Extra-Curricular And Co-curricular Activities For Students At The NorthCap University

Students at The NorthCap University have much more to explore other than classroom teaching. There are numerous activities where students can engage themselves and thus an overall personality development of the student takes place at NCU.

The NorthCap University offers co-curricular activities to students in the form of context learning, industry engagements, tinkering lab, professional societies etc. The aim of the teaching-learning process is to make the students understand the practical aspect of whatever they are learning in classroom. The industry experts are invited to bridge the gap between academics and industry, the experts discuss about the work being done in their industries and how classroom concepts are applied in industry scenario.

Moreover, students have to make mini projects as part of their laboratory work, in addition to hands-on experiments. Tinkering lab facility is provided centrally in the university, where students of any discipline can come together under one roof and work on inter-disciplinary projects. There are projects exhibitions, technovation and best project competitions, through which students get a good platform for showcasing their innovations. Students are motivated through cash prizes.

To be specific, the Electrical,Electronics & Communication Engineering department at NCU has students’ chapter of various professional societies such as IEEE, SPIE, IEI etc. Workshops, seminars, technical quizzes, aptitude tests, industrial visits, career counselling sessions and many more activities are organized by professional societies students’ chapters. Thus, students have a good learning experience by participating in these events. They may develop their leadership and organizing skills by coordinating various events. The department has collaboration with IIT Bombay for spoken tutorials, and IIT Delhi for Virtual labs. Through spoken tutorials, students can learn new software/programming languages with ease and will get certificates for the same. Virtual labs are interesting lab material available online, where students can perform experiments.

Other than co-curricular activities, there are lots of extra-curricular activities in The NorthCap University. Sports facilities are available, and sports events are arranged for students throughout the year, and for staff once every year. The university’s annual fest Momentum & Cerebration is a 3-days’ event, where there are plenty of technical competitions in initial phase of the event, followed by stage performances for dances, plays, singing, fashion show and many more.

At the university level, there are many societies such as ASQ, CSI, SPACE, OSA, ENACTUS and many others. Other than societies there are clubs like photography club, music club, clubs such as Yukti, NSS etc for social work and other. Events on various societies and clubs are planned quarterly every year. Club Fiesta event is organized annually.

Overall, a student at NCU has a lot to explore in various fields and thus the university nurtures all students to become all-rounder professionals.

Written by Dr. Vandana Khanna (Assistant Professor in the department of EECE, The NorthCap University)

How to Empower ECE Students to Secure High Salary Jobs?

The engineering education in India is going through a very challenging phase. One of the potential reasons for the current scenario is due to unemployment and lack of employment opportunities after completion of their 4-Years B.Tech degree. Survey shows that there are 1.5 Million Engineering Students Pass Outs in India Every Year but fewer of them are getting hired by the Core and IT Sectors. The reports say, in 2016-17, there were no takers for nearly 54% seats in the engineering institutions. According to the chairman AICTE, 275 engineering colleges applied for a closure this year. 75 engineering colleges were closed in in 7 states. As a remedial action, India’s technical education regulator may cut the total number of undergraduate engineering seats by as much as 40% over the next few years. This can prove to be a positive step towards strengthening of the quality education; employment and issue of vacate seats. 

In order to maintain student’s interest in the engineering as a lucrative career option, the quality and skill based education is coming as a main course of concern. It is exemplifying the C. Darwin’s theory on the survival of the fittest for stake holders, the students and technical institutions, both. One major factor in this direction is updated curriculum which serves the need of industry practices. As a result, the country has grown in the numbers with private university players to address the requirements of industry by their updated syllabus and value added education model.  

Seeing students coming from the diversified background and different part of the country, most of the universities are continuously improving their course structure by giving space to the courses like aptitude, English language, software language, personality development, etc. along with their domain subjects, as a part of their regular curriculum. At the same time universities are hiring more qualified and skilled faculty members with good academic and research background to address the expectations of students in terms of education, research, and employability with good companies. 

As per study, the highest paying jobs available for ECE graduates in today’s market are in the Semiconductor Industry. As an example, a skilled fresher in VLSI Design (especially in Verification Domain) shall equipped with Basic VLSI Design Flow, Basics of Digital Design, Basics of Analog Electronics, Computer Programming Language C/ C++, Linux and Scripting, VerilogHDL, SystemVerilog, and Projects. This may help him/her to secure a good job with a very handsome salary package upto 10LPA or even more in a good Semiconductor company. This segment has a huge potential for career building. A good university with state of the art curriculum in VLSI Design and experienced faculty with industry exposure can be the passport for the career.

Further the upcoming market of IoT (Internet of Things), Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics, etc.  is going to create a huge number of jobs in the core electronics and software sectors, both in coming years. It will need a huge talent pool of fresh and experienced talent pool of engineers to make things happen and connected together. As being engineering university, we all need to get ready with updated curriculum and skill sets to address the huge requirements of the market.

Dr Neeraj Kumar Shukla 

Associate Professor, The Department of Electrical, 

Electronics and Communication Engineering 

The NorthCap University

Internet of Things (IoT) : Our Next Revolutionary Resource

Internet of things is the next revolutionary resources of the industry today.

It was between 2008 and 2010 that the term IoT gained popularity and visibility. The buzz was due to the maturity of the Wireless Sensors Networks and the improved expectations about IoT. IoT’s big picture came into existence only in 2012 as mentioned by the area experts.

The worldwide spending on IoT and related field is on the rise and likely to surpass the US$1 trillion mark in 2022. There are multiple sectors that are sure to benefit from IoT solutions. These include manufacturing, networking, IT based companies and largely Electronics industry. IoT revolution has taken the start-ups by a storm. IoT start-ups are already solving some of the most challenging problems, enabling new business models and truly transforming industries that are involved with IoT the most.

Internet of things is going to be present everywhere. In Smart refrigerators/pantries that use weight-based sensors and re-order food items, Fitness trackers using GPS devices, smart homes where lights, heat and air conditioning are remotely controlled, Security systems with face and voice recognition to gain entry etc.

Electronics industry stands to gain the maximum from the IoT revolution. Electronics manufacturers have been connecting devices and appliances for years. VLSI and embedded systems companies like Intel, Cisco as well as IT companies like Microsoft, Google are going in a big way in IoT. It’s easy to see what a huge opportunity the connected home is creating for the electronics industry.

The NorthCap University,Gurugram is offering B.Tech. Electronics and Communication Engineering with specialization in Internet of Things where students will be able to apply practical knowledge on IoT sensors, microcontrollers, networks, cloud computing and machine learning to develop IoT systems.

Dr. Rekha Vig

Associate Professor

EECE department