Edu expo highlights emerging career choices

Bengaluru: It was a packed house at JN Tata auditorium of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) around 10.30am on Saturday, even as the queue for registration stretched over several hundred metres outside the venue, as The Times of India’s Mission Admission created quite a buzz.On stage were some of the big guns from engineering education in the city, discussing emerging trends in the field, with hundreds of students and parents among the audience as the education expo aimed at guiding class 12 and II pre-university students towards making informed career choices. The expo comprised seven sessions, including topics such as studying abroad, guidance for CET and ComedK, and panel discussions on engineering, design and architecture.

Areas in engineeringThe panelists, consisting of heads of the most popular engineering colleges in Bengaluru, and moderator Prof S Sadagopan, former director, International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIT-B), discussed the present-day craze among students for computer science engineering.“Be it information technology, artificial intelligence or machine learning, the fundamental is computer science,” said KN Subramanya, principal, RV College of Engineering. “Even when you have taken other branches, you can minor in computer science. Whatever branch you opt for, the super layer is IT. If you don’t get into CS, you take mechanical and do take credit courses in CS.”“Critical thinking and problem solving are the qualities you need. Even if you don’t get into CS in a college, you don’t have to worry. All courses have a layer of CS in them now. Also, you can use the online options,” said Prof S Sadagopan. He also promised that there will be far more jobs even with the advent of robotics or AI as humans will still continue to control them.“VTU-affiliated colleges have honours degrees and minor degrees. Minors are useful, especially for traditional core branches such as civil, mechanical and electrical. In case of private universities, they customize syllabus in their own way, to fit the needs of companies. Even for conventional degrees, every credit you earn will be useful,” said D Sheshachalam, professor and dean, academic, BMS College of Engineering.KNB Murthy, VC of Dayanand Sagar University, emphasised how all the technologies in the world are eventually connected by maths. “We need to migrate from vertical learning to system-level thinking,” he said.“Any product that we make comes with a shelf life. What is important is that we should be life-long learners,” said B Priestly Shan, pro-VC of Alliance University.—Thejalakshmi Suresh & Shivika Kumar