The ongoing demand for BCA professionals
The demand for IT professional has been on the rise. There are multiple streams and options available today for a student to become an IT professional. The industry needs IT professionals working in all areas of technical support in help-desk, ICT operations, etc., software testing, software developer and programming, administrators, security professionals and even professionals working in IT software and hardware research. This is a growing industry and a student is more or less assured of a promising life long career in IT as long as the student continues to work with dedication and sincerity. This is also a changing industry. All IT professionals have to keep upgrading their skills requiring them to carry on with a life-long learning process.
At the very basic undergraduate level, a student gets a choice to choose between Bachelor of Computer Science (B.Sc. in CS) and Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) for a career as a Software professional. Both BCA and B.Sc. is generally a three year undergraduate program, offered by many State-level and Central Universities of India through their affiliated colleges. The course structure in the two academic programs is somewhat different. In BCA, much more emphasis is placed on the development of applications software for client and server computing as may be required by the industry based on commercial demands. Extensive training is provided to the student in databases, commercial programming languages such as Python, PHP, etc., web technologies including mobile app development, development for artificial intelligence, internet of things, etc. These technologies and their demand may change with changing times and are easily adapted in the academic program, in the form of value-added courses. The IT professionals graduating with a BCA degree are required to be able to develop these software packages with minimal training and at a fast pace.
A student of BSc in CS studies more of the internals of Computer Science. The emphasis of education is to develop a stronger base of the student in courses which make him understand the very foundation of Computer Science. The student has to undertake study on various theoretical aspects such as Theory of Computation, Automata Theory, Compiler Design, etc. which establishes the necessary background for further studies if the student wants to undertake. Such as a student can also work in the industry as an applications developer, since the foundation courses enable him to pick up the commercial skills if required. A student of BSc is very well placed to pursue higher studies and can even pursue for his doctorate degree and establish an academic career for himself.
Opportunities in Delhi-NCR
With the ever growing demand of IT professionals, Delhi NCR has been mushrooming with institutes and colleges which offer both BSc and BCA degrees to undergraduate students, though there are fewer colleges offering BSc in Computer Science. Noida and Gurugram in the Delhi-NCR region has seen the growth of many national and multi-national IT companies which are constantly hiring such professionals. Companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Wipro, HCL and many more have setup their offices in Noida as well as Gurugram. Campus interviews are easy to arrange. Almost all top BCA colleges in Noida and Gurugram face no difficulty in placing their students either for internships or for permanent jobs. Students graduating from these BCA colleges in Noida are doing very well today, and have been able to place their career on a promising path.
Dr. Ajay K. Gupta is the Dean of School of Information Technology at IMS Noida. He has been in the academia for last 30 years or so, having worked for universities in India and abroad. He has taught courses at various levels and his principal are of research has been in Networks and Computer Security. Dr. Ajay K Gupta is actively involved in the shaping the career of BCA professionals at IMS Noida.