Guyz, i found a lot of people asking questions like "should i take mech at XYZ or comps at PQR" , "what is the scope of ceramic engineering as to jobs and placements" and so on....i felt the need to tell you a proper (in my opinion) perspective about branches and what you are going to achieve after your engineering. Feel free to ask for details, oppose my views or add your own info.i am starting from not so known branches.
Industrial/Production :
one of the best branches in engineering if u ask me. production has 2 major areas viz. machines/mechanisms and operations research..the former is an never dying area. be it 2009 or 2060 machines will always be needed and the research is going to be funded and supported till the end of time. operations research is arguably one of the most interesting things u learn in engineering. definitely one of the most practical things. OR is all about maximization,minimization and stuff. it is the thing that takes to closest to finance in engineering as also makes you coveted for all industries. be it health care, finance , FMCG , heavy industry , defence they will allll need you..cuz u can optimize their operations and increase profits. one of the very few branches of engineering wherein a graduate can start his own consultancy. the pay : awesome
Metallurgy :
very interesting coursework if u ask me. with industrialization, one of the major needs is infra. and meta comes very close to infra (with civil and mech). the research in this area is among the most interesting in the world. polymers, smart materials, nanopolymers, super conductors , fabrication, alloys and stuff. if u r good in your field then don't worry about salary, its gonna boom. and most good companies have meta working for them even if not seem explicitly. for instance, i am not sure but IBM had taken a few metas for deisigning the laptop body so that even if it falls, it won't dent. and IBM never pays researchers low. (for those who are in for money)
Chemical :
my favourite branch. there is sooooooo much that can be done here. foods,dyes,polymers,paints,adhesives,explosives and soo on. research in each field is AMAZING. the pay is huge. you do different things each day. and due to paucity of skilled labor in the field. you can easily jump to higher posts if u have knowledge (unlike comps/it/ where the competittion is fierce and even if u r good, there could be someone better). if u have the "swades" feeling and wish to stay in your country. DRDO employs a lot of chemi dudes for its explosives base. and it is one of the most interesting fields in research. imagine, going to work , designing various chemical mixtures to get a big explosion, testing them making amendments. (if u din find this interesting, sorry but i find this seductive :P) one major disadvantage is that the field is not generic. if u take chem, but happen to hate it. u will have to live with it for the rest of ur life. since chem portion is radically different from others. u can expect to get a job ONLY in chemical field whereas in mech/meta/prod u can expect to work in software field as well.
civil : very interesting as well. with structural, GIS and geographical civil engineering. research is more field oriented. CS guys get a PhD without ever coming out of their room. a PhD in Civil does surveys in the most obscure places on earth. a friend of mine doing PhD in US had gone to egypt to study the pore distributions in the soil. the field is never going to die, if u take up civil and get bored of the subject Construction management is a good bailout becuz it is successful to take you a little away from hardcore civil to a certain extent.
mech :
research areas : fluid dynamics, design, thermal etc
very versatile field, you can literally move to any field after finishing mech. the coursework has enough tronics(mechatronics) , comps, production(mech prod are bhai bhai), meta (are more like bhai bhatija :P) and chem (fuels)
comps/it :
if u dun like programming/hardware, DONT TAKE THIS FIELD, i dunno about others but i hate this field. i found most of my friends take it either becuz someone in their family told them to , their sibiling was a cmpn engineer as well,they got good marks and saw that everyone with similar marks took comps or they saw the placement statistics. but they really hated everything about comps. so if u r falling into the above categories, then please refrain. plus , there is a saturation in this field, u might as well be the Director of a company producing pipes rather than an employee of some comp firm. also, most ppl have this dream of working for google/microsoft/apple/ibm and hence they take comps. thats VERY stupid. underline VERY. u can't base your interest becuz u wanna work for some company. why can't such ppl see Schlumberger (an oil company, equally reputed , pays as much) and take PETROLEUM Engineeering. i dunno whether these ppl take engineering to learn or to show off which company they work for.but if u interested, there are a lot of research areas like image processing, computational finance,networks,database etc
etrx/ece :
kinda good if u can study abstract things. i personally found etrx very dull. someone has already designed an IC , you look at it , understand how it works and apply it to stuff. i found this very boring. i would rather try to design stuff on my own (i doubt u can do that in ETRX until u r really skilled) but it is a very versatile field as well. the research areas include telecom, VLSI and stuff. the advantage of etrx is that currently its easy to get a job. especially in europe with HUGE labs everywhere. Netherlands (eidenhoven) has one of the biggest fabrication plants in the world. and the employment is huge as well. no citizenship barrier. but unlike other subjects, it is difficult to like this subject if u take it unknowingly. i can vouch for mechanical that even if u dun like it when u take it, u eventually will. statistics tell me thats not the case with etrx.take it only if u like it.
This is all handwritten from my own talks and experiences. dun take this as a ready reckoner for ur decision but as an impact hammer for ur thinking process. my views need not neccesarily reflect the actual state u might be in after u take the course. best of luck. rate if u found useful
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