The Assam Engineering College

April 10: Students of Assam Engineering College can indeed dream of a bright future.

Altogether 285 students studying in the college have been selected and offered lucrative pay packets by corporate giants this year. Surprisingly, most of the selected students are yet to clear their final examination.

“So far, out of 292 students, 203 in the final-year batch, graduating in July 2007, have received job offers from 19 companies and industrial houses. Eighty-two students of the 2008 batch of the Assam Engineering College have been selected by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to join the company as associate trainees next year,” professor in-charge of training and placement cell of AEC, Arup Kumar Mishra, said.

“Despite facing several constraints, this is a brilliant achievement by students of this government college. We hope the number of job offers for this year’s outgoing batch will touch 250 in the next month as a few more companies, including Satyam, Bharat Petroleum and Denso Haryana, will visit the Assam Engineering College soon,” Mishra said.

TCS held its campus recruitment drive at the college on Sunday for the 2008 batch of bachelor of engineering and MCA students. Altogether 177 students from eight engineering streams and MCA took the aptitude test, followed by technical and management resources interviews.

Among the selected students, 20 are from the department of electrical engineering, 18 from mechanical engineering, 15 from the electronics and telecommunications department, eight from instrumentation, six from computer science, five each from the civil and industrial and production branches, three from chemical engineering and two from MCA.

“In the past few years, more and more organisations have queued up to offer jobs to our students, which is a good sign for the college,” Mishra said.

The companies that have offered jobs to students include Infosys, Tata Technologies Ltd, Congizant, Asea Brown Boveri, Asia Motor Works, ICICI Bank, Indian Oiltanking Ltd, TVS Motors, Vedanta, Areva, Tata Elxsi Thermax and Numaligarh Refinery Ltd.

“Placements at Assam Engineering College have been improving by leaps and bounds over the years. One cannot compare Assam Engineering College’s performance with that of the IITs or NITs. But our performance is good in terms of placements as we have achieved it despite facing constraints,” Mishra said.

According to Mishra, the placement and training cell is short of finance and other resources and is run by students’ contributions.

“The guesthouse of the college is in a shabby condition due to which we cannot provide accommodation to top officials of the companies in the college campus. Moreover, there are only 70 technical professors against a requirement of 120,” he added.