Mystory@Ankur Wadhwa: How I chose my course and college

Mystory@Ankur Wadhwa

In 11th std. I opted for Math (PCM) stream as I was very keen to understand about the world. I wanted to know about the cause and effect of everything happening in the world. It equips you with excellent problem-solving abilities. While opting for under-graduate program, I was keen to know more about the physical world. I wanted to get an opportunity to create something tangible, visible and useful. It is easy to imagine and visualise whatever we learn. I was fascinated towards automobiles, machinery, locomotives and airplanes. So, I opted for BTech in Mechanical Engineering.

I got support from my family as well, as they felt it is a versatile stream and had many opportunities to explore. It has many more career options open after one graduates like defence, civil services, manufacturing, design, energy sector, management, entrepreneurship etc. With more exposure during my industrial training, a new area of study caught my attention, i.e. Industrial Management and therefore I opted for Engineering Management as my stream for my Masters program.

How I cracked college admission

I applied for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), Manipal University Online Entrance Test (MUOET), Thapar Engineering College Entrance Exam, Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Entrance Test and Amrita Vidyapeeth entrance test. I did not join any coaching for these entrance exams. I used to study on my own for the preparation for these exams. I used to follow previous years’ GATE papers, sample papers available in various online portals and appeared for mock tests by Madeeasy. I got the material for the studies from Madeeasy and the notes from my friends to prepare for these exams.

I was trying for BITS as well, though it does not offer any such course like Engineering Management or Industrial Management, so I applied there just for the brand name of the college and I applied for MTech in Thermal Engineering there. During this period, I got an offer from Amrita University to join MTech program in Advanced Thermal Engineering. But I didn’t join this course as I knew I could get a better option like Manipal Institute of Technology or Thapar Engineering College. After this I got admission in MTech (Engineering Management) at Manipal Institute of Technology.

My college experience

At present, I am pursuing my MTech and I am in the final year of my post graduate program. In second year, we have 6 months to one year of internship and project. So, I was selected in a company called Leo Meridian Infrastructure Projects and Hotels Limited to carry out my academic project and internship where I was an intern in the “Business Strategy” department of the company. So, there I used to be in my office from 9:30am to 7:00pm. After my office timing, I used to study about the literature at night for my project during the course of my internship. In the company, I worked on various projects running in the company. My task was to carry out market research work and then the analysis of the market size, market potential, and then the sales strategy report for the company. I was the member of the team for waste management in the company.

The support from the college to pursue our academic and co-curricular activities is amazing. Starting from the academics, the teaching staff and the method used for classroom are unconventional and is really interesting. There are regular meetings on the teaching methods and subjects to be introduced between the department panel and the current batch of students. The library support is fantastic, one can get journals and research papers from almost any journal publication in the world from the library systems. This helps students to carry out their projects and research work conveniently.

The learnings from the college really helps students to go anywhere and make an impact. The methods of teaching and the classroom tasks take students’ confidence to an extent where he can go anywhere and perform without any hesitation. The tip for time management would be to set your priorities and cut out the tasks which are least important.

About the Author:

I am a student pursuing MTech (Engineering Management) at Manipal Institute of Technology. I have completed my BTech in Mechanical Engineering from Rajiv Gandhi Technical University, Bhopal (M.P.). My area of interest is Research Analysis. I have done my masters internship at “Leo Meridian Infrastructure Projects and Hotels Limited” for 6 months.