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Guidance

 Having represented Nitte Education trust in exhibition fairs in India and abroad, I wanted to put together my thoughts on choosing college and branch in Engineering course after +2 or II PUC. I  have seen many people just go with someone's advice or peer pressure. It is an important milestone in one's life and one needs to be careful in deciding.

I have two aspects to consider over here. One is choosing a college and other is selecting branch. I will talk about the later first. I am not going to talk about IIT / NIT / IISc institutes. The main focus is on students who
are likely to pursue their career in college other than these.

What are the branches on offer? We are all aware of Computer Science (CS), Electronics and Communication (E&C), Mechanical Engineering (ME), Civil Engineering (CV), Electrical and Electronics Engineering (E & E),  Information Science or Information Technology (IS/IT) and highly specialized  branches like Aeronautical Engg, Nano Technology, Telecommunincation and many more.

My personal opinion is not to take a specialized branch like Aeronautical / Telecommunication / Nanotechnology / Metallurgy / Marine and others unless you are completely aware of what it is and have a passion for it. Choosing these branches just because your friend did it or your relative suggested will prove disastrous. These are highly specialized ones and have been carved out of core branches like Mechanical Engineering, Electronics engineering and others. Once you do them just because someone pushed you, after completion of the course your choices of making a change in career gets narrowed down to a large extent. An aeronautical engineer has to get into aeronautics only and nothing else. The same applies to other courses also.  If you had done engineering in a core branch like Mech or EC you can always pursue these highly specialized  branches in your Post Graduate and you retain the choice of making your career the way  you want to. But if you highly passionate about these specialized branches then go ahead with it.

I would split the core branches into two main categories. IT (Information Technology) and non-IT. CS, EC and IS/IT come under IT branches where as EE / Mech / Civil form the non-IT group.

I will talk about the IT branches first. Where will you work after graduating from these branches (CS/ EC/ IS). IT companies is the obvious answer.

In layman terms under CS / IS branch, you study various programming languages and some core subjects (which hardly come in handy when you work in service based companies). CS / IS are one and the same. Companies do not make the distinction between CS and IS. IS / IT branch was carved out to increase the intake in Computer Science branch in an indirect way. And since IS branch is an offshoot of CS people think CS is better.  We also notice a trend that people prefer CS first during the counseling. It is just a perception and nothing else.

Electronics and Communication is another branch where students get employed in IT companies. The focus is on studying the hardware aspects of product development. But in India there are very few hardware based firms which do core research and development job. IT companies in India predominantly focus on software. Most of the EC students are employed by big IT companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Once they join there they have no choice but to study subjects which come under CS / IS. And when they start to work, all that they studied during engineering will come to nothing in these big service based companies. They do the routine job which a CS / IS student will do. I would say that 10 to 20 % of the EC students end up getting into core hardware based companies where the knowledge which they have gained while doing EC will come in handy. Rest get placed into software field. Many struggle to cope up with it and get accustomed to it because of lack of choice.

So people chosing EC just for the sake that it is number one branch and then ending up in an IT software firm makes no sense to me. If you are really passionate about getting into a core R & D work in hardware field it makes sense to select EC. Once you have the desire to get into EC you need to work extremely hard to ensure you get the desired job else you will land up in software job. If you are passionate about EC be prepared to put in extra effort so that you are one among the 10-20 % who can get into core company in EC field.

Let me come to the non-IT branches: Mechanical, Civil and Electrical.

You have heard people say Mechanical is an evergreen branch. Yes it is. The Mechanical engineers can practically get into any industry including the IT industry. :) The campus placements in colleges may not reflect this but fact is there are innumerable avenues for them. They work in many industries including private or public sector industries and their work varies by industry and function. Once you have the degree you can specialize in other areas like Automobile, Industrial Production, Aeronautical, Metallurgy. You may not be paid as high as an IT guy to begin with but with experience sky becomes the limit. And again probability of you getting placed in core Mechanical company during campus placements might be less but the off campus opportunities will take care of your job prospects.

Civil Engineering : Infrastructure these days is getting importance. You see new roads, bridges, buildings being
built every day and it will continue for a very long time. India is a growing economy and this won't change in the near future. Again on campus placements will be less but outside world presents innumerable opportunities. Salary might be low compared with IT guy to begin with but with experience things will change drastically.

Electrical Engineering: We have seen the problems which we face daily on account of power cuts. Governments have been giving lot of emphasis on power sector and its allied branches. If you are in love with electrical appliances,  switch boards, circuits then this is an ideal branch. Again the campus placements will be relatively less compared to IT branches but opportunities outside are high.

