Munnu Chunnu Engineer!

Unfortunately this isn’t a title for any Sanjay Dutt starrer from the Munnabhai camp. Engineering is the most sought after career choice along with medical. From early days of messing up in the sand to protesting for not going to pre-school, we’re told that we are supposed to become an ‘anjeeneeer’ or a doctor one day. That’s instilled in the minds from the age of innocence and we kids too carry that forward until we realize getting into those hard paying job profiles isn’t going to be a cakewalk. We’re told that no matter what we have to stick to the ultimate goal of earning lots of smiling Gandhis. Being a kid I always wondered why would Gandhi want to be on our currency notes and that too smiling to glory where we would like our own memorable pictures, at least on the cash we owned! Anyways that would be a totally different topic.

Coming to the point let’s talk about engineering. That spells doom I agree! It took me the whole of ninth grade to learn how to spell the damn word. Let alone pursuing something that sounded like a cheap Chinese diwali cracker. So coming on to engineering again (Damn that word!), I was supposed to be a born engineer just like the million other kids whose parents make them feel their only potential is to become one. Me and my parents only realized the truth of potential a few years down the line. We just moulded the whole subject of engineering into a fluid concept and today I love the world of engineering. Though I am not yet very comfortable with certain circuits I still try and make something that would help explode the entire world. Again that would be a totally different topic!

Coming to the main thing. Getting into engineering is something that produces nightmares for kids. ‘You get in, you just need to get in and you’ll definitely come out with an engineer cap’, is what we’re told in high school. So is getting into an engineering college really that difficult? Welcome to Punjab! The land of five rivers is finally being turned into the land of engineers. Five out of every eight people you’ll meet at parties, cafes, would be a living proof of the total stupidity being produced in Punjab. Engineers, engineers everywhere and more in the pipeline.

All the engineering colleges in Punjab are under the nose of Punjab Technical University. According to the official university website, the university was established for advancement of technical education & development. It seems to be doing totally the opposite of that. Take a look at some disgusting statistics;

The University has under its affiliation 40 Engineering colleges,56 Management, 17 Pharmacy colleges ,6 Architecture 2 Hotel Management and 13 colleges imparting courses in Medical Lab Technology& IT disciplines. The University has an intake of more than 12700 and total strength of more than 60,000 approx. University has established 12 Regional Centres for M-Tech courses and has established school of Entrepreneurship 2 TQM as Mohali.

Here’s the maths. 40 engineering colleges. Each so called engineering college with at least 4-5 streams. Some with 6. Each stream with around 60 students and the computers and electronics with double the number that’s 120. So multiply the seats with the number of colleges and you see a whopping amount of wanna be engineering in the pipeline. Each year the same amount passes out and a new breed of young kids join the league. So where do these people go? Is there a future for each of them? That’s a difficult question now!

Let alone a few colleges with some reputation, the others lack the basic infrastructure. Most of the seats tend to remain vacant and getting admissions is more like buying candy from the grocery store. You go to the college and all you need is a 12th pass certificate and some mullah and bang! You’ve become an engineer(Well, 25%!). Some colleges flout the rules openly. Getting admission is very simple since 60% of the seats are under the management quote for private colleges. These colleges make the most out of the smiling Gandhis they collect as ‘donations’ or in my case ‘development funds’. The reservations issue might never be a problem up here. There was a time when the kids from Punjab went down to Bangalore and Karnataka for engineering admissions and now it’s just the opposite. Instead if you want an engineering seat book your flights to Punjab now! The university keeps on sleeping under comfortable pillows as long as their pockets are full. Some controversies fly around and no one bothers. Some are smashed inside the air conditioned pathetic state-of-the-art university headquarters that looks more like a army hideout bunker of the late 70s. Getting into engineering is easy, going about it isn’t but six years give you enough time to clear out your doubts and pass on.

So when your next door Munnu and Chunnu decide their career choice let them try out all other options, engineering would always remain a safe house in the end!