MCA in demand

According to the industry grapevine, MCAs with experience in embedded systems can look forward to a great future.

Over the last decade — despite the economic slowdown — courses related to IT have gained immense popularity, be it a degree course in computer science at the country's leading institutes or short term courses at private institutes. India has emerged a leading contributor in the software expert market. In turn, an MCA has become a coveted educational qualification. In fact, the increasing demand for Indian technocrats in countries like the USA, UK, Canada and Germany adds to the many reasons of why one should join an MCA programme.

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According to the industry grapevine, MCAs with experience in embedded systems can look forward to a great future. Networking is another area that recruiters will look out for. "The big difference between the MCA curriculum and the short-term IT courses offered by private institutes is that the former is very in-depth," says Rashmi Suri, who's taking her MCA degree from IGNOU. Quite a few Indian institutes also offer a three-year post-graduate programme in MCA, with the Delhi University (DU), Pune University and JNU topping the list.

Admission is through an entrance test. Some universities also conduct a common entrance test, like the West Bengal Joint Entrance Test for Computer Applications. Talking about the entrance tests, Sandeep Kakkar, a faculty member with an MCA coaching institute in Delhi says, "The questions are usually based on higher Maths (B.Sc. level) and reasoning (50:50 ratio). The questions on reasoning are not difficult to crack, though they need some amount of practice."

It is certainly no cakewalk to get admission in the top institutes. Out of 8,000 applications received by the Computer Science Dept (DU), only 75-100 are invited for the interview. Finally, only 30 make it. Says Dr. Naveen Kumar, Head, Department of Computer Science, DU, "Logical thinking and a good grasp over Maths and Physics make it easier to qualify in these entrance tests."

While the Department of Computer Science at DU was the pioneering programme in 1982, the number of seats (30) has not increased since then. Even JNU did not increase their seats (35) since the course's inception in 1985. But a good thing about these programme is the opportunity to do an internship project in the final semester with companies like Infosys, TCS, IBM, Kanbay, Quark, Wipro, HCL Perot, Hughes Software Systems, Siemens, Cadence, Bharti Telecom and so on. Says Dr. DK Lobiyal, Placement Co-ordinator, School of Computer & Systems Sciences, JNU, "Almost 20 companies visit our campus for interviews and within a matter of a few weeks, each student - on an average - has offers of three jobs to choose from."

"Salaries at entry level positions usually range from Rs 2.2 - 2.7 lakhs per annum. But there are also companies like Infosys that offer anything between Rs. 4-4.5 lakhs," informs Lobiyal. Adds Kumar, "All our MCA students have done exceptionally well. There have been setbacks in the IT industry in the past but the demand for an MCA had never slackened."