Is engineering your best bet?

Updated on: Monday, July 06, 2009

Yuviraj Pandian wanted to join B.Sc. Statistics. “The argument from my parents was that my marks were too good to join B.Sc.,” he says. He joined an engineering college.

R. Rinku wanted to become a fashion designer. Her parents did not see eye-to-eye with her on this decision, and so Rinku joined an engineering college. Her course does not interest her as much as it would have if she had been in the world of fashion.

There are many students in engineering colleges who did not consider it the course of their choice. But their parents think differently and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get their children an engineering degree.

S. Yamuna, an adolescent physician, says that students taking up engineering could be divided into two groups — first are the top scorers who push themselves to do well, the second category are students who have marks that could fetch them an engineering seat, but they may not be interested.

“This is the group where they feel they have to take the family forward — investment of expectations and emotions is done on these boys and girls. Parents give education with a belief that in case they deprive, they might be doing a mistake.”

It is this second category that has inflated the number of engineering seats in the State by creating a demand, she says. In essence, this pressure on parents to get an engineering seat creates a market where engineering seats come priced at a premium — an issue the government is trying to address through the committee formed to look into colleges charging fees higher than the government norm.

Such colleges take in students but are at a total loss as to how to impart the kind of skills that are supposed to be imbibed in a professional course, says Dr. Yamuna. Faced with such a situation, they impose strict discipline among the students as the colleges are paranoid about losing accreditation if the students do not perform well, she says.

Anand (name changed), an engineering student at a college in Avadi, says that there is not much scope for co-curricular activities and sports in his college. “When we ask teachers about going outside to participate in some event, they ask us to ask the principal. They don’t want to get involved in the matter,” he says.

The principal decides on the basis of the marks obtained in the semester exams, he says. “If we don’t have good marks, we are not allowed to participate in such events.” Many students cannot nurture their talents, he adds.

Recalling her student days, Dr. Yamuna says that there was complete freedom in professional courses. “No one was threatened,” she says, adding that every one felt that they had come there for their own aims and hence felt responsible. “We would find our own references,” she says, contrasting today’s situation where many students depended on rote learning and cyclostyled notes.

“A third-year medical student told me that she was tensed before the exam because she could not completely revise the syllabus,” says Dr. Yamuna. A professional course had no place for such “revisions,” she says. When such students faced the outside world, they would be at a complete loss. “You cannot tell a patient, I will revise and then come back.”

Is engineering your best bet?

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