Let me address the next question of choosing a college. I would lay out few of the facts before that.

1) No college can provide 100% placements for the simple reason that not all will be eligible for campus placements. There will be many who have less than 60% marks in Engineering who are unlikely to be placed.

2) No University or any government body ever comes up with an official ranking of colleges in the state or country. Few of the magazines do the survey but if you look at it there will be many surprises in store. Few unheard colleges would have entered top 100 or 50. :) I have seen many students come up with a sheet of paper comprising top 30 colleges in Karnataka. All these are not reliable and are not official rankings. At Bihar i have seen innumerable brochures containing rankings of colleges in Karnataka. These are prepared by agents and which ever college pays a good commission for them to get students that will be higher up the order. A college in a prominent IT area in Bangalore have advertised as being No. 2 ranked among private colleges in Karnataka and 7th in India based on some survey. Probably the survey was funded by the institute itself :)

So never rely on the rankings. How to chose a college then? Shortlist a few which you feel good. Visit the website of the institute. Find out the following:

1) Placement record: Number of students placed branch wise, number of companies visited, number of companies visited for non-IT branches, list of core product based companies visited

2) Check whether the branch is NBA (National Board for Accreditation) accredited or not? An expert committee inspects the college and gives this accreditation for 3 or 5 years. If the infrastructure or quality of faculty or placement record is not good then the college won't get this accreditation. NBA accreditation is given to individual branches and not for the entire college. Hence check whether the particular branch is NBA accredited or not.

3) Make a check on the placement record of the last 5 years. This gives an indication how consistent the placements have been in the past.

I hope i have done justice to the objective of this article. It would be nice if you can give your comments on this. Whatever branch you have taken by choice stick to it until you get the job in the same stream rather than moving to a different stream.


All said and done before deciding on Engineering do think whether it is the only option available. There are countless other career options in front of you. :) I hope to touch upon them in future.


Branch is not all that important

That’s right. Most students and parents seem to be very focused on getting in to the “best” branch (Computer Science, Electronics & Telecommunications, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, etc.) Everybody wants to get into the “top” branch. Everybody wants to know which branch has the best “scope” in the future.
This is misguided. There are a number of reasons why the branch doesn’t matter all that much:
  • If you study in a good college, all branches have “scope”. There are successful businesses and well-paying jobs in all disciplines, including civil engineering, and chemical engineering. And the vast majority of computer science graduates in the country do not have decent jobs (because there are so many of them!) If you study in a bad college, a good branch is not going to help you. Also, so called “good” branches with lots of “scope” tend to be over-crowded, because everyone is entering that field. And finally, nobody really knows which branch will have the most “scope” 10 years from now. (When I did my Engineering, my friends took Computer Science in VJTI because they couldn’t get into more sought after branches like E&TC and Mechanical!)
  • Changing of field is very common amongst engineers. Just looking at my batchmates, I know metallurgical engineers who are in advertising agencies, mechanical engineers who are into banking and finance, chemical engineers working on Bollywood movies, and computer scientists in the insurance industry doing non-computer stuff. What branch you get your degree in is forgotten within 5 years of graduating.
  • What branch the student is interested in, is irrelevant. This is a big one. 12th standard students tell me, “I am more interested in Computers. I don’t like Mechanical.” Frankly, in 12th standard, you have no clue what any particular field involves. If for a field, hundreds of colleges in the country are giving engineering degrees in that field, then almost by definition, that field has interesting and cool work going on all over the world. If you find that field boring, then, the most likely explanation is that you’ve been taught that subject by a bad teacher. My guess would be this: any subject that you find very interesting was probably taught to you by a good teacher, and for every boring subject, there’s probably a bad teacher of that subject sometime in your past. A good professor in any branch can make the branch come alive for you.
I am not asking you to ignore the branch entirely. All I’m saying is that give it a little less importance than you are currently giving it.
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Madras (Chennai)
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Guwahati
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Kanpur
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Kharagpur
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Bombay
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Roorkee
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Bhubaneshwar
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Gandhinagar
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Hyderabad
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Indore
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Jodhpur
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Patna
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Rupnagar
Location of the 15 IITs in India. Source wikipedia.

