I’m currently in my final semester of Aerospace Engineering in India and am preparing for FRM and CFA Level one this May/June.
I’ve already heard a lot of criticism about my jumping ships but I’ve decided on pursuing finance studies. Either ways, the only opportunities readily available in India currently for engineers without a masters and no experience is in the IT sector, which is neither my specialty, nor of my interest.
What are my options with level one of these exams and a Bachelors in Engineering? I’d be open to trainee positions as well.
I was recently rejected by amazon for a job that requires me to work odd hour and weekends, had a terrible profile and paid me $1/hour. Talk about a dying industry. Engineering sector is heavily stagnated and IT and BPO services are our only options.
I’m starting to think India has a much different definition of engineer than we have here. Engineers aren’t working for $1/hour here, nor are they generally unemployed unless by choice.
New grad engineers where I’m at are making $85-90k a year no problem. Finance kids don’t see that unless they are one of the elite few that make it into i-banking (then they work 3x the hours of the engineers). Engineering is a ticket to a comfortable lifestyle that’s in high demand here.
Amazon in bangalore? There are BCom Grad’s applying for that job…why would you apply for it?
Engineering is overhyped, that is true.
Computer Science/Info Science make a lot of sense, You have it good and easy if you have that degree. Petroleum/ Geological etc are good too but you’ll be working in some wierd locations. Beyond those 4 it’s pretty much a lottery.
Mechanical is nonsense because the headcount for the manufacturing plant’s have to remain the same and even if you do land one who the fk want’s to work in a plant in this day and age.
Civil engineering makes sense if you’re in the west, In India with so much cheap labour they’ll use one civil engineer for a 100 labourer’s and pay him marginally more. You wouldn’t really want to work in that work environment.
Officially Half a million engineering graduates enter the market every year, Unofficially it’s probably about a million. There are a lot of colleges in ‘frontier’ cities like say varanasi that are set up by politician’s as a front to make their black money white.
These colleges won’t have teacher’s and will let the kid’s study on their own. The kid’s entering these colleges will be children of farmer’s etc who get into these colleges after paying a donation. All these kid’s probably enter call centres and the like.
Anyway back on topic, the CFA isn’t going to help you get a finance gig unless you have connections. All finance jobs here are taken by CA’s and MBA’s.
There are certain finance gig’s available to engineer’s but they are quite competetive so you’ll have to prepare well.
Nomura Banking in Bombay, Future’s First in Bangalore, Way2Wealth-Blr/Bom etc…look around.
Don’t think you’re chances in finance are better than your chances in engineering…they’re most certainly not. If you do decide to pursue, you may just work for $0/hour.
isildurr, our man on the ground in the world’s upcoming economic superpower… provide us some insight. These sketchy frontier schools pumping out millions of engineers, now I understand why they aren’t valued. But I imagine an engineer from a top Indian school (no idea what that is, but I’m sure you guys have good schools too) is probably making a great salary, no?
So this is really about degree mill grads not being able to cut it. Not that a fully qualified engineer can’t cut it. I imagine an Indian engineer that could qualify in North America is probably doing well?
Yea, they’re prob doing well but it’s complicated. In the west people do engineering because they want to become engineer’s, here people do engineering to get access to the best jobs.
I can’t imagine what a rat race it must be in India and Pakistan. The varying levels of quality we see here from those places is spotty. How is education regulated over there? Can anyone set up shop like you said? I’m assuming they haven’t found a way to govern it yet, except for the top tier schools.
Thanks for your insight isildurr, really wouldn’t want to be cast into that fire.
Education is regulated well, problem is anything can be bought if you’re willing to pay under the table. If you have so much money you need a college to make it legal you can imagine the bribes.
There are private schools that have built their reputations and run for profit that are really good. The govt college’s are great but nigh on impossible to get into unless you lock yourself up with books in your 11’th and 12’th.
There’s talk that a lot of American/ British/ Canadian and Australian colleges want to set up shop, sooner or later a govt’s going to come along that will allow foreign investment in education.
^ So an engineer that went to a “government college” is probably doing quite well though? I’m just trying to get my head around what an engineer is in India and whether there are valued professional engineer types.
Do engineers all study the same stuff, even those that don’t want to be engineers in practice? Like math, physics, etc.?
Who builds the bridges and towers and infrastructure over there? Some guy has to be in charge? Is this guy different in qualifications than the OP of this thread?
He’ll be doing very well. Govt colleges are IIT’S, NIT’S etc. If you’re from a decent private college you’ll be ok too. Valued engineer types? Wherever you go in the world computer science engineering has more value than material science engineering or medical electronic engineering or something.
I don’t think 70+% of engineers want to be engineers. The thing about engineering is that all options apart from medicine are still open to you later. So if people think they can do it, they go for it.
Labourer’s/ Urban migrants who are on daily wage. They’ll be monitored by qualified engineers with year’s of experience. You’ll have to ask OP that.
They study subjects based on their engineering stream selected of course. Only first year will be common- Math, Phy, Chem etc.