Parental pressure, lack of long-term goals trouble IIT students
Is the industry losing interest in employing students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), who have traditionally been seen as the smart lot among the millions of engineering and technology students in the country?
No, says the industry, teachers and students, though there several are issues to be addressed. One of them is the lack of informed decision making on the part of the students while selecting jobs. This, according to a panel discussion in IIT-Madras, is often due to pressure from parents. Another pressing issue is better salaries being offered to undergraduates than to those who have completed their Masters.
The numbers do not support the apprehension on the employability of the IITians, says Babu Viswanathan, advisor, training & placement, IIT-Madras, who moderated the panel discussion on the Employability of IITians held as part of Shaastra, the student-run annual technical festival of the IIT – Madras.
About 1,425 students registered for placement this year. About 789 have been placed so far, while 39 students received pre-placement offers, which puts the total number of students receiving offers at 828. The number of students who received two offers is 70, while eight of them received three offers. Total offers made in the campus so far this year is 906.
The second phase of placement will start from January 15, and will go on for a couple of months during which the institute expects to equal last years’ recruitment numbers.
“So, the placement is pretty good. The data does not support the apprehension that IIT students are not employable,” he said. He was elaborating on a few points suggested by the students to raise during the discussion, which included a question that whether the students of IIT are sometimes unemployable because of various reasons including lack of communication skills, that they are not technically oriented, and focusing more on non-core companies.
Echoing the anxiety of the students, he added, “We are offering good students to the core companies, they are not 9+ pointers in CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average), but they are 8-9 pointers. Does that mean that a student of IIT-M with CGPA of 8 or 9 is not good enough? Does the industry feel that the students who are getting CGPA of 8 to 9 points are not good enough or is there something that we should do to address the requirements of the core jobs in the industry?”
Slight changes in CGPA or the issues of core or non core jobs do not make a lot of difference, said Bala K Bharadwaj, managing director, research & technology, Boeing India. “You can get whatever grade you want here. But at the end of the day, you must be able to use the knowledge you have gained and apply it to a new situation,” he said.
Jithin Sam Varghese, international and alumni relations secretary, IIT-Madras, said, that the informed decision making is missing in IITians. “The moment you go IIT you will be looking for a fat salary package. When you get a CGPA of 8 out of 10, the expectations of the family for the student to come back and make them proud, goes up,” he said.
K Ananth Krishnan, CTO with Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), who said that the students should pursue their area of interest than fat salaries, added that TCS, which hires from 300 campuses across the country hire from IIT only for research jobs.
“We hire in IITs by and large, only for research. I dont think we will look at undergraduate students. The minimum that we hire is a post graduate. And we hire PhDs. We are very clear on what we are looking for. We are not the ones who will give forty offers on day one."
Viswanathan said that another peculiar trend in India is that the students with Masters degree are paid less than the B Tech from IIT-Madras. In an instance, a B.Tech student from IIT-Madras who have completed Masters from overseas, and he was offered lower salary than what is offered for B Tech students. The companies respond that they have different system of selecting MS students, he said.
Besides, he added that the strength of students in IIT has doubled twice in last 15 years and the argument that 9 point grading for a student now is not the same in 1985, is probably true. The institution gets feedback from companies such as they dont see the students being technically as good as they used to be or as good as it was earlier and the institute is trying to address it.
“I have come across a startlingly high number of students in IIT who are studying in branches they never wanted to study,” he said. For instance, a student placed on the fifth day with pay package of around Rs 30 lakh per annum was complaining that he got placement only on the fifth day! The student is not worried about whether it is core or non-core, whether he likes the job or not, he added. There is tremendous pressure from the parents and the media, which shows unnecessary interest on placements in IITs puts more pressure on students.
Rangaprasad Rangarajan, head of Engineering, Payments and Settlements, PayPal , said that the students must be made enthusiastic to work in the sector they like to work.
And there are examples for students who know what to go for, for instance, two students in IIT Kanpur who rejected Technology major Oracle's $210,000 offer for a lower offer from Google or another company, only because those were the types of they are interested to work in, pointed out the panel.
At the end of the programme, an enthusiastic participant, however, said that the parents’ pressure is by any means higher as their calculations on the students’ future including the marriage alliances depends on the job and the salary package they ultimately takes home.
