"Engineers Make the World" – reads the bumper sticker on a midsize car driven by a person in his mid twenties. Needless to say that the owner of this automobile is an Engineer by education and profession.
Why is Engineering considered to be one of the best career options today? There are several parts to this answer. Let’s start with the sheer number of opportunities available for engineering graduates today. Irrespective of their specialization – like Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering, engineers command a large percentage of the jobs that are available today. What makes Engineers click? We asked a senior executive of a large business house that recruits engineers in hundreds every year. The answer – "They know how to think sequentially, in a structured manner". Of course this answer does not take away the value of the technical content that is taught over a four-year period. It is just that it is taken for granted. There are thousands of Engineering Colleges in India. These colleges produce lakhs of Engineers every year. Just like in any other education discipline, the quality of education offered in these colleges also ranges through excellent to average to below par. So it is important for a student aspiring to be an engineer to ensure that he gets admission into a good college. The process of selecting the good colleges need not be difficult. The thumb rule is "try to get admission into those colleges where it is more difficult to get admission into". When we say "more difficult", we mean the difficulty in terms of competitiveness in a selection process.
Broadly, the Engineering Colleges in India can be classified into three categories.
- Colleges / Institutes that enjoy national and international reputation
- Colleges / Institutes that are primarily know in a region of the country
- Colleges that are yet to make a mark in the regional level or national level
How does an Engineering College make its mark at a regional level or national level? Obviously the reputation is created by the quality of work done by the students who pass out of these institutions. The Indian Institutes of Technology -occupy the top slots in the first category of colleges mentioned above. What separates the Indian Institutes of Technology from the rest of the colleges? Unparalleled training facilities, excellent faculty and to top it all, the opportunity to have "the best of India" as classmates. Anybody who cracks IIT-JEE and gets admission into one of the IITs has perfected his fundamentals and is still willing to work harder.
A study conducted in 2004 found out that 70% of the companies in the Silicon Valley had Indian Engineers as critical resources – and most of them from IITs. If you look around you in the corporate world in India too, you can find many captains of Indian Industry who have honed their skills at these venerable institutions. Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, ITC Chief Y C Deveshwar, Nandan Nilekani Co Founder and ex CEO of Infosys, N R Narayanamurty Co Founder and Former Chairman Infosys have all spent the most important part of the academic career in the IITs. The life at the IITs has even inspired a best-seller fiction "Five Point Someone" authored by Chetan Bhagat. Chetan Bhagat is himself an alumnus of IIT Delhi. Apart from the unparalleled education that one gets at the IIT, there is plenty of opportunity to get involved in co-curricular activities - activities that would challenge all faculties of the individual.
Also since the academic environment is very serious and focused, the question of "what next?" gets addressed early on. Students at IITs decide pretty early on the different career options – whether it is CAT for the MBA route, GRE for the MS route or GATE for the M.Tech route. These are the three most sought after options for further studies. That is if the student is not really keen on the several job offers he is likely to be made ever before completing his course. All in all a four-year stint at the IITs brings about a world of difference in an individual. Engineers make the world. And Engineers from IITs take a larger than average share of that credit.
So what is IIT JEE? The IIT-JEE is considered the most challenging engineering entrance examination in the world. On the combined parameters of the level of complexity of questions and the number of applicants, the JEE will easily surpass any other similar examination for getting entry into an engineering college for a graduate level programme.
The current pattern of JEE consists of two papers of three hours each. Each paper consists of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics with equal weightage. IIT-JEE 2011 was conducted on 10th April 2011 in 131 cities all over India in 1051 centers for 4,85,262 registered candidates. The two papers of JEE 2011, conducted on the same day, were broadly similar in structure, but there were some dissimilarities also.Paper-1, which was conducted in the morning, had 69 questions (23 each from Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry) for a total of 240 marks. Paper-2, which was conducted in the afternoon, had 60 questions (20 each from Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry). Questions had differential markings, each subject had 80 marks and the maximum mark for the paper was 240.
The IITs had earlier declared the cut-off of each subject as "the minimum mark secured by the top 80% of the students in that subject". With such a condition, the individual cut-offs had little relevance and the aggregate score of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics dictated the AIR of the student.
0 comments:
Post a Comment