you at your college. Either they are not aware or
they are hiding it from you lest you stop going to classes altogether!
More computing power
means better and more ‘intelligent’ computer
Take a few seconds and realise that technologies, in
particular, information and computer technologies are driving our life,
business and economies today. The more processing power we have in our
computers, the more routine work could be done faster and better. The more
computing power we have, the more will be the capacity of the computers to do
‘intelligent’ work.
Computers becoming like
humans
Ultimate what does human brain do? Processing
information only. What else? And it’s really superfast. Recently some MIT
researchers found that human brain can process information and identify an
image in just 13 milliseconds. Yes, Sir. You read it right. One millisecond
equals 1/1000 of a second.
So imagine a computer with such or closer to such
speed. What do you get? You get incredible life changing technologies.
In computing capabilities, we are going there. Heard
of cognitive computing?
Well, how do all these
affect you?
Well, every field of work will be completely driven by
information and computing technologies. The trend is already very clearly
visible. You have better, faster and easier ways to communicate; your cars are
driven by computer chips and we already have the driver-less cars being tested;
your home appliances are driven by computer chips and soon there will be an IOT
(Internet of Things); your entire office work could be packed inside your 1 TB
laptop and soon work of large scale organisations will be all on the cloud;
many routine medical surgeries are getting automated and even complex surgeries
will become in the near future; you shop a lot online already and this will
only grow. The possibilities are humongous.
A large part of manufacturing and manufacturing
process control are driven by automation or information and computing
technologies. Operations in manufacturing and service industries are completely
driven by software. Research and discoveries in the field of Life Science,
Medical Science and Physical Sciences are driven by information and computing
technologies.
So, of course, anything and everything about
technologies affect you very much, very hard.
Is your education built
around technologies? Do you just ‘study’ instead of using the technologies
which are used in your chosen field of work?
Whatever be your field of education and whatever
future you may want to build for yourself, technologies or information and
computing technologies precisely, must be at the core of your existence.
Your study content should be built around technologies
and problem solving using technologies.
Unless you have learnt how various technologies are
used in your chosen field of work and know the trends in technologies used in
your field, you are merely studying for a degree which might be of no use.
(By learning I mean learning by doing or using the
technologies, not by cramming notes. Hardly anything, which you learn by cramming,
stays with you after a couple of years).
Technologies must be at
the core of college education curriculum today. Or else you are growing into a
dinosaur sooner or later.
Hey have you studied Geography without using
sophisticated geospatial technologies? Have you studied Biological Sciences
without learning Computing Biology?
Have you studied Marketing without learning the
technologies used or about how real time and digital marketing are done? Have
you studied Finance without learning to use financial analytic software? Have
you studied Operations without using Operations Analytics and other computing
technologies?
End state
I can go on asking. If your answers to the above and
similar questions are not in the affirmatives, well, then pray to God for his
mercy. Check your skin, you might already have started to grow into a Dino.May
I have to day more or justify why should you junk half of
more of your college education?