IIT Kharagpur creates record, more than 1,000 students get jobs

Kharagpur has set a record among all IITs with more than a thousand of its students securing cushy jobs in the first phase of campus placements, officials said today.

Around 1,010 students of the Kharagpur campus accepted job offers in the first round of placements which ended in December.

At IIT Mumbai, there were 900 offers while IIT Delhi got about 750 offers and IIT Kanpur had around 700 offers.

IIT officials said, Kharagpur has achieved a new record with the maximum number of students getting jobs in the IIT system in one phase.

In addition to big names like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Shell, Deutsche Bank, ITC, Schlumberger, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Abbott and EXL, start-ups like Flipkart and Housing.com were the ones who made multiple offers in dual figures.

The highest package offered was from a US-based company which has signed an IITian for an annual salary of $1.25 lakh (around Rs 77 lakh).

The highest domestic package was of Rs 37 lakh.

Two new dual degree programs - Financial Engineering and Engineering Entrepreneurship - proved to be a big hit with 85 per cent students from those courses being placed.

"The programs not only demonstrated acceptability by the industries, but projected the vision of IIT-Kgp for launching novel initiatives," said Prof Sudhir Kumar Barai, in-charge of training and placement, of the institute.

The number of companies offering placements have also increased this year with 195 organisations coming this time.

Barai said another 79 engineering students have accepted pre-placement offers from other companies.

(Courtesy : Times of India)

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JEE test format may engineer gender divide

For every eight to 14 men at IIT, NIT and other top state-run engineering institutes in India, there's just one woman who makes the cut. This low ratio of male to female (MFs) is now the subject of a study being conducted across Indian and American institutions. 

Titled, 'Women in Engineering:A Comparative Study of Barriers Across Nations', the 2013 study, done by Aspiring Minds, a venture of IIT and MIT alumni involved in human capital assessment, compares the low numbers of Indian women in engineering colleges to female engineering students from MIT, Stanford and Berkeley in the US, where the numbers are significantly higher — about one woman to 1.4 to four men. 

The study compares the applicant-to-admit ratios in MIT and the IITs. At the application stage, the male to female ratios were quite similar — one woman for every 2.27 male for MIT and at IITs, over two men for every female applicant. The selection rate for men across the two countries was also similar; 7.2% for MIT (just over seven out of every 100 male applicants) and 6.4% for IIT. 

However, the selection rate for women differed drastically. At MIT, just over 15 women for every 100 applicants were selected (15.5%) but at the IITs, it was just 1.9% — less than two women out of every 100 that had applied. As a result, the MFR at IITs range from 14:1 to 10:1, and at the next batch of top-tier institutions, like NITs and other top state run colleges, it is 8:1. 

According to the study, the US has taken several measures to improve female participation in science, technology, math and engineering higher education programmes. Over the last 40 years, the percentage of engineering degrees has jumped from less than 1% in the 1970s to 19% now. 

The Indian government and IITs too have taken some steps to encourage more women to join the stream by introducing reduced fees and grace points in entrance exams. While the number of women taking the IIT entrance exam has grown significantly (from 29,291 in 2005 to approximately 1.5 lakh in 2012), the clearing rate remains low, vacillating between 1.07% and 1.90%. 

Is this a reflection that fewer high quality female candidates aspire to gain admission into India's top-tiered engineering colleges? To find the answer, the study surveyed 14,000 engineers and graduates from across India about their stream choice in Class XI and their Class X percentage. The study shows that two-thirds of the top 1% sample in the non-medical science stream, a proxy for engineering aspiration, was women. Despite such a high proportion of high quality female candidates, the gender ratio in top engineering colleges remains highly skewed. One of the main reasons for this, says the study, is Indian institutes' over-dependence on test scores in student selection. While MIT takes in about three-quarters of students from the highest test score bin, it opts to reject 85% applicants in this top range, instead offering admission to students who have other strengths. The IITs do not consider any candidate who is not in the top 5% of the Joint Entrance Exam. This is despite the fact that universally, it is accepted that the standardized test format is not suited to women. It is this realization that had made colleges in US opt for a more broad-based selection process. 

