“Give importance to selection of college also”

While the Electrical and Electronics, Civil, Computer Science and Information Technology engineering streams will offer lucrative job opportunities to the students during the next few years, the aspirants should also give due importance to selection of colleges as the ‘core companies' would visit only creditable engineering institutions in search of their future workforce with high calibre, Career Consultant and Analyst Jayaprakash Gandhi has advised.

Addressing the ‘The Hindu Education Plus Career Counselling 2012' held here on Friday in association with Vellore Institute of Technology University, Mr. Jayaprakash Gandhi said the students should closely watch the demand in the job market and select their streams accordingly.

As the power sector and the infrastructure development in India were growing rapidly with hefty financial allocation by the public and the private sector companies, students holding a degree in electrical and civil engineering would get lucrative job offers.

Those who wanted to get a job offer even in the fourth year of their studies itself, might join computer science and engineering and information technology streams.

Civil engineers with a post-graduation in ocean engineering or geo technology engineering would get instant placements.

He lauded the VIT University for periodically making adequate and necessary changes in the curriculum to make the syllabus need-based so as to make the students employable in the job market.

Mr. Gandhi said that he would accord least priority to course like aeronautical engineering, mechatronics, robotics and biomedical engineering “where job opportunities are comparatively less in India.”

When he, while explaining the demand prevailing in the market for other streams, narrated with ample examples on the demand for graduates with Economics, English and Law from respectable institutions like Loyola College, St. Stephens College, Stella Maris, Ethiraj etc. and the prospects in higher education in institutions like Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, and also in the hospitality, travel and tourism industries, the participants were quite astonished and naturally Mr. Gandhi had to encounter good number of questions in this regard.

Since majority of the participants were girls, Mr. Gandhi encouraged them to become professionals in fashion designing, interior decoration, chartered accountancy, corporate communication, technical writers, content developers, architecture etc.

“The country, in which 15 lakh engineering graduates are being churned out every year, has only 3 lakh jobs in various fields of engineering to offer. Hence, the students of this era, particularly the girls, should think critically to become professionals in the emerging fields where demand and salary is very high,” said Mr. Gandhi, whose daughter, doing her masters in corporate communication in Germany, has secured a job offer from a multinational company that guarantees a highly lucrative package of Rs. 84 lakh per annum.

Top five institutions

He predicted that students having cut-off marks between 197 and 195 could be able to join this year top five educational institutions such as Anna University, Thiyagaraja College of Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Coimbatore Institute of Technology and PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore.

He also said cut-off marks for medicine might come down by 1.50 to 2.

He advised the students, who may get the cut-off marks of 150 and below, to apply for the five-year integrated M.Sc. programmes being offered by Anna University, Chennai, “as placement is cent per cent assured here.”

The consultant urged the students to prepare for the GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) right from the second year of their engineering programme by dedicating just 20 minutes a day.