Every year hundreds of graduates are passing out from Professional colleges. Few students are settling well in corporate sectors and reputed organizations. But every student should think about bright carrier and future, early settlement in the life and to lead happy live.  To succeed in any course Knowledge, Approach, Time and Planning are very important. Most of the students opted for Engineering stream might have got the seats of their choice in different colleges affiliated to various universities and deemed universities.

Some of the students are from villages and some of the students are from towns,   and they should adjust themselves with new environment as early  as possible. Once the  admission is completed and joined in the college first  the student should concentrates on
the following points.

1.    Academic calendar of the university / college for 1st year engineering
2.    Syllabus pertaining to their branch.
3.    Text books to be purchased.
4.    Timing of the college, according to that Time management.
5.    Facilities available in the college.

According to academic calendar of various universities the 1st year class work starts from middle of September and ends by April or May. Excluding vacation the class work will be completed   nearly in 7 to 8 months of time. Weather it is annual or semester pattern the academic schedule will be tight and students didn’t get any time to relax.

1.    The fundamental aspect to any student is time plane. It may be divided into macro and micro & short and long term planning. How to take up the 1st year engineering course up to April comes under Macro planning. Day to day learning and reading comes under micro planning dealing the graduate course year wise in short term and project yourself to higher education and reaching self goal of your life in long term planning.

2.    Micro planning based on the class timings and travel time estimates how much time available in day or week to complete the home work further reading. In professional course one can learn 50% only through class room lecturer, for remaining 50% they have depend on library and subject discussion with friends and faculty. It is compulsory to make the habit of self learning from 1st year onwards. Read more text books and prepare your own subject notes.

3.    To gain maximum knowledge through classroom teachings follow these instructions.

i.    Make your mind fresh before entering in to the teaching classroom.
ii.    Reach the college 10 minutes before class work commence
iii.    Concentrate in the subject teaching of the faculty.
iv.    Write running notes and note down important technical points.
v.    Ask questions and clarify doubts as many as possible in the classroom and also in the department.
vi.    Don’t be sleepy in the class.
vii.    Don’t miss single class and don’t loose attendance.
viii.    (Percentage of attendance also carrying marks in some        universities)
ix.    Complete the homework on the same day
x.    Make a glance of the topic before it will be delivered in the classroom.

4.    Outside the classroom, the utilization of available time also very important. Spend few hours daily in the library search the topics in different text books which are thought in the classroom. Read once or twice until you understand the topic in the text book which you can follow better. Still if it unclear takes the help of internet, there one can find the lecture notes of eminent professors (Ex. MIT lecturer notes, CIT lecturer notes) and go through the Material on CDs prepared by IIT faculty. It is customary to know the latest applications and advances in that field. Once in a week go through the scientific magazine and journals for current work and recent developments related to a particular field.

5.    Be friendly with all students. Observe one or two weeks, the behavior and attitude of your classmates and improve the friendship with whom you are comfortable and views are tunable. Invites friends to your room and discuss the subject for the better knowledge. Like minded students form a group and exchange text book among them and share the views. This decreases the inferiority complex and fear and develop the completion in the young brains. More friendly interact with your teacher and get clarify the subject doubts.

6.    In the 1st year 75% subjects are related to science and humanities and remaining 25% belongs to common engineering subjects. In most of the universities 90% of subjects are common to all branches one or two papers may be different for Bio-technologies, Chemical Engg and circuit branches. Understanding of the basic subjects, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and English in the 1st year may not be difficult. Because they are continuation to the intermediate / plus two syllabus. Engineering subjects, like drawing, Engineering Mathematics. Electronic device and circuit and computer programming are knew to the students and appears difficult. One may achieve more marks in these subjects also by doing worksheets given in the class, solving numerical problems of old question papers and doing exercises given in the text book.

7.    A part from theory, lab particles also play a key role in the professional courses. Synchronization of theory and experiment yield more command on the subject. Try to perform simple experiments and do mini projects after the regular ones. No doubt the more practical experience and good analytical capability certainly enhance the confidence level of the students.

8.    One aspect of the education is gaining good knowledge the second thing is to attempt the examination and get more marks. In most of universities, the internal marks carry 30% to 40 % weightage. Internal marks will be awarded by the performance of the assignments and midterm examinations to be conducted in the college. Every mark is having full weight age. In respective of any exam write all internal examinations seriously. This benefit on the long run to score in final examinations conducted by University.

9.    Avoid back logs, don’t think of supplementary examinations it will hamper the career prospects and diminish the job opportunity at campus placements. Performance of the student in each subject and growth rate will be counted. Also some universities indicate star mark on final marks sheet which identifies as compartmental candidate. The completion of all subjects at a time with good percentage describes the potentiality of the student.  The continuous performance without backlogs is one of the key factors to assess the candidature of a student at the interview or to get a visa to go abroad for higher education.

