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A lot of class 12th science students only focus on JEE and NEET. It is the traditional mindset of Indian parents to think that engineering and medicine are the only options to succeed in life. But that’s not always the case.
Many students like to study pure sciences and not engineering or medicine. Medicine is on a completely different level, as it involves saving lives and its value is much higher. However, there are many students who like biology as a subject but are not interested in medicine. There are also many students who love Math and Physics, but are not interested in engineering. Some students like Chemistry and don’t want to get into Computer Programming.
Parents and peers should ensure these students are allowed to pursue the course of their choice. After all, there can be no engineering without pure sciences. All the electrical engineering exists because of Ohm’s Law and that stems from Physics. Engineering grows because of research in pure sciences and students should be encouraged to pursue these courses.
Best institutes to study pure science
IISc Bangalore and IISER are the best options for students interested in studying pure sciences. One of the main reasons why many research focussed students choose engineering is because it is a 4-year degree and lets you complete the necessary number of years of education as mandated by US universities.
The 3-year B.Sc program by most of the universities falls short by a year and you are forced to sit for entrance exams for PG at the end of it. The 5-year B.S-M.S Programs offered by IISc and IISER let you satisfy the requirements of US universities and ensure you are ready for research programs at foreign universities or India, without forcing you to graduate in an engineering subject you are not interested in.
If you plan to go abroad for higher studies and like pure sciences, IISER should be one of the places you should apply to. I am leaving out IISc Bangalore for this discussion as their admissions are based on JEE-Advanced, which can be extremely tough for even the brightest students to crack.
IISERs (Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research) were set up by the Ministry of Human Resources to encourage education in pure sciences. There are 7 campuses of IISER – Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal, Thiruvananthapuram, Berhampur and Tirupati.
How to get admission to IISERs?
IISERs conduct their own IISER Admission Test (IAT), which is comparatively easier, as you don’t have to qualify in a JEE-Mains to be eligible. Students need secure a minimum cut off marks in their board exams, which will be notified by IISER at a later stage.
The same test is also used as eligibility criteria for BS (Research) at IISc Bangalore and BS (Medical Sciences and Engineering program) at IIT Madras. (You need to apply for these programs separately at their websites.)
Apply online at the application portal for IISER Admission test.
Is a B.S-M.S program at IISER worth it?
The answer depends on your career aspirations. If you are inclined towards securing an IT placement, this is not the place for you. IISERs are not the conventional colleges which advertise the placements secured by their students. IISERs exist to educate you and prepare you for research in a subject.
If higher education is not your goal, you are probably better off slogging with coding in a tier 2/3 engineering college and attempting TCS and Infosys hackathons. You will, however be one in a crowd. The sheen of IT placements and high packages is on the wane and unless you are in a tier 1 JEE-based college with Computer Science, the 1Cr packages don’t happen. Wipro has recently reduced freshers’ package to 3.5 LPA which is the same as what it was 15 years ago and way less than the stipend offered to a PhD student in top universities in India.
If your aim is to go abroad, you may choose the engineering route or the pure sciences route. If you love pure sciences, try for IISc and if you are unable to crack JEE-Advanced, go for IISER entrance exam as a plan-B.
