Questionable Path – Electrical & Electronics at MIT Manipal

Abhilash Arora | Guest Blogger

Electrical & Electronics Engineering is a fascinating field, and one which could make his time at the university a challenging, enriching, and rewarding experience. Just as the world needs its Doctors, Nurses and Teachers, Electrical Engineering is something which we simply couldn’t do without. If you like the idea of creating electrical systems which could help millions on a day-to-day basis, like the systems used in phones, or computers, or grids, or the electric vehicles then E&E is for you.

What is Electrical and Electronics Engineering?

After that short introduction about E&E, let’s dive in deep which will help you to choose properly the field you want to go in. The E&E encompasses anything remotely related to electricity. It’s known as the ‘Core Branch’ along with Mechanical and Civil. Moreover, branches like ECE, Computer Science and the recent Biomedical are derivatives of E&E. That being said, E&E becomes a slightly challenging branch with combination of Maths and Engineering. The major fields studied in four years include Power Engineering, Control & Instrumentation, Analog & Digital Electronics.  If you have a keen for calculus and want to apply that knowledge to innovate, E&E is for you.

Electrical & Electronics at Manipal

The Department of E&E at MIT is one of the oldest established engineering courses in Manipal, with proven successful alumni and excellent teaching faculties. The infrastructure includes well equipped laboratories, including Integrated Electronics Lab, Power Electronics & Drives Lab (UG & PG), Electrical Machinery Lab, Circuits and Measurements Lab, Microprocessors and Embedded Systems Lab, Lighting Simulation & Measurements Lab (PG) and Departmental Library. There are dedicated Philips Lighting Lab and Schneider Electric Lab. The department has lot of industrial collaborations for overall exposure. The best thing of E&E Manipal is the specialisations it provides – Energy Systems, Signal Processing, Embedded Systems, Energy Management, Business Management.

At the end of two years, when you have a fair idea about your interests you can swiftly pursue a specialisation of your interest. This is a bonus point above other branches which tend to be specialised.

The department is also supported by lot of student run research projects like AeroMIT, Project Manas to name few. Formula Manipal Electric directly comes under the E&E Dept. The faculty undertake lot of UGC or DST funded projects and UG students can participate.

Scope

As said before, E&E is a vast field, and over a period of 4 years you can go in any choosing of yours. If your interest lies in Computer industry pickup courses pertaining to it. The typical scope for E&E graduate is in Power and Energy Industry, Automotive, Electronics and Control Engineering.  

The type of job maybe Private or PSUs. In the coming time, the demand for an E&E graduate is going to be there as the thrust for Clean Energy and Electric Vehicles increase. In general, after a maturation period of the graduate over few years, the value of person is a lot as a specialist in that field.

Pro Tips

• Try to be regular with your studies while pursuing E&E. Be thorough what’s going on in class.
• Don’t focus too much on your grades, they don’t matter much (as long as it’s not 9.5 or above) A 8+ CGPA with some great projects and internships or student team is just as or even more valuable as a 9+ without any projects.
• Decide your field of interest by starting of third year, and start building your resume in that direction. So that’s it’s easy to build a career you want.

Important Books

Since the branch is pretty vast, so there is no Bible for it. But you should keep Engineering Mathematics by BS Grewal, Electrical Machines by PS Bhimbra and Basic Electrical Engineering by Kothari & Nagarathh handy.

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The author is a MIT Alumni (E&E 2018) and former member of Formula Manipal Electric. Currently he is working as an Intern in Turbomachinery & Process Solutions, Baker Hughes GE and will be shortly joining Mahindra Electric. He is a tech enthusiast and closely follows developments in EV & Clean Energy.