BANGALORE: For years, engineering students begged and pleaded with companies to allow them to do their project work, a mandatory requirement for their bachelor's degree awarded by the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).

Putting an end to this passive industry response, information technology major Hewlett Packard has tied up with 10 engineering colleges to offer technology intensive, hands-on programmes designed to integrate the student in the real world.

Taking the industry-academia partnership further, HP will offer two programmes in Software Engineering and Advanced Unix. Offered free of cost under HP's University Programmes Office, the courses are designed to help the student get first-hand exposure to practical application of theoretical concepts in an atmosphere of constant innovation.

A three-month course in Advanced Unix had been piloted in the city-based PES Institute of Technology (PESIT) in 2004. This course has now been expanded to JSS Engineering College and will eventually cover all the 10 colleges linked to HP, the company's general manager, K.M. Shyamkrishna told The Hindu. In Karnataka, HP has tied up with RV College of Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, NIE and JCE, Mysore, besides PESIT and JSS College.

The company has also a similar tie-up with PSG Coimbatore, MIET, Jammu and NIT, Kurukshetra.

The two-month Software Engineering course, explained Mr. Shyamkrishna, will give students an insight into software estimations, design methodologies, design testing, configuration management and related issues. "These will be incorporated into the student projects."

Here's how the two programmes will be integrated to the colleges: students will be short-listed in the fifth semester of their BE course. The selected students will then undergo the Advanced Unix course in their sixth semester and the Software Engineering course in the seventh semester.

They will complete their industry project at HP in the eight semester. HP will issue a certificate to the student and the latter is bound to have an edge once he/she enters the job market.

Jawahar D., director of the People's Education Society that runs PESIT, explained the rationale behind the tie-up with HP and the industry in general: "in campuses, domain experience of the faculty is not that strong. Industry intervention was essential. From 18 students working on five projects in the first year of partnership with HP, it went up to six projects in the second year and this year, for the Unix and Software Engineering courses, we have 30 students in 12 projects."

For PESIT, industry involvement in its academics was much advanced.

Centres

"PESIT is looking at six centres, at least two of which will be converted into Centres of Excellence. HP will handle one of these verticals, and for that we have targeted 30 students. For every 100 PESIT students, we are looking at one tie-up." HP has equipped PESIT with a Unix Server and the necessary hardware.

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