What can you expect from any branch (Part-1)

 Hello everyone, I am Yash Bhusare, a student of IITM. It's not a mystery that a lot of students about to start their college careers don't have much idea about various engineering branches. Therefore, in this blog, I am going to brief about all the branches and their curriculum. Hopefully, in the end, this series of articles should help you decide a college and branch.

Wherever I have described some branch in this blog, I have considered the college as well, as all colleges can have different (slightly) syllabus under the same branch name.

Electrical engineering at IITM is consists of both electrical and electronics in it's curriculum, we don't have any separate branch like Electronics or Electronics and communication, so whenever I have written electrical keep in mind that it is electrical + electronics 

Aerospace Engineering - This can be split into 4 major parts -

1)Aerodynamics: The relevant courses include fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, low speed aerodynamics and high speed aerodynamics. These courses tell you everything that you should know about how to generate lift and reduce drag. They will also take you through the history of how people tried to get things to fly, from Wright brothers making their historic flight till first sonic boom in flight when he broke the sound barrier! Advanced topics on rotor dynamics and supersonic flight are also covered.

2)Propulsion/Combustion: An engine is like the heart of any airplane. It is basically a device that burns fuel to convert chemical energy into mechanical energy. In combustion systems modelling of flows is coupled with energy and chemical considerations. An undergraduate course in propulsion tells you about the different kinds of engines, their advantages and disadvantages and you can do more advanced courses in Combustion Theory as electives. This will be useful in turbine engines and rocket engines.

3)Structure: A moving airplane is under the action of very heavy forces and moments. It is the job of a structural engineer to make sure that it does not break into pieces due to this. The demand for lightweight and highly rigid materials has opened exciting research in materials science with the development of composite materials for the same.

4)Flight Mechanics: So far we have been dealing with specific sections of the aircraft. Flight Mechanics is the field where you bring all of them together to predict as well as alter the motion of the aircraft.

5)Avionics- the study of all electronic components needed to control an aircraft. Sensor, Processors, radar, all passive and active components. You will learn some courses from electrical department for avionics.

(Please note that avionics is still a developing field in IIT Kanpur and there is a shortage of faculty in this field. And there is no avionics as IITM. So if you are only interested in avionics, then you should probably consider other option too. IIST has Avionics)

You can find more here- https://thatsiitk.quora.com/Aerospace-Engineering-IIT-Kanpur

Biotech - Well, Biotech is not just biology. Is currently an emerging field in India but quite developed and highly demanded branch in foreign countries because of its vast potential for development And as a field of research scope. As the name itself suggests, we are taught mainly about the basics of biology like DNA, genetics and such stuff along with technological advancements... pacemaker, hybrid organisms, heartbeat determining apps etc are only few of its applications.

     Placements... As far as campus recruitments are considered, very few core companies come and in India, we mostly depend on the non-core sector for getting highly paid jobs easily.. though this branch provides immense scope in India if one goes for higher studies!

     "As far as my decision is considered, I took an admission in this branch solely because of my JEE rank and to get that prestigious tag of an iitian! Though with time, I have started to gain an interest in this branch and might opt for a career in bioinformatics(a part of biotech) which involves software development" -Deepti (Biotech IITR)

Electrical engineering - electrical engineering at IIT-M is very different than other IITs as our electrical department is electrical + electronics , We (IIT-M) don’t have  different department. So this part of blog will be oriented towards IIT-M, But give It a read even if you want to join electrical/electronics department at any other IITs.

Who should join this branch ??

1)Those people who can comfortably solve and analyse complex circuits might find EE interesting. Don’t get afraid by the diodes, transistors etc. which you might have come across while preparing for JEE. You will learn about them in detail, and you will begin to love them.

2) If you hate math, then Electrical Engineering is not for you. Be prepared for a highly math-intensive curriculum if you’re taking up EE. Beyond a point it all comes down to Mathematics. 

