Located in the bustling streets of the city’s IT hub in Sector V, the Institute of Engineering and Management (IEM), Kolkata , and the University of Engineering and Management (UEM), has made a mark as a premier establishment among the top private engineering colleges in West Bengal as well as Eastern India. Started in 1989 as the first private engineering and business management school in West Bengal, IEM is an acclaimed institute for over 37 years and continues to be an important name in the academia. In a candid conversation with The Statesman, director of IEM, Professor Satyajit Chakrabarti explains how the institute helps its students transform into corporate leaders equipping them with practical tools to navigate the dynamic business world while preparing for higher management roles or even make brilliant entrepreneurs.
Q: The IEM-UEM has been among the top ranking colleges not only in West Bengal but also the Eastern region for over three and a half decades. What are the secrets of its success story?
A: Our institute is 37 years old and the 38th batch has just started for MBA and the 31st batch of engineering is to start on 1 July. From the very beginning, the founder of the institute, Professor Satyajit Chakrabarti (editor’s note: late founder with the same name) believed in quality and discipline. He asserted that we should try to make good human beings first and then a brilliant engineer or manager. The idea of good human qualities coupled with emphasis on discipline has been the key to our success over the years.
Q: How do you prepare your students to thrive in an industry which is very competitive?
A: In this sector, there is a lot of competition. One important factor in staying ahead in this competitive environment is continuous innovation. Second, it is important to keep channels of collaboration open with various stakeholders including in academia, government, private enterprises, foreign industries, companies and start-ups. It is always teamwork and partnerships that wins. Together we win and that has helped us to remain at the helm of affairs and the competitive edge.
Q: In the present era, just holding a degree does not translate to qualifying for employment. How much emphasis does your institute give on the skill development of the students?
A: From our inception around 37 years back, skilling of students has been an integral part of the curriculum. In the past five years, the weightage on skilling has gone up. We are now providing students with micro-credits, micro-credential courses and other skill development courses in various categories including life skills, financial skills, presentation skills, language skills, coding skills, among others. Skill development is prioritized so that students are not surprised or there is no gap with the academia in the industry. A student studying a four year degree has four internships-one each at the end of the first three years and a full term in the fourth year. For an MBA degree there are two internships-one at the end of first year and a full second year. These internships are always in the industry. Students do live projects in the laboratories with experiential learning in the industry so that when they sit for the campus interview or even actually go out in the corporate environment, the atmosphere is not surprising to them. Their skills are developed in such a way that it is a very natural and smooth transition from academia to the industry.
Q : What are the kinds of placements and packages the students of your institute get after the completion of the course?
A: We have MoUs and tie ups with almost all the big corporations including the top five financial companies and six IT companies. By MoUs, they do quality accreditation of our organization and give us preferential placement slots. There are also specialized faculty training sessions; CEO to director meet ups that I personally attend sometimes. In our curriculum we have a mapping. Through this, companies like TCS, Infosys or Capgemini or even Cognizant enhance our curriculum as per their requirement. In the final year, companies taking our students provide the internship also. All the top companies like Adobe, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and so on come here while some of them do not go to any institution but schedule the interview in their head office. Almost all the companies that go to IIT Kharagpur come to our institute. Our packages are of IIT level. For example, TCS gives the digital package and the higher packages and so does Infosys.
Q: Where do the students of your institute get placements mostly, within the state of West Bengal or outside?
A: The majority of our students get placements within the state but in national employers. For example, companies like Infosys, Capgemini, Wipro, TCS or even Cognizant take students within the state but their posting could be anywhere in the country. Most of our students are thus picked up by national employers who also have a presence in West Bengal. However, there is a sizable percentage of students (around 20 to 30 percent) that are picked up directly by companies in other states primarily in the hubs of Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Q: How is Artificial Intelligence reshaping the industry?
A: Artificial Intelligence is now an indispensable tool in academia and in industry. Our faculty members approach AI from three different angles. One is using AI as an expert level user which is basically like prompt engineering. Secondly, designing AI models like Small Language Models (SLMs) and how these can be ported to light weight devices like cell phones or micro-controller to create applications. The third one is to write applications to solve business requirements. From these three aspects , students are trained, taught and prepared to work on live projects while doing internships with various industries.
Q: What message would you like to give to the students of your institute?
A: My message to the young aspirants is that they should keep working hard, embrace failures as learning steps and keep improving. Continue innovating and work towards a self-reliant India. Do not try to adopt the easy pathway of foreign goods or products. Rather try to make goods, services and products in India. Try to get customers from India and abroad. Put efforts to improve your goods and products to ensure that your customers are happy.