New avenues

Marine engineering students of Vels University during a graduation ceremony in Chennai on June 5.-A. MURALITHARAN

IF a student looks around, he or she will find many fascinating fields of study such as archaeology, anthropology, journalism and communication, criminology, defence and strategic studies, social work, cyber forensics and information security and nuclear physics.

Opportunities are aplenty in the maritime sector with the founding of the Indian Maritime University (IMU) in November 2008 by the Government of India. The IMU has its headquarters in Chennai and campuses at Uthandi near Chennai, and in Mumbai, Kolkata and Visakhapatnam. It offers B.Sc. in Nautical Science, B.E. in Marine Engineering, B.Tech. in Naval Architecture and Ship Building (at IMU-Visakhapatnam) and MBA in Maritime Management. The MBA will help those with experience in the maritime sector to become employable globally as managers in the sector and related fields, according to IMU officials. The IMU also offers a certificate course in maritime management, which will be useful to deck officers or marine engineers.

Vels University, located in Pallavaram, Chennai, offers B.Sc. in Nautical Science, B.E. in Marine Engineering, Higher National Diploma in Nautical Science in collaboration with Glasgow College of Nautical Studies, United Kingdom, and a Higher National Diploma in Marine Engineering. Students can join B.E. in Marine Information Technology, Marine Computer Science or Marine Electronics and Communication Engineering. Ishari K. Ganesh, Chancellor, Vels University, said, I was the first person to start B.Sc. in Nautical Science. There is a huge demand for admission to the course. International shipping companies provide placements to our students in their second year of study.

Sakthi Mariamman Engineering College at Thandalam, near Chennai, is promoted by the Kannammal Educational Trust under the chairmanship of K.N. Ramachandran. Situated in a serene atmosphere near Poonamallee, the college offers MBA and B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, and Information Technology.

The college has a language laboratory to enable students to enhance their soft skills and a career lab to train students to attend interviews and take part in group discussions. For students of Electronics and Communication Engineering, the college has optical communication, digital signal processing/microcontroller, simulation and digital laboratories. The computer science department is equipped with multimedia and an operating systems laboratory.

Ramachandran called engineering a creative occupation, based on science and art The college had started an MBA programme in 2005 to meet the growing demand for competent managers, he said.

Parisutham Institute of Technology (PITS), situated on the outskirts of Thanjavur town, offers B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Civil Engineering; B.Tech. in IT; and Master of Computer Applications. Students can learn Japanese, Chinese and German from the second semester. Weekly assessment tests motivate them to study the portions taught during the week.

The Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Educational Trust, founded by A. Srinivasan in 1994, runs 17 institutions, both technical and non-technical, in Perambalur, Tiruchi and Chennai districts. More than 8,000 students are enrolled in these institutions. Their human resource development centre focusses on industry-institution interaction, training and placement of students, and entrepreneur development.

B.S. Abdur Rehman University, Vandalur, about 35 km from Chennai, offers B.Tech. in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics, Computer Science, Electronics and Communication, and Instrumentation and Control Engineering. It offers B.Tech. in IT and Polymer Technology as well. The university has an R&D council to foster continuing education, consultancy and teaching. It aims at generating proposals for projects. The university offers MS (by research) and PhD programmes in Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics.

The 350-acre (1 acre=0.4 hectares) campus of SRM University at Kattankulathur, near Chennai, houses the groups flagship SRM Engineering College. The campus is serene and pollution-free. The Ramapuram campus in Chennai and the Modi Nagar campus in Delhi reflect this trend. About 80 per cent of SRM Universitys students are from States other than Tamil Nadu. Students from Canada, France, China and the United Arab Emirates also study there. In 2008, about 100 students were sponsored to take part in the semester programmes at institutes such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon and Wisconsin universities in the United States. P. Sathyanarayanan, Vice-Chancellor, said, We want to raise our international portfolio and research. We are actively looking for international faculty.

EdServ Softsytems Limited, Chennai, has launched EdCademy for engineering and management students, which aims at improving their academic performance through an online web-based framework. S. Giridharan, chief executive officer, said that once students were enrolled in the EdCademy programme, they would receive access to online subject material and collaterals. The learning, assessment and placement (LAP) model is also instant with the latest content updates, he said.

Established in 2002, the International College of Financial Planning (ICOFP), New Delhi, offers specialised education in financial planning. It offers globally recognised finance programmes which are designed to make its students sought after by banks, mutual funds, investment companies, stock brokers, consultants, wealth management companies, and so on.

The college equips its students with the required theoretical and practical knowledge, which would help them in taking informed decisions for their customers. The ICOFP produces hardcore specialists in finance. Its students have found placements in Bajaj Capital, Deutsche Bank, Kotak Securities, SBI Mutual Fund, Reliance Money, and so on. The institute has started a branch in Chennai this year.

With exponential growth set to take place in the nuclear power sector consequent to the signing of the 123 Agreement with the U.S., exciting career opportunities will be available in the various facilities of the Department of Atomic Energy and in the private sector. Keeping this in view, Sastra University, Thanjavur, has started an M.Tech. programme in Nuclear Engineering in collaboration with the University of Windsor, Canada; the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam; and L&T Heavy Engineering, Mumbai.

To meet the Indian Space Research Organisations (ISRO) demand for quality manpower for its forthcoming programmes, the Department of Space founded the Indian Institute of Space Technology (IIST) at Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram, in 2007. Admission to the IIST is through the IIT-JEE (Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination). The IIST offers B.Tech. in Avionics, Aeronautical Engineering and Physical Sciences (Frontline, July 18, 2008).

B.N. Suresh, Director, IIST, said the institute would start M.Tech. programmes from January 2010 in three areas: Radio Frequency and Microwave, Soft Computing and Machine Learning and Applied and Adoptive Optics. We have registered three candidates from ISRO centres for PhD.

We have set up an R&D board. We want to blend education with research that will complement ISROs research, Suresh said.