The Story of Engineers

With JEE Main 2019 coming closer and closer, let’s have brief walk through the history of engineering itself. Engineering our way through tough times has been an ingrained tradition of humans since the beginning of the mankind. From tools to wheels to steam engines to airplanes, humans are easily one of the most brilliant creators amongst the living species. The evolution of modern engineering can be roughly recalled to begin from the Ingeniators devising fortifications and weapons some 2500 years ago. The word ‘engineer’ itself came from the Latin word "Ingenator". The early engineers mostly worked on the trial and error principle, and ingenious devices such as "Archimedean Screw" came out from a ‘Eureka’ moment after days of trial and error based experiments. These gave rise to the much sought-after civil engineering.

It was not until the early nineteenth century that engineers began a theoretical approach to designs. The works of Galileo was majorly considered as a base of theoretical predictions for various projects taken up by engineers. The development of natural science and mathematics helped in a great deal of achievement for the engineering trends. It was a transition from the natural and imaginative ways of building things to much more established practices. Information was exchanged in the form of journals, and training shifted to classroom lectures. With the arrival of industrial revolution, machines were starting to replace animals and much of the labor making efficient production of goods and materials. The machines were powered by electricity created by water and steam. The concepts of engineering began to broaden, and it was giving rise to new fields of study. 

Scientific community began researching in Physics and Chemistry much more extensively, and this saw a mark of Chemical and Electrical Engineering. Best examples would be Thermodynamics and Laminar flow of Fluids. Then eventually came into existence the marine engineering and aeronautical engineering. Humans began travelling via air and all of this gave our understanding of the world all the more vibrant. All these helped in creating a well-established curriculum, and as the discipline of engineering itself saw its formulation in colleges and universities, more and more student resources came flowing in. 

From the cold war and World War II, humanity saw real progress from novel inventions of telecommunications to cell phones. From there, it was straight skyrocketing of numerous inventions and innovations that brought forth everything we see today. New technologies stimulated researches in aerospace, microelectronics, computers, turbojet and rocket engines, atomic and nuclear power, automobile parts, etc. To keep up with all these developments, engineers have built an extensive system of education and various research programs for beginners to pick up where the predecessors are leaving off. Hitherto we have seen all the novel inventions developed with roots in Physics and Chemistry, but the future will gave rise to molecular and genetic engineering which will be an absolute boon for humanity.

Today, all from all around the world, millions of students pursue engineering as a career, and especially in India, engineering has been a field of study that deems as prestigious and a threshold for various job opportunities. Students, for pursuing their passion, would start their preparation from as early as 6th grade. A recent news article published by Hindustan Times reported that there has been a rise in engineering craze from small-town India, and in places like Ranchi, Madurai, and Patna, coaching institutions of JEE Main has been a flourishing business. Several course deals start as early as 6th grade and could cost up to 4 Lakh INR. About 9.6 lakh candidates have applied for the JEE Main 2019 January session exam, and it has been expected that even more applications will be receiving for JEE Main 2019 April session.

It simply shows that a niche has been identified and people are giving it all to invest their careers in it. The dream is to be included among the 0.9% of candidates who will be inducted into the IITs. The pattern usually goes like this; candidates who aspire to pursue their undergrad years in one of the IITs will have to appear in the JEE Main. From there, around 224,000 candidates will become eligible for appearing in the JEE Advance. From there, candidates with minimum required marks will have to register for the admission counseling conducted by JoSAA, and finally enter in one of the IITs. Other than that, students have various opportunities such as SRMJEEE, BITSAT, etc. where they can pursue their engineering programs.

The latest updates brings that National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced the exam centers for the JEE Main January session examination. Candidates will be able to check out the JEE Main Exam Cities from the official website of NTA and logging in with their registered IDs. The exam centers have been framed by NTA, and there will be 9 cities outside India as well. 

Reference: http://ummid.com/news/2018/September/04.09.2018/jee-main-2019-registration-underway-check-exam-dates-fees-and-how-to-apply-online.html