Alternatives to Engineering & Medicine for Graduation
The common undergrad options selected by kids in India is either Engineering (B.E or B.Tech) or Medicine (MBBS), parents / kids are not to blame for this — since those two education tracks have a proven record of successful people around for parents & kids to look & they would prefer to follow the same.
Generally subjects for graduation is selected while picking the Class X1 subject combination by the kids — science, commerce or art stream. In this post, I would like to share the research that we did for our son Aditya Bhaskara at the time of choosing his Class X1 subjects.
B.Sc (Hon) in Math & CS / Math & Physics : CMI
Chennai Management Institute, has a couple of 3yrs bachelor program for students keen on pursuing Maths, Computer Science & Physics specialisation, CMI was founded in 1989, one of the few public private ownership based institutes in India. CMI has mixed reviews, being a great place for research focused students on Mathematics, CMI gets compared with IIT & is recommended over IIT for a serious math enthusiasts — but if you are looking at brand image & placements IIT is obviously rated higher than CMI
Students need to appear for CMI’s entrance test followed by an interview to get into BSc programs, students with exceptional performance in National Olympiad Maths are directly invited for the interview & don’t need to appear for entrance test.
B.Sc (Hon) / B.A (Hon): Ashoka University
Ashoka University, is one of the new age university that was setup in 2014 by group of philanthropists with a vision of providing world class education in India & they are doing an amazing work on the way courses are designed for bachelors, masters & Phd programs. All undergrad students go through the foundation course that comprises of critical thinking, Indian civilisation & environment studies — the students then pick a major or inter disciplinary courses for their graduation.
Ashoka has an awesome campus & offers co-curricular courses in performing arts & visual arts as well, it’s a great university to join for somebody who prefers to build a well rounded education in their graduation.
Ashoka conducts its own aptitude test for admission along with giving a consideration for SAT scores (if the students have) & would expect the students to give an essay write up about their profile & recommendation letters for any past accomplishments.
Integrated Program in Management : IIM Indore
IPM is a 5yrs integrated program that awards bachelors & masters degree at IIM Indore. Students join the PGP batch for the masters program, with an option for taking sabbatical break for a year after the bachelors. IPM is great for students who are keen on management studies & prefer to be on that track than going into management after engineering / BSc programs.
Students need to clear IPMAT Entrance followed by an interview & then you would get the seat in IPM, and there are quite a few coaching centres that offer training for IPMAT, a good preparation for 2yrs should help the students in clearing the entrance.
B.Math (Hon) / B.Stat (Hon) : ISI
Indian Statistical Institute, was setup in 1931 by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, as a spin off from presidency college in Calcutta to help pursue as a place for folks to research in statistics & physics subject. ISI offers the similar 3yrs bachelor program in Maths & Statistics, the B.Math program is in their Bangalore campus & students passing out from B.Math will get an automatic entry into doing M.Math at ISI.
ISI is the place for students who love to pursue a career in math & would like to be in the intersection of large volumes of data & computer science, will be a great asset for somebody aspiring to be a data scientist.
Hope you found this post useful, do leave your comments on any research / other career options you have done for undergrad programs in India.
