A significant number of students have opted for engineering as a profession not driven by a genuine interest in the field, but because they view it as a pathway to secure more lucrative employment, Debashish Bhattacharya, Chairman of PanIIT Alumni India, told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.
PanIIT Alumni India (Pan IIT) is an umbrella organisation representing alumni of all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Bhattacharya was speaking in the context of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) engineers opting for non-core fields. “Most of the graduating engineers think that technology means computer science, in which AI is the most buzzed term,” he said, adding that the resume of any engineer, irrespective of the graduating discipline, talks about his/her coding capabilities, altogether missing the point that business analytics also have a business aspect.
Edited excerpts:
With the recent trend of core engineers joining non-core fields, do you think the fear of talent scarcity in core engineering is justified?
Most students have taken engineering as a profession not from a love of the subject but as a ticket to moving into more remunerative employment. As we are moving from employment seekers to employment creators, this perception is slowly changing.
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A context of engineering in the overall development of society will help. There is no scarcity of talent, but engineers have a skewed view of what technology is, only moving to that area (IT / ITeS / Digital Tech) at the cost of the core engineering.
Please elaborate…
Most graduating engineers think that technology means computer science, in which AI is the most buzzed term. If we see the resume of any engineer, irrespective of the graduating discipline, it talks about his/her coding capabilities, capabilities in analytics and AI and other related technologies.
It misses the point altogether that business analytics also has a business aspect, and for a core industry such as manufacturing, it is an understanding of engineering that forms an integral part of the insight that makes analytics truly impactful.
After some years of work, most engineering graduates cannot be differentiated from the ‘technologists’, similarly for people going into Finance and Marketing.
For those who have stayed in engineering (manufacturing, design, maintenance, technology or the process of manufacturing), they look distinctly different in look and feel from the others.
What is your advice for core engineering students–Civil, Mechanical, Electrical etc.
Engineering is the science of application; going through our recent history, we can see technological breakthroughs starting from, for example, the development of steam engines and animal-less mobility. Slowly, the pace of breakthroughs picked pace. Having a course on the history of engineering will enable the students to see how important engineers are to society.
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Engineers translate research into practice and create an impact. And technology is the way of doing things. It has now been limited to only digital technology, which survives on the core, which is engineering. An understanding of the domain of engineering is critical for us to develop and consolidate our leadership position in engineering and technology.
Where are IITians mostly concentrated after graduation, in terms of industry? Has it changed in the last 5-10 years?
I see a large population getting into technology, another large population changes lines to finance and marketing. In my perception, I would say about 50 percent of the engineering graduates move into IT / ITeS / Tech; about 30 percent move into higher studies (MBA / MS / MTech / ME followed by PhD) and the changeover in discipline happens here. Of the remaining, 12 percent move into design, stores, etc.
The balance 8 percent moves to the shopfloor (production, maintenance).
However, in the last 10 years, I am seeing a growth of interest in research and core engineering, and with the startup ecosystem starting to explode, the number of people wanting to get into core engineering is also growing.
With the recent disruption caused by the pandemic and then followed by the global slowdown, what are the key domains where India can lead globally?
Our tryst with COVID has resulted in rapid research in the Pharma industry; vaccine development time has crashed from an earlier estimate of 10 years to a few months now. This is an area where we have been excelling in recent years, and our leapfrogging onto digital tech—not having as much baggage as the developed nations.
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Likewise, India has a massive opportunity to take over the slack left by China. In addition, we are good at pure technology, so, tech leadership is one more area where we are going to consolidate.
What are the strategies needed for advancing this lead at the institution and industry levels?
The adversarial position that exists between academia, industry, administration etc. needs to be broken. This can be facilitated by collaborative working: research, internship, product development, joint incubation, and others. With collaboration, interactions will ease, minds will open, results will start emerging, and slowly this will pick up pace.
Therefore, this is the key strategy. And underneath, there are various aspects as stated above that will enable us to advance. The magic happens when all are brought together, and each of us should continue to push the boundaries persistently and create opportunities for collaboration.
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