Choosing Between Computer Science and Information Technology Engineering Courses

What Computer Science Engineering Encompasses:

Computer Science is a branch of engineering which is also a subset of electronic engineering. Computer software engineers design, develop, and test software. There are software engineers who design, construct, and maintain computer programs for companies and some of them sets up networks such as "intranets" for companies. Computer software engineers can also work in application design which includes designing or coding new programs and applications to meet the needs of a business or individual.

A computer engineer will be exposed to electronic engineering, software designs, and hardware-software integration instead of only software engineering or electronic engineering.

Computer engineers are exposed to many hardware and software aspects of computing, from the design of individual microprocessors, personal computers, and supercomputers, to circuit design, writing software and firmware for embedded microcontrollers, designing VLSI chips, designing operating systems.

In computer Science engineering, there are various subjects which the students would be exposed to. Some of the subjects that are included as a part of the syllabus are operating systems, Microprocessor, Database Management Systems, Data Structures, C programming language, Java programming language, Software engineering, C++ programming, Unix operating systems, Networking, Computer Graphics, Computer architecture etc.

Difference between Computer Science engineering and Information Science engineering:

The study of computer science can range from the theoretical studies of algorithms to the practical issues that come with the use of computing systems. Studies in computer science usually focus on software design and creation, computational theory, computer design, and involve a great deal of mathematics.

Mathematics and algorithms are very dominant across Computer Science programs and courses. A typical program in Computer Science will include Programming principles, Programming paradigms, Data structures, Algorithms, Computer architecture, Logic and computation, and Mathematics

Individuals with Computer Science Degrees have a variety of options when it comes to choosing their career track. Most of the professionals in this field obtain jobs that deal with designing software, developing websites, designing computers or providing maintenance to computing systems and hardware.

Information technology is a branch of engineering which deals with using computers and telecommunications to send, receive, and store information i.e. uses electronic computers and computer software to store, protect, process, transmit and securely retrieve data. This is a comparatively a new field that has developed over the past years and the companies now depend heavily on information technology to function. Studies in Information technology focus on system analysis, software management and networking, information assurance, and informatics. Programs in this area train students to manage networks efficiently. A program in Information Technology also includes Project management, Problem solving, Policy consultation, Technology research methods, and IT plan development.

Information Technology professionals are employed as network administrators, database administrators, systems administrators, telecommunications specialists, and network engineers. A degree in Information Technology allows individuals to enter the same job market as individuals with Computer Science degrees, but also provides them with the option of working with networks and telecommunications.

Companies are open to hiring students of both fields. Hence, the students can choose a field which captures your interests.

Article By :
Written by Col (Retd) NPR Babu, Dir (Academics) of SCT Institute of Technology.The institute is one of the good Engineering Colleges in Bangalore.

Why Electrical Engineering is a good choice?

In the present day world, the electrical energy is a vital resource for industrial and all round development of a country. Electric power plays an important role in our lives. The degree of development of a country is often measured by the consumption of electrical energy by its population. A high degree of efficiency in generation, transmission and distribution with effective utilization and control is imperative to provide electrical energy at affordable price.

About half a century ago, there were only three branches of engineering taught formally in colleges; electrical, civil and mechanical. They were indeed three pillars of development and growth; civil engineering to design and construct dams and huge structures to accommodate factories, mechanical engineering to design and manufacture massive plants and machineries and of course, electrical engineering to provide all important power so that these industries get life. The advent of electronics and its spectacular growth in every walk of life has had an impact in generation and distribution of electric power in control and measurement areas. Thus, today power electronics is studied by electrical engineers and the branch itself is renamed as “Electrical and Electronics Engineering”.

As a career option Electrical Engineering is second to none primarily because of its primacy in all fields of human activity. With the kind of GDP growth being witnessed in this country, there is no dearth of job openings; be it manufacturing or research and development or software development. Electrical engineers are needed everywhere.