No, says the industry, teachers and students, though there several are issues to be addressed. One of them is the lack of informed decision making on the part of the students while selecting jobs. This, according to a panel discussion in IIT-Madras, is often due to pressure from parents. Another pressing issue is better salaries being offered to undergraduates than to those who have completed their Masters.
The numbers do not support the apprehension on the employability of the IITians, says Babu Viswanathan, advisor, training & placement, IIT-Madras, who moderated the panel discussion on the Employability of IITians held as part of Shaastra, the student-run annual technical festival of the IIT – Madras.
About 1,425 students registered for placement this year. About 789 have been placed so far, while 39 students received pre-placement offers, which puts the total number of students receiving offers at 828. The number of students who received two offers is 70, while eight of them received three offers. Total offers made in the campus so far this year is 906.
The second phase of placement will start from January 15, and will go on for a couple of months during which the institute expects to equal last years’ recruitment numbers.
“So, the placement is pretty good. The data does not support the apprehension that IIT students are not employable,” he said. He was elaborating on a few points suggested by the students to raise during the discussion, which included a question that whether the students of IIT are sometimes unemployable because of various reasons including lack of communication skills, that they are not technically oriented, and focusing more on non-core companies.
Echoing the anxiety of the students, he added, “We are offering good students to the core companies, they are not 9+ pointers in CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average), but they are 8-9 pointers. Does that mean that a student of IIT-M with CGPA of 8 or 9 is not good enough? Does the industry feel that the students who are getting CGPA of 8 to 9 points are not good enough or is there something that we should do to address the requirements of the core jobs in the industry?”
Slight changes in CGPA or the issues of core or non core jobs do not make a lot of difference, said Bala K Bharadwaj, managing director, research & technology, Boeing India. “You can get whatever grade you want here. But at the end of the day, you must be able to use the knowledge you have gained and apply it to a new situation,” he said.
Jithin Sam Varghese, international and alumni relations secretary, IIT-Madras, said, that the informed decision making is missing in IITians. “The moment you go IIT you will be looking for a fat salary package. When you get a CGPA of 8 out of 10, the expectations of the family for the student to come back and make them proud, goes up,” he said.
K Ananth Krishnan, CTO with Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), who said that the students should pursue their area of interest than fat salaries, added that TCS, which hires from 300 campuses across the country hire from IIT only for research jobs.
“We hire in IITs by and large, only for research. I dont think we will look at undergraduate students. The minimum that we hire is a post graduate. And we hire PhDs. We are very clear on what we are looking for. We are not the ones who will give forty offers on day one."
Viswanathan said that another peculiar trend in India is that the students with Masters degree are paid less than the B Tech from IIT-Madras. In an instance, a B.Tech student from IIT-Madras who have completed Masters from overseas, and he was offered lower salary than what is offered for B Tech students. The companies respond that they have different system of selecting MS students, he said.
Besides, he added that the strength of students in IIT has doubled twice in last 15 years and the argument that 9 point grading for a student now is not the same in 1985, is probably true. The institution gets feedback from companies such as they dont see the students being technically as good as they used to be or as good as it was earlier and the institute is trying to address it.
“I have come across a startlingly high number of students in IIT who are studying in branches they never wanted to study,” he said. For instance, a student placed on the fifth day with pay package of around Rs 30 lakh per annum was complaining that he got placement only on the fifth day! The student is not worried about whether it is core or non-core, whether he likes the job or not, he added. There is tremendous pressure from the parents and the media, which shows unnecessary interest on placements in IITs puts more pressure on students.
Rangaprasad Rangarajan, head of Engineering, Payments and Settlements, PayPal , said that the students must be made enthusiastic to work in the sector they like to work.
And there are examples for students who know what to go for, for instance, two students in IIT Kanpur who rejected Technology major Oracle's $210,000 offer for a lower offer from Google or another company, only because those were the types of they are interested to work in, pointed out the panel.
At the end of the programme, an enthusiastic participant, however, said that the parents’ pressure is by any means higher as their calculations on the students’ future including the marriage alliances depends on the job and the salary package they ultimately takes home.
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