The tide is turning and along comes the stream of Information Technology riding the crest again, so say the experts. After the lull of a year to two, multi-national companies have woken up to the need of recruiting and are scampering to campuses to welcome the fresh engineering graduates into their HR rolls.
And to quantify the need, it is enormous. According to a recent World Bank report, the coming two years will bring on a need for eight to 10 lakh IT and Computer Science professionals, said J.S.R. Subrahmanyam, Mentor, Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQUIP) at the ‘ The Hindu Education Plus Career Counselling 2010' workshop.
Impressive gathering
On Friendship Day, it was an exceptional camaraderie that The Hindu struck with an impressive gathering of anxious young people escorted by their equally anxious parents to the workshop. Several of them fought off the weekend languor to arrive even before life gathered momentum on the streets. Each mind was filled with haze punctuated only by question-marks and more of them, about the options available and the choices to make.
Sai Ramya, who took the medical entrance examination, was quite undecided about what to choose among Pharmacology, Bio-technology and Agricultural Sciences. Her father Jayasimha Reddy, a farmer from Aatmakur village of Mahabubnagar district, went from pillar to post for guidance, but in vain. Everywhere, the only question entertained was about the stream and college based on the EAMCET rank. However, the workshop in question was precisely designed for Sai Ramya's need for more information, and answered her query too.
While laying stress upon the brightening career prospects for all engineering streams, Prof. Subrahmanyam cautioned that those opting for Electrical or Electronics and Communication streams need to be extremely good at mathematics and physics.
The ECE branch, which continues to be green for the last 25 to 30 years, will offer more prospects in future in view of the ever-expanding telecom sector, he said.
While IT offers numerous opportunities, there is also four to five times more growth in supporting activities. Abundant scope prevails in computational nano-technology and computational requirements of bio-technology too, said Prof.Subrahmanyam.
‘Pick the right institute'
Growing importance of core engineering subjects was amply brought forth by the Director of the Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology P.Narasimha Reddy who drew attention to the explosion in the power plants being set up across the country.
While aptitude of the student should be the ideal parameter to decide which stream to choose, one must not forget the importance of the institution one spends the next four or five years in, Prof.Reddy said. And performance of the college, he stressed, should be measured through the quality of the faculty and not by the palatial structures which can be quite deceptive.
Communication skills, team building skills and technical skills, in that order, are preferred by most multinational companies, and if one has to excel, one must choose a college that has facilities to offer life skills too.
M. Venkata Ramana, principal of the Vignan Institute of Technology and Science, added to it by asking the students to hear the “street talk”. Opinions expressed by the former students are the best possible touch-stones for the performance of a college, he said.
Added advantage
There is no correlation whatsoever between EAMCET rank and the performance in engineering, he said and advised certificate courses which will definitely add up to the course in terms of knowledge and career prospects. Promoting the stream of Mechanical Engineering, he said it is no more a “dirty job” as thought by many. Great scope prevails in Automobile Engineering and Material Research too.
An unassuming visit to the workshop by the Commissioner of Technical Education K.Lakshminarayana took many by surprise. Invited to address the students, he urged them to cultivate the habit of reading. “Imagination is one skill that is not taught in Indian colleges. It comes with reading,” he said.
‘Elegant' profession
Principal of the School of Planning and Architecture, Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture & Fine Arts University, D. Vijay Kishore described a career in Architecture as an “elegant” profession.
Though ignored as a career choice in India, it has huge potential for employment, with numerous Special Economic Zones coming up across the country. Alternatively one can even set up one's own firm. ‘Facilities Planning' is one emerging field gaining importance in the recent times, he said. However, to get into B.Arch., one needs to write the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA).
Member of Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) and former Director of Drugs Control Administration, M.Venkata Reddy said Pharmacy is one among the top ten professions in the United States of America, and the second best in terms of pay. Quoting industry statistics, he said many MNCs are engaged in buying off the Indian pharmaceutical industries, and it only goes to show how the sector is poised to grow.
Professor L.Jalapathi Rao from the Acharya N.G.Ranga Agricultural University, and K.S.R.Siva Sai, professor of Biotechnology from SNIST were among the resource persons who answered diverse questions from students about opportunities available in various streams and scope for excelling in niche sectors. In addition, tips were given on how to fill the details in the web counselling.
The Hindu Chief of Bureau S.Nagesh Kumar, while welcoming the participants, said the organization has been conducting workshops for the last six years with a larger agenda of building a knowledge society and nurturing an army of young people for the benefit of the country. The workshop helps them to make informed choices, he said.
Students and parents also thronged the various stalls put up engineering colleges, banks and education consultants at the venue. They enquired about the admissions in the management quota and various facilities like hostels, transport and infrastructure. The colleges provided them with brochures and other material.
