Among various engineering branches, the largest scope was for electrical and electronics engineering (EEE) considering the tremendous growth projected in the power sector in the next 10 years, said Jayaprakash Gandhi, career consultant, at The Hindu Education Plus Career Counselling programme at the VIT University here on Sunday.
With the opening up of employment avenues in nuclear energy, solar energy and biomass energy and other forms of renewable energy, EEE graduates have a good future in the next decade, he said.
Another favourable factor was that even the automotive industry has started recruiting EEE graduates since electronics would have greater application in the industry in the immediate future, he added. Next to EEE, civil engineering also has good scope in the next few years due to technological changes embracing the construction industry. Those who pursued postgraduate courses in specialised areas such as ocean engineering and earthquake engineering also will have openings.
Girls who have done mechanical engineering have a greater chance of recruitment by manufacturing companies because of the conditions imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund last year that 50 per cent of the workforce should be women for the companies to be eligible for IMF funding. The Union Public Service Commission too has stated that women would be given preference in selection for the new Indian Engineering Service. “Unless you are interested in research, and a study schedule spanning 10 to 12 years, do not take biotechnology. The scope for aeronautical engineering too is very poor,” Mr. Gandhi said.
As for the non-engineering sectors, Integrated law course has the largest demand, followed by economics graduates who get good placement in banks. For those with a Masters in English, there is a good scope to work as teachers in engineering colleges, he said.
Inaugurating the programme, G. Viswanathan, VIT Chancellor, said that a Universal Higher Education Trust has been started in Vellore last year with the objective of ensuring that all those who passed Plus-Two from Vellore district got admission to higher educational institutions before the end of the 12th Plan period to ensure access to higher education and jobs to all those who completed Plus-Two in the district. Recalling that he has been reading The Hindu from his Intermediate days in the 1950s, Mr. Viswanathan said that since he studied in Tamil medium in school, the reading of The Hindu enabled him to improve his English.VIT vice-presidents Sankar Viswanathan and G.V. Sampath participated.
G. Satheesh Kumar, associate vice-president (advertisement south) and K. Ravichandran, Deputy General Manager (Events), The Hindu , spoke.
