Computer Engineering and BSc.CSIT career guidance for Plus Two Graduates of Nepal

cst · June 22, 2026

Hello, bhai baini haru! I am an ordinary and recent computer engineering graduate from a private college of Tribhuvan University. I completed the plus two with 86% in the aggregate. I got a 3-digit rank in the IOE entrance examination. I graduated in computer engineering in 2022 with 71% in aggregate. I worked as an IT support engineer for more than two years. I am now preparing for government jobs in computer engineering and IT-related fields.

I know the struggle faced by students once they graduate from Plus Two in Nepal. I know you, the first-generation-to-be university students, especially in the fields of science and technology, and the struggle you face for guidance.

I know you probably raised eyebrows when I said I am a graduate from a private college. If you are as studious as I was (till plus two), you cannot even think of joining private colleges even in your worst dreams. You think you deserve a proper government college.

I noticed that on the Nepali internet (Reddit, Facebook), guidance is hard to come by. “I faced so much struggle, so why should someone else have it easy from my experience?” is the “sick mindset” prevalent in Nepal.

I know you have fears regarding how tough engineering is and whether I will be able to study it.

I know your concerns after consuming too much content on Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube about engineering in Nepal. “Katai back ta lagne haina?” You, a diligent student who has never failed in any exams in your entire life, are scared of such negative prospects.

Enough of chattering! Let’s get into the core fast.

Is Computer Engineering worth it in Nepal?

Usually, computer engineering is an expensive course. Likewise, plus two students seem to be informed (or should I say misinformed?). I will explain it soon—keep reading—that engineering is a rigorous course. That is why students seem to be concerned if a computer engineering degree is worth it in Nepal.

Looking for a return on investment is absolutely rational. It really does not matter whether you are from a middle-class family or from an ultra-rich family. The money that will be spent on your education in college, you, and your parents could have spent it elsewhere. For example: Maybe you would have gotten to travel more, spend more on your motorcycle, spend more on textbooks, spend more on personal development courses, and so on.

It really depends on various factors:

Fees you pay for studying (private colleges will be expensive, and government colleges will be cost-effective)
Where you plan to end up after engineering

Here are some examples to illustrate this.

You study computer engineering in an expensive private college in Nepal irrespective of your family background. You end up in a private tech job in Nepal. Irrespective of how much you make at the private job, I would say engineering was not worth it for your case. Whatever you are doing in tech jobs in the Kathmandu Valley, a BSc. CSIT graduate could do as well. There is no edge for you from your engineering degree.

Another example is that you study computer engineering in a government college. You end up in a private tech job in Nepal. Since you paid a nominal fee for your bachelor’s in a government college, you might feel computer engineering was a good choice. But I will disagree. Your engineering degree does not give you an explicit edge in tech careers in Nepal. It will only handicap you due to the rigorous nature of the course. And thus, you will probably enter the industry late compared to the scenario if you had studied BSc. CSIT.

The example where computer engineering gives you an edge is if you decide to opt for government jobs in the field of computer engineering in Nepal. Nepal Telecom and Nepal Electricity Authority only hire computer engineers. Now we can debate for a whole week whether what the computer engineers are currently doing in NEA (Nepal Electricity Authority) and NTC (Nepal Telecom) could be done by BSc. CSIT graduates (yes, they can be)! It is another arbitrary barrier by NEA and NTC. At least till the government removes those arbitrary criteria, a computer engineering degree gives you an edge while preparing for government jobs.

Another scenario where computer engineering gives you an edge is if you decide to pursue a master’s in the field of computer engineering. I will discuss how computer engineering is different from a computer science degree later. But the trend is that most Nepalese graduates do not pursue a master’s in computer engineering abroad. They pick computer science courses. I have rarely seen anyone going for an M.E. or M.Tech abroad. Maybe they are playing too safe! Who knows.

BSc. CSIT syllabus vs. computer engineering

This comparison is only valid for Nepal, and that too only for Tribhuvan University. I urge you to do further homework on your own based on what I do here for other universities or abroad courses. Both the computer engineering degrees and the computer science degrees can vary greatly worldwide (especially computer science degrees, which are far more rigorous abroad than they are in Nepal’s TU).

