Chandrasekran S's Review On College Of Engineering, Anna University - [CEG], Chennai

We were fortunate to have Prof K S Hegde as our Principal whose presence itself can bring in order in disorder a well respected administrator. The administration was very smooth we could hardly feel them every time wee go the office, which is only to pay he fees, the experience was smooth and had no bad taste even after completion getting mark cards, certificates were very easy.

Our admissions were based on grades in last exam and interview i had the best grades one could get in the exam- 100% in Maths, 85%+ in Physics, Chemistry and German (second language). Hence interview and admission was assured i had option to continue Science degree or Engineering and I preferred engineering being a professional degree as the objective of education was to get a decent job on graduation. Guindy engineering was the best available then one of the interview panel members was the principal of a popular regional college who offered admission to his college which was also a prestigious college but I did not want hostel stay I preferred to stay back in chennai.

The course was very easy and little preparation one could get first class. I took Industrial engineering and operations research as my electives as I wanted to branch off to Industrial engineering.

We had no intern-ships during our college days i did an intern-ship through University directly with a foundry. We did have industry exposure while doing our project in fifth year.

Campus placements were minimal i remember only very few companies coming for placements, one among them was Hindustan Lever (now Unilever) hardly any in my batch had campus job and moreover since my attention was to pursue post graduation I did not pay attention to campus placements.

Cultural festival of Guindy Engineering was the most popular event in college circles those days. Our neighbour AC college of technology used to win prizes for plays which were produced by mouli and YG mahendra who turned out to be very popular stage and cine artistes. We had our technical societies and I was elected Joint secretary to society of mechanical engineers. They used to have some seminars which were not noteworthy our annual day was very interesting affair which was a college wide get together tea party.

We paid RS.180 per semester no complaints about the fees then we also used to have exam fee other expenses towards books and notebooks were there. WE managed most of the subjects with notes and library books.

I was not eligible for national merit cum means scholarship which was the only ones available for students of my background. Since the fee was not high and I did not have hostel expenses did not feel any financial burden Loans were not heard of for studies then.

Engineering rarely attracted women in 70s. In our batch of nearly 300 students there were only six women students we had well equipped labs and also had access to computer centre which was rarity then.Our college always had a leading cricket team some of the national players like Venkataraghavan, Krish Srikkanth were from Guindy our student community was very cohesive. We did not have any clash at all on any of caste, language lines during our period only strike we had was against introduction of semester system by our senior students.

Since I was a day scholar and cannot say much on hostel facilities or mess food i did have food in the mess couple of times and it was just bearable.

I hardly had any interaction with my seniors i am member of anna alumini club. I am in touch with few of my batch mates i understand that we have a strong network of alumni which helps and guides current students for overseas admissions.

Ours was the first batch to have semester exams- instead of annual it was twice annual affair. One way it lightened the load of exam as the syllabus covered were just half. It was a chilled out life. I never felt the hectic days labs were very easy, except that I failed in chemistry lab in first year due to wrong identification of a salt.

Average some very interesting and popular Prof. M s Sadasivam who was teaching us civil engineering in the first year was very witty and good teacher. Prof Parthasarathi who took maths was noteworthy. Mm. Jalaja Pillai who taught English was good looking and hence attendance to her class was generally full. Most of the subjects were such that we could manage with self study. Actually the best student of our batch had minimum attendance.