Mixed feelings about SRM

Keep SRM as your last choice. If you have nowhere else to go, SRM is the only way. It is because SRM is an extremely commercial University. We have to keep paying up in order to survive. Book fees is 15 thousand rupees peryear but if we add the cost of every book that they provide us in both semesters, it turns out we pay them 8 thousand rupees extra for no reason. So if you can afford it, SRM is a good choice.

SRM has its own entrance exam. I had secured a rank of 25, 000. I opted this college because my dad refused to send me to Manipal. I opted ECE because it is a spread out course. Electronics are used everywhere so I felt I could find a job anywhere with applied electronics involved.

The course curriculum seems to get under your skin at first but it all starts making sense after a semester. The electives start from the third semester ie second year. We get to chose a foreign language. The available options are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German and French. The department electives and open electives start in the third year. In the department electives, we get to chose our subject of interest within our department, say ECE. Open electives are those subjects which we can chose from any department available in the University say, Automobile Engineering, MBA, Chemical Engineering etc.

The college does not offer any internships. The students have to approach companies themselves and ask for an internship by submitting a college bonafide certificate and a letter of authorization from the department. This might be due to the large population in the University. The intake in the academic year 2015 - 2016 alone was approximately Ten Thousand students.

The major lifters in our University are TCS, Accenture and Infosys. They hire students in thousands. The packages are common for any student who gets hired ie 4.2 lakh rupees per annum or 35 thousand per month. Only one or two students manage to cross the 4.2 lakh bar when companies like Google are present there.

Every year, there is a technical fest called Aarrush and a cultural fest called Milan. Special guests are invited for the fests and food stalls from restaurants on Chennai are put up in the premises. The technical fests are organized by the students. The fourth year students are the controlling members of a particular domain. The third year students are committee heads for that particular domain. Second years are committee members and the first years are volunteers. In the cultural fest, there are many opportunities to perform on stage, be it music, dance or any other recreational activities. Stand up comedy shows and music nights are held.

The merit seats cost is decided by the rank that we secure in the SRM entrance exam. The management quota is on the expensive side of things. The tuition fee costs 3.5 lakh rupees per academic year and this is a one time payment before the academic year starts. The merit seat costs 2 lakh rupees per annum.

Scholarship facility is available only for students whose parents salary is below 40 thousand rupees per annum and those students who secure a GPA of 9.9 or 10.

Gender ratio is pretty decent everywhere except in Mechanical Engineering. In a few sections, there aren't any girls. There are a numbers of workshops conducted every year, DJ workshops and Hacking workshops to mention a couple of them. There is no problem at all regarding tolerance to gender, ethnicity, race, religion, economic status or any other grounds.

The hostel facilities have the air conditioned and non air conditioned options. I had chosen the Air conditioned hostel as it had attached bathrooms. The non air conditioned hostel had attached bathrooms, so my mom insisted that I chose the A/C hostel inspire of its high cost. It costs 1.6 lakh rupees per year. This is including the mess fees. This is too high a cost when compared to the cost of the hostels at VIT ( Vellore Institute of Technology), Vellore. The A/C hostel costs about 40 thousand rupees per annum and the mess fee has to be played sperately which is 50 thousand rupees per annum. SRM charges 70 thousand rupees more for no reason. The hostels in VIT are way better. The mess food is abysmal. It makes you rethink your decision to join SRM. The food is just too terrible. There are flies everywhere around the mess and it is not cleaned properly. The plates are not washed properly.

College seniors are an active part of the alumini every year. They gather in the auditorium in the presence of the HOD of the particular department. They talk about the placement opportunities abroad after pursuing Masters degree.

Exams felt hectic at first because it all happens too fast. We get used to the the way things are after one semester. The labs are not such a pain as there are only two lab classes per week.