TLDR:

Computer Engineering = Electronics Engineering + Computer Science + Management

Computer Science = Computer Science + Management

I strongly urge you to read this section with utmost concentration and maybe multiple times.

TU Computer Engineering syllabus:

https://ioe.tu.edu.np/pages/computer-engineering-curriculum-structure-2635

TU BSc. CSIT syllabus:

https://cdcsit.edu.np/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/B.Sc_.-CSIT-Syllabus-Grading-System-2079.pdf

Subjects Only in Computer Engineering:

Engineering Drawing
Electrical & Electronics courses (electrical machines, circuit theory, electromagnetic theory, instrumentation, basic electronics, and so on.)
Engineering Workshop
Engineering Chemistry
Engineering Economics
Digital Signal Analysis and Processing
Energy, Environment, and Social Engineering
Engineering Mathematics (4 semesters)

Subjects Only in BSc. CSIT:

Introduction to Information Technology
E-Governance
Compiler Design and Construction (Most notable miss from the computer engineering course)
NET Centric Computing
Advanced Java Programming (Can be studied via an elective in a computer engineering course)
Data Warehousing and Data Mining (Can be studied via an elective in a computer engineering course)
Principles of Management

Is Engineering Hard (in Nepal)?

Engineering becomes hard in Nepal because weak students get to study engineering, and the engineering colleges do nothing to nurture the weak students.

Otherwise, engineering colleges in Nepal (TU+KU+PU+PoU) are a “degree farm.”

By “degree farm,” I mean giving degrees to everyone without providing them with knowledge and skills.

Let me clarify this.

The exam is based on the concept of checking what the student has memorized. And that too at a surface level.
Since there are no “external practical exams”, practicals and labs are not conducted with due diligence from both the college and student side.
Projects are not incentivized.

Just take the question paper of one subject from the fourth semester of the “so-called” new course.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcYBbMjcQR2CoWCSt-1cSbgoW75A7Ih_/view

Some of the questions are

Define ADT. Differentiate between primitive and non-primitive data structures.
Some easy numerical problems.
They are even asking to construct an AVL tree by hand for the given sequence of elements.

I am not saying this is not useful for learning purposes. Asking students to draw an AVL tree or B+ tree by hand is also a tough exercise. I agree! But we need to move beyond that if we are to survive and compete in the modern technological world as computer engineers.

For a subject as crucial as DSA, labs and exams should be conducted with due diligence. This is Nepal. And internal exams are always favorable for students, especially if the students do not have a bad rapport with their college’s teachers.

The exams are not taken rigorously. Even the lab exams used to be just “Implement recursive binary search.” I am not saying that it is useless. But we need to drive our students beyond implementing binary search in Code::Blocks IDE (or Turbo C).

Then what am I saying we should be doing?

Simple. Make projects mandatory. Again, I want to say that teachers making projects compulsory is useless. This will not work because there is no incentive for students in final exams to do the projects. So the university itself should make projects mandatory. While this increases incentive for students, making projects mandatory alone is not enough either. The entire course should be designed to ensure that students generate artifacts at the end of the course, not just that students vomit the shit they memorized three days before the final exam.

We have seen how much cheating occurs in final-year projects. Just loosely placing a project will not help students. Again, I repeat, the course should be designed to help students generate artifacts. It could be games, websites, servers, databases, monitoring tools, and so on.

There is a nurturing problem with both the private and government colleges. But it is more evident with private colleges. There is basically no nurturing. In the private colleges I studied in, they did not even check the assignments’ content. They would just evaluate based on the number of pages. What is the point of such a marking system? This is just a small example of how colleges fail to nurture students. It goes far beyond that. It will be clear by the time you complete reading this blog.

Are Backs Inevitable?

No, they are not. What is happening in IOE is low-quality intake of students.

That alone is not a problem. It is actually a good thing if everyone gets to fulfill their dream of studying engineering and being an engineer. But that is not true. The colleges fail to nurture the students. So engineering colleges produce low-quality graduates. Most of them are unemployable.

