June 5, 2014 at 11:26 am
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
I should add that this (foreign) consultant, while reasonably friendly, also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India.
Having worked both in India with Indians and in American with Americans, I have to sort of agree with him - but his comparisons take it much too far. I regard an American bachelor's degree summa cum laude in many universities as roughly equivalent to British bottom-ranked university pass degree, and Indian degrees mostly fit somewhere in between. But things vary enormously between universities, and a good American university as about the same as a good British university - the problem with America is that it has a lot of poor universities (Britain has too, I think, but nowhere near as high a proportion as America, and maybe not now as opposed to in the past since things are thought to have impreoved here), not that it has no good ones.
Given his assumption, he is dismissive of Americans' concerns. I don't think he does it on purpose, or to be mean...I just think there is an innate cultural bias at work that he may not even be aware of.
He's wrong,and there clearly is a bias there. But his error and his bias may be the result of coping with American degree holders who don't match up to Indian standards., in which case yo will have a hard task to make hime understand that many (most? I don't know) American universities have good standards.
What this means is I not only have to prove that he's wrong, but provide an alternative strategy. I'm working on that now, but if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. 😉
My only ideas are probably not feasible. Persuade hime to look at a course at at North Western, or Berkely, or CalTech, or MIT, or somewhere like that - if that doesn't fic his attitude, yu#'re dealing with someone who doesn't want to learn.
Tom
June 5, 2014 at 11:36 am
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Having worked both in India with Indians and in American with Americans, I have to sort of agree with him - but his comparisons take it much too far. I regard an American bachelor's degree summa cum laude in many universities as roughly equivalent to British bottom-ranked university pass degree, and Indian degrees mostly fit somewhere in between. But things vary enormously between universities, and a good American university as about the same as a good British university - the problem with America is that it has a lot of poor universities (Britain has too, I think, but nowhere near as high a proportion as America, and maybe not now as opposed to in the past since things are thought to have impreoved here), not that it has no good ones.
Interesting. I've lived in the UK before (2001-2007) and I kind of disagree with you about education. There's no denying that some American universities are little more than degree mills, churning out unprepared graduates. However, I've worked with many degreed/A-level qualified British professionals who claimed to know more than I did about...well...everything, because they had studied the subject "at uni" or held an A-level in that subject. Just a couple of examples: A British colleague who held an A-level in math and a bachelor's in business swore you could, in fact, divide a number by zero and that my calculator must be wrong when I proved to him that you couldn't. He wouldn't take my word for it because according to him, "Americans are bad at maths." Another colleague with an A-level in biology (and a uni dropout) swore that women do not have gonads. A colleague with a degree in chemistry from a respected university did not know what H2SO4 was. A friend with a doctorate in biology from one of the top five universities in the UK was useless at pub quizzes because the only subject she knew anything about was biology. Even then, she didn't know the difference between the terms "prokaryotic" and "eukaryotic."
Several also expressed surprise when I was invited to join Mensa in the UK. They opined that if I was in the top 2% IQ-wise in the UK, I must be in the top 0.5% in the USA.
FWIW, one of the smartest people I knew in the UK dropped out of a red brick then finished his degree at the Open University many years later. 😉
June 5, 2014 at 12:16 pm
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Having worked both in India with Indians and in American with Americans, I have to sort of agree with him - but his comparisons take it much too far. I regard an American bachelor's degree summa cum laude in many universities as roughly equivalent to British bottom-ranked university pass degree, and Indian degrees mostly fit somewhere in between. But things vary enormously between universities, and a good American university as about the same as a good British university - the problem with America is that it has a lot of poor universities (Britain has too, I think, but nowhere near as high a proportion as America, and maybe not now as opposed to in the past since things are thought to have impreoved here), not that it has no good ones.
I know this is going to be controversial, but I think that education is a fine thing. However, in the I.T. industry, the best thing it teaches you is how to learn. Learning to do things well usually occurs after school is done.
June 5, 2014 at 1:23 pm
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...
Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
June 5, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
June 5, 2014 at 2:17 pm
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Tom
June 5, 2014 at 2:26 pm
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
June 5, 2014 at 2:36 pm
How about doing data transformations in the ETL process. I know that's what the 'T' stands for. I can see changing date formats to work in SQL. But doing this on other fields can be a nightmare to figure out what is going on. I had an issue where the data was being changed by the ETL, lookup table, then there was SQL on the other side that also made changes to the same field. Of course I didn't know any transformation was being done on this field in the ETL. Why would I since we were doing other transformations in the SQL after it was loaded. But after hours of banging my head against the wall because I couldn't figure out how value 'XYZ' got into the field when it should be 'PDQ'. I finally found the code hidden in the field transformation. This drives my nuts. I prefer the ELT method instead of ETL, easier to debug, IMHO.
And my critics say.....
-------------------------------------------------------------
we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
Don't fear failure, fear regret.
June 5, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
June 5, 2014 at 2:39 pm
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
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Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
June 5, 2014 at 2:49 pm
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
And Central?
June 5, 2014 at 2:52 pm
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
And Central?
Top, middle, bottom, front and back
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
June 5, 2014 at 2:57 pm
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
And Central?
He was saying continents and you are on the same continent as I am. 😉
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
June 5, 2014 at 3:05 pm
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
And Central?
He was saying continents and you are on the same continent as I am. 😉
Is he in North America as well? Two continents - North America and South America.
http://www.whatarethe7continents.com/
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
June 5, 2014 at 3:11 pm
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Sean Lange (6/5/2014)
SQLRNNR (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
TomThomson (6/5/2014)
Luis Cazares (6/5/2014)
Koen Verbeeck (6/5/2014)
SQL is delicious (6/5/2014)
...also labors under the delusion that the American education system is worthless and that our master's level work is the equivalent of junior high/early high school material in India ...Yeah right. I got over 10,000 points at this forum mostly because of the highly educated people of said country.
(I'm crudely generalizing here, but you get the point)
That's not fair, you're not american 😀
What! Are you telling us that only Americans are allowed to generalize crudely, Luis?
I reject that utterly - we Gaels are allowed to do it too, and so areforeigners with names like "Koen".
Yes, only Americans are allowed to generalize because Europeans have better education. And I'm counting myself as an American as part of the continent. :hehe:
Yeah, Americans would be everybody in the Americas continents, right?
North and South right?? 😛
And Central?
He was saying continents and you are on the same continent as I am. 😉
Is he in North America as well? Two continents - North America and South America.
Umm yes. Last I checked Mexico was still on the North American continent. Also found there is the USA. 😎
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
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