So you are in BTech last year and confused what to do like should you get a job or go for higher studies.
You don’t need to worry about it anymore because, in this article let’s take a look at whether you should prepare for placements in your college or choose to write gate exams by looking at 6 important factors.
So let’s jump right in.
Table of Contents
Should I prepare for placement or gate?
There are 6 important factors you need to consider to decide whether you should go for placement or GATE exam.
1. Your strengths & weaknesses
The first important thing you need to keep in mind is that you should know what are your strengths and weaknesses.
The reason you should know your strengths and weaknesses in your under graduation is because the syllabus and subjects you need to study for Getting a job or to prepare for the GATE examination will be little different.
for example, if you are doing your undergraduate degree in computer science engineering and you have coding and machine learning as your strengths then you should consider going for placement rather than preparing for the GATE examination.
At the same time, for example you got your under graduation from computer science engineering,
in order to prepare for the GATE examination, the most important subjects are mathematics, theory of computation, algorithms, computer organisation and architecture, programming and data structure, etc.
In short, if you want to prepare for gate exam, you need to have good knowledge and have strength in all the subjects but you do not need all of them if you want to get placement.
Hence writing down your strengths and weaknesses on a piece of paper will give you a clear understanding regarding which one you should choose.
2. Your interests and how you would like to see yourself in the next five years
Another important thing you need to do is to know what are your interests and objectives and also your future plans.
Because at the end of the day the main objective is happiness and if you are not happy with your career, it is waste & useless.
Do you like to work in a corporate culture, working all day long and gain experience as fast as possible or do you want to study more or get into a research field or become a teacher and professor.
If you want to earn money and get corporate culture, gain some experience and meet new people then
you should consider for placement and if you want to go for higher studies or get admission in foreign universities, go for teaching or better jobs then you should obviously go for the GATE exam.
3. Your finances
The third important thing is, you should know if you can have money to go for gate exam if you wanted to.
For example majority of the students take student loans in order to do their engineering degree and if you are one of those students who has to pay the student loan then
you should consider going for placement because of increasing interests of loans & you do not have the money to go for GATE examination or you have additional responsibilities of your family to look after like your parents but
If you have money for it, you can also consider the gate because you can get a slight chance of getting a scholarship and sponsorship through the GATE exam by preparing for the National scholarship exam.
But obviously there is no guarantee that you will get a scholarship so you should know prior only that you can afford further education or not.
This is the most important factor you need to consider and obviously when you pay back all of your student loans and make and save some money then you can prepare for the GATE examination after a few years of getting a job.
4. Availability of time for revision
Another important factor is that you should know how much time you have to prepare for either one.
For example if you want to prepare for GATE examination you obviously need more time for revision and preparation because of large syllabus compared to preparing for a placement because
If you want a job you do not need to study all the subjects and you only need to have knowledge in coding and machine learning if you are in computer science engineering.
5. Demand & competition, future of that career.
Another important factor you should consider is the demand and competition in both.
For example if you got mechanical engineering degree in your undergraduation and
you want to go for placement then you should also know that what is the demand of the job in the market and the competition at the same time
you should know whether you have any job security or not or will the job get replaced by artificial intelligence in future.
If you found a job which has high chance of getting replaced by artificial intelligence and robots in future then
you can consider going for the GATE examination which can give you more opportunities to work in PSU and many foreign companies with better opportunities in job & career opportunities because you have more knowledge and expertise.
Because according to many reports millions of jobs across the world will get replaced by robots in the upcoming years at the same time millions of jobs will also get created because of that.
6. Success ratio
And the last important factor you need to consider is the success ratio of both the options.
For example if you want to prepare for GATE examination then you should know that the success ratio is quite smaller compared to getting a placement.
According to the reports, a total of 17.8% candidates qualified in GATE 2021, a notch lower than last year’s 18.8%. Around 7,11,542 candidates appeared for GATE 2021, out of which 1,26,813 candidates passed.
By looking at the numbers you can see that it is quite a competitive examination and only a few percent of students passed the gate exam and when it comes to the placements success rate will depend upon your college and your grades and skill and it will vary upon different colleges.
These are all the factors to consider while deciding between placement or GATE in your BTech.
Which should I choose: placement or GATE?
After learning all the 6 factors if you are still confused which one should you go for then,
In certain conditions you should choose either one, let me tell you more about it below.
You should choose placement if,
- You do not have the money to afford for things like education and coaching at the moment
- Your strengths are related to getting a placement for example in computer science engineering you have programming language as your strength which is important for placement
- You don’t have the enough time to prepare for GATE
- You are tired of studying and want work experience and real life experience fast and make some money
- You are happy and fulfilled with your job and your job is also very secure and also has a good future and demand in the market
In all these cases you should go for placement.
You should choose GATE exam if,
- You have money to afford it like coaching and education
- You have time to prepare for the exam
- You are not happy or fulfilled with your current job or you are interested in further education
- You want to get a degree from foreign universities
- You want to get a job in PSU or become a professor or even become scientist
In all these cases choosing a GATE examination can be a good option instead of placement.
With that said let’s conclude the blog.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about whether you should prepare for gate or placement.
Do let me know your thoughts and comments about which you would like to prepare in your engineering graduation in the comments section below.
Also share the blog post with your friends who are also confused whether they should go for placement or GATE exam.
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