An Engineer’s Hopes & Drops
‘Medicine or Engineering?’, the handlebar mustached dad & India’s-perfect-bahu mom asked her.
‘I really don’t feel like…’, her voice trailed away as she watched her dad’s eyebrows disappear beyond a pulsing nerve in his temple.
‘We are OVER this’, the handlebar moved a bit. Choking on emotions, she turned and walked away, while mumbling a word that vaguely sounded like ‘Engineering’.
The melodrama or the above said story is real- or at least that’s what she (my best friend) told me. But one thing that I am certain is that, this story is not exclusive to that dreamy girl in South India. “Mera beta engineer banega” (“My son is gonna be an engineer”) is considered to be the second most melancholic sentence in a teenager’s life. “There are no more beers” is the first, but lets not dive into that.
Surviving as an Indian is becoming difficult, owing to the huge responsibility of meeting your family’s expectations and an even more depressing list of passed out engineers who are at their fork-in-the-woods not knowing which road to choose. “What will other people think?” , is a question now pertaining in most of the households in this vast and republic country; which always promised us the protection of personal liberty. But when we dig a little deeper, we find that the root cause of these problems lies in our thinking pattern.
THE DREADFUL FIGURES
Now lets go over the horrific stats-
On a close look at the stats, one could find that data is not available for India and China. And how could they keep records for India, if the seat intake chart looks like this-
India produces more engineers every year than USA and China combined. Nearly 1.5 million engineers are churned out every year from India alone. That’s 15 followed by 1,2…5, yeah 5 zeroes and the figure looks like this-1500000. Quite spectacular, ain’t it? And as it turns around, only 5% of this 1.5 million are deemed employable by MNC’s. Doing the math, huh? The tale of the rest 95% (1.425 million) engineering graduates remains a mystery.
The Hidden Story
Engineering institutes, at the start of every year, do publish a huge and colourful list of their job-placed students. YAAY..!! But what you really need to see through, is the fate of the students placed in start-ups or small scale industries. Mechanical Engineers end up in marketing field in automobile industry and Electronics & Information sector guys wind up in BPO’s and call centers. Just imagine.. 4 years of burning the midnight oil, assignments, exams, internals..and after all that, most of the students end up in jobs which has absolutely no relation to what they have been taught over the years. The whole point of engineering studies just becomes like Joey’s Moo point.
Following your own dreams doesn’t seem so bad now, eh?
What I mean to say is, if these students have four years of continuous training (like promised in the college website), then these guys should end up in NASA. Since I don’t see that happening, I am sure when I say that the quality of education imparted to the students is below par.
The ROOT problem
Quoting the infamous Jack Sparrow.. I mean, Captain Jack Sparrow, the problem is not the problem, the problem is our attitude towards the problem..Savvy? According to a significant percentage of people, engineers are superhumans with a knack for discovering a new invention on a day-to-day basis. What most people fail to realize is that even for making a car, or a robot(for the record), it takes 2 or 3 separate engineering branch graduates to rack up their brains to bring out new ideas.
The student intake of 1.5 million happens every year, and the percentage of intake is also increasing steadily throughout the years. Like the word “SWAG” or like “SHAPE OF YOU by Ed Sheeran”- feeling weird due to plethoric usage, multi-national companies are tired of engineering graduates (the 95%).
The Wrap up
The first step as a solution to the problem is to recognize and accept that there is indeed, a problem. The problem lies not with the aspirations of students or parents, but with the system. Following the Indus valley civilization teaching method (a classroom full of students) won’t help you understand the basics of architectural paradoxes or reciprocating pumps or the internal structure of a 11kV transformer. In case of technology, we have come a long way from Motorola’s 1.1kg DynaTAC 8000x to Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, but when it comes to the matter of education, our system is as old as the hills.
If engineering is indeed your passion, chase down that dream. Opt for colleges with good track records. Genuine interest always pays off. Or if you are indeed a chain breaker, go against the tide of engineering. If you put your heart into it, the results at the end of the day, will always be first-rate and heart-warming.