The study also examines other pre-college barriers that skew the gender ratio in engineering, like inadequate academic preparation. In 2010, an informal survey conducted across three of India's well known engineering entrance coaching institutes in six cities across India including Jaipur, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Tirupathi, showed that women comprised just 17-24% of the students being coached. Female IIT students quoted in the India-US comparative study had undergone coaching to clear the JEE, and many spoke of friends who were not allowed to attend coaching and thus unable to clear. The other pre-college barrier identified was self perception of ability — women with the same mathematical ability as men tend to assess themselves lower. 

Interestingly, once they make it to these colleges, Indian female engineering students fare much better than their American counterparts. In the US, there is a steady drop-out of women — of the 30% female students enrolled in engineering programs, only 18.5% received degrees. In India, the dropout rate is less than 5% of those enrolled, for both men and women. Isolation caused by the alleged disrespect shown to female students on campus is among the main reasons for women dropping out in the US. However, female students in India reported no in-college barriers. In fact, most of these women displayed greater confidence that men.
(Courtesy : Timesofindia)

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Offer bonanza for IIT-M students

Chennai: Even as students from top engineering colleges in the state find it difficult to get jobs, students from IIT Madras seem to be lucky as several students have received more than one job offer from top-notch companies this year. Over 600 students have received 716 offers from 181 companies this year.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday, Lt Col Jayakumar, deputy registrar (students, training and placement), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, said 69 per cent of B.Tech (dual degree) students who had registered for placement were placed, followed by 59.1 per cent B.Tech, 39.4 per cent M.Tech and 18.5 per cent M.A. students.

“Last year, on the same day, 551 students received 617 offers from 169 companies; so the situation has improved this year, which shows there is no recession as far as IIT-M is concerned,” he said. Pointing out that the institute expects more companies to visit their campus for placement this year, Lt Col Jayakumar says that 1,366 students registered for placement this year, whereas it was 1,282 last year and over 230 companies have confirmed participation in campus placement this year.

Commenting on the trend, eminent academician and career counsellor Jayaprakash A. Gandhi pointed out that companies look for students who continue to update their knowledge as companies venture into new fields today.

“IITians have good knowledge and are fully updated, in tune with the company’s expectation. For example, not many students in private engineering colleges are aware about Big Data whereas an IITian is fully updated about it. This makes the IITian stand out in the queue,” he said.

(Courtesy : DeccanChronicle)

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Vellore Institute of Technology overtakes most IITs in research

Vellore: The Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is way ahead of most premier higher education institutions in India in the publication of research papers, a vital factor taken into account the world over for grading a university.

“We have overtaken all the IITs except IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kharagpur. Very soon, VIT will be at the very top. We are aiming to grow as big as the MIT (top-ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology)”, said VIT Chancellor Dr G Viswanathan.

Acknowledging the warm felicitations on his 75th birthday at the VIT on Sunday, where his biographies in English and Tamil were released, GV (as he is fondly known) recounted the tough times in building up VIT as the ‘second chapter’ in his life after retiring from politics.

He said along with VIT that was now globally recognised and had about 25,000 students from 50 countries, including China, and almost all the states in India, he had endeavoured to improve the academic opportunities for the underprivileged in the state through scholarships and even free education at the VIT.

Lamenting that India’s GER (gross enrolment ratio), an indicator of students enrolling for higher education, was a mere 19 per cent as compared with USA (89%), Russia (76%) and Korea (over 90%), GV said VIT had started ‘Universal Higher Educ­ation Trust’ to help all the students passing out of plus-two to go for higher education. “I hope this project will create positive ripples in other parts of India as well”.

GV said India had great opportunities of emerging as a major producer in core areas, such as agriculture, technology and education. “And in India, Tamil Nadu has huge potential. We must work hard to get there”.

Former MP Era Sezhiyan, Congress MP M Krishnas­wamy, Satyab­hama Univ­ersity Chan­cellor Jeppiaar, CPI state secretary D Pan­dian and Rafeeq Ahmed, president, Federation of Indian Export Organis­ations (FIEO), were among those present on the occasion to felicitate GV on his illustrious public life.

(Courtesy : Deccan Chronicle)

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