After IIT-JEE, what?

Nishant Porwal lists a few fields that one choose after clearing IIT-JEE exam

Many aspirants who want to join IITs have no clarity about the courses they opt for and what IIT holds for them in the coming four years. When you first think of applying to IIT, presumably your interests or your career goals revolve around engineering and the sciences. Once you take up the core engineering modules, you have plenty of opportunities to pick from when it comes to your career. Yes, it may be true that engineers resort to other fields that don’t necessarily require an engineering background, but this isn’t the case for everyone.

Each year over 9,000 candidates qualify the toughest entrance exam in the world to gain a seat at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology but most candidates have little knowledge of what exactly the IITs holds for them. For almost all of them, a seat in the IITs is a passport to success.

Candidates who have cleared IIT-JEE are faced with numerous questions. Questions range from the selection of specific IITs and departments to department change and what IIT holds for them in the next four years of their life.

Lower ranked students are faced with even more confusing situations such as going to a popular branch at the NITs or BITS, skipping the IITs, and exercising the option of dropping a year. And parents are concerned about ragging and the stress levels at IITs.

In all this, the primary reason for getting into the IITs — an engineering degree from the world’s best undergraduate institution — is lost. What compounds this issue is the lack of clarity among the candidates as to what next after clearing JEE.

Most end up taking up courses at the IITs without a regard for their interests, without the slightest knowledge of what they are going to study for the next four years. In essence, most candidates end up selecting their undergraduate majors based on what the previous year rank holder did or which IIT is closer to their hometown. Let’s get into the various fields that could suit you.

Automotive Industry: Perfect for mechanical engineering graduates, as you would have to design tools, car parts, and vehicles, and you would have to improve on already existing designs.

Chemical Industry: One could look at manufacturing plants or chemical and pharmaceutical companies, which are extremely popular in India.

Aerospace Industry: Engineers with a background in aerospace, automobile, and even mechanical engineering could be hired either for designing aircrafts, or even their operations.

Engineering Physics: Graduates in this field have a wide set of skills when it comes to mathematics, computer systems, electronics, and obviously, physics! This means that careers in either telecommunications or nuclear engineering could be an option.

Electrical Industry: Electric engineers can design and develop electrical control systems. You could look at jobs in plenty of fields such as power production, manufacturing, transportation, networking, and even with builders for their lighting and heating needs.

Civil Engineering: If you have a civil engineering background, then once again, you will have various career paths ahead of you. For example, you could get into environmental engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, and even geo technical engineering.

Mechanical Industry: A very popular career path, mechanical engineers, get to develop and design products and even processes that can be either small components or machinery, or even vehicles. After all, most fields need mechanical systems. For example, you could take a look at automotive industries, defence engineering, transport, and even research sectors.

Computer Science: As you must know, jobs in IT and Software pay extremely well right from starting salaries. Added to that, the demand for computer and software engineers are always high, which already opens wide doors for you. With an engineering background from IIT, you have more than enough career paths to pick from that are directly related to your skill set. Rest assured you will fit right in.

The writer is director of Ener-Jee, Eduventures India Pvt Ltd