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June 2001
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Career Counselling
The career counselling section intends to benefit the career aspirants in the field of GIS and Remote Sensing. Professor Prabhakar Misra, Former Dean, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing will be our career counsellor. He may be contacted at
career@GISdevelopment.net
- I am an HRD specialist and a lot of young people come to me for guidance. I am interested in knowing what are the career options available to young civil engineering graduates and diploma holders in the area of GIS and how can they prepare for doing work going up the value chain in GIS activities. Also what are the specialisation areas within GIS? Is there any special course in disaster management in India and what is the future of GIS in technology advancement?
Neerja Verma, neerjav@riskinc.com
The components of GIS are Data Acquisition, Data Processing and Data Analysis. Out of all the above components, long time is taken for Data Acquisition for generation of the desired Data Base. The other components take far less time in comparison to the above. This is especially true for India because physical data whether from maps or satellite imagery is not available or accessible readily. The problem of database generation therefore becomes still more acute if the GIS model incorporates larger scales than 1:25000 or so. The data, if available, is not in a digitised form and hence a major chunk of manpower is engaged in digitising. This is a typical scenario of almost all the GIS based organisations in India.
A prudent direction for a GIS job is to acquire expertise (and know it well for delivery) in one or more data generating technologies. For example satellite remote sensing with knowledge and practice of software of image processing will help in securing a job at the supervisor or higher level. The jobs at the base level are generally digitising and allied activities, which you hardly recognise as mainstream GIS job.
If you have already acquired expertise and educational degrees in geology or geohydrology, etc., do not discard that knowledge. Instead it may be a good policy to provide the ‘layer’ of your expertise to the GIS business on remunerative basis, if possible. Referring to your specific query, there are courses in Disaster Management at Disaster Management Institute, Bhopal and Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun.
- I have done B.E (Mech.) and presently working in CAD/GIS. I got an opportunity to work in GIS company, where it was more of conversion kind of work. I have worked on ArcInfo software, ArcView, AutoCad, etc. I want to do M.Tech in GIS/Remote Sensing. What are the opportunities I have by doing M.Tech.
Karigoudar, kari_gowda@hotmail.com
The trend is that offer of jobs is mostly done on ‘competence’ and ‘skills’. The salary also plays a part at the time of entry. You need not carry your background of mechanical engineering as a negative load. Your accomplishments are very positive and will suit any GIS company even if the entry is on a conversion job.
- I am an Economics graduate. Accidentally, I had to develop my career in the field of Hydrogeology. I have been working in the same field for 4 years. Meantime, I have undergone computer courses in private institute that helped me to handle computer and computer related databases in my unit. Moreover, that database needed to be mapped, so I have entered into the field of GIS. I have got some training from Tata Infotech. Since one year I have been involved in the GIS field. Now, I am worried much whether the same field will assist me to find jobs outside my company as I don’t have any academic qualification. Presently, I am pursuing my MCA. Kindly, advice whether I should carry the present job? Also tell me what are the opportunities in this field for people like me?
Murugaian, murugaian@satyam.net.in
You need to have a Masters degree. Your exposure to GIS, which has motivated you to do further education, may be good for a ‘job’ but not for a ‘career’. May I suggest that you carry on with your MCA. Towards the end of your MCA course, you may prefer to do a class project in GIS and follow it up by a short course on GIS. There are institute which carry out training in GIS. For details visit:
www.GISdevelopment.net for announcements on training courses.
- I am a Chemical Engineer with interest in Environmental Field. I have worked with an Environmental Engineering Consultancy. Presently I am working with an NGO on sustainable natural resources management. During this I came to know about GIS field and it’s wide career opportunities. To enter GIS and RS field, I have taken 2 months training at IIRS Dehradun. Please guide me now how to proceed ?
Should I join AM/FM mapping companies or as a trainee analyst?
Manish V. Bhate, mvbhate@usa.net
May I suggest that you surf Internet on the topics of GIS in Environmental planning and monitoring. An excellent example of GIS in Indian situation is the application of GIS in location of industries in a district, e.g., Ghaziabad. The subject of environment also embraces forestry and vegetation and therefore, becomes an all embracing subject. In addition to knowing the software of GIS, I feel that a person especially in India must know to generate the physical database towards GIS. There are sometimes more jobs in generation of physical database. In your case it will be ‘environmental layer’.
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