In a good engineering college students are exposed to latest technologies and encouraged to explore new ideas under the guidance of experienced and devoted staff drawn from industry as well as academic. In these colleges faculty is supported by well equipped state of the art laboratories, which train the students to address all issues pertaining power generation, distribution and control. Building on these fundamentals the students move on to applications like solid-state electronics for control and conversion of electrical power. Along the way students used to get to experiment on power electronics, logic design, control systems, micro controllers, measurement devices, transformers and induction machines etc.

You can choose further specialization after completing your graduation degree. Few of them are -

• Biomedical Engineering
• Communication and Signal Processing
• Control Engineering
• Electromagnetics
• Electronics and Microelectronics
• Power Systems
• Optical Engineering

Article by;

Written by Prof Indira Merani Who is a faculty at SCT Institute of Technology, College is co-located among several DRDO laboratories and PSUs such as HAL & BEML in Bangalore. SCT Institute of Technology is leading Engineering Colleges in Bangalore.

Placement Dilemma in Engineering Institutions in India

The admission process to engineering courses has come to an end for this year and many colleges have gone with more than 50% of the seats unfilled. Financially, low admission has cascading effect for the next four years. Many colleges are in a tight spot and may face closure if the trend continues. The root cause of this problem is excess capacity created for engineering education in some states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and may be Maharashtra as well. At the macro level, excess capacity has consequent financial loss to the investor. Its effect at micro level is more damaging to the nation as well as to the profession of Engineers.

When supply far exceeds demand, every demand gets fully met. That is what has happened in the recent years as far as engineering admission goes.

Everyone who satisfied the minimum qualification criteria of 45% in PUC/12^th class and wanted an engineering seat got it in one college or the other. When the supply is plenty, the aspirant has an option of pick and choose the college where he or she would like to pursue the studies. The parents of these aspirants visit colleges of their choice and enquire mainly about two issues; firstly about the fees to be paid and more importantly about the placement record of the college. Placement performance is not the right yardstick to gauge a college because placement is really the reflection of an individual’s caliber. Today, colleges are considered to be placement consultants rather than temples of learning and knowledge. This situation is probably created by some engineering college themselves in the pursuit of marketing their own colleges. The question of marketing arises due to excess capacity. So today, many colleges are concentrating on marketing more through publicity and social media etc than building quality in knowledge imparted.

Quality of End-product.

Placement performance of engineering colleges is a reflection of the quality of the passing out students as well as the standard of training imparted by the colleges. Both these are adversely affected in a scenario of plenty. This needs a detailed look. If we see the standard of students admitted to an average engineering college, we will find that a majority of them are border-line cases, who qualified due to lowered entry criteria as also due to affordable fee structure imposed by the Govt. Many of them have no aptitude for serious study and accept admission due to parental pressure and easy availability. It is no coincidence that about 40% of those joining engineering do not complete the four year study.

Secondly, the plenty phenomenon has also affected the standard of training. More and more colleges mean more and more demand for qualified faculty. Though, AICTE, New Delhi has made M.Tech as the minimum eligible qualification for a teaching faculty, colleges find it hard to get qualified staff with experience. So they settle for freshers who are the product of the same mediocre system. The net outcome of such a skewed system is that we produce mediocre engineers.

Clamor for Excellence.

In the 50’s and 60’s, there were no placement offices in engineering colleges. Passing out engineers were certain to get employed in many PSUs and private companies. The norm those days was that one should be a first class graduate to be employed. The education standards in those days were so good that education meant acquiring knowledge and not merely qualifying in examinations. Mass production of engineers in the recent decades has adversely impacted the quality of engineers for the reasons stated above. With the quality of Indian education system going worse, employers have tightened the acceptance criterion to 60% or more in Matric, PUC and graduation.

Today, campus interview is possible only for the students who have performed consistently well at 70% or more in Matric, PUC and Engineering. Employers are looking for excellence whereas the engineers are moulded out of mediocre stock. So, many prospective employers avoid average colleges and try to select their requirement from colleges with some reputation. Even if some recruiter is willing to conduct a campus selection process, many students become ineligible because of their performance in Matric and PUC. Colleges located in the interior districts of a state are handicapped further by virtue of their location. The CET seat allocation process has in built bias towards certain colleges by allotting the creme of the applicants to them at the cost of many average colleges.

