Which Engineering Branch Should I Choose??

This is a very general question which probably most of the parents and students keep on asking before taking admission to a field of engineering study. Of-course this question is very important to be answered before taking the admission to a particular branch. This answer will lead to a commitment to a particular field of engineering for the rest of the life of

the student. A wrong decision may result into a dropout from the study or an inefficient engineer.

Reactions inside the Counselling Hall ;-)

Well, before focusing on the selection of an engineering branch, let’s draw our attention towards “Choosing the Engineering Profession“. You ask any parents of a middle class family “What you want your kid to be in its future?” For sure you will get the answer as “Engineer” or “Doctor” from more than 80% of them. But how can the parents decide what a kid will be in its future. It’s he/she only, who has the potential for a particular profession; it may be engineering, may be medical or may be in any other field. Of-course, parents play a major role to guide the kid to help him/her finding a proper field of study according to his/her interest. Not only parents, but also schools play a vital role in this activity. Now a day schools appoint student counselors (psychologists) to understand the students behavior, to notice their interest and to solve their confusions. So while deciding the engineering profession for a student; it should be noticed beforehand that the kid has special interest to machines. He/she loves to break and join something may be mechanically or electrically or pragmatically. “The student’s interest in machine” can be decided and concluded with a continuous and regular observation. It is a request to all the parents, only if the student is passionate about engineering then only send him/her to any techno school for study otherwise try to understand his/her actual interest and then decide for what profession the student is meant for, and don’t go for engineering only for namesake!!

Now we should go back to the principal question of the post “Which branch of engineering should I choose?? “. The answer is very similar to the earlier explanation. Convert your interest to your answer. If you have interest in computer and programming then go for Computer Science Engineering, if interested in electronic circuits then go for Electrical and Electronics Engineering, if you find your interests in mechanical machines then go for Mechanical Engineering. The explanation is the ideal case, but I agree, the case is not so straight forward as the simple way I explained it. So let’s analyze it and become little more practical according to the today’s scenario.

 While taking admission into an engineering branch, few points keep biasing the decision:

(i) Interest  in a particular branch of study (This should be the case and most welcomed biasing factor, but unfortunately this does not take place in many cases as many don’t know what is their interest)

 (ii) Job opportunity  in the respective field of study (Valid factor which influences majority of the cases. And it should be; as at the end of the day job matters)

(iii) Scope of higher study in the respective field of study (Very valid point and related to the first one, i.e, if you have interest in the branch then only you can think about the higher study. But unfortunately more than 99% of people in India don’t think about this while deciding for bachelor degree admission to a particular engineering branch. This is the reason why India is lagging behind in engineering research)

(iv) Neighbor’s son has admitted to branch ‘X’ and got a good job, so my son will also join the same branch (The most funny  and idiotic  factor to be biased with. But this happens with majority of the cases in India)

The biasing with the first factor mentioned always gives a good result. But may not be everyone land up with an interest field by the age of taking admission. In that case go for the second factor but with an analysis of broad vision. For example; towards the end of 90s and beginning of 2K majority of the students were eager to take admission into Information Technology Engineering. Suddenly around 2003 – 2004 students switched to Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering and it was a kind of message at that time that there is no jobs in IT and ample amount of jobs are available in ECE. Again after the 2008 recession it seems like there are not plenty jobs in ECE. Now people are switching towards Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.

It is nothing like that suddenly a particular branch has introduced plenty of job opportunities and all of a sudden the same field has no jobs in the market. It happens only because of “the imbalance in the number of applicants in the market and the number of jobs available in the market at a particular time”. The equation is very simple and like this; for example: Plenty of students were enrolled in ECE during the years 2003 to 2006, and the batches got passed during 2007 to 2010. So the job opportunity could be seen around in 2003 for ECE was a virtual opportunity for the enrolling students at that time as it was actually for the less number of students got admitted to ECE during the year 1999 or 2000 who were getting passed out at 2003 or 2004. So the market was able to consume almost all of the ECE engineers got passed during that period. But the same situation was not their in the year 2008 and onwards as plenty of ECE engineers were available in the market but jobs were limited. So it was felt like suddenly the ECE branch has lost its charm and there are no jobs in that branch. So a broad vision of future job scope analysis is required if someone is getting admitted to any engineering branch without any special interest for the same field.

Another factor is, people always run behind the branches about which they listen most of the time from others. And they feel like as most of the students are going in that field so there must be lot of jobs in that stream. So they go for the same as well. But here the matter of consideration is that the rate of competition grows rapidly in that field both for jobs as well for higher studies. If we consider for higher studies, a student in Chemical Engineering gets admission in IIT in M.Tech with a particular GATE score where as with the same GATE score a ECE or CSE student even struggles to get admission for M.Tech in top NITs also. So students should also join Rare branches of Engineering Studies to avoid these kind of high rate of competition risk in future.

On this context the parents and the students are advised to think, question and analyze a lot before deciding for a particular engineering branch at the time of admission as the same field will decide the future of a future citizen.