ENGINEERING IN INDIA: A PROFESSION OR AN OBSESSION

ENGINEERING IN INDIA: A PROFESSION OR AN OBSESSION

ENGINEERING in India is preferred as one of the best choices for graduation and the career as well. Our country produces more than 15 lakhs of engineers every year but 80% of them are unemployed. Due to the big unemployment rate engineering graduates go for PG or some even change their careers. Even after getting a job, engineers are not happy with their work and salary packages.  For better opportunities, some even leave the country to pursue their careers abroad. But why is it so? Being so much prestigious career choice, still Indian engineers are facing backdrops.

Let’s talk about it in this article.

First of all, let’s check the facts that how one is introduced to Engineering.

PLANTATION OF SEED

Since very childhood parents start expecting that one day their child will become an engineer or a doctor. Not for everyone but in most of the middle-class homes a child is guided to his career by his parents. It is only because our parents were not exposed to other careers. Lack of resources, the burden of responsibilities with no presence of the internet, and without proper guidance they were limited to very little awareness of career options. I don’t mean that every parent is a doctor or engineer but according to them, being a doctor or engineer is the safest job to have. Parents only want their children to succeed and have a better life than them. Therefore they guide the child for the better career options of their opinion.

Then it comes to the surroundings, living in an environment where everybody talks about the same can be one of the factors. In the middle-class adjacent where everybody thinks and talks about being a doctor or engineer affects the new minds very easily. Even a C.A aspirant is not given so much respect in families as an engineering one gets. It is not because of stream discrimination but priority. 

ROLES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION SYSTEM

Our education system plays a vital role in it. The schools are only providing limited education according to their affiliated boards and in those syllabi, there is nothing like “career guidance”.

The syllabus only has some small modifications over the years but its basic architecture is the same for the decades. I accept it is the student’s choice and responsibility in which subjects or streams they are interested in but without a proper understanding of the field and its scope how can one go for it.

Approximately 85% of science streamers after completing boards prepare for either Engineering or Medicine entrances and give their whole time for the preparation, some even take a gap of 1-3 years. To score a better percentage in the competitive exams some even join professional institutes after passing class 10th. As you can see how eager they are to join Engineering or medicine. But are there no other options for it? 

In my suggestion schools and boards must include serious “career guidance” sessions as a mandatory part of their curriculum. Especially for the students who are about to pass their class 12th. This would help not only science streamers but others too in getting introduced to the pros and cons and some reality check to what higher education or career fields they demand to choose.

But if someone has decided to choose engineering and wants to know what it is then let me give you a brief introduction to it.

WHAT IS ENGINEERING?

I can write a whole article on this headline but it isn’t going to help you and me in understanding the real scenario. So allow me to explain it in the most simple and real way possible.

Engineering is a professional course but everyone in the college doesn’t take it as. It is not about taking admission in your favorite college with the peer talked branch. Doing all the unusual stuff that you have learned from the movies and your seniors, missing exams, taking classes for the attendance’s sake, bunking, joking. And getting out of the college with a graduate degree, with a history of backlogs, and talking shit about the course and the college. 

No no no if you think, this is what engineering life is then you are sailing on the wrong ship. Because all of this timepass can be the usual environment of every engineering college but in reality, it is the opposite of what you think and being told.

Anyone can pass the written exams but when it comes to the practical world your overnight knowledge is not going to help you. The reading and implementation are two different things, without implementing it practically how can you work on something that you have only read about. 

For ex: If you have recently cleared your data structure exam with more than avg marks. You consider it to be a great thing you have done so far. But what will happen if you have shortlisted in a project in your college only because of the marks that you have scored by learning the topic last night. 

The students who have chosen engineering as a professional course and putting their best efforts with every single cell dedicated to it, know the real value of their time and the knowledge they want to gain. 

Apart from dedicated and studious students, why others are not happy with engineering and declare the course by considering it as a waste of time and money.

WHO CAN BE AN ENGINEER?

Well to be an engineer all you need to do is pass your class 12th with science(PCM) stream with more than an average percentage, get admit in-to your favorite college, spend 4 years there, than give final exams and graduate with an Engineer degree. Congratulations you are an Engineer now. If you think this can make you get recruited in Google or Amazon or help you land in your dream jobs then let me shatter your dreams. Because all of this is crap that you are going to hear from your peers and seniors or relatives before you start engineering, in reality, this will only be going to give you a certificate on which your name would be written under the name of a university with passed as an engineer on it and that certificate will be your degree of passing, not excellence.

 

Everyone is welcome for engineering but everyone can not be an engineer.

