Parents beware of mechanical engineering craze

Updated on: Monday, June 15, 2009

Unquestionably, mechanical engineering is the most broad-based branch of engineering. While many students associate this field with automobile mechanics and machinery, very few students and parents realize that mechanical engineering today is concerned with the design, development and manufacture of a variety of energy conversion and machine systems.

These systems include aerospace, automotive, marine, manufacturing, biomechanics, power generation, heating ventilation, air conditioning and robotics and in emerging industries such as nanotechnology and particle technology.

Mechanical engineers work with conventional fuel sources but they are increasingly developing alternative fuel sources such as geothermal, wind, tide, solar and hydroelectric energy. All these precisely describe this year’s mad rush among students and parents to opt for Mechanical engineering branch as the preferred engineering stream year.

Lacking in logic and science, the students and parents when asked why they are going for mechanical branch, they say that IT industry (the toast of lakhs of students in the past six-seven years) is facing a downturn and jobs are hard to come by for IT and computer science graduates. Though still a very hands-on field, mechanical engineering has also evolved into a computer-intensive field.

Sophisticated analysis software is routinely used by mechanical engineers to aid in the development of products, devices and systems. Computer controls and electro-mechanical systems in machines and robotics make mechanical engineers even more versatile and broad based. But it looks like no student is seriously interested in knowing whether he or she has the aptitude to become a mechanical engineer. You need to love Maths and Physics like nobody’s business, if you want to be a mechanical engineer you should love working with machines, and need a special physical bonding with heavy equipment, automobiles or large systems like aircraft. If the student is creative, with a natural curiosity about how things work, coupled with a desire to build tangible devices, mechanical engineering could be in his or her future. But dropping all these reasons, students cite lack of jobs in IT sector as the reason for opting mechanical branch. It is simply not acceptable to believe that the downturn has affected only the IT indu
stry why then are the biggest auto companies, equipment manufacturing and construction companies folding up in the United States.

Fact: the downturn which started with the housing crises and affected realty business has pervaded all fields and industry segments without exception. Healthcare and food industry, are anyway seen as being recession-proof.

But there are also other facts: In the past four years, the IT industry in India has created more than 1.5 lakh jobs directly and about 2 lakh jobs in the BPO segment. There are other related areas such as animation, graphics, engineering and CAD/CAM/CIM services which have also given jobs to a few thousand students across India.

During the same period, the core industry has produced hardly 2,000 to 3,000 jobs. No auto manufacturer or heavy equipment producer, or power industry recruiter thinks of mass recruitement from any college. However, large IT companies have had a reputation of recruiting even 500 or 1,000 students from individual colleges or universities.

Yes. The IT industry is not going to see 40 to 50 per cent growth it enjoyed in the past decade. But then even if it achieves 10 per cent growth in 2009, it would be phenomenally higher than the core industry sector which is expected to remain stagnant globally. In the medium term, on the other hand, IT industry will continue to recruit, but the change will be in preferences. These large recruiters will prefer to recruit from among graduates in computer sciences, IT and electronics.

Further, it looks like this year Tamil Nadu will have more than 15,000 mechanical engineering seats. By no stretch of imagination even 20 per cent of them are going to get themselves jobs in the core industry. As with the IT industry, the core engineering sector companies will look for highly motivated individuals with proven academic record in subjects like machine design, production engineering, product development, or kinematics. Finally, they would restrict their recruiting pool to a few proven colleges with lasting brand value. No more. So, if you are yet to decide on a branch of study, think again and act.

Deccanchronicle

Parents beware of mechanical engineering craze

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