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Monday, October 5, 2020

JEE Counseling in Covid era

 I have been receiving emails and phone calls ever since the results of JEE Mains were announced about three weeks ago. Some of them weren't going to take JEE Advanced and wanted to know where to apply. And some others were sure about their ranks in JEE Advanced and wanted to know where to apply. Each one of these parents (and never a student) would tell me that everyone gets a better rank in JEE Advanced compared with JEE Mains and there is a rule of thumb. If you had 2X as your rank in JEE Mains, your rank in JEE Advanced is likely to be around X. Go figure.

I would start off with my favorite statements. Don't think about placement. Think of your interest. And if you are normal and therefore, haven't found your passion yet, just get admission to the best college you can get into. Also, travel to a few institutes which you are considering seriously and talk to some faculty and students there.

But as I finished discussion with 20th parent (just two students so far), I have come to realize that Covid has changed the way we should consider choosing a college. And the change is not only about the inability to travel.

Till last year, if someone said that they are interested in Computer Science (and 90% people said that), one would quickly get into a discussion of Civil at an old IIT versus CS at a 2nd generation IIT, or Meta at an IIT versus CS at an NIT, and so on. I believe the discussion ought to be different today.

The concern in the recent past has really been this: I don't know my interest and you are telling me not to consider placement numbers. What if I just take admission in an unpopular discipline in an IIT, and then I don't like the discipline and I will be forced to change career through an MBA route. It was a serious enough concern. A 12th class student hardly knows about various disciplines and has no easy way to find out what s/he would like. So over the last decade or so, most progressive engineering institutes have been having a large number of electives in their curriculum, which could be used to do a "minor" program within your degree program. So if you were interested in CS, you could at least do 4-5 courses in CS. But that was not enough to gain sufficient confidence and sometimes even capability to compete with those who are doing may be 15 courses in Computer Science. And hence the minor programs ensured some relief, it wasn't enough. You needed another 3-4 courses to really get into that discipline.

This is where Covid has come as a savior. Today, the online education is more widely available, the quality has been improving, and most importantly, the market has started to appreciate online courses. So now, if you join an unpopular program, and you realize that this is not what you want, just do the minor program offered by the college in the discipline of your choice, and do an additional 3-4 courses online in the summer or even in parallel with your semester courses. With 7-9 courses, you have pretty much all the skills of that discipline that you need in the beginning of your career and you can keep learning on the job or online.

So earlier I would suggest that if you are interested in CS, study CS even if that meant taking admission in a somewhat "lesser" college. Now, I would suggest that you better be passionate about CS to take admission in a somewhat "lesser" college. The better strategy is to take admission in another discipline in the top college, do a minor in CS, do a few online courses in addition, and you are as good as anyone else.

This means that the most important question that you must ask is "how easy it is to do a minor in a popular discipline?" All IITs, I am sure, would proudly display on their website that they offer minors and lots of electives, flexibility in curriculum, etc. But is that flexibility for real. I know some CS departments would argue internally that if everyone were to be allowed a minor in CS, their teaching load would go up substantially. Why should they do this for students of other departments.  You shouldn't be joining these IITs if the goal was to keep the option of CS (or any other discipline) open.

So the ordering has been simplified, thanks to Covid. Order all IITs based on whatever criteria you like. Whether you prefer big city or small city, whether closer to home or away from home, whether your friends joined there last year or not, whether they already have most of the academic infrastructure built or not, and so on. Then those IITs where you have a strong chance of getting at least the least popular program, find out how much flexibility they have in curriculum. Specifically, do they have a minor program in all disciplines you might be interested in. Second, how many students graduated in 2020, and how many of them were able to do a popular minor like CS. If this ratio is small, remove that IIT from your list. And now, you can specify all the programs of the remaining IITs.


9 comments:

Raghhav said...

