[ Dr. Sayantan Chakraborty ]
Electricity is the fundamental need of modern civilization. We primarily depend on electricity to fuel everything from transportation and communication to security and health delivery systems. In fact, human body is operated and controlled by electrical energy called bio-electricity. Recent researches revealed that even for only 1 calorie of food crops produced in the agro and food industries, many calories of electrical energy is required in manufacturing fertilizers and pesticides, packaging, transportation, and irrigation system. This illustrates the importance of Electrical energy in our life.
Electronics plays a major role in improving productivity in industries like oil, energy, agriculture and so many other important sectors of economy. In steel, petroleum and chemical industries it is the electronic devices that direct, control and test production processes. Health care industry depends on electronic instruments to perform chemical tests and to check body functions, etc. The safety in transportation, factories and mines and in homes, rely heavily on electronics. Apart from that, mobile phones, computers, TVs, remote controls of different devices, music players, etc., also have utmost importance in our everyday life.
The branch of engineering that deals with both electricity and the science of controlling it, i.e. electronics is the Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE). In this branch, students study different aspects of Electricity and Electronics along with their numerous applications. The EEE branch is the perfect amalgamation of both Electrical Engineering and Electronics Engineering, in which students study most of the theory and practical courses of Electrical Engineering as well as of Electronics Engineering. That way they acquire ample knowledge of both the branches which provide them opportunity to go into any field related to Electrical as well as Electronics Engineering.
Recent years have witnessed acute crisis in the technology-based jobseekers market with the advancement of modern automation technologies. Majority of the conventional degree-holder engineers nowadays are facing new challenges almost every day in the highly competitive professional world. It is the hard reality that to run those highly sophisticated modern technology-based industries with higher efficiency, there exists the requirement of modern technological experts equipped with significant multitasking abilities in the newly evolved intelligent environments. Therefore, in the present market scenario the future engineers need to gain adequate value-added skills while pursuing an engineering degree to stand out in the crowd of engineers since the recruiters pay more attention to the CVs of engineers equipped with value-added skills beneficial for their industry.
Thousands of engineers graduate every year from different places in the country but only a few possess the industry-oriented skills – this is where the skill gap lies and the number of unemployed engineers adds up. This skill gap should be reduced by equipping budding engineers with value-added skills to ensure engineering as a future-proof career option.
The B.Tech programme in EEE has been designed in such a way so as to provide excellent technical knowledge in the rapidly evolving fields of renewable energy, information and communication technology and the latest advances in the more traditional areas of power, control, and electromagnetism. Many of these Engineers specialize in a branch, such as controls systems, and in application areas, such as medical, computer, missile guidance and power distribution. This branch of engineering covers traditional areas likes generation, distribution and transmission of electricity as well as new age applications in electronics ranging from telecommunications to computers and micro processors. The course is strongly linked with the emerging fields like computation and neural systems, artificial intelligence, industrial automation, applied physics, computer science and applied dynamic systems.
EEE is always evergreen in terms of scope and job prospects. Electrical & Electronics engineers are required in most of industries such as manufacturing, household and office appliances for example, refrigerators, computer, microwave ovens, television, fans, motors, consumer durables, etc. The EEE students have the opportunity to proceed with various career prospects, which can make their future fruitful. By pursuing EEE, students become eligible for the following job roles.
There are numerous electrical companies, which specialize in producing different kinds of electrical machinery. For this mass production purpose, they need thousands of electrical engineers, and this creates a vast job space for the EEE graduates.
The power industry garners the entire craze, since it is required to provide the complete power needs of the home and industrial sectors. Without power, no engineering stream would run, and this displays the importance of the power industry. To produce the high quantities of electric power, electrical engineers are required in huge numbers. The pay scales for these job roles are very high, offering excellent career prospects for the EEE students.
With increasing necessity of non-polluting and sustainable electricity, Govt. of India has targeted to generating 20 GW of electricity by 2020 from renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, hydro, etc. To achieve that target, a huge number of employees will be required. Anticipated vacancy is 6.5 lakh. Renewable power generation mostly deals with electrical and electronics components and hence, EEE graduate students will get more preference. In other words, a large number of vacancies are waiting ahead for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Due to the presence of core electronics subjects in the EEE course, the students are even eligible to take up the important job roles in electronics such as telecom industries, transportation network, IT industries, airplane & airspace manufacturing industries, and production and the distribution of power are some of the specific fields of career development.
The electrical graduates are even accepted by the computer industries, to take part as software, hardware and network engineers.
In the near future there will be revolutionary changes in the automobile sectors, where the manufacturing companies are waiting for suitable designs and technologies for launching ultra modern electric vehicles, replacing the conventional diesel/petrol cars. Therefore it is only the matter of time that there will be a huge scope for EEE engineers, waiting with numerous innovative ideas for lunching futuristic environment friendly electric vehicles, as well as charging stations run by renewable power.
There are great opportunities to be a part of the premier industries such as BHEL, NTPC, DMRC, NHPC, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), State electricity boards, Centre for Electronics Design and Technology, ABB, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Indian Railway, Coal India Limited (CIL), Crompton greaves, Wipro Lighting, Bajaj International Private Ltd, Siemens, Hitachi, Jindal steel and power, reliance, I & T, TATA, Samsung engineering, etc.
Students can also choose higher studies for a career in the teaching field. They have got the option to join the premiere institutions for faculty positions after earning Master of Technology (M.Tech) degree in various emerging fields under Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
One can also do research work after earning doctoral degree in premier educational and research institutions. It provides them with the opportunity to enlighten the other UG/PG students, and it is a beneficial career as well. Another very good option to prosper in the various industries is to bag an MBA degree, for which the graduate engineers need to take admission in the various reputed business schools across the country.
With B.Tech degree in EEE, the graduates are always on the radar of excellent career prospects. (The writer is an assistant professor and Head, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, ICFAI University, Tripura)