3) Students who found optics interesting (Wave optics, not ray optics) might love Electrical Engineering as we have a dedicated stream called photonics which covers optics in detail.

4)If you want to know how a computer is built, what are the parts, how these parts function together, then Electrical Engineering is a place to be(In CS you will learn how to code. In EE, you will know exactly how the code is executed inside the computer). Two years down the line, you would understand how the Intel and Qualcomm processors in your phone work.

What will you study ?

electrical can divide in 6 parts -

1) Communications/Signal Processing

2) Analog & Digital VLSI 

3) Power Systems & High Voltage

4) Photonics

5) Control & Instrumentation

6) Semiconductor Devices

Engineering Physics - Well course structure is very different in each IITs, In IIT-M Engineering Physics department is collaborated with Physics and electrical department so you will get to learn courses from both departments. EP in IITM can spilt into two major part-

1) Physics - This may be the reason you want to join this branch, but physics is not like what you studied in JEE, JEE physics is more of problem-solving. If you hate maths then I am Warning you about it, You will have a hell of maths.

Physics can also split into parts-

 a) Theoretical- Normally you will take these courses as electives. Some basic courses like Classical dynamics, statistical physics, quantum mechanics will be compulsory, apart from that if you are interested then you can take interesting courses like Classical field theory, quantum field theory, general relativity, etc.

 b) Application part- some course are aim towards application part of physics like, application of EM waves (important for communication ), courses in optics (for more information read 3rd point of electrical), Solid state Physics (has very wide application in the field of computers and electronics ), condensed matter physics (can be put in theoretical also but again it has very important application). Some theoretical courses are prerequisite for some of application course.

c)Experimental - Mostly lab work, It is just extended version of lab work you used to do in college or you supposed to do XD.

2) Electrical- You will have some core courses from Electrical department, like signal processing, Analog system, digital systems, etc. with lab work.

If you want you take electives from electrical department instead of physics electives. With background of electrical course you can also get placed in electrical companies.

      As this is research oriented field so don’t expect any core companies for placement, but if you want you can go to electrical core companies, or non-core companies (this is scenario with every IITs and every branch almost all high package are offered by non-core companies )  

Know more -https://yashbhusare.blogspot.com/2017/06/engineering-phbysics.html

Engineering Design- In IIT-M ED is 5 years duel degree course, in which you can specialize in Automotive or Biomedical or even robotics and data science.

       You will get to learn following things in your course -

Computer modelling (3D modelling!), CNC machining algorithms, Microprocessor/Controller Coding, and yeah, hell lot of math!

You will also learn some interesting topics from mech like vehicle design, design of mechanical system also signal system analogue etc from electrical core Product design and manufacturing courses also Geometric modelling and coding courses like computation and visualisation. Also you can take coding electives or elective in any aspiring domain and ED blends with it.

       Product Design lab is one place where all Engineering Design comes alive. All we have to do is dismantle products: From IC engines to table fan to X-ray machine, figure out the components used and their function, and try to redesign them. It would take a hell lot of time for all that, but it is one of the best courses which gives a feel of how much innovation actually goes into making each and every stuff that we own. Apart from this ED has 6 months industrial internship for hands on experience.

     Common misconceptions about dept being undeveloped should be cleared...the dept building (IITM) is one of finest and has high technology labs powered by Autodesk itself...Now branch change is also available for ED, which was not the case earlier at IITM. (Do enquire about other colleges.) one fun fact about IITM, You will set your question paper, yes there is one prof in department who is famous for setting very different question paper.

     Apart from ED companies some CS and electrical companies are open due to curriculum akin to CS and electrical.

       If you like this, stay tuned for next part, I will upload it till tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

     Huge thanks to Praveen Honhar, Deepti, Abhijeet panpaliya, Baibhav Tripathy, Nishtha Vidya and Vishal Upendran for making this blog possible

         

Best Of Luck !!

Cheers!!