Why I chose Food Engineering in BTech: Sumit Bansal

Guru Jambeshwar University of Science and Technology

Like many youngsters, I too was confused after class 10 as to which stream to select in class 11 and 12 – Medical, non-Medical or Commerce. I selected non medical without knowing much about it on my brother’s advice.

In class 12, I started preparing for JEE Main. I didn’t have much knowledge of this entrance exam and followed what my classmates were doing i.e. appear in the JEE. I did not perform well but managed to get a seat in Chitkara University, HP, in BTech (ECE). In the first year, I learned a lot about different type of people, interacting with them taught me how to deal with people around us. But after the completion of my 1^st year, I had to discontinue my studies due to my father’s illness. There was no one to look after my father and our shop. My brother was away from home as he was in Merchant Navy. So I took the decision to stop studying and to look after our shop and my father. Soon, my brother came back and asked me to restart my studies. Then I joined Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar which is about 30 km; so it was easy for me to go to college from home and come back on time. I was lucky enough to start college again. I was able to get admission in BTech (Food Engineering). Admission to this college didn’t require JEE scores. Seats were allotted on the basis of physical counselling only as Food Engineering is not a very popular stream in the country currently.

My learnings and insights

As per my learning are concerned I have had the opportunity to gain experience of two completely different Universities from two completely different states. Let me first explain the difference between the two. My first university is a private university and its fees for only one year was even more than what I paid in GJU for the entire BTech programme. Yes, this is shocking but true.

Another thing I want to mention here is that the college crowd and the environment matter a lot. There are more opportunities of personality development in a private university as there are special personality development programmes that are conducted regularly. These programmes make the students interview ready. I learned a lot during my college life and would like to mention some here. I learnt the following in my college life:

• Budgeting
• Multi-tasking
• Note–taking
• Prioritizing
• Team work
• Resourcefulness

Food Engineering, a lesser known BTech specialisation

Food Engineering, my area of specialisation, is not a very popular course in India right now. Food Engineering teaches everything or every process that leads your food from farm to fork. Some of the subjects that we study during our course are:

• Bakery & Confectionary Technology
• Beverage Technology
• Dairy Technology
• Food Microbiology
• Food Laws
• Food Processing Technology
• Fruit and Vegetable Technology
• Meat and Poultry

Food Engineering is a very promising field as it has the competition is less right now. You can enter into many departments Technical, Quality, Production etc, after completing the course.

I did industry training, a part of my programme, at Galxosmithkline Consumer Healthcare, Sonipat. The main purpose of this training was to provide exposure of the professional world to the students and make them company ready. During my training I learnt a lot about professionalism. I learnt that, the real challenge lies in successfully applying theoretical knowledge to practical problems and solving them.

About the author:

My name is Sumit Bansal and I am currently studying BTech Food Engineering – (final year) at Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar. My interests are singing, cooking & playing basketball.