CHENNAI: Electronics and Communication Engineering and Computer Sciences and Engineering, remain, as predicted, the most preferred choice among students this year, going by trends set by the high rankers who attended counselling for B.E/B.Tech in the first two days.

Core branches such as Mechanical and Civil Engineering are way behind to the extent that Civil Engineering branch seats were available in government colleges, unlike in the more popular branches, after two days (or ten sessions) of counselling.

The other `circuit branches' — Electrical and Electronics and Information Technology are doing far better than the core branches.

In the first two days, 2,400 students were called for counselling, 1,740 allotted seats; 1,382 seats went to circuit branches, including in EEE and Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering. In ECE branch 519 seats were taken; in computer science 392 seats, in EEE branch 189 seats and in Information Technology 219 seats were taken by students. But only 128 seats in Mechanical Engineering and 14 seats in Civil Engineering were filled. "And most of the students who opted for Civil Engineering were from the non-reserved category, as apparently they wanted to study only in College of Engineering, Guindy," says Salem based analyst, Jayaprakash Gandhi.

Those who are watching counselling trends note students preference to biotechnology has come down this year, compared to the last. Students perhaps feel that biotech is more research oriented and one has to go in for post graduation and research degrees to get into high end jobs. Campus placements in this branch are much lower than in others.

Again pointing to placement trends, Mr. Gandhi says industries too in the near future will prefer students from core engineering branches of reputed colleges, because such students would have a fair amount of working skills in core areas and computing. "That's why people should prefer a good college rather than harp on the circuit branches alone... " he says.

Academics are sad that few students (in the first two days) opted for emerging fields such as pharmaceuticals, food processing, petroleaum refining or geo-informatics even in Anna University's famed constituent unit, the A.C. College of Technology. Similarly, textiles too had very few takers, although in a quota-free international trade regime, textiles technology provide very exciting job and research opportunities for youngsters especially in the area of non-woven fabrics.

New courses this year

Some of the new options available this year, especially in core areas, are chemical technology - paper and pulp technology; chemical technology - fertilizer and chemical technology; chemical technology - cement technology; petroleum refining and petrochemical engineering; B. Arch - interior design.

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