Journalism of Courage
For 18-year-old Natasha Joseph,the choice of opting for a seat in mechanical engineering after junior college wasnt an on the spot one but a carefully thought out option. Blame it on the recession or the realisation of the weightage of the core branches,engineering colleges claim a significant rise in the admissions this year.
For Joseph,one of the reasons was that the software industries might have received a severe jolt,companies,that are involved in core businesses havent been hit this hard as she says,It wasnt like IT,telecommunication or software engineering werent my foray,but it was a conscious decision owing to the fact that the software industry is in a huge crisis the world over. Moreover,a simple fact about core branches is that they can never go out of business because people depend on them for their day-to-day survival.
Although two rounds are conducted in most colleges the third round is yet to happen by the end of this month. Those are the versatile branches and suitable even in IT although it stresses on the production and design part. We have 120 seats for this stream and the applications were increased this year at the college level with a 20 percent increase,says Srikant Chaintanya,HOD mechanical Engineering department,AISSMS College of Engineering.
Seconding that opinion is Aditya Shetty a civil engineering student,who says,Branches like mechanical,civil,electrical have existed for years. As a result even though these new branches,which are still in their days of infancy,can see a noted shift in trends (either boom or slump) branches like civil and mechanical are always steady moving. As far as I am concerned I was clear about what I really wanted to study for,besides being a non-risk branch as far as future job opportunities and work is concerned civil engineering offers a wider vista of applications and opportunities.
