Nine students of Pondicherry Engineering College (PEC) had gone to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in US as part of an exchange programme between the two prestigious educational institutions.
The pre-final students in different streams of engineering at PEC completed their semester studies in the US university and are back in town.
Sharing her experience, one of the students, Divya said that the courses in the University of Arkansas are more application-oriented unlike the theory-oriented courses in Indian institutions and the theory classes are supplemented with projects and practicals.”It is more quality-based, rather tha quantity-based,” she added.
Divya did projects on “Network security and social computing”. “We had to do a lot of projects and the work load was very heavy,” she said.
K Balachandran, a mechanical engineering student, was associated with a NASA-sponsored research project on “metal foams” at the Arkansas University. Balachandran feels that the experience gained at the university would help him in his future assignments.
Vishnue Prasad, a student in Electrical and Electronics Engineering branch, said the curriculum offered by the university was industry-oriented and once a student completed his course, he would be industry-ready.
All the three are planning to return to the US for higher studies.
Prof V Prithiviraj, principal in-charge of PEC, said the MoU was signed two years ago under Prof J A K Tareen, vice-chancellor of the Pondicherry Central University, to which the PEC is affiliated. This was the first time that students were exchanged.
The principal revealed the two institutions will go for faculty exchange as well as collaborative research projects in the near future.