Most of the students who secured seats in the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are not keen to do research but to land lucrative jobs in the software industry and earn big money. This, despite the appeals made by the scientific fraternity that the they should opt for research for research sake.
Andhra Pradesh students bagged over 50 ranks in the first 100 and experts estimate that about 2,000 students might make it to IITs cornering about 20 per cent of the over 10,000 seats available in the 17 institutions.
Almost all the toppers from the state have decided to join the Computer Science Engineering branch at IIT-Bombay which is the most preferred place to land plum jobs in campus placements later.
S Leena Madhuri of Tirupati, the lone girl to figure in the top 10 rankers from the state, told Express that at present she did not think beyond becoming a software engineer and wanted to take admission to the CSE course at IIT-Bombay. She had toiled hard for six years since Class VII for an IIT seat. Like her, no other topper from Andhra Pradesh is interested in doing research.
P Saisandeep Reddy (1st rank), A Ravichandra (2nd rank), M Viswa Virinchi (7th rank) and S Leena Madhuri (8th rank), who figured among All India top 10 rankers, want to study CSE at IIT-Bombay and to begin their career as software engineers.
Almost all of them had begun their preparations as early as Class VIII.
When approached, a highly-paid teacher at a corporate educational institution in the state told Express that their job was only to groom candidates to excel in the entrance test. They would not counsel them as to what they should do after completing B.Tech.
These institutions show icons like Nandan Nilekani, who excelled in software industry, as a role model. In fact, experts in the field say that candidates need not work hard even for five years to become a software engineer but nowadays even an average engineering graduate with a score of over 60 per cent marks is getting a job as SWE.
S Shankar Reddy, an assistant professor at a private engineering college in Hyderabad, says that the toppers have an excellent academic record, which means they can excel in any given field. If they are determined to do research and invent something, they can easily achieve it and, thereby, can do a lot of good to the country, he says.
Speaking over the phone from IIT-Delhi, Akhilesh Reddy, last year’s 250th ranker, said that most of his seniors and batchmates were preferring software jobs. He took electrical engineering as his subject of study as he did not get admission to CSE at the IIT in Bombay or Delhi but his classmate, Trivikram Reddy, last year’s 93rd ranker, got a seat in CSE in Delhi. However, he agreed that not many of IIT students, particularly those from AP, are not taking up research as a serious option.