How to choose an Engg College ?

CHOOSING AN ENGINEERING COLLEGE AND BRANCH OF ENGINEERING
Every summer, Lakhs of students have a tough time selecting the right engineering college that will open doors to an exciting career. Typically, students go around about their universe of 10-odd colleges, in hope of zeroing in on the best-known one. They enquire about the previous year’s placements in terms of median and maximum salaries offered.

Everyone assumes that the answers to these two questions will help them find a college with top quality of education. Two more assumptions:

1. The college with a high brand recall provides quality education, and its alumni are successful in the real world.
2. Employers know which colleges provide better quality education and go to those campuses for recruitment. Unfortunately, both arguments are wrong.

BRAND IMAGE
While some colleges (such as the IITs, NITs) have a high brand recall because of their quality of education as is reflected by the achievements of their alumni and the research output of faculty and graduate students, other colleges have high brand recall due to advertising on a large scale. Smaller colleges cannot afford the same advertising budgets and hence lose out on branding even if they provide good quality education.

Some Engineering institutions use many forms of media like brochures, social media, educational fairs and college festivals to market themselves. This is in addition to placing expensive ads in premium media outlets, all with the underlying hope of becoming a BRAND that needs no introduction. These are competitive times and it is understandable that institutions want students to opt for their courses, and Institutions. But it is always a good idea to check the authenticity of the information claimed to promote their institutions through various governmental sources as in most cases it will be false and misleading. A good idea is to discuss with the present and past students of the Institute.

Smaller (and newer) colleges do not attract enough recruiters either. Companies that recruit thousands of students from campuses every year would typically not go to campuses where they are likely to get 5-10 potential employees. And companies that recruit very few students would typically not add a new college to their recruitment drive.

THE PARAMETERS
So, how does one find out which college provides quality educati -on? We list some parameters, which will help you compare colleges. Most of the information is available on the website. If not, try to get it from current students and alumni of the college. In a worst case scenario, make a personal trip. ALL this is not easy. But this must be done in order to make an informed choice as your entire career will be influenced by this. Further, how do you select a branch of your choice.

NEXT, INFRASTRUCTURE
This is the second important aspect. How good are the labs in the discipline of your choice? Do they have modern equipment, and in enough numbers so that students can work simultaneously as opposed to just a demonstration by a lab instructor? How good is the common infrastructure? How many books are there per student in the library? What e-journals do they subscribe to? How much bandwidth on a per capita basis do they have? Are lecture halls equipped with PCs, projector, screen and audio facilities? What sports facilities exist for the student body? These are difficult questions to answer from the website alone. So, you may need to talk to a current student or an alumnus you can trust, or make a personal visit to the campus.

RANKING OF THE INSTITUTE
The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was approved by the MHRD now Ministry of Education and laun -ched by Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development on 29th September 2015. This frame work outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. The methodology draws from the overall recommendations broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and institutions. The parameters broadly cover Teach ing, Learning and Resources, Research and Professional Practi -ces, Graduation Outcomes, Outreach and Inclusivity, and Perception. This rank gives a clear idea about the quality of Technical Institution and will help you in choosing a college.

OTHER FACTORS
The following should be given less weight than the faculty, infrastructure and Ranking:
Status of the institute: a university status typically would mean greater academic freedom for innovation.
A fully-residential campus usually provides a better learning environment.
Curriculum: How often it is updated?
How many courses do they teach? Note that an
institute that have too many courses is in fact not
likely to do a quality job of teaching.
Curriculum flexibility: How many electives does it offer? Do they all go for jobs, or do they go for higher education? If graduates are going for higher education, then it shows that the institute has been successful in igniting the interest of leaning in the students.
A related point is the performance of students in third party exams like GATE, CAT,etc.
Is there an active alumni association (particularly for college, which are more than 10-15 years old?). If the alumni don’t care about this college, then why should anyone else?
Campus placement: Of course, it should be considered. Just don’t consider it as the only parameter.
Accreditation by NAAC or NBA.
Student activities: You want to enjoy your four years and not just spend time in labs and the library! So, make sure that there are enough extra-curricular activities on the campus.

Continuation in 8th page

THE FACULTY
How qualified is the faculty?
Review the number of faculty members with a PhD degree. While some without a PhD may be very good teachers (and some even researches), they are fewer in number. Similarly, one should see the number of faculty members with an MTech degree. If the college hires many faculty members with a BTech or MSc, the quality may not be up to the mark.

Also, check from where the faculty members have received their highest degrees. Prominent names increase chances of a better quality of education. For instance, if the faculty members received their highest degrees from the same institute, this reflects poorly on the quality of education. Faculty members with an earlier degree from the same institute and higher degree from a good institute, reflects positively on the quality of teaching.

How active is the faculty in research?
A faculty member who is active in research will normally have a better understanding of the latest developments in the area, and will therefore be in a position to explain better. One need not be a top-class researcher to be a good teacher but without doing any research, it is difficult to teach well. Review the list of research publications by the faculty members, and see if these publications are featured in reputed journals and at conferences. You may need some help from researches to really judge. Also, look whether they have research projects funded externally by the industry or government-funding agencies. It shows that others value their research. Also look at college activities or those of the specific department of your interest. Are there many visitors giving seminars? Do they organize workshops and conferences regularly?

The number of faculty members.
The faculty to student ratio is an important aspect affecting the quality of education. Generally, learning is better when the average class size is smaller. And that can only happen with substantial faculty strength. Also, having a poor ratio means that the teaching load on the faculty will be higher, and therefore, they may not find time to do research. Also, they may not give as many assignments and projects, since grading them would mean a lot of work.

Prof. N.V. Ramana Rao,
Director,
NIT Warangal