The importance of meaningful work: people lose motivation with work that they perceive to be pointless.

Here is an interesting post on importance of meaningful work from The effective Engineering 

In The Upside of Irrationality, behavioral economist Dan Ariely describes an experiment he conducted to measure how the meaning of work impacts the motivation for work. In the experiment, he recruited Harvard students who loved Legos to build Lego Bionicle robots and paid them decreasing amounts for each additional robot built; the first completed robot earned $2, the next $0.11 less ($1.89), the third another $0.11 less ($1.78), and so forth. The research assistant informed the participant that at some point, the Legos would have to be dismantled for the next participant. In one group, the lab had numerous Lego kits available. The assistant would place each of the student’s completed robots on the desk in front of him, and the Lego robots would accumulate on the desk over the session. In the second group, only two kits were available, so as a participant started on the next robot, the assistant would immediately dismantle the previous robot in the event the participant wanted to continue building. Participants in the first group who didn’t see their work immediately dismantled built significantly more robots (10.6 on average) than those in the second group (7.2 on average). 1 Meaningful work led to happier participants, generated more output, and compensated for lower pay.

The experiment teaches a lesson on the importance of meaningful work: people lose motivation with work that they perceive to be pointless.

Engineering education may diminish concern for public welfare issues

Collegiate engineering education may foster a "culture of disengagement" regarding issues of public welfare, according to new research by a sociologist at Rice University.

For the first-of-its-kind study, the researcher used survey data from four U.S. colleges to examine how students' public-welfare beliefs change during their college engineering education and whether the curricular emphases of their engineering programs are related to students' beliefs about public welfare. The study found that engineering students leave college less concerned about public welfare than when they entered.

Study author Erin Cech, an assistant professor of sociology who has B.S. degrees in both electrical engineering and sociology, said that many people inside and outside engineering have emphasized the importance of training ethical, socially conscious engineers, but she wonders if engineering education in the U.S. actually encourages young engineers to take seriously their professional responsibility to public welfare. Complete post can be read here 

A question of Engineering employability

Many engineering students lack the necessary skills required to enter the corporate world. Societal pressure, inadequate infrastructure, poor quality of teachers and outdated syllabus are the major reasons for this.

Are our engineering students unemployable? Unable to get a job, textile engineering graduate Lakshmi Priya decided to do her own research on opportunities.

The finding was devastating: her engineering degree was a mere rubber stamp. She lacked the skills required for a job in a relevant field. “One company asked me whether I knew how to mix dyes and had designer and garment manufacturer contacts. Since I had never worked in a garment firm before and did not have internship experience, I was at a loss,” she says. She is now preparing for her MBA entrance exam. Here is a detailed report in Hindu

International Collegiate Programming Contest Spotlights Cloud Computing

Today, cloud computing has become an invisible thread impacting countless industries by bringing all key information together. For example, thousands of doctors and hospitals are connecting to revolutionize patient care across healthcare organizations; retailers are accessing intelligent networks to build a mobile marketplace and capture business wherever customers roam; and universities are creating new virtual learning environments to inspire a generation to pursue ideas without limitations. The power of cloud is unprecedented, enabling businesses and organizations to take speed, agility and innovation to previously unimaginable levels.

For complete information contest see here 

"Cloud computing presents an immense career opportunity for the world's sharpest computing minds competing at the ICPC," said David Barnes, Program Director of Emerging Internet Technologies at IBM. "As a global leader in cloud computing and sponsor of the ICPC, each year IBM recruits top computing talent from the contest. We hope that the opportunity to join the world's finest cloud computing team, or our company in another capacity, will pique the interest of these innovative minds and result in long, prosperous careers with IBM."

Regional qualifying contests are already underway in the United States and will continue through December. Following the regional rounds, only 18 to 20 United States universities will be a part of the 120 elite three-person teams from around the world to advance to the World Finals. The final contest will take place June 22-26, 2014, and will be hosted by Ural Federal University in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

"Preparation for the ICPC is relentless, but its impact on productivity and opportunity lasts a lifetime," said Dr. Bill Poucher, ICPC Executive Director and Baylor University Professor of Computer Science. "These students are dauntless problem solvers. We aim for them to inspire each other to raise the bar for global technological innovation as they move into their careers with top industry players like IBM."

Considered the largest and most prestigious computer programming competition in the world, the Battle of the Brains reaches tens of thousands of students from more than 2,300 universities in 91 countries on six continents. Since IBM began sponsoring the contest in 1997, participation has grown more than 1,100 percent. During the 2012-2013 contest, nearly 30,000 students participated in the regionals portion alone.

The 2013 World Finals were held in St. Petersburg, Russia. Students from St. Petersburg National Research University ITMO, the host university, captured their record-setting fifth world championship.

More than 400 schools from the United States are participating in regional qualifying contests. A complete list of schools can be found at http://icpc.baylor.edu/regionals/finder/north-america-2013.

The Promise of High-Quality Career and Technical Education

Here is an interesting report for understanding and acting on Building Successful careers 

High-quality Career and Technical Education (CTE) — as distinguished from older models of  vocational education — has great potential to improve student educational attainment and  worker earnings, as well as outcomes for firms and the U.S. economy.  We begin by making the economic case for high-quality CTE, based on the limited number  of young Americans who currently achieve four-year college degrees and the relatively weak  employment outcomes of most who do not, as well as relatively high job vacancy rates 

observed for some American firms and sectors. We describe the current state of CTE in  America, in which overall outcomes have become fairly strong but high variation remains in  the quality of programs around the country.  For complete report see here