Top Engineering Course For Good Job- IC

Last Updated on July 25, 2023 by Vishnu Nambiar

A couple of decades ago, engineering was a reputed field of study. The number of Engineering institutes and courses were less. Less number of students made it to these institutes, few managed to complete the course and pass out on time! The passed out ones were readily absorbed by the industries.

Those were the good old times! The courses were more or less the core branches- Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineering. And yes, there was also the new entrant- computer science! Back then, the number of graduates was less and the demand was more. Naturally, there was 100% employment rate for engineering graduates! Even back-log ridden students would get jobs effortlessly!

Fast forward it to the present and you get a completely changed scenario! Throughout the last two decades, privatization of education has brought a ‘revolution’ within the field of higher studies. Especially, the ‘professional courses’ like engineering and medicine was given a brand new look!

Due to privatization, new, private colleges started to open up. Initially, this was limited to the big cities. But, right now, there has been an exponential rise in the number of new private institutes! Even small villages are being targeted by the trusts and businessmen, who want cheap land to build their institute on!

What effect has this had on Engineering studies?

With the increase in the number of colleges, the number of seats increased! Earlier, there were few engineering seats available. Only the deserved candidates made it through and bagged a seat!

With the increased number of seats, the number of engineering students also increased. While that aspect increased, the quality of the engineering students took a dip! Yes, due to excess of seats, even less meritorious students could easily manage to bag a seat!

But ultimately, they’d either drop out or end up as failures! All this ensured that the number of engineering graduates increased by many folds!

Why is it crucial to choose a course that guarantees a good job?

As I said before, the number of graduates has increased much. But on the other hand, the number of new jobs created has not shown much promise! This is due to the recession that hit us in 2008-09. This recession hit the World market so hard that certain engineering branches were dealt a severe blow. The effects of it still lingers on in even 2014!

Also read: Best Engineering Branches to get a Government job easily after Graduation

Lets take the example of IT (Information Technology). This is not a core branch. It was added to the engineering courses bandwagon later on. But, since its inception among the courses, it had been flying high!

Before the recession, IT graduates were in much demand! They could easily bag a decent paying job as soon as they graduated. But, since the recession, the story has been different.

Due to the recession, many IT professionals were fired. Entire IT companies were forced to stop their operations and shut down! Many professionals were forced to take pay-cuts!

Since then, the demand of IT has decreased among engineering aspirants. I’m not saying that IT is a bad course. I’m not saying that IT won’t guarantee jobs! If you do this course from a reputed institute, you may get job easily. But on a whole, the scene is not so good for IT graduates.

My point is that one should be careful while selecting the course. Much analysis should be made before zeroing in on a particular course!

How to choose that perfect course?

I agree that passion/likes/interest must be the priority number one. But, job security is as important as the above mentioned factors!

The trick is to choose a course that is not being pursued by the masses! Because the number of graduates will be less. And you could bag a good job easily!

Know more about supply and demand related to a particular course. Supply is the number of graduates and demand is the number of job opportunities. Choose a course, which has less supply and high demand!

To make your job easier, I have found the best course meeting the above criteria. It is IC (Instrumentation and Control)! Yes, I’ve arrived upon this conclusion after doing some research. IC is a course which has low supply, but its demand is high. And the number of IC seats is not too less either that you can’t bag one! That makes it the perfect course for engineering aspirants!

Reasons why IC (Instrumentation and Control) is the best engineering course out there

Here are reasons why IC is the superstar among other engg courses-

#1 Relatively less number of institutes offering the course

I said about the research I did. According to it, the number of engineering colleges offering this course is less (when compared to other courses).

This means the number of IC graduates are considerably less, compared to other branches. This means less saturation of the field, in terms of job opportunity. Also, this means less competition!

#2 High demand for IC graduates in Industries

This is reason #2. The demand is much higher than other branches! I’ve noticed that the campus placement among IC students in the engineering colleges of Gujarat is higher than that of other branches!

This is something very positive in a dull market! IC engineers are required for automation and control related operations in almost all industries. Be it manufacturing, logistics or packing, they are required for supervising, managing and maintaining the automated systems!

#3 Good pay package from the start!

In many engineering branches, starters have a tough time. In case of students passing out from premier institutes like IITs and Nits, the case is different. But, or other graduates, starting salary is almost paltry.

But not in the case of IC! I’ve consulted some IC graduated friends of mine and other branch graduates like EC and IT. I noticed that the average starting salary of the IC fellows, irrespective of the company that employed them, was much higher than the others!

Also read: Best Engineering Branches

Conclusion

That’s 3 good reasons why Instrumentation and Control Engineering is clearly the winner! I agree that core branches are awesome. But IC is the best engineering course at present, in 2014, based on job prospects and pay package. Other mention I’d like to make is of Petroleum Engg. I’ll come up with an analysis of it soon! You may also check – Plastics engineering, Ceramic engineering and Mining engineering.

Vishnu Nambiar

I am Vishnu Nambiar a career and educational blogger from India. I am also a full time educational consultant having more than 12 years of experience in the educational sector.

I share articles related to courses, colleges, careers, exam tips and more here.