College does matter

The original IITs, and BITs Pilani, are clearly better than other engineering colleges. Most NITs are better than most state engineering colleges (except the top state colleges). Top state colleges (e.g. COEP, VJTI, PICT) are clearly better than the second-tier engineering colleges. And so on. (Unfortunately, I don’t really know how good or bad the new IITs are. You’ll need to make that judgement on your own.)
It’s fashionable to say the college doesn’t matter. And it is very common to trot out examples of students from terrible colleges who have succeeded in life. But that’s flawed logic. Students who succeed inspite of being in a bad college, are probably succeeding in spite of the college, not because of the college. And probably would have done even better if they had been in a better college.
Better colleges have better systems of education, better professors, and better “resume value” (which, whether you like it or not, is a factor for a long, long time.) Also, in better colleges, you have better classmates. This matters in the short term (because better classmates means more influence of friends who are interested in the right things), and the long term (better “network”).
So, here’s my (controversial) advice: if you are getting a not-so-good branch in a very good college, vs. a good branch in a not-so-good college, you should definitely choose the not-so-good branch in the very good college. I would definitely pick Metallurgical Engineering in IIT-Bombay, over Computer Science in MIT. If the colleges are sort-of-comparable, then go for the “better” branch (for whatever definition of “better”). For example, if you have Mechanical Engineering in COEP, and Computer Science in VIT, then go for VIT – because althought COEP is better than VIT, it is not all that much better.
Note: I am not saying that you’re screwed if you get into a bad college. There are enough examples to prove that good, motivated students can shine from anywhere. All I’m saying is that if you have a choice, then choose better college over better branch. If you get into a bad college, then work hard, ignore your professors, and try to get guides/mentors/projects from industry (right away, not just in the last year).

City also matters

To a large extent, success in life is not simply about academic knowledge. It is also about a whole bunch of other factors – what we call “exposure”. This involves all kinds of things – like interactions with industry, various (non-academic) activities that you indulge in in a city, seeing the various interesting and different things that people are doing in the city, opportunities of getting involved in various initiatives, and generally “smartness” (as in “The Bombay exposure has really made him smart.”)
So, doing a degree in Pune or Bombay, is, in my opinion, clearly better than doing it in a college in Amravati.
Also, please get out of your parents’ house. Stay in a hostel, or a rented flat with a bunch of your classmates, or something. That will propel you into the real world, give you some maturity, and the ability to deal with all kinds of issues that you need to deal with, when you are no longer staying under a protective cover provided by your parents. This is an important part of your education at this stage.

Engineering vs other fields of study

Frankly, I am not qualified to give advice on whether you should do Engineering or something else. If you find that you’re interested in some “alternate” career (e.g. photography, movies, music, art, design, whatever), here are some thoughts that you might find helpful:
  • Try to find out which are the top institutes in the country where you can get a degree or certificate or whatever it is that helps with learn the field that you’re interested in. Then find out what it takes to get admission to that institute and how much it costs. And then make a detailed plan as to how you could actually do it. This will significantly improve the chances that you’ll be allowed to do it, and also that you’ll succeed in your chosen career. I would love to see more and more students in India follow this path.
  • If you can’t get into one of the top institutes, maybe you should listen to your parents? It’s difficult to justify a risky career move on the basis of a mediocre education in that field.
  • I find that most students who claim to be interested in such alternate careers are too lazy to actually do the work needed to create the plan mentioned in the first bullet-point. If you’re one of those lazy bums, then you don’t really deserve to follow your so-called chosen career. Give up, and do whatever stupid engineering degree that your parents want you to do. Alternative career paths are for people who are really passionate and are willing to put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
  • If you are not really sure of what alternate career you want to pursue, but just have a vague notion that you want to do something other than Engineering, then you’re probably not ready for an alternative career yet. No point in going for a off-the-beaten-path, risky path unless you’re really passionate about something and clear about what you want. You’ll be better off with a conventional degree, until you figure out your passion.
  • Medical vs. Engineering: Again, I’m not really qualified to give advice about whether you should go for engineering or Medicine. However, note: there are many students who avoid the medical side because they hate 10th or 12th std. biology. In this case, remember that doing a medical degree is not at all like 12th std. biology. So, this alone is not a good enough reason for rejecting medicine. Try to talk to, and find out more, from some real doctors what it is like to study medicine. You should consider medicine as a career, especially if you like people more than you like machines or software programs. If you’re not good at maths or logic, engineering is not for you.

Conclusion

If you disagree with me, please leave a comment below, with supporting arguments, and we can discuss.
If you know a 12th std student who could benefit from this article (or the discussion in the comments), please mail them this link.

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