The Higher Education Review

In 1926, Shri PSG Venkataswamy Naidu, Shri PSG Ganga Naidu, Shri PSG Rangaswamy Naidu and Shri PSG Narayanaswamy Naidu, four brothers from a renowned agrarian family from Peelamedu, Tamil Nadu, created the PSG & Sons' Charities Trust. They envisioned augmenting and strengthening PSG Sarvajana School, where the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore sang our National Anthem. The four brothers of the Shri PS Govindaswamy Naidu (PSG) family inherited their ancestors' property, which they divided into five parts, reserving one-fifth for their 'fifth-brother'- the PSG & Sons' Charity Trust. Since then, the fifth brother has become the crowning glory of the PSG family and has elevated the pursuit of knowledge to unimaginable heights, bringing fame to Coimbatore as an educational hub.

Initiation of PSG College of Technology
"Over the years, the PSG & Sons' Charities Trust has created more than 26 educational institutions of repute ranging from Kindergarten to Doctoral Studies across various disciplines like Arts, Science, Engineering, Technology, Medical, Management, Research and many more, in which PSG College of Technology (PSGCT) was incepted in 1951. All institutions are performing extremely well that they always take top positions in the national ranking of educational institutions. PSG College of Technology, owing to the excellent infrastructure, dedicated team of faculty and focused leadership, has always been the first choice of students aspiring Engineering, Science and Management studies. I am always excited to see MCA alumni, in various roles and positions, in IT domain spread across all parts of the globe", says Shri L Gopalakrishnan, Managing Trustee, PSG & Sons' Charities.

Academic Excellence of MCA Department
After 32 years of its glorious journey, PSG College of Technology incepted the Department of Computer Applications (MCA), which at present is one of the most reputed post-graduate Programme producing many very successful IT professionals. "Department of MCA was envisioned by the Department of Electronics (DOE), Government of India in 1980 to make 'computer application learning' popular across India, and among the selected 14 institutions, PSGCT holds the honor of being the second nation-wide and the first in South India to have started the MCA Programme," says Dr. K. Prakasan, Principal Incharge, PSGCT. He added "From the very beginning, our mission has been to provide world-class engineering education and foster research and development activity, so that young men and women evolve as innovators of technology. We also mold them to take leadership in society for the country's progress. Department of Computer Applications is offering the postgraduate Programme on Computer Applications with a good mix of courses in Computer Science, algorithm design and programming, state of technologies in such a great manner that even students from a non-computer science background to excel in the IT career".

Dr A. Chitra, Professor and Head, Dept. of Computer Applications says, "Our Mission is to enable students acquire good academic skills and knowledge through

practice, research and development, to inculcate leadership qualities with ethical responsibilities for the betterment of the society and to empower them to become prominent entrepreneurs". She adds "We have a versatile and well-rounded curriculum with courses in the new-age technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep learning, etc.

Students from a varied background, different disciplines of undergraduate study and various locality join the Programme. We create a level playing field for all students to acquire relevant knowledge and success in their career. For the holistic development of the students, we encourage them to participate in hackathons, inter and intra college contests, sports and other extra-curricular activities".

"Maintaining high standards of education, the MCA department has a vibrant group of 18 faculty members with many years of teaching and research experience and with several national and international journal publications to their credit"

MCA Programme has been accredited by National Board of Accreditation (NBA) for its academic quality. Maintaining high standards of education, the department has a vibrant group of 18 faculty members with many years of teaching and research experience and with several national and international journal publications to their credit. The faculty members, along with PSGCT administration support, are instrumental in establishing several centers of excellence in collaboration with industry leaders.

Every six months, PSGCT conducts Board of Studies to attain academic excellence through fine-tuning a well-designed curriculum, with expert inputs from industry and academia, to meet dynamic technological needs and to acclimate to innovations in the teaching-learning process.

