Continuing the story from where I had left in my last blog…
Since academic project begins with topic selection, I casually inquired about the project that my cousin had picked for her academics. She enthusiastically started explaining me about the project. It was a collision detection mechanism, which was having a blend of Artificial intelligence. I found it innovative, but when she mentioned that for Artificial Intelligence part of the project, she is not getting much help from her guide, this sounded like a red flag to me.
I asked “This project sounds very interesting! But if even your guide is not aware of a stuff that you are working on, how are you going to handle a situation where you are not able to fix an issue”.
“Don’t worry Akka, we have google, which knows everything”, she replied with a smile.
I liked her self confidence, but considering the fact that students generally have two to three months to complete the academic project, at times it will be unrealistic to expect a student (having no prior experience) deliver an end to end project, without help of a guide.
Though life does not always provide us with a cheat code, below are few points you can keep in mind prior to choosing your final year project:
- Choose a project that holds your interest for the whole duration.
- Propose a research question, and an idea for solving it.
- Be flexible, if you find that your original research question cannot be answered.
- Don’t come up with Earth-breaking, Nobel Winning Idea. Simply because such ideas need more time, money and patience, which students don’t have. Rather look for improvements and things that can be done better than current solutions.
- Remember “One swallow doesn’t make a summer”. The project is a team effort. Good thing is, you have been knowing your team mates for last four years. Leverage the expertise of each one of them, and share the task accordingly.
- Students need to shell their pockets out for academic project. Proper financial planning is must.
- After finalizing the topic and area, find a guide who is most relevant to you. Someone having industry experience is a plus.
Take advantage of your project guide and his/her research interest. After all, this is why we have a project guide assigned to each academic project.
Students working on their academic projects learn a lot, but there is no technology available to consolidate these learning. EnGrip is a platform to bring non-formal learning to resume, and it has announced Plunge, a national level competition to reward best final year project by engineering students in India. I feel this is going to help you a lot.
Top academic projects will be rewarded with cash prize and every participant will get their own Living Resume. For sign-up and more information on the program log on to www.engrip.com/plunge. If you have any queries write to us at plunge@engrip.com