The lopsided education system has only created a vast army of educated but unemployable graduates. Vast majority of villages in India today have graduates, some of them being unemployed. Today’s youth have degrees but lack knowledge. In this overall confusion of an education system, colleges are made responsible for the employment of their students. Is this at all reasonable?

Article by;

This article has been written by Col (Retd) NPR Babu, Dir (Academics) of SCT Institute of Technology .The institute is one of the good engineering colleges in Bangalore. 

Has Common Entrance Test (CET) outlived its utility?

All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has mandated that every student aspiring to commence education in engineering should qualify in a selection test. This was, ostensibly, prescribed to ensure that only deserving candidates get selected to undergo engineering education which was acknowledged as a prestigious course some decades back.

In line with this direction, some all India level tests such as, IIT JEE, AIEEE and some state level common entrance tests by different state Governments are being held year after year. In the early years of growth of engineering education in India, there was an acute shortage of engineering seats and distribution of seats was on the basis of donations and capitation. There was a need for Govt’s intervention to install a centralized selection and allocation of seats through a regulated admission process. The state Govts had to step in to ensure that the available engineering seats are distributed equitably to all sections of the society in a fair manner, as per merit and other social considerations. In doing so, Govts have built up a bureaucratic strangle hold on the admission process. In the guise of protecting the interest of the common man, politicians in power and the Govt machinery have taken absolute control of a system that dictates fees to be charged and allocates seats to colleges in the state in a routine manner.

Today, the engineering admission scenario in Karnataka is far from the reasons which warranted a Govt monitored model. The demand for engineering seats is far less than the capacity created over the years. For instance, as per Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA), in the year 2011 nearly 22000 seats went abegging and remained unfilled. This is equivalent of 50 colleges. These are not seats in Govt colleges but capacity created by private colleges. It may probably argued that if the preference pattern of the students have changed, Govt cannot be blamed for that and certainly not the ‘Common Entrance Test (CET) system’ that the bureaucracy had designed. But what is not understood in this argument is to know, who are affected by this fall in admission. Has this centralized system ensured that the burden of 22000 seats is shared by all colleges equally? No; the burden is entirely transferred to colleges which are treated as “untouchables”. There was a media report that after 2011 CET, about 10 colleges in Karnataka had zero admission from CET and even some of them had to down their shutters, being unviable.

The term “untouchable” used in the context of engineering colleges needs elaboration. There is caste system existing among the colleges, which is ably assisted and abetted by the ill-conceived CET system. The colleges are informally categorized into three grades; the ‘top grade’ colleges, ‘2^nd rung’ colleges and the ‘ordinary’ colleges. There may be about 15 colleges which are treated as top grade and another 20% as 2^nd rung and the remaining bulk are the ordinary colleges. Really, there is no basis for this division; but it exists because of people’s perception. How such perceptions are formed needs a deeper investigation. 

The top grade colleges are those which are in existence for over 20 to 30 years. In the formative years of these colleges, there was acute shortage of engineering seats and only good and meritorious students could get admission to those colleges. Hence they produced good engineers and their reputation soared in the eye of the public. The present CET system helps in retaining that reputation by its skewed method of seat allocation. The 2^nd rung colleges are those which are not that old, but established in the early nineties by rich politicians and business families. In those days, starting an engineering college was considered as a thriving business with the prevalence of capitation fee and what not. These colleges, by virtue of their financial strength have put up massive infrastructure in terms of a five star kind of a campus. This flashy outlook attracts admissions. The ordinary colleges are the ones put up by other smaller fishes, who could barely invest to provide essential infrastructure to conduct classes without any extra frills.

           
What is the effect of this hierarchy on the admission process? The real bright ones, among those aspiring for engineering seats, would qualify for IIT in IITJEE and secure their chosen branch of engineering. It is the bulk of the rest who vie for the CET seats which are wholly managed and controlled by the state Govts. All qualifying students at CET are given ranks, aimed at providing preferential treatment to those who do well in CET. The ranking and the subsequent counseling based on it, is the undoing of the CET system. Seat allocation is highly skewed in favor of the top rung colleges that it attracts all meritorious students. Their seats get filled fully even before many colleges get even a single student allotted. Some of these colleges have also increased their capacity by starting evening classes. Thus the crème of CET, say upto the rank of 4000 get allotted to the reputed colleges and so they continue to do well. Others who could not make it to the top grade do manage to the second rung colleges or they accept management seats in the college of their choice. In this manner the top half of the aspirants get accommodated.