Another big problem with IOE (this is mainly with IOE, not KU) is that there are too many subjects per semester. 6 subjects per semester. Now add labs. Then it becomes almost 10 subjects per semester. Obviously, nobody can study all of them with full dedication. Students have to become strategic. So they start copying lab reports (now they might be using AI to generate lab reports), cheating with teacher-assigned projects, not studying standard textbooks but “local authors’ guidebooks,” and so on online.

The system is designed to prevent students from becoming world-class engineers.

Another noteworthy thing is that IOE copy checking is not transparent. While I was in IOE, there was no way to see your exam sheet. Why? Why should IOE be so scared of students seeing their exam sheet? Engineering is a mathematical course. So it is not very “subjective” in marking, unlike arts. It definitely feels shady. IOE should live and lead with the principles of transparency and accountability.

While some exams can be genuinely tough due to various reasons. For example, you might not get time to study that subject, or you might not be tuned to the concepts of that subject. But if you got more than 5 genuine backers (not strategic), then you and your college are both incompetent.

Do not worry, however. You can still do very fine in Nepal’s tech job market. Because nothing cutting-edge that requires a computer engineering degree is going on in Nepal.

Focus Is Wrong

The focus seems to be on how students can be taught rather than how students can learn. There is just too much focus on “bad teachers.” Learning does not happen only through teachers.

IOE needs to be courageous. Many colleges in the West subscribe to a vast library of online learning, digital textbooks, papers, articles, software tools, and so on. What do Nepalese engineering colleges, especially the private ones, do? Really nothing. If they are being nice, they will have at most 2 different authors’ reference books in the library.

No libraries are open 24x7 in any of the private engineering colleges. Only KU passes the criterion. I feel ashamed to be a part of the engineering college, which did not even let the library open at least during the office hours on holidays. What is the point of paying so much to engineering colleges?

Especially the private ones! Even in labs, they ask four people to share one breadboard. LOL! Where is that 15 lakhs+ that students are paying going actually?

Outdated Syllabus

There is the biggest hoax that the syllabi that IOE is teaching to students are outdated. That is simply not true. The entire world is studying the same or at least similar syllabi. I mostly follow foreign universities’ articles, slides, and course materials, as well as foreign authors’ textbooks. The syllabus is not outdated.

On Solution Manuals/Guide Books

I can resonate with students who use guide books. There are too many subjects in a semester. So they are being strategic with their studies. I get that. But it is what is killing a small hope that a great engineer could come out of this IOE ecosystem. Reading foreign authors’ textbooks is tough. But it widens your vision on computer engineering.

I am 100% sure that if the course were designed wisely, i.e., letting students have enough time to study from textbooks (while still having the rigor of an engineering degree), many students would have loved to study from textbooks.

I know this because my batchmates who are now doing PhDs in reputed American universities never ever opened an authoritative textbook.

Jobless after engineering

The name of this website itself is Berojgar Engineer. Getting employed after engineering takes many right combinations, like your connections, interviewing skills, etc. I will write more on this later. Do not worry too much on being jobless after engineering currently. Think yourself as a global engineer.

Abroad After Bachelors

There is another massive hoax that “for some reason,” computer engineering graduates with 59% are preferred over BSc. CSIT graduates with 88%. I hope you are clever enough to realize that this is simply astoundingly a lie.

Engineering is for sure a more rigorous course than BSc. CSIT, even in the context of Nepal. But if you fail to sustain that rigor, it just leaves a negative impression as the first impression.

Do not get me wrong. If you have connections or the ability to email professors tactically, even 59% can get you an RA or TA for an MS in the USA.

+2 Bio and Engineering

First of all, IOE, TU, has a futile rule. It does not take +2 biology students who did not study extra math. You can study BSc. CSIT only in TU if you are a +2 biology student who did not study extra math.

+2 is not a standard and universal course. Every country has its own version of what we have as plus two in Nepal. It makes no sense to prevent students arbitrarily.

Four years of engineering teaches you all the mathematics that is required in four years of engineering itself. The good news is that Purbanchal and Pokhara University, whose top colleges are very competent even when compared with Tribhuvan University’s colleges, do accept Plus Two biology students for an engineering degree.

How to succeed?

While the system sucks to the core, there are way to succeed in this system. You will never be an elegant engineer but you can crack the code of this system i.e. get good percentage.