Getting Ahead

Last Saturday Prof Ananth, Ditector IIT Madras, addressed the alumni in the NCR area.

During the talk the need for inculcating values came up. Prof Ananth narrated how during one of his interaction with some of his students he was told that there was nothing wrong with "cogging" (copying) as the objective was to get ahead! I suppose some "dudes" thought it "kewl" to tell the director that.

Would you want such a person as a colleague? What about as a researcher? How about for testing your mission-critical software? Or designing nuclear power plants?

Values are not learned in colleges, or in organizations. Display of wrong values needs examplary punishment.

Values are learned primarily at home and school. They are absorbed from the social environment and need correction at home.

And can a person who copies really "get ahead"? Like athletes taking performance enhancing drugs to get ahead, there are damaging, long term side-effects. The getting ahead is very transitory.