What 4 Years of Engineering can do to you.

It takes 4 years of Engineering for one to realise that adding the suffix “B.Tech” to your name does not necessarily make you an engineer, practically. The same goes for adding the prefix “Er.” to your name. It can sometimes be an ‘er’ror.

These days, with engineering colleges sprouting up like cockroaches on any empty land available, becoming an “engineer” has become no big deal. Anyone with a good enough initial investment can go, “Ooh, what a beautiful view! I can see the earth touching the sky and the sun setting beautifully by the horizon. NOW, let’s block this view here with an engineering college and name it after my great grandfather.”

And that is how most Engineering colleges are born.

After 4 years, I ask myself, “What have I learnt?”. I won’t say ‘nothing’, but I won’t say ‘I’m a genius. I’m invincible. I am the best engineer on the face of the earth’ either. ‘Some things’, yes. And just like every other stereotype, one semester’s syllabus was always covered in one day. I’m not proud of it and neither do I regret it. I’m not going to blame my incompetence on my lecturers either {except for few of them who hated my handwriting and refused to refused to read the content and hence juggled around with my marks and screwed my grades}, because, let’s face it, under-graduate studies call for the students’ own efforts and with the vast world of the internet open to us, we have nothing to blame.

The race has always been for an ‘S’ in the course subjects, because that’s how everyone’s been brought up.

“Bro, I got S in electronic devices. All my hard work finally paid off.”

“Dude, what’s the difference between a diode and a transistor?”

“I have no freaking idea, but I can tell you *insert random physicist’s name here* equation.” -_-

Not everyone is like the guy above. There are students who are brilliant and get the grades as well, and to them, RESPECT.

At the end of this race, how many of us get into a job or field we’ve dreamt of? Very few. In fact, negligibly few. We’ve all learnt to be content with what we’ve got.

According to the college, the job profile does not matter as long as you get a job. If you’re placed in an IT company, you have more or less screwed up your chances of getting a job in a better company or many a time, even a core company. Agreed, recession has taken its toll on the employability of students, but sometimes, one may feel it goes a tad bit over the limit.

The training for most job recruitments focuses on improving one’s aptitude {which includes secondary school mathematics and a good command over English}, and not on improving one’s command over the subjects they’ve learnt over 3 years. {Engineering placements begin from the 7th semester}. Well, I’m not sure as to how far this can be justified, but total negligence towards the course subjects has led to many students being rejected in core company interviews despite clearing the aptitude round.

This trend will continue for, I don’t know how long, but it certainly needs to change. Students have to be moulded and not marketed.

All we can do is to hope for the best. And to all those engineering students out there, do something before it’s too late.

I’ve got a few Whatsapp notifications.?

So, later.