Hello sir..
I am student who has cleared the jee advanced 2020 examination. I have got a rank of 10747 in Advanced this year. I am not sure of what my passion is. I am having an option of 1)doing electrical engineering/ece/mechanical/civil at dtu
2) doing an integrated 5 yr course from IIT BHU in Biomedical engineering
3) civil from iit Bhuvneshwar
4) applied geology from ism Dhanbad
Sir as you have said for students that haven't been able to discover their passion/interest are they should take up a broad course from a well reputed iit. Now sir these are the options in front of me.. I'm still unable to decide which to choose.

Dheeraj Sanghi said...

@Raghhav, why won't you consider IIIT Delhi. Between IITs, as I have suggested, please ask some student/faculty there: Do they have a minor program, and if yes, how many students did a popular minor like CSE in the last batch graduated this year. Which ever IIT is more flexible, join that.

shivang said...

hi sir..
I am Shivang and secured 9923 rank in jee advanced(ews) (I couldn't perform well in exam due to fever on the day of examination). According to last year's scenario, maybe I can get BS in earth science. I want to know if anyone wants to change his program from bs in earth science to btech in cse/ee/me, is it possible after securing good cpi after 2nd semester in iitk?

Dheeraj Sanghi said...

@Shivang, In IITK, for CSE, in most years you need to get a CPI of 10.0 which is extremely difficult ('A' grade in all courses in both semesters). For EE, it is usually 9.8, which means in 9 out of 10 courses, you should have an 'A' grade, which is again extremely difficult. After that, Mechanical, Economics and Maths used to be the most popular programs during branch change at least till 2 years ago, when I left. I would guess that that hasn't changed.

To get into other departments is somewhat easier, but not from Earth Science. Anyone can go from Civil to Metallurgy and vice versa even at low CPI (as long as you have passed all courses), but due to a peculiar rule in IITK, you may not be able to go to these departments from Earth Science.

IITK has a rule which says that the strength of a department cannot go below 55% of its sanctioned strength (unless they have changed it recently). The problem with Earth Science program is that there are some drop outs, that is those who don't join even after the admission is offered, and therefore, the number of people who can be allowed branch change out of ES is limited. Not everyone joining was a issue with only Chemistry and Earth Science (till 2 years ago, I wonder if things have changed). And therefore, the number of students who want to change department from these two programs is limited. Of course, the exact number will vary from year to year, and if you are lucky, your batch may have more students joining in. But if only 2 students are allowed to change because of 55% rule, then you have to be in the top 2 in your department to be eligible to change. So if someone has 9.5, another one at 9.0, and you have 8.5, and only two exits are allowed then even though at 8.5, you could have got change to many departments, you would still not be allowed. So, it is not just CPI but also ranking within your department that would matter.

Rishabh Dev said...

Hello Sir, Hope you are doing fine.

I am Rishabh.I secured a rank of around 9500 in Jee mains.

Honestly I also dont know the whereabouts of my passion.I am trying to explore( started learning c) but dont know whether coding is my thing or not. One thing i would want to mention here is that mine inclination towards CS is based on the below mentioned facts:
1. All my friends are going for CS (i dont understand how this concerns me.. but well it does..i dont know why)
2. Placement Statistics: Out of all,CS discipline has highest placement records for any college.

I am looking forward to study in Pec Chandigarh but i may or may not get CS. Chances are that i will get ECE in PEC.

So i would like to ask you -do PEC offers such a flexibility to choose minor courses from other discipline.Can a ECE student of PEC take some minor courses Of CS .

samyak mahajan said...

