India Education & Career

THE 21st century is known as the ‘information age’ –ushered in by the computer revolution, which brought in its wake a globalised knowledge economy, has  triggered off a boom in the services sector. Networking has allowed for the first time remote international trade in services -ITES (information technology enabled services), thus widening scope of tradable services to the benefit of low cost countries like India. The consequent economic boom due to outsourcing ITES by developed nations like the USA and the European Union to developing nations offering cheap labor has opened the flood gates to employment in the IT sector, not to mention parallels in other services (back office operations) sector. This boom in IT employment has been reinforced by the ubiquitous nature of computer applications. The IT and ITES, are the most robust sectors in the Indian economy, with significant share in India’s GDP growth.  Information technology plays an important role in today’s world. IT is one of the fastest growing sectors, attracting huge number of job seekers at various levels. Indian IT has built up a global reputation.

IT careers offer a range of opportunities in software, hardware, and ITES.  The IT sector in itself is sophisticated and specialized sector having all kinds of specializations like development software, telecommunications etc. Academic qualifications in the relevant field are a must apart from in-house training, which is the dominant trend among companies and recruiters in this sector. Moreover, the IT sector is so esoteric that IT professionals have to constantly take refresher courses to upgrade their skills to keep abreast of latest developments in computer technology. This has made the IT sector very competitive.

For a sucessfull career in IT, it is necessary to choose the right institute offering relevant courses, since this sector is crowded with too many courses by too many (accredited and non-accredited) institutions. Thus in this context it becomes important to choose the right course  which is oriented to the career of your choice.

While the right course and right institute can help you fullfill your career aspiration, a wrong step in this direction can result in loss of precious time and money. In this context, infrastructure of the institute and the facilities available in terms of hardware, software and courses availavble, will help you to make the right choice of institute and the course to choose.

Eligibility: Any student, with an aggregate of 60% marks in bachelor’s degree of minimum 3 years duration from a recognized university in any discipline, with mathematics as one of the subjects both in graduation and at 10+2 level, are eligible.  Candidates in their final year of the course are also eligible to apply. Most major universities, engineering and technology colleges and private IT training institutes offer most of the mainstream IT courses apart from specailised courses in various disciplines like engineering design development (CAD\CAM), desktop publishing etc.

Personal attributes: This is a highly skilled and competitive sector requiring hard work and intelligence to complete the curriculum. Most IT companies train recruits inhouse in addition to the formal degree education. The only constant variable in IT is change, considering the regular release of latest technology in this field by companies. This requires a willingness to update your skills constantly in order to keep abreast of the latest developments.

Job prospects: The scope for employment in the IT sector  is very large. You can work as a system manager, internet expert, web designing specialist, develop software for leading software companies as a consultant, or pursue a career in computer education, or as a graphics designer, web developer,  as well as in publishing services, data conversion, and in animation work, among other fields.  Most IT jobs in other sectors will increase as the scope for IT applications increase. Due to the very nature of IT applications IT professionals end up in forntline R&D areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, industrial automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, expert systems, operations management, operations research, wireless and telecommunications technologydigital design and VLSI (very large scale integration) designing, among amny other areas. Options in the IT sector are wide indeed and as new applications of IT emerge the scope for employment will only get wider. In this field there are ample opportunities for entrepreneurs also, as seen in the case of Indian software giant Infosys. It was started on a small scale by salaried employees of another software company and has now emerged as a global software giant. Above all, salaries in the IT sector are highly  lucrative along with other attractions like an overseas posting.

Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) :  The broad objective of the MCA is to prepare postgraduate students for productive careers in the software industry, and in academics for teaching and research in emerging areas of the decipline.  MCA professionals comprise a significant portion of the Indian IT workforce employed with corporations overseas.  MCA courses generally pertain to the software field. As a career option, MCA is a great choice. As MCA you can get jobs in any of the top ranking companies engaged in developing systems software for various firms. Most masters courses stretch over two to three years duration.

Eligibility : Students having mathematics as one of the major subject in senior secondary school classes (XI &XII) are eligible.  Students in the final year of their graduation are also eligible but have to submit proof of their completing graduation by a specified date.  Some colleges require 50% aggregate in graduation in orderto be eligible to apply. For doing MCA you have to give a MCA enterance test.  The test is focussed on mathematical and logical skills, apart from other areas.  Seats available for MCA programmes are limited with an average of 30 seats per institute. There are about 165 govt. recognized MCA institutes in the country .  Some of them are Jawaherlal Nehru Uiversity, Indira Gandhi National Open University, University Of Mumbai, Allana Institute Of Management And Sciences Audyogik Shikshan Mandal’s Institute Of Business and Research, Directorate Of Technical Education, and Bharati Vidyapeeth (deemed university).

Personel attributes: A rigorous creative discipline, an MCA or any other kind of programmer in the IT sector need to approach problems systematically and logically, with creativity, imagination, using excellent management and mathematical skills and technical knowledge .

Job prospects:  After completing MCA a student is absorbed into the industry as a programmer. There are a lot of openings for a candidate after finishing his MCA.  A very popular option is working as a system analyst.  An MCA can also work as a web design specialist, network administrator, database administrator etc. As an MCA you can be system engineer, a software developer, or a software engineer working as team leader, project manager etc.  However, in each of these positions, performance and track record form the key to career growth and as such the best performers get the best returns.

Renumeration: For MCA graduates the starting salary may vary from a gross of Rs. 72000/- to as much as Rs.3, 50,000/- per annum.