The fate of their elder siblings who opted for the engineering stream have had a bearing on the youngsters who are now flocking to the commerce and arts courses.
Krishna Kumar, a close watcher of job market and CEO of Green Pepper Consulting, says that this is a reflection of students responding smarter to the available job market.
“These are students who have seen their brothers and sisters sitting idle at home with a BTech degree and without a job.
They know they can do CA or CMIA in parallel to their Commerce degree or can enhance their soft skills while doing an arts degree,” he said.
Nirmala Padmanabhan, HoD of Economics at St Teresa’s, says the arts and economics students have an edge when it comes to jobs. “It is not just a story of quantity, “says Associate Professor at Maharaja’s College N K Vijayan.
“Students with quality are getting admitted into the arts stream now. When I was a graduate student, one could have easily grabbed an English seat with just 45 per cent marks for pre-degree. Compare it with the over 800 applications received for the just 25 seats three years ago. “This shows the change in competition levels. So,even if you have over 80 per cent, its difficult to get an admission for English now due to the stiff competition,” he says. To sum it up in the words of Krishna, these students know how to become smart. And the industry just loves them.