It is evident that these are hard times for the economy and industries in India. Many companies have put their expansion plans on hold as they are uncertain about their near future. That means, the job situation, especially for the fresh graduates, is not favorable today. However, Bangalore based RV College of Engineering (RVCE) has not felt the pinch of this sudden economic slowdown. Instead, a reverse trend has happened at RVCE. “Last year, we had over 210 companies visiting our campus for recruiting our students. Two of our students were offered a salary package of Rs. 53 LPA and another three students got Rs. 49.5 LPA. CISCO alone has taken 50 students for Rs. 30 LPA,” says Dr. K. N. Subramanya, Principal, RV College of Engineering.
One of the premier engineering colleges in the state of Karnataka, RVCE has always been at the forefront when it comes to providing the best job opportunities for its students. For the academic year 2019-20, the institute has already received over 1452 job offers and the numbers are still counting. Over 90 percent of the students were placed in top firms including Customer Private Limited, Delloite, Kirloskar Oil Engines, Accenture, Adobe Systems India, CISCO and many more. The average packages ranged between Rs. 8-9 LPA. “The number of job-offers has been increasing every year and this year there was an increase in the number of companies looking for students who are good at Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning,” pinpoints Dr. Subramanya.
Staying relevant is the mantra adopted by RVCE to remain strong in these tough times. “In 2018, we revised our syllabus by giving more importance to the skill-based learning method. Now, everything is experience-based learning here. We have also introduced project-based learning and we are also looking into ICT enabled teaching-learning in many subjects. All the faculty members are now trained in making online content,” shares Dr. Subramanya. The faculty members of RVCE are always ready to learn newer things and deliver them to the students in a better way. “Many of our faculty members are involved in funded projects in the niche areas of IoT, cloud computing, Biotechnology, Robotics, and Mechatronics. This way, their knowledge base has been enhanced. We also send them to a lot of international conferences. Paper presentation is very common for the faculty members here,” adds Dr. Subramanya.
Focusing more research has helped RVCE to file 45 patents and 35 of them have been published. “Around 50 – 60 percent of these patents were undergraduates or postgraduate projects. Basically, the final projects that they would be doing for over six months would be converted into a patent,” explains Dr. Subramanya. At RVCE, the last semester is completely dedicated to do projects and students can do their projects anywhere in the world. “Bangalore is a great place to get some hands-on experience. However, we are not restricting our students to stay in Bangalore to do their projects or internships. Our students have done internships in countries like Sweden and universities like Stanford University,” says Dr. Subramanya.
RVCE prepares its students to be competent in the globalized work environment. The results were evident in the recent placements. The institute saw an increasing number of companies from countries like Japan visiting the campus for recruiting their future talent. Taking it a step ahead, RVCE has signed MoUs with four international universities to have student-faculty exchange programmes. “We have sent our faculty members to countries like Germany and we hosted few students from them in our campus. In the next few years, we would like to increase the number of collaborations with international universities,” shares Dr. Subramanya.
On the other side, RVCE has signed MoUs with over 90 companies across the world to help students to get internships and find research and consultancy projects for its faculty members. Dr. Subramanya states, “Many of our faculty members get to do funded projects with the industry. For instance, CISCO has set up a center-of-excellence in IoT in our campus. They have given Rs. 3 Crores to make it, as IoT has become very popular in the recent past. We have trained over 1500 students across the state in IoT till now.” In association with Mercedes Benz, RVCE has started Postgraduate Diploma course in Mechatronics with an intake of 20 students. The facilities created for this course is also used by Aeronautical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering students.
“We have also set up a center-of-excellence in Computational Genomics in the Biotechnology Department. Here, many funded projects from central government agencies are going on and students are part of all the projects. We are planning to make at least two centers-of-excellence in every department,” shares Dr. Subramanya. The research projects undertaken by RVCE faculty members and students are not only futuristic but also help the society. “We have introduced a concept called Design Thinking Lab. All the second-year students will go through these courses of two credits, where they have to identify a problem in society and make a prototype to solve the issue. We believe that it is an excellent way to learn engineering problems,” explains Dr. Subramanya.
RVCE has already reached out to over 25 villages in the vicinity, helping the villagers to overcome many challenges including infrastructural issues, education, employability and many more. “Last year, AICTE introduced Activity Points, where every engineering student in his four years is supposed to get 100 points by doing something for society. This is being done to help them become successful professionals, which needs excellent soft skills, entrepreneurial and leadership abilities, team spirit, and societal commitment, besides expertise in their chosen fields,” says Dr. Subramanya.
Entrepreneurship is another buzzword at RVCE. In fact, for the past 10 years, the institute has been educating students about entrepreneurship and now they have started getting some results. “Though the society and parents still prefer their kids to have a job first, the younger generation is more interested in incubating their ideas and making them into their own venture once they are out of the campus,” opines Dr. Subramanya. RVCE has created an ecosystem in the campus to learn entrepreneurship.
“There are 5-6 course available for students from the first year. They will learn subjects like Intellectual Property Rights, Management Behavior Science, Cost Economics, Systems Engineering and many more,” adds Dr. Subramanya. RVCE also has an Entrepreneurship Development Cell with over 200 students as members of it. Dr. Subramanya shares, “Two years back, we started an Incubation Center on the campus. We have incubated over 10 companies till now and seven of them are run by our students. Apart from funding, we have tied up with over 15 companies to give the guidance and support needed for our student entrepreneurs,” shares Dr. Subramanya.
Today, with an alumni network of over 30, 000 professionals working across the world, RVCE is set to become a private university in the coming few years. The institute has many ambitious plans. “We would be working on international placements and our collaborations with global universities. Setting up of a few more major centers-of-excellences are also in pipeline,” concludes Dr. Subramanya.
Dr. K.N. Subramanya, Principal
Dr. K.N. Subramanya had early education in Acharya High School and AES National College-Gauribidanur. Then he pursued B.E in Industrial and Production Engineering from Bangalore University, M.Tech in Industrial Management from IITM-Chennai, MBA from Karnataka State Open University-Mysuru, with HR specialization (5th Rank) and Ph.D. from Avinashilingam University-Coimbatore. He did his Proficiency Courses on ‘Engineering Consultancy Practice and Non-Destructive Testing’ from Indian Institute of Science, NPTEL online Certification course on ‘Educational Leadership’. Has total 27 years of experience in Teaching, Training & Consultancy, Research and Administration. Having Strong communication and presentation skills, effective collaboration & team building capabilities with zeal to adapt to latest technological and leadership concepts & utilize the same in a productive and effective manner for the progress of the institution