VFRESHERS

One of the finest engineering streams, which lets you explore the boundaries of the terra firma underlying the water bodies. It’s definitely exciting to craft machinery and furthermore, jaunt places ‘remote’ to the land we prevail on.

It encompasses, both, designing & maintaining of various aspects of watercraft, gadgets and equipments, navigation systems, and upgradation of the currently active structures. Thus, the work drifts from ports & manufacturing units to on-shore platforms.

To be a sure-fire in this domain, apart from the essential degrees, one is required to be fit, both, physically & mentally. With a technical brain in place, an adept know-how of the IT mechanisms & innovative intellect, a secure job is right in front of you. Not only, predilection for the ‘sea’, but a sincere fondness for machinery & tools, is also a must. Besides these, the individual should have a natural endowment for team work, patience & common sense.

On the basis of some of the chief duties of a marine engineer, the field has been sub-divided into:

• Ocean Engineer – study & explore the sea, in order to tap underwater reserves and, develop vessels to monitor ocean environment.

• Naval Architect – are responsible for ship design, construction, floatation, maintenance & repair.

• Marine Technician – deals with on-board designing for maneuvering and actuation, operations of the engine room & ensuring standards.

The alluring lineaments of this career option are guaranteed recruitment, dual nature of job – land-based & sea-based and, on-going research for enforcing newer technologies like superconductivity, fuel cells and hydrodynamics. Wherein, the limitation is long working hours & pressure to perform, which results in fatigue.

There are numerous institutes providing nifty training for establishing a career in maritime. Some of the chief names are IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), Powai; International Marine Communication Centre, Chennai; and Marine Engineering & Research Institute, Kolkata. The primo vantage is a secure on-campus placement.

Once established, the path of growth is from a Junior Engineer to Chief Engineer, though slow. And, depending on the profile, the remuneration accelerates starting from around 30k. The nature of job facilitates travel outside Indian periphery, thus, giving you a special prerogative of NRI tag.
The future scope of this lucrative career is not limited to our country itself, but span out abroad also. With, both, public sector like Indian Merchant Navy & private shipping firms in action, overflowing job opportunities have been created. Apart from the main league, one can go in for academic & research institutes also.

Engineers are required for consultancy in businesses dealing with hydraulics & tanks. Newer concepts of water-bound entertainment have brought about a wave of unexampled arenas such as, luxury float-resorts, cruises & yachts. Also, raw challenges due to unpredictable nature of ocean procreate fresh demands.

Not only as a medium of travel, but majorly, as a means of goods & cargo movement across the world map, sea routes are traversed on daily basis. This flourishing global commerce has moved this career choice a few notches up.