Review about my college

There is no doubt in saying that the campus has a potential to be the number one college in the country. It is on a path of creating world leaders who will drive the change.

The entrance exam to get into bits is BITSAT. The exam is a fairly tough exam with them selecting only the .05% top candidates who apply for the exam it's only fair that it is tough to make the entrance worth it. It's straightforward that like so many other students in India it was a dream of mine to get into a national college like this and its been every penny worth the effort I have put in. I have taken up mechanical engineering as I had a knack for solving math and physics problems and wasn't very keen or good at using the computer as a livelihood. There wasn't any interview process that followed. BITS has a fair system where you get in only on the basis of your merit and nothing else.

The course I chose was Mechanical Engineering. The faculty is itself excellent in their chosen field of study and thus they have made the curriculum very interactive and fun to experience. The focus on practical learning was very high. We were exposed to all of the industry practices and methods and software while in college itself so it is a better place when we go outside. Softwares like ANSYS, CREO, MATLAB were taught to us while in college itself. The research division has a lot of facets to itself. There is a research lab called sandbox, there are top companies like GE funded research initiatives, there are other research opportunities with professors working independently on cutting edge technology and to top it all there is the practice school program which is a hands-on experience for everyone. The electives offer a killing edge over that in the other colleges. We can opt for any electives from a wide range consisting of sustainable energy methods to Project appraisal. The plethora of electives makes it only a degree shy of being a qualifying factor for a lot of opportunities.

Since it is a compulsion to do a 20 credit internship or a thesis in our final year, roughly 90% of the students have secured an internship in a company belonging to a stream they are interested in, thanks to Dr. Niranjan Swain, our practice school Dean. The stipend was, on an average, Rs. 27000.

The placement team has done a pretty amazing job as of now. They have been successful in placing almost 70% of students and they have a lot of time before the season closes and thus expect to get a 100%. The highest salary offered was close to 45 lakhs and the least salary is close to 5 lakhs. The average of the whole is around 8 LPA until now. The roles were from all kinds of backgrounds, be it core (mechanical, civil, electrical), IT, analytics or pharma, chemical, etc.

The Fee is a little too much. The fee-hike from when I have joined the campus as a fresher has been from about 1,30,000 to 1,85,000 per semester. The campus also needs a lot of extra pocket money to help yourself sustain. I would not say it was affordable but it was a necessary evil to maintain the facilities at the top level they are right now. The fees structure is 1,80,000 for a semester in which there are 25 credits. For the semester in which you are go for your practice school training the fees remains same but the company offers you a stipend which sort of cuts it.

The campus is more than sophisticated. It is a mini city in itself, thanks to the genius of the professors and the students union body. The classrooms, library, labs, sports facilities, etc. are all state of the art. The medical facility is a little primitive but they do not delay in responding to serious emergencies and shifting patients to better-equipped hospitals immediately. The food is also amazing and hygienic. We are served all kinds of cuisines and food is available at very comfortable timings given the students run the mess system. The hostel rooms are another milestone in the country's history. The maintenance is wonderful and the system of single rooms, where people have their own space, is top of the world. The campus has a self-sustainable electricity system and uses waste to generate power for the mess, so it's pretty advanced in all facets. The infrastructure is state of the art and there have been no problems which were or are faced. Lastly, the auditorium and the open-air theatres add the much-needed break from the monotony and help bring about the cultural side of everyone. There is no doubt in saying that the campus has a potential to be the number one college in the country in no time in terms of its infrastructure.

The exams and labs may get a little hectic but they are never going to be able to take the fun out of the culture in the college. The labs are spaced out at one per week in the afternoons and the exams are pretty spaced out with a holiday or two between each of them. The exams that happen on a weekly basis only make the already known theories and concepts stronger and make us better informed about where we might have possibly not understood the concept. The culture is chill overall with amazing student-faculty interaction and not too much pressure in the form of exams and attendance.

The faculty members are themselves top graduates from top colleges of the nation and are very helpful in any facet of academics. They are knowledgeable and more than qualified. They are broad-minded in the sense they won't mind if you call them up at 2 in the night about something in physics that just struck you and it's too amazing to not discuss. They help you through research guiding you all the way along in knowing new things. The teaching methods are both standard but also path-breaking sometimes. They follow the timetable and try to complete syllabuses on time but they do not hesitate to conduct another extra class and teach something that will be useful for us from the perspective of industry, say a software like Creo or MATLAB, and make sure that we have sufficient lab practices for it, even though it is not even part of the curriculum. The evaluation methods are also quite unique wherein it is not always about writing laborious answers which are graded based on the quantity, but it is about having an understanding of the topic while not missing the key points where they may not be valid. An all-round evaluation procedure is ensured, covering simulations, presentations, thesis, labs, assignments, and exams. The student to faculty ratio is pretty decent with one faculty member for every 30 students. The industry exposure is thus inevitable, given the practice school program and teachers teaching us what's new. The course curriculum is completely responsible for shaping our future into what it is right now. We are grateful for it to have helped us so much.