In addition to instilling technical expertise, we provide international exposure to our students, says Director Dr Garg

Director Dr A. Garg of the KIET Group of Institutions (KIET) speaks in-depth with Shiksha.com about the main distinguishing characteristics that set the institution apart from others providing comparable programmes. He goes into great detail when discussing steps taken to prepare students for the workplace, motivating elements for success, and placements.

Dr Garg has over 35 years of extensive academic experience. He has worked as Director of Personnel Management at the Govt of India, Director Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT) and now presently working as Director of KIET Group of Institutions since 2018.

Read the complete interview below.

Q: What are the three things that your institute is doing that will enable it to differentiate itself from the competition?

A: We believe we are our own competition and thereby, we strive to improve the quality of education and industry exposure offered to our students, day by day. In this process, we have developed several factors that differentiate us from others in the market.

We have set up TBI-KIET (Technology Business Incubator) that is registered as Krishna Path Incubation Society-TBI and promoted by the Department of Science & Technology, NSTEDB, Government of India and KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad. The core strength areas of TBI-KIET are E-mobility, ICT, Robotics, Solar Energy, Automation, and Automobile. Till date, 89 incubatees have been promoted from TBI-KIET. Additionally, we have signed an MOU with Mahindra World City-SEZ regarding training individuals on different skills and programmes implemented by TBI.

We have 7 major centres of excellence at KIET, namely, Advanced Diploma in Automotive Mechatronics (ADAM), Centre of Advanced Woodworking (CAW), KIET NI LabView Academy, Space Technologies, Robotics & Mechatronics Lab, Fab Lab, iOS Learning centre, MBS Research Centre. All of these centres of excellence aim at providing an experiential learning platform to the students.

We have established Innovation & Entrepreneurship Council (IEC) centre with a vision to promote innovations and encourage our students to opt for inculcate entrepreneurship skills in themselves. To motivate the students, IEC also offers certification course in innovation and entrepreneurship, in addition to felicitating the students with awards, like Best Start-up, Best Innovation, etc.

In addition to instilling technical expertise, we provide international exposure to our students, under the guidance of the Department of PR & International Relations. The department is responsible for introducing initiatives that shape students into future professionals. To date, three language programs have been launched, namely, German, Japanese, and Korean language programs, which are not just open for students, but also for faculty members, who wish to add another feather to their ‘knowledge cap’.

Q: What are the top three initiatives undertaken by you that are helping your students become more industry ready?

A: We understand the fact that restricting a student’s knowledge to just books will be of no use to him, when he steps out in the real world. Therefore, we have launched several initiatives that help our students become industry-ready, for example,

• The changing demands of the industry require more emphasis on coding, industry-based projects, and soft skills. Thereby, a separate vertical named Skill Development & Finishing School (SDFS) has been created to address these industry demands.
• The main objective of Industrial Research & Consultancy Development (IRCDC) is to promote industrial research and consultancy work across various departments, with the guidance and support of industry mentors and thereby developing strong links for collaborating research, technology, transfer etc.
• The objective of Internship & Industry Partnership Cell (IIPC) is to structure and institutionalize internship, which is the most important aspect of technical education in the country. This department follows the guidelines laid down under the Internship Policy of AICTE, New Delhi, and AKTU, Lucknow.

Q: What are the key attributes that a student should have in order to qualify for the institute and perform well?

A: Any student who wishes to take admission in our institute should have passed JEE Mains exam with a good score. This is the foremost attribute to be able to qualify for KIET Group of Institutions. Those who could not make it to KIET through JEE Mains exams, can apply for direct admission. However, that is on the merit basis and through an internal entrance test.

To perform well, we have been consistently saying that we do not want our students to be engrossed with rote learning. We prefer to give a holistic and experiential learning atmosphere to the students. Therefore, in order to get top grades, a student must

• be open to experimenting and learning concepts from a realistic point of view,
• have self-discipline
• show active participation in workshops, guest lectures, seminars, and webinars conducted for the

Q: Which programme/s would you say is/are your best? What is it that helps your institution differentiate itself for this programme?

A: According to us, all of the courses and programmes that we offer are the best. But, if we are to choose one among them, we would say our flagship programme, i.e. B.Tech is the best. We keep making required amendments and updates, to provide quality education to the students. For example, we have recently introduced two new branches in B.Tech, namely, CSE (Artificial Intelligence) and CSE (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning).

Apart from this, the record-breaking placements in B.Tech make our flagship programme, way more different from others. The highest package offered to one of our B.Tech students is 48.40 LPA by Microsoft, whereas the average CTC (Top 100) is recorded to be 19.83 LPA. We have also introduced a Computer Programming Proficiency Cell that motivates B.Tech students to participate in weekly and quarterly coding contests. Further, we do have a soft skills and aptitude trainers’ team that is engaged in preparing the students for the job market, across the academic year. These experts take special classes on personality development and overall grooming so that our students befit the requirements of the employer in every sense. 

Q: What are you doing to improve/drive better campus placements for your current students and alumni? What kind of jobs routinely come to campus? What would you say are the key recruitment trends for your college (observed over the past five years)?

A: Every year, we try to drive better placements for our students, so as to ensure that they get a smooth start to their careers, from the very beginning. In this regard, we have a dedicated placement department on our campus that keeps a check on the employment requirements of the top companies across different domains. Consequently, we network and collaborate with several companies and invite them to our campus for the placement drive. However, before inviting any specific company to the campus, our Corporate Relations and Placement Centre (CRPC) department makes it a point to ascertain the reputation of the company in the market, the working environment, no. employees engaged with the company and other similar factors. This is the reason why we have been successful in attaining 95% placement for 2021-22 batch. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we have a vertical named as Skill Development & Finishing School (SDFS) department, under the department of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) that grooms and hones the skills of the students, right from their first year in the college to the last year, till they get placed.

Our students are offered a variety of job roles, like Software Engineer, Data Architect, IT Consultant, Business Intelligence Analyst, Junior Engineer, Power Plant Engineer, Product Design Engineer, Mechanical Design Engineer, Jr. Site Engineer and so on. In the past few years, we have observed that recruiters look for candidates having knowledge of tools, like Hadoop, SQL-based databases, coding languages like Java, Python, R, along with machine learning, AI, and automation. Therefore, Industrial Research & Consultancy Development (IRCDC) and the respective academic departments take extra sessions with the students (apart from those in their academic calendar), in order to prepare them for the future jobs.