The superior provider of Indian meme content, over the years engineering has been reduced to more of a stereotyped joke with an overcrowded population. The students are primarily divided into two categories based on which they claim their position of importance in the field. The government college students, especially the ones studying in old and reputed IITs and NITs, are situated at the top level of this hierarchy system followed by private colleges like SRM, KIIT, VIT and especially BITS. The position of the rest, both government and private colleges keep fluctuating and hence fall in the mediocre level. The reason for this positioning is based on various factors like the age of the college, reputation, filtration of students and high cut-offs. Most of the engineering students today are lured by the misconception that there are innumerable jobs waiting for them in this profession and they are just one step away from picking one that suits their standards. The colleges bait students with placement criteria that provide a student assurance of their own seat, without the knowledge of the truth that grabbing a job is completely your own responsibility. Most colleges that have contributed to the crowding of this profession are only liable towards providing you a degree. The knowledge of the subject that will lead you towards success and possibly a promotion comes from self-will to research and study.

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The world we see today is not a gift of God or magic but the evolution of mankind with the help of Engineering. It makes for the building blocks of the world and is divided into various streams of preference which are then further broken into domains of expertise. Engineering is a field that promises you great security if studied well. The journey towards completion is an exhausting one where you learn to minimize your emotions for best results. It also teaches you to combat any situation presented in front of you and the problem-solving skills are immensely intensified. These factors make for an attractive profession with challenges that promise an adventurous ride ahead. However, the uniqueness of engineering has started to lose its credibility over the years in India. Unlike other countries where engineering is treated as a rare and appreciative occupation, here in India it has slowly transformed into a norm everyone is running behind like a flock of sheep. The possible reasons for this are enormous but the most contributive features include:

An inconclusive decision regarding what to pursue: Brainwashing would be the wrong word to use when it comes to my personal experience. As a bioscience student, I was positive about not sitting for any entrance exams for both medical and engineering. However, over time I was encouraged by teachers and self-introspection to take up the field not out of choice but lack of choices. Some might also need time to rethink what they want to do with life so buying time while pursuing an engineering degree is a safe choice with a chance of becoming seriously interested in the subject matter. Peer pressure: In the modern age of competition, individuals have developed the notion of not wanting to be better than themselves but instead the other person they consider as a rival. Such people have their lives revolving around others and forget about extending their personality beyond someone else’s orbit. Therefore, they do not harbor personal passions and pleasures and dedicate their lives and career to upstaging someone. This is one of kind of peer pressure experienced. Besides that, ideas like not being in a good enough stream of the study compared to your peers or attachment to them also lead to choosing the same. Parental Pressure: Indian children are victims of parental expectations. It is without argument that decisions are premade about their future with the best interests in mind. It can perhaps be a lost and unfulfilled dream of theirs or a verdict declared out of concern for financial safety, but parental pressure has become an alarming reason for this cause. Passion: Though the right way to go about this challenging profession should be a passion, it is the most uncommon and rarely practiced feature.

Lack of passion for the subject can be a big obstacle in a country where around 1.5 million engineers pass out every year. As previously mentioned, leaving a handful of government and private institutions, the rest mass does not provide you with the right weapons to survive in this field besides the degree. The faculty recruited is also not satisfactory. Some of them include ones who had migration issues or couldn’t grab a high paying corporate sector job and hence were compelled to join teaching. Passion comes into play again over here. If forced by circumstances and not taken up by willingness, the output is always disadvantageous for the parties involved, employer and employee or teacher and student. Knowledge has become syllabus oriented and attendance is probably the only motivation dragging students to college. For every semester student keep writing baseless assignments and practical’s just for the sake of ritualistic internal marks which waste more time than have significance over the CGPA. If one has a presentable CGPA, practical knowledge is lacking because for most this high result is a product of mugging up and chasing behind grade points. On the contrary, the few students who truly want to learn about and from the subject might have the practical knowledge but lack a CGPA to back those claims. All these factors work towards the rise of unemployment of engineers in the country. The profession has gotten congested over the years with supply becoming greater than demand and the competitive nature makes one push against another instead of running forward in their own path.

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In conclusion, I would like to say that the Indian Engineering education system is highly flawed, minus a few institutes in top tier. Myths, misconceptions, expectations and especially money are the riding concepts that make an ordinary student lean towards it. However, one may sustain and survive until the achievement of the degree, but the life ahead is an abyss that is very difficult to escape. Therefore, not only do we need gradual changes in the system but also in the mindset of society when it comes to engineering. No occupation or stream is bigger or lesser than the other if you can flourish in it. In the end even writers like Durjoy Dutta and Chetan Bhagat probably earn greater money combined with less stress and more comfort than they would have they continued with a corporate job. It is also important to remember that the three trinities of Engineering aren’t marks, attendance and assignments but software, practical knowledge and personality development. Failures are central to life but if you are adamant on moving past mistakes, work towards the latter because engineers are not machines who function on designed data and concepts, they break, recreate and build with innovation.