On 10th October, 2015, I got a chance to visit Noida Institute of Engineering and Technology, Greater Noida. I was invited to attend the discussion on Industry-Institute Interaction. On this golden opportunity, offered by Mr. Mustafa, I got the chance to interact with various delegates from various Industry Verticals. The verticals included primarily Computer Science and Information Technology, Bio Technology, Law Firms, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering and others.
The main topic of discussion was on how to bridge the gap between Institute Offerings and Industry Requirements in terms of skills and knowledge students have when they come fresh out of college. This discussion was unique in a way. Every time, we hear that there is a huge gap in what Indian Institutes are offering and what is required by the Industry. But this time, a college has taken up the task to gather a group of Industry representatives and get their views on what they require and their suggestions on how to achieve it.
One major output of discussion was that the students knows but can not apply in real world. Out of all the discussions made, here are a few points that I strongly feel should be taken care of -
1. Guest Lectures - We agree that most of the times college faculties have a great deal of knowledge and they know how to impart it to students. But most of the times, this knowledge starts limiting to books and year by year, due to repetitive teaching, the newness starts diminishing. Moreover, what the real world is looking for becomes somewhere back in mind, and the faculties' are rated on how much marks the students are getting. A Guest Lecturer can provide the insights on how this bookish knowledge is converted into real life situations. The understanding of students will increase greatly by such lectures. Now I had my fair share of experience when it comes to college life. On one hand, I attended IMSEC where we never got any guest lecturer. On other hand, IMT provided us Guest Lecturers and Industry representatives from time to time. The level of real knowledge imparted by a guest lecturer is far unique then a Regular faculty. Now I am not diminishing the role of a faculty, as it is required in making up the basic concepts of course. But together with a guest faculty, it will do wonders.
2. Industry Adoption Models - In India, it is hugely required that the students should learn on how to implement the knowledge. And a better way is to do HandsOn. Now as the lady heading the Bio Technology company (sorry for forgetting the name) mentioned that it is not very much possible as it requires huge investments in terms of machinery when it comes to her field. But in case of CS & IT, it can be very well managed. A company can hire a group of few students, and provide them to work on real project tasks. This will help the students in understanding the concepts and make them more professional in doing their work.
Another discussion included the role of faculties in such a model. The house was divided on this one. Some wanted the faculties to be accountable on the tasks, while some wanted students to take the responsibility and accountability for the tasks. My personal opinion resided with latter.
I always look back at my college life and feel that what could have changed to make it better. T do not regret on what I got. I had one of the best person to be mentored by - Chitale Sir (our HOD), Khan sir, Dubey Sir, and others. But an analysis on the past could help us in making the future of others better.I still feel there are a lot of things that could be done by colleges to make better IT professionals. Some of them could be -
1. Use of Code Repositories and accepting the projects on same. It will give students a platform to mention on Resumes too.
2. Increasing the code quality by not accepting the code without implementation of proper coding standards on the platform
they choose to work on (eg., Lint or Flake8)
3. Accepting the database models in a particular Normal Form.
These could be starters. Any more ideas are always welcomed. I hope that in future NIET will implement some of the ideas and we will have at least one institute (other than top leading Indian Institutes such as IITs, IIMs, NITs, or top private B-Schools or E-Colleges) where the students have high employability.
Please provide your comments on the idea.
