“Education is part and parcel of a learning curvature in every person’s life”
With essence and the growing technology, learning as been broaden in every field. But looking at the growing competition and to be in with the market more and more people now want to be with the technology. Computers has created a multitude change in this entire scenario of learning and for a person to be in this rapid changed needs to be the hour of the day.
In the early 90’s software engineering became a new stream in itself and started became more popular than Medicine and so did shoot lots of Institute boasting of big money once you finish the course and this became really lucrative for the Indian geeks. No doubt India became destination for the biggest of the names in Technology whether Microsoft or Sun or Oracle. No doubt the ever growing Infosys and Wipro.
All the Engineering College couldn’t sustain such amount of people so, started mushrooming Computer Institutes. In this chain there are only 2 institutes, which made money like anything and did not give anything in returns to the students that was Aptech and NIIT.
I would like to start my series on Institute with Aptech Computer Education.
Aptech Computer Education
Aptech Computer Education formerly known as Apple Industries Ltd started its chain of Fast Food Centre (!!!Oops Computer Institute (But they treat it as Fast Food Centre)) all around Mumbai and in India. I was in my (1993) 12th and thought of joining an Institute with brand name and along with my 2 college friends went to the Centre at Thane, this was put in a plate before us with:
Features & Offers
Beautiful Counsellors (I wonder how can they keep the plastic smile all along)
Fantastic Curriculum (Looks good only on the prospectus)
Placement Guarantee (For them placement means appointing students as Lab Instructor or Faculty in their institute)
Flexibility of Timings (They can be flexible because they change place every 4mths
Great Infrastructure (Yes, never try switching on the servers or the systems because you will get a prompt reply Sir the servers are down at this moment)
Friendly and open environment (Full marks in this regards because they can only party and do functions and various days like in colleges)
Faculty ( If you enquire closely they will be the ex-students)
Discounts ( Great Discounts with hidden costs)
Upgrading Skills (Whenever new versions come we were to be upgraded but it never happened)
Okay these were offered even after these stupid things, like dumb guys we joined the institutes and went in for a 3-year diploma for which we got discounts and scholarships.
The total fees at that time was 36000Rs/- and now the same course is some where around 1, 00, 000Rs /-. We got it for 10000Rs/- lucky because we got scholarships and discounts.
Trauma & Frustration
Then started the trauma, which I can never forget, in my entire life. Initial part of our course that is 3 semesters we had the best faculty, His name was Mr Varghese and he was too good in C++. He gave us really good basic training and it can never be forgotten. He used to say, “In computers if your base is good then you can excel any programming language.” after those 3 semesters, our faculty left the institute and we had a new Faculty who could hardly speak English and he was our ex-student. After too much fighting we got it changed but again who ever came next were as pathetic as before. Our coming semesters were on Oracle 6 under Unix and everyone knows how fragile Unix servers are, so we learnt only the theoretical Unix and never could feel the OS because always our Unix used to crash big time.
There is a compulsory project after every semester, we did projects but No one to listen and see the projects. We never had Vivas in the entire 3 years.
Then some how we tried to finish the entire 3years diploma in 4years. I had never expected for placements because I was any way going for MS. But some of my friends had to really struggle and could never get a job from Aptech.
Placements and Its Irony
After 2 years of working in a small firm, my friend had seen an advertisement in the Newspaper , Aptech’s Software division was recruiting and he went for an Interview and his interview was taken by a very senior guy in Aptech, (Note: My friend was BA and had excelled at Aptech with great programming skill) said we only take BE. He was shocked and asked him, I am an aptech student so I should be eligible, but the Person taking interview straight away refused saying we don’t take people from institutes. He must be joking, it is not some institute but it was their branch only. My friend straight away fought with him but there was no answer. He ever wrote a letter to Ganesh Natrajan the CEO of Aptech but obviously he never got reply.
Such Pathetic Attitude! Aptech Sucks Big time
There are lines and lines I could write about Aptech because of I have experienced it. I used to feel bad when students used to be lured by these counsellors.
“WHY DON’T THESE INSTITUTES UNDERSTAND ITS PERSONS HARD EARNED MONEY THEY ARE PUTTING ON THE CHILDRENS ”
This is not the story with Aptech only but all the institutes around in India.
Institutes which sucks big time
Aptech Computer Education (Big name and nothing else)
NIIT (Part of HCL Group so can spend heavily advertise)
Wintech (Managed by a Dubai Con Man)
Karrox (Nothing said the better)
Institutes a bit okay(but not the best)
SSI (Good for training in Oracle)
CMC (Govt Managed)
The advertisement war 7 years back between NIIT and Aptech was really well known and both used to fight like coke and pepsi to come up but both are miserably bad.
Before joining a Institute take these things into account
Faculty (Check with the ex-students and meet the faculty)
Curriculum (Check of up to date their Curriculum is and ask them whether if new upgrades or version comes will they train in that)
Cost (Most important, Because it is your parents hard earned money)
Placements (Ask their senior students what is the kind of placements they provide)
Don’t go by the counsellor (Never get carried away by the dumb and beautiful counsellors)
Infrastructure (Check their servers, computers are the updated are whether they are still using 486 machines.
MOST IMPORTANT GO BY YOUR INSTINCT, CAREER PATH AND RESEARCH, DON’T GO JUST BECAUSE SOME OF YOUR COLLEGE FRIENDS ARE GOING
I wish all of you a happy and successful careers!!!