The Importance of Industrial Visits to Students as Future Professionals

Industrial Visits (IV), commonly referred as Industrial Tour among the engineering students circle, is a vital event per their curriculum where the students need to visit any company. Many a times, it is seen that colleges simply tend to arrange it as a part of their leisure trips and there are many agencies arranging for ‘namesake’ industry visits. On the other hand, why the universities and UGC stress on the importance of Industrial Visit, is by understanding the significance of it in the educational system, keeping the objective in mind of making the students to tomorrow’s industrialists.

In real, as a part of their engineering or professional graduation, students must visit industries in order to get a proper insight about how the real working environment of a company is and the functionality at different levels. It will be giving you an opportunity to gather information about the practical aspects of your academic lessons, which cannot be visualized in the classroom lectures. Unfortunately, in actual scenario this objective is not met when you are experiencing the above-mentioned ‘namesake’ industrial visits just to get past the need.
As per the expert view, Industrial Visit is one of the most tactical approaches in technical education. However bright the students are, it is not easy to feed the technical concepts to their brains without providing them an opportunity to have a real insight about what their needs on an application front. This is impossible in any other means than visiting the real working environment. A good industrial visit will give the students an opportunity to learn things practically in a real-time functional environment through interactions, witnessing the working methods and clarifying their doubts with experienced workers.

• An opportunity to get exposure to the real workstations, plants, machines and systems.
• Going a step ahead, it will be great if you can get a real work exposure.
• Opportunity to get the senior functional experts / supervisors to explain about company functions.
• Company tour to understand the end-to-end process at all levels.
• Expert briefing about the functioning of machines and systems.
• Opportunity to have a face to face session with technical or administrative experts of the organization to ask questions and clarify doubts.
• Opportunity to understand the company policies in terms of production, quality, and service management.

Try to gather as much information as possible about the company through the website and other possible modes so that you can have a better understanding of the business process and be prepared to ask questions during a Q&A session. Remember you are visiting an organization and not a leisure trip, so train your group to maintain proper discipline and professionalism. Keep a thanking note prepared and do not forget to hand it over to the company authorities when you part.

• Always try to choose a company, which has some relevance with your stream of study. For example, there it is irrelevant for Information Technology students to select a transformer manufacturing unit.
• Rather than searching for it at the last moment, plan your industrial visit well ahead in time and do proper communication with the company authorities about your needs.
• Do inquire about the facilities organization provides for industrial visitors and make sure whether it covers all the above needs.
• Discuss in detail about the industrial visit structure also like how much time, how many students, dates, prerequisites etc., to avoid any last minute confusions.
• A certification of visit from the authorized person is also necessary, so confirm it beforehand.
• Try to gather as much information as possible about the company through the website and other possible modes so that you can have a better understanding of the business process and be prepared to ask questions during a Q&A session.
• Remember you are visiting an organization and not a leisure trip, so train your group to maintain proper discipline and professionalism.
• Keep a thanking note prepared and do not forget to hand it over to the company authorities when you part.

It will be worthwhile for you to also know that many organizations now entertain Industrial Visits as an opportunity for brand marketing as well as a part of CSR policies. So, it will not be a tough task for the students to locate a good orgnization if they do a proper research and groundwork in this regard. However, if you take it just as a ‘namesake’ exercise, it will be real waste of time, effort, and money for you by gaining nothing out of it. On the other hand, if you can get hold of a good IV opportunity, it will build an insight about how the real industry functions where you are going to enter yourself as future professionals. This can also help sharpen your learning objectives and motivate you to work toward the right career goals.

If you are planning for an Industrial Visit at a leading IT company in Kerala, then Spectrum Softtech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. can be your best choice. Being Kerala’s first private IT park, Spectrum is not just limited to software development, but also has got diversified IT and ITES services as Web Hosting, Server Colocation, Data Center, as well as Medical Transcription. STEPS is arranging for industrial visits for Information Technology, Computer Science, Electronics engineering and diploma students, through which you can get a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of a live IT park. A face-to-face session with Chief Technology Officer, sessions by expert IT Managers, and a company tour are the major highlights of Spectrum IV.