New courses no match to CSE at PEC counselling

{First round complete}

Blurb: Traditional computer science engineering more popular than courses on AI and data science

While the Punjab Engineering College (PEC) had last year introduced BTech honours in computer science engineering, artificial intelligence and data science, the traditional BTech in computer science and engineering (CSE) found the most taker sin the first round of seat allocation done through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA).

A total five rounds of seat allocation will be carried out and the process will continue till July 23, 2024.

With a closing rank (cut-off) of 14,677 in home state and 9,984 for other states, CSE was the most popular branch in the round 1 results that were announced on Thursday.

Last year, the artificial intelligence course had the lowest cut-off which was 9,240 in other states. However this year, it has risen to 10,498 for other states and 15,811 for home state.

Even last year, students from home state had preferred the traditional CSE course, which had a higher merit.

Another concerning trend was that the opening rank or the highest rank holder to apply for the AI course was at 12,134 for home state and 6,274 for other states. In comparison for traditional CSE, it was 4,310 for home state and 3,809 for other states, which means students with the highest ranks did not opt only for the AI course and instead went for traditional CSE.

CSE data science saw a lower merit with a cut-off rank of 19,134 for home state and 12,959 for other states. The newly introduced course for this year, BTech in mathematics and computing, has a cut-off of 21,962 for home state and 14,836 for other states. Although lower than other computer related engineering courses, this course is for those who want to focus on traditional mathematics as well and has seen higher merit than some of the other core engineering streams.

Similarly, electronics and communication engineering has a higher merit with cutoff of 28,220 for home state and 18,425 for other states as compared to Electronics engineering (VLSI design and technology) which was introduced last year with cutoff of 30,755 for home state and 19,765 for other states. However electrical engineering has a lower merit of 38,329 for home state and 26,284 for other states.

Admissions to PEC are done through the JEE Main exam, which is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). Students allotted seats in the first round will have till June 24 to pay the fees while the second round of seat allotment will start from June 27. Those who want to check whether they have been allotted a seat can visit https://josaa.nic.in/.