MCA curriculum consists of six semesters with a total of 120 credits and the students are evaluated based on their performances in exams, laboratory courses, mini and major project works. As the focus of education at PSG College of Technology has always been towards practice-oriented teaching, all lectures are supplemented with practice and development sessions.

PSGCT always feels the key to enhance education is to empower teachers. Teachers are provided with continuous support for attending faculty development programs, participation in International / National events and interact with industries to keep the curriculum matching to industry needs and standards and mold the graduates ready for employment.

The excellent infrastructure at PSGCT comprising of well-designed and equipped Laboratories and Centers of Excellence facilitate students and faculty to solve problems and undertake projects and research. Dr. R Rudramoorthy, Former Principal, PSG College of Technology says,

"PSG College of Technology since inception has always linked education and industrial practice together. This is one of the reasons our graduates are well placed in industries right from their first job. Department of Computer Applications has always been working in collaboration with industries in setting up a center of excellence, organizing workshops on state of art technologies". Adding to this, Dr. A Chitra says, "We have the honor and privilege as the first procurer and user of the powerful ParamShavak supercomputer, designed indigenously by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC)".

Industrial Influence and Alumni Verdicts
For the students to have a work integrated learning experience, the curriculum of MCA includes a one-semester full-time project work, where the students undertake projects in IT companies during their final semester. In this line of focus, one-credit courses on state-of-art technologies are offered by the practicing engineers and IT professionals. As part of practice-oriented teaching, apart from the regular theory examinations, the students are prepared for software package development, enabling them to perform extraordinarily well in their professional careers. The performance of graduates in the companies they join is always well appreciated by employers. Mr. Balasubramanian, Software Development Manager, Amazon say, "PSG Tech MCA graduates are more industry ready and are very successful in our organization. PSG tech attracts talented students and their curriculum is up to date with industry asks. This coupled with active industry interaction is making their graduates far more relevant and successful in our organization. I wish them well on this remarkable journey!".

One such exuberant performer, Senthil Babu Jagannathan, an alumnus of 2008 batch, says, "After completing the course, I worked for several MNCs like D.E. Shaw India Software Private Limited, Amazon India and as well as Google, Mountain View. Presently, I'm working as a software engineer at Facebook and without a doubt; I completely owe my success to PSGCT's extremely knowledgeable faculty members. Before opting for MCA, I completed commerce graduation and knew almost nothing about computer science. However, this course made me conversant enough to work with leading tech companies." Another alumni, V Sreedharsays, "Entering PSGCT was one of the best things happened in my life. I started my journey with HCL and presently working with Aosta Software Technologies as their chief operating officer (COO). PSGCT helped me to excel professionally and personally with all the lecture sessions and co-curricular activities."Many of PSG MCA alumni have started companies on their own and are today successful entrepreneurs. One of the prestigious achievements of our alumni is the Pulitzer Award awarded by US Government to Mr. Palani Kumanan (1985 ­ 1988 batch), Senior Data Analyst of Wall Street Journal in the USA. Mr. SG Ganesh (1998-2001 batch) Co-founder, Codeops Technologies, Bangalore has authored books like Cracking the C, C++ and Java Interview, Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 7 and Deep C.

Like Senthil and Sreedhar, most of the students are placed in renowned tech firms like Thorogood Associates, Microsoft, IBM, Caterpillar, Deloitte, Infosys, Zoho Corporation, SAP Labs, KLA Tencor, Chargebee Technologies, Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre, Skava Systems, Cisco and Intel Technology and many more.

The growth of the students is not only a result of high-quality academics but an appropriate proportionate consequence of other activities like the participation in extracurricular and social activities for the betterment of the society.

"The excellent leadership of former Heads of the Department, Dr. G V Krishna Reddy, Dr. R Nadarajan and Dr. G A Vijayalakshmi Pai has driven the department towards achieving academic excellence. This helps us to progress further and aim at still higher altitudes of academic growth. The students opting to study at PSGCT are set to experience a unique and flamboyant career," says Dr. A Chitra, Head of Computer Applications Department.