Joining an engineering course is the first step in student’s life. Unless a proper plan is made in the first year itself, the journey into the engineering course is not going to be easy. A clearly laid roadmap with careful planning can make the pursuit of knowledge enjoyable, enterprising. Also, this step can give a focus for proper planning of professional career as well. Hence, the student should plan the study of engineering course in line with the plan for life. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail. The following paragraphs provide a set of guidelines as to how to plan for studying for B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering. With a slight modification, the same plan can be adapted to study B.Tech in IT also. Before a plan can be made, the following set of questions needs to be answered.
1. What is the aim in life?
2. What would I like to be?
3. What is the line of specialization I want to pursue in the long run?
4. What is my plan after B.Tech(CSE)?
Having answers for these set of questions in very clear manner is quite necessary before making a plan. In addition to this, an idea of what B.Tech in CSE can offer is essential. Some of the options available are:
a. A job in the software industry as a developer
b. A job in the IT sector
c. A job in the government sector
d. A job in the IT enabled services sector
e. Higher studies in the lines of MS, M.TECH, MBA etc
Preparation Plan:
Before making a plan, one should know how many subjects are offered in B.Tech and how many subjects are required to be passed for the award of the degree. The first step in preparing the plan is to have a bird’s eye view of the course offered by the University. Categorize the subjects in CSE into audit, core, skill and service subjects. A brief description of each of these is given below.
Audit courses: An audit course is a mandatory course that needs to be passed compulsorily. Performance in other subjects will not be evaluated if a student fails in an audit course. Truly speaking, there are no audit courses in B.Tech. Performance or non-Performance in one subject does not have any bearing on any other subject in B.Tech. Here they are termed as audit courses only to emphasize the point that passing these subjects is required to be eligible to be awarded a degree. Answer the following questions.
How many mathematics related subjects are offered?
How many management related subjects are there?
How many skill based subjects are there?
How many core subjects of CSE/IT branch are there?
How many other subjects are there?
The following diagram details of interrelationship between the subjects studied by CSE student. The following paragraphs describe the preparation plan.
A Computer Science Engineering has to have clear answers for all the above questions before making any effective plan and make it workable. The following paragraphs detail how to approach for different subjects that are offered in different semesters.