The seat matrix for engineering colleges is out. With a wide range of options before them, students could get caught in a web of confusion. In an attempt to assist them, four entrepreneurs have come up with an online solution that would help students make a choice.
Alumnus of the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal have come up with a website, ‘Branch Selector Tool’ which would help students select the right stream in engineering. The tool will help an aspiring engineering student select the right subject keeping in mind his/her performance and interests from a list of engineering subjects.
Once a student enters the Branch Selector Tool, he/she sees the list of topics taught in Class XI and XII. For any topic, the student can select one of the three options - Love it, Okay with it or Hate it based on his/her likes or dislikes for the topic. Subsequently, ratings are given in scores ranging from zero to two where ‘love it’ gets two points.
Scores are calculated based on the like or dislike for any student. The branch that has maximum number of topics in which the score assigned by the student and the score assigned by faculty are high, would be considered the first choice for the student.
The four founders, Nikhil Sinha, Harsh Kumar, Manish Kumar and Mukesh Jaiswal, all of whom graduated as civil engineers worked with professionals to put this in place. Speaking to Deccan Herald Nikhil Sinha said these topics have been selected after discussions with faculty from IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati, BITS Pilani, NIT Surathkal, NIT Trichy, NIT Warangal and IIIT Hyderabad and professionals working across companies. The Branch Selector Tool is free of cost and is available on the website: schoolengg.com
If students are still in a fix, an option would be given to interact with qualified professionals and academicians. “Students can interact with experts from institutes such as IITs or NITs. This has been made available at Rs 99 per session for 20 minutes,” explained Sinha.