'Industries look for addl skills in students'

Courage and confidence are the qualities of a successful innovator, P A Education Trust Director (Academics) and Mind Trainer Dr Surfraz J Hasim said on Friday.

He was delivering a talk on the topic, ‘Making The Right Choice’, at Eduverse, the 11th edition of Jnana Degula-2019, a CET/COMEDK pre-counselling programme, organised by Deccan Herald and its sister publication Prajavani, at Seminar Hall in Canara First Grade College here, on Friday.

Hasim said one should not lose hope and urged the students to innovate something with the help of engineering skills that they learnt in the college.

Quoting Albert Einsten he said, “The value of education is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think.”

Hasim called upon students to discard negative words from the mind and use positive words to motivate the mind. “There is a huge gab between what you are and what you can be,” he said.

He added that one should be surrounded with successful people and should read 20 pages of a book daily to gain knowledge.

Stressing the need to have a set of goals in life, Hasim said after identifying the goals in life, one needs to have a strategy and an action plan to reach the goal.

“There are more than 40 branches in engineering. Industries do not expect marks alone from students. Instead, they want additional skills acquired by a student.”

Chemical, civil, electronics and electrical engineering, electronics & communication engineering, computer science engineering and mechanical engineering are some of the sought after courses. Without physics and mathematics, there is no engineering. One need to be imaginative creative, good at communication skills and ready to work as a team, he added.

Dr Ananth Prabhu, faculty at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management, said, “Scopes are a plenty and the students should know their unique selling point (USP) before choosing a course.”

He said students should equip themselves with additional skills along with a degree. He said aerospace engineering and robotics, internet of things (IoT), content writing, ethical hacking and cyber crime with LLB degree, green architecture and civil services will make a significant impact in the next 30 years.

Prabhu said Dakshina Kannada district has produced only three IPS officers till date. Students can also think of clearing Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission and serve the society. On agriculture science, he said there was BSc (Agriculture), BSc (Horticulture), Forestry, agriculture marketing, food technology and sericulture as well.

Bhandary Foundation Chairman Dr Manjunath Bhandary said in professional courses along with marks scored, the knowledge acquired by the students during the process of learning is of paramount importance. Along with hard work it is the knowledge gained, smart skill acquired and creative work generated by the students that counts in the job market.

“Just as we are cautious when it comes to selecting cellphones, study the professional courses....don’t blindly follow others,” Dr Bhandary advised.