Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department at IIT Ropar offers a B.Tech program, alongside a Ph.D. program. Since the establishment of the branch, it has involved a wide range of study areas, in India as well as other foreign countries. Mainly, it has shown a great scope of exposure relentlessly in these few years.

Sir P.K Raina, considered one of the main heads of the institute, is a Ph.D. holder from IIT Kanpur and knows how to incentivize new talents. At present, he is known as the Students Associate Dean of IIT Ropar. 

In terms of infrastructure, there is a separate building in the permanent campus, usually called the Satish Dhawan for SMMEE. There is a provision of only one lab located in the Transit campus - 1 of XRD. Other similar labs are located elsewhere,

1. RMML (Ropar Machines of Materials Laboratory )
2. Material Testing Lab

In case you are about to pursue your higher studies, then going for IIT Ropar is not at all a bad elective. 

VNIT, Nagpur and IIEST, Shibpur are two prime institutes of the nation and rank highly. Each has its own unique attractions and disadvantages. MME and ETC are highly demanded courses. While IIEST offers 64 seats for ETC, VNIT offers 115 seats for MME. NIRF has ranked IIEST at 21 whereas VNIT ranked at 27 among the NIRF Rankings

About the courses:

• ETC graduates can work in various government jobs and a variety of development centers dealing in sales, manufacture, and services of electronics & communication customer appliances.

• MME is a branch of engineering that is in huge demand. Metallurgical students can get placed in various research programs or the public and government sectors.

Admission:

• The admission to both institutes is done on the basis of rank secured in the national level entrance examination i.e. JEE Main.

• To be eligible for admission, one must secure 75% marks in aggregate in their intermediate graduation.

Placement Statistics

• IIEST: The highest package offered to IIEST students was INR 39.12 LPA. 61.9% of the ETC students were placed. Some major companies that recruit students from IIEST are Accenture, ICICI Bank, Cognizant, Microsoft, Maruti, and PWC.

• VNIT: The highest package offered in campus placements was 22 LPA. 50% of the MME students were placed in recruitments. Top recruiters at this institute include L&T ECC, Reliance Industries, Deloitte, JP Morgan, Aditya Birla Group.

Facilities

• IIEST: The institute offers facilities such as halls of residence, Library, Labs, Canteen, School, etc. It also provides medical facilities like hospitals and ambulances, sports and games clubs, and entrepreneurship activities.

• VNIT: Students are offered Hostels, Guesthouse, Gymnasium, Sports, Health Centre, and Library facilities within the 215 acres campus. There are clubs and community shops as well.

Students must compare both the programs and colleges carefully. The decision depends on an individual’s capabilities and expectations from college life.

I have friends studying production engineering at PEC Chandigarh and they have come across that it is somewhat similar to mechanical engineering. You can expect a lot of mechanics and physics, however, some subjects differ as you get into the core.

Coming to the question, it totally depends on your pool of interest whether you are into mechanics and production or metallurgy. Here are two major factors you might consider before choosing any of them

• Production Engineering can get you jobs and packages similar to mechanical engineering. Also, it is a versatile branch where you can learn about manufacturing, operation, maintenance, etc.
• If you are planning to get into research work after completion of engineering, then you must choose Metallurgy. It has broader research scopes than production engineering.

At the end of the day, follow your passion and know where you can invest these 4 years of your life. Nevertheless, if getting a job is your goal then go for production engineering. On the other hand, metallurgy engineering can open doors for good research work if you are interested in doing so.

Surely, Metallurgy at PEC over Mechanical in UIET. There are various important reasons behind this: Placements in PEC are better, companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. visit campus for placements.

Though metallurgy has fewer placements than other branches in PEC, once you are in PEC and if you are focused enough, you can go for an upgrade after 1st semester on the basis of CGPA. To aim for it, keep the following things in mind -

• At most, only the top 10% of the class can be upgraded.
• The branch you want to be upgraded to will only be available if it has vacant seats.

PEC is far superior to UIET in terms of cultural and other extracurricular activities. If you don't have any branch priorities, I'd recommend metallurgy in PEC.

My brother had the option of VIT for CSE on merit still he chose PEC metallurgy. There are various reasons as to why he took that decision:

• VIT is more expensive. Even if he had gone on merit, it would have cost him much more than PEC.
• Placements in core companies in ECE are negligible. You can sit for IT companies, but they pay less to ECE undergraduates than CSE counterparts.
• If you are a north Indian, culturally VIT might be different and might take time to adjust.
• Metallurgy is an undervalued branch in India; many of my seniors are pursuing MS from Germany, the United States, and France, and some have gone to IIMs and FMS with strong credentials.
• One of our seniors received a PPO of 15 lakhs, which is more than many students from elite branches.
• You can choose to upgrade, but you'll quickly realize that it's not that simple because the grading criteria favors those who are less deserving (no offense).
• Whether you accept it or not, those who claim that placement in metallurgy is poor (as it is in all branches except CS/IT) are correct. Placements in the core are hard to come by.
• Only 4000 people in GATE are from metallurgy, whereas there are 1.8 lakh from CSE and 2.1 lakh from Mechanical, implying that the probability of you getting a PSU is greater than that of a mechanical engineer.

I personally believe VIT is overrated because a friend who did not even pass mains received 2000 AIR in VITEEE. In the CBSE 2016 boards, he scored 78 percent, which was below average.

It depends upon your expectations, your goals, your abilities, etc. The worth of doing Material Sciences and Metallurgy Engineering at PEC Chandigarh will depend on the following factor:

• If you gave your very best at the entrance exams but still could not score well enough to get a higher rank which would have given you an option for a better college or branch, then probably it is best to move on and choose the branch and the college. There will be opportunities here as well, no doubt about that.
• If you think you did not give your full efforts and you could do better in the next year, then definitely you should drop a year for better preparation. It is better to drop rather than lamenting in the future that you did not give your 100% and got stuck here.
• If you prefer engineering and you are passionate about the subject, then the college reputation and brand should not bother you much. It is about the learning you would get and not about other stuff like rankings, placements, etc. You would get plenty of options and opportunities here as well and after graduating too.
• If placements matter to you more than anything and you do not have any preference about the branch you would get, then definitely you should prefer a college with a better reputation, placements, etc.

PEC Chandigarh is not a bad college and has a legacy of close to 100 years now. It is also ranked 68 in the NIRF 2020 engineering college rankings. Take a decision based on what you want rather than superficial stats and other things.