Chennai: Computer science engineering (CSE) course has regained its mojo as it is the second most preferred course in academic counselling that started on Sunday.
As on Monday evening, 1,077 students chose CSE branch at the counselling and 1,470 students chose electronics and communication engineering.
Though it was the favourite among engineering aspirants till a few years ago, the interest waned as job opportunities were far and few for computer science graduates.
The trend has been slowly reversing in the last two years as IT companies showed interest in recruiting computer science graduates.
“The trend suggests that preference for CSE and IT courses has moved up compared to mechanical engineering this year. The electronics and communication engineering (ECE) has almost the same preference as last year with many people thinking that ECE has more opportunities,” said career consultant Jayaprakash A. Gandhi.
“Demand for computer science engineering and IT has definitely gone up. Students feel that CSE and IT graduates will have more opportunities in future when the automation, robotics would be crucial,” he said.
Many city colleges have already filled their management quota seats of the computer science branch.
“In our college, the first branch that’s filled was computer science engineering. As compared to other sectors, the IT companies are still hiring in large numbers,” a city college principal said.
He also said the big data and IoT (Internet of Things) has opened new avenues for these students.
T.V. Geetha, an expert in computer science and dean, College of Engineering, Guindy, said, “The scope for computer science graduates will be more as all the industries are now doing the data analytics. For analytics, we need students with computer science background.”
But, she also warned the students not to go for computer science in large numbers as the opportunities will be limited.
B. Sriram, top ranker in engineering counselling who chose the computer science engineering in CEG said, “It’s my favourite subject. I want to focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning. I did not choose it because of the placements.” The professors also urged that those students who have the interest for computer science engineering alone should select it and they should not select the course just because there are more opportunities.