10.    In the long term planning choose the suitable field. Options will be either going to higher education or search for a job. If the student opted for higher education like M.Tech, M.S or management study, be aware of GATE, GRE, TOFEL, CAT competitive examinations. Concentrate in the topics embedded in these examinations from the 1st year itself onwards. Without disturbing the regular curriculum use vacation period to collect the material and information about these examinations. To get a job after graduation focus on the opportunities of campus placements provided by TCS, Infosys, Wipro, CMC etc  and prepare for IES, IAS,GROUP-1 and other competitive examination like ISRO, DRDO, BEL, BHEL, NTPC, VSP, BSNL, from first year onwards.

Common Admission Test (CAT) is prestigious exam conducted by IIMs for admission to PGDM Courses. CAT scores are accepted by most of the reputed Business Schools in the county. CAT has been regarded as one of the toughest exams in the world and dedicated preparation with excellent strategy only can give you good results. As a fresher who just came out of an Engineering College or with other graduation, you may have so many doubts on the Online CAT. Following information is useful for you and will be handy to go through quickly.

1. What IIMs test in a candidate through CAT?

The key abilities tested are quick thinking, smart thinking, hard work and determination. How you may wonder? The test is impossible to complete. Nobody has done it. What differentiates the winners is their ability to think quickly and identify those questions that they are capable of solving. Therefore the best way to prepare is to practice as much as you can. Hours and hours of solving sample question papers will make you realize that eventually all the questions fall into a few standard types and those who have solved the most number of such questions will be able to answer the paper easily.

The IIMS test a candidate’s ability in three areas:

A. Quantitative Ability: This is the ability to do numerical work quickly and accurately. The subjects tested here are arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry and geometry – all that one learns in school maths.

B. Verbal Ability: Here the emphasis is on Grammar, English usage, Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension etc. In effect the CAT checks whether your command over the English language is good and whether you can quickly read, understand and interpret a written passage.

C. Logical & Data Interpretation skills: The ability to understand the data that is given and draw meaningful conclusions. Often the data is insufficient and in some cases there is excess information. The ability to identify and use only the relevant data is critical.

2. How to approach the exam in the short time?

It is difficult to prepare for CAT in such a short time. However it is not impossible, particularly if you already have good numerical and language skills. It is very essential to get hold of about 25-30 sample (mock) CAT papers and start working on them every day. You will need about 4 hours daily for the next 40 days. Solve each paper and then go through the solutions to identify the kind of knowledge that is necessary. As you solve the papers and understand the nature of the questions you will gain skills and eventually the CAT will consist of similar questions, maybe worded differently.

3. Tips on facing online / computer based CAT?

A. This is the first time that CAT is online. So it is new for every candidate. While the methodology of the test is online, the basic abilities required remain the same.

B. Reading on a computer screen is a bit different compared to reading from a sheet of paper. Candidates must practice reading on the computer screen so that they get adjusted to it.

C. On a paper test usually candidates can use the tables/graphs or diagrams on the question paper itself to work out the solution. On a computer that is not possible and you will have to use the rough paper to draw the figures and then use the data. This is time consuming and you must practice to solve questions without using a rough paper to the extent possible.

4. What sections are perceived to be tough for more candidates and how to handle them?

The difficulty varies from year to year for the various sections. There are minimum marks to be scored in each section. Over the last few years, quantitative and verbal section have been more difficult to score compared to data interpretation.

5. Percentiles needed to get into IIMs and other reputed B-Schools?

In general a percentile above 99 is required for admission into the IIMs. IIM Bangalore has a lower cutoff as other factors like academics and work experience are given higher weightage.

6. Guidelines for CAT aspirants?

Remember that CAT does not test the depth or width of your academic knowledge like the IIT or IAS tests. The only way to get through CAT is adequate practice. The more you go through mock tests the better you will become. Nothing else matters as all the basic knowledge that is required is school level English and Mathematics.

7. How candidates from Andhra Pradesh are doing in the CAT?

About 20000 students take the CAT from AP but the number selected has generally been lower compared to Delhi, Kolkata and other Metro cities. Studies have to be undertaken to discover the reasons for this. It is possible that the focus of AP students has been on going abroad rather than on doing an MBA. Also, except for the cities there is a general lack of awareness about the benefits of doing an MBA at the IIMS and other top institutes. The job opportunities in the IT sector during the last few years also diverted the students towards a good job. Over and above these factors, a lack of good communication skills and social skills has been reported in general about AP students. This is a matter that should be addressed by the state administrators. English medium education is a very decisive factor in getting through MBA entrances.