“An engineer is a diamond burnt out of coal and engineering is the process of burning coal.”

                                     

The phrase written above explains it simply, whether you choose engineering or any other professional course you are a part of coal, and among every piece of coal, there are only a few pieces that get burnt to an extent and came out like a diamond. It takes a lot of determination and hardwork to complete your engineering journey and come out as a valuable product for the market and industries. 

PROBLEMS WITH ILL-EQUIPPED INSTITUTES

Without college how can you pursue your graduation? Most of the after school you learn in your college. This is the place where most of you choose your careers.

In Engineering, everything that you are about to learn is at your college campus.

 

Under this section, We’ll discuss the rotten policies and curriculum that are common in nearly every college around the country. 

MANDATORY ATTENDANCE: The most hated things include this mandatory attendance. Mostly students attend their lectures just to keep their attendance above the required criteria. If not they would be detained from the semester exams. I don’t understand why maintaining attendance above 75% is necessary. What kind of reputation these universities and colleges want to make based on attendance. Having criteria is Ok but forcing students to attend the lectures should be illegal.

SYLLABUS: An outdated syllabus is a reason for skill gaps in the graduates. The same syllabus being taught for years is nothing but waste. Not only for a single branch, but every major is also facing the same.

For example, C.S majors are learning the same programming language and basics of its data structure that were being taught 5 years ago, and still, that chain is maintained.

Less practical, the more theoretical curriculum is being followed by universities and will be followed in the future if proper modification steps are not taken.

ROLE OF FACULTY: He/she is a person whose purpose of teaching is to prepare you for the end semester exams or to guide you with theoretical as well as practical aspects of your subject.

The present scenario of college education tells a lot about the realities of faculty. For most of the teachers and professors, their duties are limited to complete the syllabus and make students score well in their end term exams and their duty is finished.

PROJECTS: The most ignored thing is the project. In your syllabus, there is nothing mentioned for projects. At the end of the semester, your faculty comes to tell you about the project submission. In CS/IT, management systems are the most common projects submitted by students or they don’t even prepare but purchase the project from the market and do some modification just to present it as the formality.

Neither teachers nor students are interested in projects all they do are rote-learning for exams. Even the faculty appointed for the project work don’t have the prior knowledge about it, they just suggest the modifications or reject the ideas for the same. But their inputs are very less in the projects and without proper guidance, a student ends up messing all the things.

GRADUATES BEING UNEMPLOYED

What are the several reasons that make an engineering graduate unemployed after training for 4 years in institutes?

We’ll decipher it with the help of points listed below

• INCAPABLE ENGINEERS: Graduates do have the degree but they lack skills. Only a degree is not going to help you in getting recruited by the firms. You must be properly skilled with practical and technical aspects of your field. One of the most common and important skills is communication. And mostly passouts are so shy and hesitant in introducing themselves.

• SUPPLY AND DEMAND: The number of job applicants is very high for a single job vacancy. Hundreds of candidates apply for a single spot in firms. 

• LACK OF EXPOSURE: Internships provide a kind of environment that real industries have. Less known or bad internships are not going to help you anyway. Try to fetch more knowledge about internships and apply for your interests. 

• GRADUATED FOR NOTHING: You would find a lot of people in the college, who are doing engineering for the degree purpose only. They are either sent by their parents or chose engineering for time pass. They do nothing but ruin the decorum. Their only motive is to pass out as engineers and gets added to the list of unemployed graduates.

• LOW SALARY: Having a low salary package and not getting appraised for years makes the individual hate his job. Some stick with it some don’t and resign from their jobs. 

CONCLUSION

As seen in the above paras that unemployment of graduates is not a result of a single-action, a whole education system is responsible for it. Either college or its students everyone is playing their part in it. Colleges are responsible for not providing quality education and not copping up with the industry demands. Teaching the same syllabus for years and claiming it as basics is not going to work in the future. Apart from the syllabus, no practical knowledge is given to students university exams are held only to check how good a rote-learner student is. Labs are only for formality purposes where equipment and apparatuses are very old, some don’t even works and are not enough in numbers on which every student can perform. Extracurricular activities should be organized in mass that helps the students in their character building. 

On the other hand, students are also equally responsible for their unemployment. Being totally unaware of market trends affects a lot on the placements. Whether sitting for on-campus or off-campus, the only thing necessary is your skills. Anyone can learn what’s written in the books but very have the talent to implement. You spend 4 precious years in engineering and in those number of years trying to explore yourself. Bookish knowledge is not going to help you conquer your dreams.

Thank you for reading this article.