Alby Issac's Review On Mar Athanasius College Of Engineering - [MACE], Kothamangalam

It was one of the best 4 years of my life. It is something that i can never forget and something I can never experience again. If i had an option to go and do this again i won't think twice about it such was the experience i had. Even though the academics side was very tough and had us under a lot of pressure this college and its even need helped to neutralize it and make our lives better and have us 4 unforgettable years with tons of memories.

We were the first batch of a new University which had started and all the engineering colleges all over the state were made part of this University.It was done to bring a unity among all the college's in terms of classes ,syllabus and exams. Even though the intention was good the implementation or execution wasn't as effective mainly due to the lack of staff and resources to handle the large number of students and evidently the first batch was more like a test subject where the university tried out various things and made life difficult for the first batch.The curriculum was most of the time tougher than that could be handled by the students and also the syllabus was very vast and was very tough to cope up with.But after 4 years of changing the rules and various credit system and syllabus and the curriculum University may finally have found the right proportions.But by this time the first batch had taken its toll. Exams were mainly conducted twice a year(2 semester exams). Inorder to write the semester exams the students had to gain 75% attendance in each subject else they were not made eligible for that particular subject. In addition to this each student had to gain a minimum of 23 marks out of 50 to gain eligibility for writing semester exam for that particular subject. This 50 marks was spread over 2 internal exam and various assignments and projects. The amount of study leaves recieved was very less and was not at all sufficient to study the large amount of syllabus the University had set for us.

Placement and job opportunities were very large if you were an IT student or graduate. A large number of companies and startups have come for recruitment during the year but 97% of them may have been IT companies. So i won't say we didn't get any job opportunities. There were plenty of that. No the college didn't provide any internship programs. We had to arrange that on our own.

Two main events celebrated in our college are our arts and tech fest both spread about for 3 days each. Both are National level programs and are held very highly by everyone and it is conducted in that manner only by a very high level of participation by the students and by putting a lot of hard work some even for a month or so. Other than this there are various sports meet and various tournaments conducted throughout the year and various programs for students within the college to compete among themselves. Also various tasks and seminars are also conducted by prior from high and respected posts. Blood donation campus are also conducted 2 3 times a year.

Since it is a government college the fee structure was very feasible. A student only had to spend some 10 to 15 thousand a year in the college excluding his personal expenses. And since admissions are based on entrance mark and rank it was followed widely.

I don't know of any scholarship program offered by the college. Though there were some other scholarships offers by the government (both state and Central) and also for people earning below a minimum amount and also for the kin of people who served for the military.

Labs were of very high class and standard and so were the equipment and was maintained in that manner only. All the lab assistant were well versed to teach and handle the equipment's and were very helpful to the students as well. There were tons of extra curricular activists in the college and various clubs for people according to their choice like dance club, music club, film club, etc. Also there was an NSS unit in our college which was very active and were always involved in some social service or the other throughout the year organising various campus and so on. Sports was given a lot of priority and college provided necessary facility's and resources for the same. There was a swimming pool constructed following the international standards. There is a genius court and an indoor basketball cum volleyball cum badminton court. Other than this there is 2 basketball courts and a cricket pitch where state level and even National level competition and tournaments take place.

There is a very good alumni network and there are alumni branches in various countries and various states as well. They regularly hold meetings and reunion programs throughout the year. Also there is an alumni centre in our college which helps to co-ordinate all these meetings and reunions and also the alumni support the college by providing various sponsorships and funds for various programs and events such as the arts and tech fest i mentioned earlier. They also help in providing job opportunities for the students as well.

A common entrance exam was conducted for gaining admission to colleges all over the state and the entrance mark was combined with 12th marks and a rank list was generated and according to which students having achieved the top ranks were given priority to select their required college and branch. And priority was decided based on the generated rank list. Everything was done online and after being assigned the college and branch we were required to go to the college and take admission by paying the required amount.

It was a mix of people with and without any idea of what they were supposed to teach. Most of them even though they had an idea on the context were unable to express there knowledge to the students. While some didn't even teach and just used slides to teach which could have been done by a high school student. Even though this was the case of the majority of the teachers there was a small amount of teachers dedicated to their job and did whatever was necessary to teach their students taking time from there personal hours and so on.