The race between Mechanical Engineering and Electronics and Communication Engineering is a close one, going by students’ choice on the first day of general counselling on Wednesday.
While boys opted for Mechanical and ECE, girls chose ECE and Computer Science Engineering.
As many as 320 students were first-generation students and more than half of them chose ME and ECE. CSE and EEE came a poor second. There were no takers for Tamil engineering courses.
Information Technology Engineering, the rage for nearly a decade from the late 1990s, stands orphaned.
“Colleges are closing doors on IT to students. In 2013, as many as 300 colleges offered 15,478 seats in IT but this year it has fallen to 10,919 seats in 222 colleges,” says Moorthy Selvakumaran, educational consultant.
According to him, in all the six major departments – civil, mechanical, electronics, computer science, IT, and electrical and electronics – as many as 9,946 seats have been reduced. “Candidates should think well before making choices, instead of listening to their friends,” he cautions.