At the end of the spectrum are the vast majority of ordinary colleges who have to share remainder 50% of the rank structure holding ranks, 30000 or more. What are their credentials? These are students who qualified to write CET with bare minimum marks and choose engineering because seats are easily available and the fees payable is very well affordable. Some of them join due to parental pressure and are not motivated enough to take on a challenging course of education. They do not mind giving it a try; even it meant loss of one year. Nearly 25 to 30% of the students do not complete the four years curriculum. The present CET system perpetuates “academic apartheid” by sending all good students to reputed colleges and pushing mediocre students to lesser known colleges. The net result of such a skewed system is listed below:-

·        

1. The top grade colleges continue to do well academically by virtue of getting all good students.
2. With full admission year after year, the top grade colleges have enough income to implement revised pay scales as per 6^th CPC.
3. All potential corporate employers target only these top grade colleges for campus selection as they are confident about the caliber of the students.
4. The ordinary colleges have to face the brunt of all ill effects of this system.  They get mediocre students and that too only to the extent of 25 to 50% of their CET quota. All the unfilled seats are shared by them. Companies hesitate visiting these colleges for campus selection. Their staff cannot be paid revised salaries. The net effect of all this is a bleak future.

Thus CET system which was originally meant to provide fair and equal opportunities to all has become the prime source of discrimination whereby it helps some colleges to flourish at the cost of ordinary colleges. They failed to provide equal representation of good and mediocre students to all colleges; they failed to distribute the vacant seats to all colleges in equal proportion. If they can’t ensure equitable distribution, should they continue to meddle with the higher education system? On top of this, CET forces 5% of the approved intake as free seats under ‘fee waiver scheme’ to all colleges. This means, a college with an approved intake of 400, if only 25% of the sets are filled will get 100 fresh admissions of which 20 (5% of 400) will be free seats. This means that the college has to survive and function effectively from the fees collected from just 80 students. Can we imagine the plight of such colleges?

Tuition fees is another area where Govt interfere and fix the fees payable by students allotted through CET. It might sound absurd, but the fact is , in Engineering Colleges in Bangalore fees for admission to pre-nursery class is higher than the prescribed fee for engineering students which is Rs. 35000/- per year. The fee is only Rs. 25000/- for students belonging to SC/ST category. These are the populist measures of the Govt to make engineering education affordable to students. But is it affordable to colleges? It may be argued that the colleges are allowed to fill in 50% of the sanctioned strength through COMEDK and under management quota at a higher fee of Rs 100000/- per year, which can more than offset the loss due to CET seats. This argument is true and valid if all sanctioned seats are filled. But the reality is, this 50% quota remains grossly unfilled in several colleges. Can the populist policy of the Govt be justified? While on the subject of fees, it is interesting to note tha the students admitted through CET remit their first year fees to KEA at the time of counseling. The logic behind this is not known. The Govt holds this amount and remits to the colleges concerned in two or more installments at their convenience. Here the Govt in the guise of seat allocation takes over the funds which are not legitimately theirs.

To conclude, The CET system has outlived its utility. As long as the available seats are at par or more than the demand, there is no role a Govt needs to play. They only need to conduct a common entrance test and declare the results. Thereafter, students should have the freedom to select the college they like. Colleges can offer scholarships and special fee packages to attract meritorious students. Similarly, colleges should be free to accept or reject a student at fees mutually acceptable. In this system all students shall pay the same tuition fees. The “fee waiver Scheme” is a project instituted by the Govt. Naturally fees of the students admitted under this scheme should e reimbursed to the colleges by the Govt.

Article by:

This article has been written by Col NPR Babu(Retd), Dir(Academics) at SCT Institute of Technology.