Chandigarh, Oct. 19 -- While women graduates were only around 14% of the total BTech graduates, a significant number of female students bagged medals at the 55th annual convocation held by Punjab Engineering College (PEC) on Saturday. A total of 683 BTech, 56 MTech, and 40 PhD degrees were conferred during the convocation with 667 students awarded in person and 112 in absentia. Doctor of Science (DSc) (honoris causa) was conferred on Ravindra Kumar Tyagi, CMD, PowerGrid Corporation of India Limited. In the BTech category, four of the nine gold medallists were women. While looking at numbers, one may think that not as many women opt for engineering as men, women at PEC are still topping almost half of the streams, which also includes what are believed to be male dominated disciplines like civil engineering or production and industrial engineering. Risible Katyal, a 22-year-old from Panchkula, bagged the gold medal in production and industrial engineering. Katyal studied in Manav Mangal School till Class 10 and in Carmel Convent School - all girls school - for Class 11 and 12. "Coming from an all girls school to engineering was a huge shift for me. There were only two girls in my class initially, all from girls school only. However I was able to gel well with my peers. I was always inclined towards mathematics and I am the first engineer in my family." Since graduating, she has started working at American Express and hopes to continue that in the future. Piyusha of Nangal in Himachal Pradesh got the gold medal in metallurgical and materials engineering. The 21-year-old took inspiration from her father's younger brother who is also an engineer. She didn't have to convince her parents for the choice of the course or for her branch. "While there were around eight girls in my branch, performance doesn't depend on gender. What worked for me was being consistent and my hard work." She is currently working as a product manager in a firm in Gurgaon and wants to get some years of work experience before pursuing her MBA. "I would eventually want to settle in Chandigarh if the opportunity presents itself," she added. Other female gold medallists included Gazalveer Kaur of civil engineering and Kanwalpreet Kaur for aerospace engineering. Some of the silver medallists were also women. Kopal Sharma, 22, got the silver medal for civil engineering. A student of Bhavan Vidyalaya, Chandigarh, she opted for civil engineering because she didn't want to join any stream which included coding. She has many engineers in her family, especially on her mother's side. Her mother is an electronics engineer while she has two maternal uncles who are also civil engineers. Her father is meanwhile an MBA graduate. Kopal is currently pursuing a consulting job but wants to do higher studies in her core branch. She wants to become an entrepreneur and integrate her discipline with something like real estate. "Building structures amaze me," she exclaims. While 14% of the BTech graduates were women, the number shows a significant rise in higher studies. There is a slight increase for MTech which had 17.9% female graduates while 45% of the total PhD graduates were women. Punjab governor and UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria who was the chief guest at the event emphasised the role of education in character building and nation development. Kataria remarked that the engineers graduating from PEC will play a vital role in advancing national initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, and Viksit Bharat @2047. He stated, "Knowledge is our greatest wealth. It is our duty to use it for the welfare of the nation and society. To be born in India is a blessing, but to work for India is an even greater honour." He congratulated Bhavtegh Singh Gill, who secured three gold medals and one silver medal at the 67th National Shooting (Skeet Men) Championship 2024. He also congratulated Shimi SL for receiving the prestigious National Teachers Award 2024 by the President of India....