Keerthi N C could have joined a top private institute, but chose the government-run University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) because she could afford the fees. She now has a job offer that will pay her Rs 58.3 lakh a year.
A native of the backward Madhugiri in Tumakuru district, Keerthi received the offer from a California-based cyber security company, setting a placement record at the 106-year-old college founded by Sir M Visvesvaraya.
Keerthi’s job offer has set a placement record at UVCE, surpassing a salary package of Rs 49.75 lakh that two UVCE students got from an Australian technology company in 2019.
A student of computer science engineering, Keerthi is in her final semester and will write her final exams in August this year.
She is getting paid Rs 1 lakh during her ongoing six-month-long internship at the same company that has given her a job offer.
She was confident of getting a good offer, but the package bowled her over.
“I had several rounds of interviews - writing, coding, technical and managerial - and I attempted every round with confidence,” Keerthi, 22, told DH. She will be working on data visualisation.
Keerthi said she chose UVCE for two reasons: affordability and less academic pressure.
“My rank in the Karnataka Common Entrance Test was 4,000 and I had seats in some top private colleges. But I waited till the last round to get a seat in UVCE because the fee is less and the atmosphere is such that there is freedom for students to prepare on their own,” she said.
Keerthi’s father Nagaraja G is a teacher at a government primary school at a village in Madhugiri taluk. Her mother Chandrakala is a home-maker. Keerthi has two younger sisters - one in Class 12 and the other Class 10.
The placement season this time at UVCE had 502 students registered of whom 337 got job offers from 71 companies who visited the campus. The average salary package is Rs 10.6 lakh.
Three students have received job offers with a salary package of Rs 48.3 lakh per annum from another California-based data software company Fivetran. Eight students got an offer of Rs 24 lakh per annum from SAP Labs, a multinational firm.
“This year, Information Science Engineering and Computer Science branches received equal offers with 82 students from each bagging offers,” UVCE training and placement officer B M Rajaprakash said.
“Second comes Electronics and Communication Engineering with 67, Electrical and Electronics Engineering with 38, Mechanical 32 and Civil 25 offers,” he added.
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