Chennai: Anna University has decided to make a 30-hour career guidance training mandatory for final-year students across its four campuses from this academic year (2026-27). This training, focusing on problem-solving skills, real-world technical assessments, coding skills and resume writing, is expected to help students in campus placements, job interviews and in their career choices.“Each department can customise the training based on the skill requirement in its domain. Students will learn soft skills, life skills and technical skill. We will focus on all career aspects, including entrepreneurship and higher education,” said K Shanmuga Sundaram, director, Centre for University-Industry Collaboration (CUIC), Anna University.“They will learn presentation skills, conflict resolution and workplace behaviour. This will help them develop a professional mindset and understand the expectations of recruiters. About 20 hours of the training training will be common across courses, and departments can modify their training plans for remaining 10 hours according to their skill requirements,” he added.The training will be sponsored by Titan under their corporate social responsibility programme. Regular classes for second to fourth year engineering students will begin on July 1.Meanwhile, some autonomous colleges under Anna University are planning to make industry-recognised certificate courses mandatory for students. “These courses will give our students an advantage in campus placements. Our final-year students are at various stages of completing the certificate courses,” said R M Kishore, vice-chairman of RMK Engineering College.SRM Easwari Engineering College is planning to encourage final-year students to solve industry-based cases. “After completing the curriculum, we will give students industry-related problems, which they will have to solve in groups. This will make them billable from Day-One of joining work,” said P Deiva Sundari, principal of SRM Easwari Engineering College.