Hello Sir,
I got rank 1992 in JEE Advanced 2020 but I am getting extremely confused in what branch and IIT to choose.I don't care much about placements but I still am not able to remove this criteria while choosing.When I was 13 years old I bought a small telescope and ever since then I am interested in astronomy.During 11th and 12th I got very interested in programming in school but I am not sure if I like CSE. I wanted to become a scientist till I was in 11th when I used to study because I loved science but one day I realized in 12th that I was studying majorly to get marks in JEE now.
I was seriously considering Engineering physics at IIT Delhi because of my love for physics but after talking to many IITians,they told me that there is very high load in Engineering Physics so only those people should go who are really interested in physics and that college physics is different than school or Jee physics.Many of them also told that EP courses at IIT are boring and it will be difficult if you find that physics is not your cup of tea.So I thought of Electrical,Electronics and mechanical and I shortlisted on the programs related to electronics because of the curriculum(I am scared that this might also be because of higher placement) but still I am worried that I may not exactly sure about my interest. I want to choose the branch that I am interested in but because of the different cutoffs,opinions of others and maybe packages I cannot say anything at all what my interest actually is.I am getting admisson in IITKGP instrumentation engineering and also find the curriculum very interesting but I cannot really say anything.
If I take admission the best two IITs-I will get Civil in Bombay and Chemical and other branches in Delhi I am not sure that I will like them or not but I may get the exposure needed to find my interest.I am very confused sir.My choices are getting changed so frequently either by other IITians,elders and maybe placements that I feel like whatever I am choosing is not my choice or interest but just a branch whose cutoff is greater than my rank.I am also not in the position to choose IISERs for basic sciences because of this confusion.
I will be extremely grateful if you could give me some guidance.
Thank you

Dheeraj Sanghi said...

@Samyak, have faith in yourself. If you have got a rank of 1992, you are in the top 0.01% of Indian population. Even if you don't join any IIT, you will do well, you are destined to do well. Of course, it is possible that what you choose today, you may not like tomorrow. That can happen with Engineering Physics program, that can happen with Chemical, or Electrical or even Computer Science. You need to take a decision today and the best decision you can take is based on the knowledge you have today. So I don't see why you shouldn't study EP in IITs or science in IISERs. But if you are going through this fear of not liking something in future, then the only way to tackle that fear is to find out how much flexibility each IIT has and choose the IIT which will allow you to either change your branch liberally or at least allow you to study subjects of your choice as minor, second major, etc. In this respect, I don't know how each IIT is. As I said in my blog, pretty much every IIT will claim to be liberal but they are not. I have been very closely associated with IIT Kanpur and IIT Gandhinagar. I don't consider IIT Kanpur as flexible enough, and think IIT Gandhinagar to be quite flexible. You will need to call up some people in different IITs and ask for specific numbers, as mentioned in my blog.

Dheeraj Sanghi said...

@Rishabh, At PEC we are in the middle of changing our curriculum which will be applicable from the incoming batch. The structure of the program as approved by Senate is quite flexible and has possibility of doing minor. But what will get finalized in another month or so, and what could be implementation issues, we will know only in future. We are trying to be as flexible as possible.

Alka said...

I came across your blog as a result of extensive 'research' I, along with my son, have been doing to narrow down the options for his Undergraduate studies in India.The journey had been exhausting to say the least. The fact that many parents push their kids to get enrolled in institutions for the sake of a tag or forcing them to opt for a popular branch is disheartening but at the same time friends or other parents judging a child or his/her parents just coz he/ she prefers to pursue a career in what could be a popular branch (CS in our case) is equally disturbing. Almost all the discussions with aspiring JEE/IIT/NITs etc revolve around placement options each institute provides or more disheartening,the ROI(the term I recently learnt after stalking almost hundreds of aspirants' group on fb or elsewhere.) Some do discuss about the passion regarding a particular branch while some discuss about the financial aspect/fees etc but many aspirants focus on placements which IMHO should not be what a student at this age should be primarily focusing on as the dynamics may change after 4 years.
I have been subjected to loads of judgemental glances from other parents when I tell them how passionate our child is about CS and how he worked hard for JEE exams. Many assume that he is running a rat race not realising that some kids could indeed be passionate about being an engineer or a doctor. The keyword IIITD brought me to your blog and I hope I will get to learn some interesting Information about the current scenario. Having said that I was wondering if you or anyone reading this can guide us about the Upgradation round or spot round in IIITD. We faced an inevitable glitch in the admission process and now we may lose the opportunity to get a seat in IIITD though the candidate ticks all the points required to avail a seat there. The helpdesk though very helping one, is not able to guide us properly.