Date:21/08/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/08/21/stories/2005082115740300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Slog now for a glorious career, say experts

Staff Reporter

Students advised on how to achieve success

PROVIDING TIPS: Chief Executive Officer of Theme Work Analytics P. Balasubramaniam (left), and Managing Director of KPCL L.V. Nagarajan at The Hindu EducationPlus `IIT Awareness Seminar' in Bangalore on Saturday. — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

BANGALORE: Cracking the admission test for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) was a distant dream for the 500 plus students gathered at the R.V. Teachers' College here on Saturday. But The Hindu EducationPlus "IIT Awareness Seminar" gave them hope, the speakers offering them a glimpse of the highly rewarding life that awaited the alumni of IITs.

"Be ready to slog to get into the IITs. Be ready to solve a thousand sums a thousand times to clear the IIT JEE tests," said L.V. Nagarajan, Managing Director of Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd. (KPCL).

Fundamentals

"The entrance questions are based on absolute fundamentals of Physics, Mathematics. You need to be strong on the fundamentals," he said.

The IIT aspirants, many of whom had come with their parents, were all ears. An alumnus of IIT Madras, Mr. Nagarajan knew too well to paint the big IIT picture as an insider. Huge campuses ranging from 200 acres to 600 acres, well-stocked libraries, opportunities for sports, fests, professors with Ph.D., he had seen them all, experienced them all. IITs, he said, were excellent springboards to take on new challenges abroad, opportunities that did not always exist within the country.

Hard work

"IIT means competition, survival, hard work, confidence. It offers quality education at low fees. For the money spent, the returns are absolutely disproportionate," he said.

If Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and MIT were big tags abroad, the IITs were the "desi tags." As Mr. Nagarajan put it, "IIT is a tag saleable throughout the world at a premium." He had numbers to support his claim. "About 2,000 IITians pass out every year. About 2 lakh engineers pass out from colleges across the country each year. Do you want to be one among the 2,000 or the two lakh. Ask yourself," he said.

A former IIT Madras professor, K.N. Seetharamu realised the students' potential to go the distance. "Fix a target to get into the IITs. Motivate and direct yourself. Each one of you should take the test. You are at the border. Just cross it."

Chief of Bureau of The Hindu, Bangalore, A. Jayaram said not many Karnataka students were getting into the IITs and the administrative services, though they were second to none.

P. Balasubramaniam, Chief Executive Officer of Theme Work Analytics, who is also an IIT Madras alumnus, said: "The IIT is a microcosm of India itself. The environment is completely free."

Going abroad with an IIT tag had helped him open the doors of opportunity everywhere. "You can choose the employer or the nature of job. The doors are wide open for assistantships, anything," he said.

Still an insider at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, S. Karthik had fresh memories of his years at IIT Madras and the years before that. "At the IITs, concepts should be understood, not mugged up. Sacrifice your social life in the 11th and 12th standards, get into tutorials if you want guidance on the books to buy, on the topics to focus," was his advice to the students.