I was sitting on a bench outside my 6 year old cousin’s school as I had gone to pick her up. It was still 5 minutes to go before the final bell would ring when I identified a middle aged man with thick glasses and a huge belly. He used to be my neighbour a few years back and I hadn’t met him in like 6 or 7 years. We chatted a little. The moment I told him that I am an engineering student, his first question was, ‘beta, placement ho gaya?’
It’s natural that questions like, “how are your studies going on?” “What is your plan after college?”, is what people will ask any student. But there is something about this particular question related to placement, which majority of the engineering students don’t like to be asked, why?
There was a time when the term engineering was associated to words like innovation and creativity, but now, these words are being replaced by placement and package. People are only interested to know what pay check he/she is going to get.
It’s hard to explain everyone that there is still so much to engineering than getting a job in TCS or Wipro. Though the majority of students end up taking jobs in IT sector, there is still a large chunk of students who have a bigger dream.
One such dream is entrepreneurship. With the influence of west settling in India, our students have also developed a special liking towards entrepreneurship, especially in the IITs. They don’t want to get restricted by working in an MNC, working for themselves is what is driving the students today.
People like Rahul Yadav (founder of Housing.com), and Varun Agarwal (founder of Alma mater, a merchandise company), have been a constant source of inspiration for all budding entrepreneurs in India. If you talk of inspiration on a bigger scale, then there are always people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson to dictate their brilliant success stories.
The good thing is parents, relatives and the society doesn’t expect anything big from you. But the sad part is they won’t let you risk it, if you are looking to achieve something big.
In our country, there is a huge gap between job takers and job providers. The number of people seeking a job is much higher than the number of people providing a job. This unbalanced equation can only be fixed if more jobs are created within the country by our people. For this to happen, it is the students who have to take the baton in their hands.
They have the power to create jobs but only if the society doesn’t come in their way.
In a list of top 10 Universities which produce quality entrepreneurs released, by a famous Business Magazine of USA, 9 names were from America itself and only one University was from outside USA, it was IIT. Everyone knows the amount of talent and potential which students have here. It’s just a matter of realizing this and supporting them.
Various incubation centres are being created all across our country which helps you develop business models and ideas. With the support of the society, students can extract much more from these centres than they are doing now.
Students feel an added pressure when questions related to placements are repeatedly asked to them. People have to understand the fact that, students are equally aware of the importance of getting a job. Getting to hear the same thing again and again is not just irritating but demoralizing as well.
The engineering system is made to provide the students with skill sets which can help them to be innovative with the way they think and not to just focus on the end result.
From the first year of the college itself, it is being injected in the minds of the student that getting placed should be the primary goal. This kills original thinking to a great extent, at the root itself.
The society expects students to achieve big things in life without allowing them to pay the price of it. I don’t think it’s possible, so please stop asking the same question time and again.
