Smiles at AU as a large number of students secure placements

Engineering College for Women records 100% placement, AUCE achieves 95%

March 14, 2022 07:18 pm | Updated 07:18 pm IST - VISAKHAPATNAM

Vice Chancellor of Andhra University, Prof. P.V.G.D. Prasad Reddy, with the students who got placed, in Visakhapatnam on Monday.

Vice Chancellor of Andhra University, Prof. P.V.G.D. Prasad Reddy, with the students who got placed, in Visakhapatnam on Monday. | Photo Credit:

After over four years, Andhra University College of Engineering (AUCoE) recorded a placement of around 95% in this year. During the same period, the Andhra University College of Engineering for Women (AUCEW) achieved 100% placement.

This is a turnaround, especially after the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the job sector in the past two years, said Vice Chancellor Prof. P.V.G.D. Prasad Reddy.

Of the over 900 eligible students from both the colleges, 500 students have already received their placement orders while the orders are pending for 249 students. The remaining students have either opted for higher studies at foreign institutions or have joined top institutions in the country like IIT for their M.Tech, he said.

Prof. Prasad Reddy confirmed that all the eligible students from the women’s college, except those who had opted for higher studies, have secured placement, and only 30 students from AUCoE are yet to be placed. Efforts are on to secure placements for them, he said.

As per the placement record, the biggest recruiter was software major Cognizant. The company has hired around 450 students in two phases.

The highest pay was offered by another software company called Phenom People and the package varied from ₹13.5 lakh to ₹15 lakh.

The other major software companies who have issued placement offers include Infosys, IBM, Wipro and Accenture. In the core sector, the companies that have recruited students are Schneider Electric, L&T and ITC, said the V-C.

According to Prof. Prasad Reddy, recruitments have been good this year and apart from the engineering colleges, 100 students from Pharmacy and an equal number from the Department of Chemistry have also received placement offers.

“Even in the engineering colleges, the placements were across various streams that included disciplines such as Marine, Mechanical, Chemical, Geo-Engineering and Metallurgy,” he said.

The university also recorded a startup initiative with three students getting a grant of ₹55 lakhs under the ‘Chunauti’ contest, he said.

Improvement plans

Speaking about improvement plans and making the students industry-ready, the V-C said that in June this year, the university would begin the AU Innovation and Incubation Cell. “This cell will have at least 40 software companies and each of them will take at least 10 interns who will be paid stipends. This will provide a perfect platform for startups. Two floors in the cell are reserved for the startups,” he said.

This apart, US-based software company Out Systems will start a prometric centre and will provide training to 400 students on the new concept called ‘Low coding system’, said Prof. Prasad Reddy. The NASSCOM-sponsored Centre for Excellence for Artificial and Machine Intelligence will also be ready by June. The project is coming up at a cost of ₹26 crore, he said.

Chairs to be set up

The V-C also said the company-sponsored ‘Industry Chairs’ are also in the pipeline to increase the Academia-Industry interface. Our target is to have 20 chairs and we have already got confirmation for 15, which includes three from IOCL and two from RINL, he said.

Basically, the Chairs will focus on nurturing startups and we are also planning to appoint ‘Professors of the Practice’ from the industry. These professors will be from the industry with at least 15 years of experience. While the industry will bear the cost for three years, the State government will sponsor them for another three years, said Prof. Prasad Reddy.

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