Many people think that production engineering is mechanical minus thermodynamics. Which is not true. Production engineering is completely different from mechanical as the subjects are different.

My friend is currently in the 4th year of production engineering, NIT Trichy and according to him, it doesn’t really have a good prospect. Here’s why:

• While other departments have 6 subjects per semester you’ll be having 7. This can get quite hectic for you at times.
• Despite so much hard work, placements are not good at all. You will never be treated equally to your mechanical friends, however good your profile is.
• Although you can go into most of the mechanical engineering fields like automobiles, industrial tools making, etc. you will be paid lesser than your mechanical engineer mates.

However, if you are planning for higher studies and research, then production is a very good choice. Being a production engineer opens up the manufacturing, industrial, and mechanical higher study options too. So, if placement after B.Tech. is your focus, please look elsewhere but if you are into higher studies then surely go for it. Choose wisely.

You must know what you are getting yourself into. The mechanical engineering department of NITC offers 2 BTech courses that are Mechanical and Production. Both of these departments share faculties, labs, some courses, and other facilities. But at the end of the day, both are different courses.

There are two types of people seen in Production Engineering at NITC:

1. Students who wanted to study mechanical, but didn’t have the rank for it or could only get mechanical at other NITs. Production is after all similar to mechanical.
2. Students who didn’t have an appropriate rank to choose a branch/college of their choice, but still wanted to study in an NIT.

There are few things that students commonly felt during their days:

• Students are often seen saying that they should get mechanical equivalent certificates. There is no purpose in saying this as they are two different branches.
• Students also complain that teachers are biased. Few teachers refrain from teaching students from production batches. Mechanical batches are taught mostly by permanent faculty while production batches get guest faculties.
• There are very few placement opportunities for Production batches in comparison with Mechanical. Core companies are even fewer.
• The students of Production are often isolated from other batches of students. They are allotted spare rooms.

The placement options are not as rare as students may make out, but it may not be in the field that they are looking for.

So in the end one can say that, if the student truly wants to be a mechanical engineer, then this college probably isn’t for you. If they just want the NIT experience, then they should know what options they will have after college.

I know a little bit about ISI Kolkata since I have a few friends from the institute. Here is what you should know about the internships between semesters. 

The course curriculum specifies that in the summer after completing your first year of M.Tech, you have to do an internship either in the industry or academia. You will have 3 options. 

Industry:

• Many companies that visit the Campus for placements of 2nd-year students also select interns for the same.
• Some of such companies are Samsung Research Labs, Google, General Electric, Reliance, Flipkart, De Shaw, JP Morgan Chase, etc.
• The average stipend offered last year was 65,000 rupees/month.
• Some companies offer more than 1 lakh/month. One of my friends interned at Samsung Research Labs.

Academia:

• As per ISI guidelines, you need to pursue an internship at a different academic Institute or industry.
• A friend of mine went to NUS Singapore, while two others went to a university in Germany. You can also apply to other institutes in Japan, USA, and Europe. People also go to IITs, CMI, and other Tier-1 Institutes of India.

Within ISI:

If for some reason you could not get an internship in the above-mentioned ways, you can approach any of the 250+ faculty members across all 5 ISI‘s and can ask to work with them in their labs.

You will have internships at the end of the first year. In the second year, you will have placements, dissertation, academics. So, the only time left to do an additional internship is the winter break after the first sem. Unless you are extremely enthusiastic, I will suggest that you take a break during this period. Because after the break you will be swamped with coursework for 1.5 years.

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.