Leading Branded Colleges of Anna University in Chennai-17
This is the seventeenth article in the series of articles on the Leading Branded Colleges of Anna University in Chennai. The two colleges that we would discuss in detail in this article are the SKR Engineering College and the PERI Institute of Technology.
Introduction
There are a number of colleges that sprang up in Chennai in the year 2000 and in the next four years. a number of engineering colleges were set up in the then distant suburbs, that were then developing to a large extent. Yes, the suburbs were even then connected by buses, but the road infrastructure was not as developed as it is today. We now have a vast network of roads connecting the fourth largest city of India, Chennai, with any suburb and the roads have drastically improved as well.
For example, the then DMK Government took it upon itself, the noble task of developing the road leading to Tambaram, when it made Oragadam, around 40 odd kilometers from the city, through the highly developed suburb of Tambaram, a center of vast industrial development. This then underdeveloped area is today a bustling suburb connected with a good double lane road that leads to Tambaram. Just a few kilometers from Tambaram is a prestigious locality called Mannivakkam. Today, this suburb is as good as Tambaram, with a number of small gated communities coming up. The city buses are plying to this southern suburb so regularly, that many prefer to stay in this place. Housed in this suburb is the PERI Insititute of Technology.
As already mentioned in the previous articles, there is a good and developed suburb called Poonamalee, on the Western side of Chennai. In fact, this suburb is an extension of the prestigious locality called Porur. Several gated communities have now come up in Poonamalee and the engineering colleges that have come up in this area have a very large number of teachers who own these houses, as there are good schools in every part of the city. The SKR Engineering College is located near this suburb.
In the previous article of this series, Leading Branded Colleges of Anna University in Chennai -16, we had discussed the salient features of the Thangavelu Institute of Technology and the Arignar Anna Institute of Science and Technology.
In this article, we will discuss a) What is special about PERI Institute of Technology and b) What is special about the SKR Engineering College.What is special about PERI Institute of Technology
This is one college that is extremely famous among the students of Chennai, and this extends to the arts and science colleges, colleges of architecture, and any branch of engineering.
Every year, this college conducts a grand Job Fair, where thousands of students visit the campus for campus interviews. This mega event leads to placement opportunities for a tall order. The job offers are made to all students and not merely to the students of the PERI Group, which also runs the PERI Arts and Science College, which is affiliated to the University of Madras.
This college not only aims at high visibility but even doing unique things. It does offer the usual courses, but the college has got superb infrastructure that is rated as one of the best in the city. This single factor reportedly attracts a large number of students from the Tambaram area, who prefer this college for the importance given by the college Management to conduct job fairs, while having the interest of the entire society at large. In fact, when students come from various colleges, the students of this college get to rub shoulders with the students of other colleges and get an accurate feel of their own strengths and weaknesses and then address the same accordingly. It reportedly gives some importance to research as well.
There are the usual courses on offer. However, it also offers the B.E. (Civil Engineering) course. Given the fact that there is bound to be a big boom in real estate development in the next few years, and the construction boom is just about to happen once again, Civil Engineering is bound to become a hot favorite course of thousands of engineers in the near future, in the post-COVID scenario.
Similarly, the college also offers the M.E. Communication Systems course. This highly job-oriented course is now a big source of inspiration for thousands of students who study in various colleges of Anna University and then go abroad to do their MS and Ph.D. in the allied fields. The M.E. (Applied Electronics) course is also reportedly gaining traction for its job-orientation. It is for these reasons that the PERI Institute of Technology has emerged as a good branded college of Anna University in the South Chennai area.
Contact Information
PERI Institute of Technology
PERI Knowledge Park
Mannivakkam
Chennai 600048
Phone:- 044-61333400, Extn:- 9000
Email:- admin@peri.education
Website:- www.periedcuationWhat is special about the SKR Engineering College
Totally different from the approach of the PERI Institute of Technology, to emerge as a viable, highly visible, and ambitious provider of on-campus placement opportunities to not only its own students but thousands of other students as well, across many disciplines and also the arts and science disciplines, the SKR college in the Poonamalee area has developed its own strengths over the years.
It was set up in the year 2001, as a Telugu Minority Institution. However, today, it not only admits the Telugu-speaking students but also caters to the needs of the local students of the Poonamalee area, one of the vast and most prestigious suburbs of Chennai today. It should be noted that Poonamalee is situated bang on the Chennai to Bangalore National Highway.
SKR Engineering College offers the usual courses. However, it also offers a number of value-added courses. It has centers of excellence for research and advanced training in areas such as Embedded Computing. The value-added courses include those in CISCO, RedHat, NET, and so on. Apart from these courses, it also offers an MBA course.
The students who were interviewed for the purpose of this article were of the opinion that the internship opportunities secured by the college authorities were quite good. The practical training is taken seriously and the teachers are always there to guide them. One of the reasons the MBA is now emerging as a good quality one is the fact that the college keeps on renewing its industry links. The MBA course can be very useful to anyone interested in combining his or her engineering skills with practical and conceptual inputs related to Management skills. These skills have now become global in nature and hence the engineer-MBAs often find job opportunities in any part of the world.
The website of the college does mention that the placement record for the year 2018-2019 was to the tune of 96%, whereas that for 2019-2020, was 88%. This is understandable, as there has been a decline in the number of new jobs available to engineers and MBAs in the post-COVID situation. However, the college sources were confident of making good improvements in the placement scenario in the next few months, as the industrial scenario is now far better than what it was some eight months ago.
It is for its sincere efforts at improving the quality of whatever it offers in terms of teaching, or placement, or infrastructure that the SKR Engineering College is now emerging as a good branded engineering college of Anna University in the Poonamalee Area.
Contact information
SKR Engineering College
Nazartahpet (1.5 kilometers from Poonamalee)
Ponnamalee
Chennai 600123
Phone:- 044-26494203, 26273380
Email:- admin@skrenggcollege.org
Website:-www.skrec.orgConclusion
Two decades is a fairly good deal of time for any institution with a good intent to renew itself constantly and stay alive. The successive Tamil Nadu Governments have intelligently left everything to market forces and the mad scramble to merely survive the increased competition among the existing branded colleges and make engineering as a preferred course of study for thousands of students is not a mere achievement. It requires a good deal of dedication and seriousness to a vision to not only stay relevant but also make continuous improvements. While the PERI Institute of Technology has gone on for a good deal of image building and strengthening of its core offerings, with a big focus on placement, the SKR college of Engineering has concentrated on the basics. Hopefully, these two branded colleges will make further improvements in the years to come.