Selecting branch in an IIT/engineering

Many students have been coming to me in search of the answer to this question. Some of them already have a preference for a certain branch while some are completely neutral and have no particular interest whatsoever. Then some students choose a branch not based on its field/content but based on the package they will get after completion of their BTech/MTech.

In this blog post, I will try my best to systematically answer such queries so that students make a well-informed choice and don’t regret their choices later in college.

Before moving on, I would like to clarify that I would only be discussing the major core branches in engineering. I won’t be discussing all the branches that are present in today’s world. The branches I will be talking about are-

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Electrical & Electronics
• Mechanical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Metallurgical Engineering

Branches like Maths & Computing can be considered similar to CSE and the same goes for various branches in between these major engineering fields.

I have written a post about life at IITs, give it a read in case you are getting admission in an IIT.

Preference of students in previous few years

To know which branches are preferred over the other (in say, the same engineering college), we could go over the seat allocation and counselling data which is available after the seats are frozen for a particular year. The data that we need to look over are the opening and closing ranks for the respective branches.

What are opening and closing ranks?

Opening rank means the first student who gets admission it that Branch and the closing rank means the last student gets admission to that branch according to rank.

Now once we are clear on the definition, the preference in the last several years has been in the order (best being on the top)-

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Electrical & Electronics
• Mechanical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Metallurgical Engineering

After looking at the order, one might wonder, if the preference is in the given order, then why does anyone even choose Metallurgical Engineering. To answer this question, we next move on to the other most important factor, the college.

Which college should I choose?

Now we come to the most important factor without which the above discussion doesn’t make much sense. If I was to compare Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Bombay to Computer Science and Engg in some shitty private college, then the discussion won’t make much sense, right?

Coming back to the discussion, which college to choose is a very important decision that needs to be taken by the student. But the choices are quite limited and logical. You consider colleges starting from the college where you can get the worst branch and ending at the college where you can get the most preferred branch ie. CSE. No other college makes any sense. Because you would then be talking about the college which is very good but you are not eligible for any branch in that college. Or, you would be talking about a very shitty college where you might be getting the best branch. But that won’t help you since college reputation matters a lot.

Now coming back to the list. Once you have compiled the list of colleges that satisfy the above criteria. You need to exclude colleges that you don’t want at all due to a multitude of factors like location or cultural differences etc.

Now the real discussion starts

After following the above methods to finally come to a list of colleges in which you are eligible for one or more than one branches. The real question that one needs to answer now is which (college + branch) option should you opt for or fill in the preference list.

Now this, is the toughest decision that you would be making which will ultimately affect your career.

Two cases arise-

1. You have a preference for a branch due to xyz reasons
2. You are neutral to branches or have preference for multiple branches

Case 1 : You have a preference for a branch

After you have compiled the list of colleges (based on their opening closing rank), you can choose the college which students prefer the most. This preference can be found from the previous years opening and closing rank and other factors like placement records or reputation of that college.

Factors you need to consider for finalising the college are –

• Placement Records
• Research opportunities
• Location
• Culture
• Reputation

Choosing a college in Case 1 is fairly simple since you are already sure about the branch you would be taking.

Case 2 : No specific preference for a branch

This part is tricky. Now since you need to consider the best combination of branch+college that you can get, this requires more research and analysis.

Some facts you need to consider-

• CSE is the most paying branch (package wise) followed by electrical
• CSE is not a core branch (won’t help much in UPSC etc preparation, although it doesn’t matter much)
• CSE is the most competitive branch (4 years of competitiveness vs chilling in other branches)
• Non CSE branches can get software jobs too
• You can always try to change branch in the same college (very tough, only 2-3 percent get a chance to change branch)

Now for choosing a college, you should be aware that CSE is probably the best branch there is if you don’t have any preference. They get you highest package comparing to other branches as well as the topics are far more interesting when compared to curriculum of other branches. Many people from other branch realise this later in the college.

Job types and their influence on branch selection

Having said that, people from electrical, mechanical, chemical and metallurgical branch can get two kinds of job-

1. Core Job – Related to the field
2. Non Core Job – Not directly related to the field for eg. finance, software, data scientist etc

CTC (Cost to company) or the package is higher in non core job as compared to core job. So students try to get non core job after 4 years.

While choosing the college, you can consider CSE and electrical to be at a higher level than other branches. So if you are getting CSE, electrical in X college and other branches in Y college and X is not as good a college as Y, then also you can opt for X since branch is very important.

You should opt for the better college in case you are confused among mechanical, chemical and metallurgical branch. These branches are quite similar in terms of placement and other research opportunities.

Package in different branches

Let’s talk about the salary in these branches. To know more about the reality of packages at IIT, visit this blog post.

Package in CSE branch is the highest because the software and other fin tech firms which offer jobs to CSE graduates give out the maximum package in any college. That being said, people in electrical department have higher chance than other non CSE branches to get placed in these companies.

Can non CSE students apply for software jobs?

Students in other Non CSE branch can also apply to software jobs. Students having sufficient practice in coding and basic software courses, can and have applied to software jobs at firms like Amazon, Flipkart, Oracle, various startups etc. They don’t get placed in well known software firms like google, Microsoft, facebook, high frequency trading firms, finance firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley etc.

What about finance firms?

Many students try to get jobs in financial firms because they pay better than the software counter parts. The students that can apply can be from any branch although the preference is given to CSE and electrical branch students. To know why students choose financial jobs, read this post.