NIT Durgapur-the pros and cons

The old curriculum is recently being revised to suit the current industry and academic standards. Basic computer programming and data structures and algorithms has been made compulsory for students of all departments in the first year. This was a brilliant decision as with rising automation, knowledge of programming becomes a huge necessity even in non-tech sectors and the inclusion of these courses better equips students for job interviews as well as further academic pursuits. Speaking for the mechanical department, irrelevant topics have been removed from the syllabus. Compulsory courses on artificial intelligence and robotics have been added along with extensive courses in machine design and application as well as coding. This prepares the students for real world applications in industry and academics according to rishing trends in the core mechanical sector and provides students with enough knowledge for transition into interdisciplinary areas. A large variety of electives are also provided to choose from, including those from the humanities and management departments as well to aid in the overall holistic development of students. However, classrooms in the older buildings are underequipped and a lot of instructors use older methods of teaching. with advancements in technology, more hands on and visual methods like field trips, presentations and more seminars should be utilized for teaching. A four month semester has 4-6 theory courses and 3-4 practical courses. Examinations are held every two months on average with a 25 mark mid term (1.5 hrs) and a 60 mark end term (3hrs). Class tests and assignments are given at regular intervals for continuous assessment of students. Laboratory courses are marked continuously along with a viva before the end term theory exams. Course difficulty depends on the instructors. Aside from a few excessively tough papers, a thorough reading of the content and review of assignments is usually enough to score above average marks.

Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, BNY Mellon, Reliance Industries, PWC, TVS Motors, JPMC, Wells Fargp, BPCL, Bajaj Auto, Warner Bros Discovery, Texas Instruments and others recruit students for summer internships on campus. They provide a variety of stipends with tech giants like Microsoft offering around 2 lakhs, while the core companies like Reliance offer stipends closer to 70 thousand for the duration of the internship. Projects include cybersecurity tasks, analytics, etc, many of which are confidential to the recruits. Many students also opt for research internships in top universities both in India and abroad.

Students are eligible for on campus internships in their 5th semester, and these internships are completed in the semster break after 3rd year. They become eligible for placements in their 7th semesters. Some companies offer 6 month internships to be completed in the 8th semester, followed by full-time job offers, while other companies directly give job offers for joining after the 8th semester, or the four year college course is completed. In the 2023-2024 academic year, over 600 offers were made and over 560 students were placed, along with 120+ summer interns. The highest package offered was 51 lpa and the average package offered was 11.58 lpa. Major recruiters include Apple, Microsoft, Accenture, PWC, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Larson and Toubro, JSW, TCS, HeroMotocorp, Wells Fargo, Nvidia, BNY Mellon, ICICI bank, Tredence, ZS Associates, Mahindra, Uber, Oracle, Adobe, Alstom transport and many more. The electrical department saw the highest percentage of students getting placed with 85.88%, followed by metallurgy at 82.14%, computer science at 81.97%, chemical at 80.3%, ECE at 72.16%, mechanical at 72%, civil at 59.4% and biotechnology at 30.1% on campus. Due to ongoing recession, the on campus placements fell in comparison to previous years, as in most premier institutes across India. Many students opted for more lucrative off campus placements while others sat for examinations like GATE and CAtT for higher studies. My personal plan after the degree involves sitting for the GATE examination to secure a seat for a masters degree in a reputed IIT and pursue further studies in higher educational institues.

For the batch of students admitted to BTech in 2023, the first semester fee was Rs 113,100 for students belonging to the general category. This included a tuition fee of Rs 62500, admission fee of Rs 3500, a refundable institute caution money of Rs 6000, Rs 10000 as institute development fee, Rs 4000 as training and placement fee, Rs 800 convocation fee, Rs 1000 as alumni activity fee, Rs 2000 laboratory fee, Rs 1200 as library charge, Rs 3000 as computing and internet charge, Rs 1200 examination fees, Rs 1700 electricity and water charge, Rs 1700 maintenance charge, Rs 2000 towards a student activity fund, Rs 1000 for insurance, healthcare and wellbeing charge, Rs 100 towards employee welfare fund and Rs 200 towards a student aid fund. It also included a refundable hostel cation money of Rs 5000, a hostel seat rent of Rs 5000, and hostel establishment charge of Rs 1200, bringing up a total of Rs 113,100. In the following semesters, a total of Rs 82,800 is to be paid by general category students including a tuition fee of Rs 62500. The admission fee, institute caution money, institute development fee, training and placement fee, convocation fee, alumni acitivity fee, and hostel caution money, totalling to Rs 30,300 are one time payments to be made by students of all categories at the time of admission. For students belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Physically Handicapped categories, or with family income less than 1 lakh rupees, the tuition fee is completely waived. These students pay Rs 50,600 in the first semester at the time of admission, and Rs 20,300 for every semester henceforth. For students with family income between 1 lakh and 5 lakhs, the tuition fee of Rs 62500 is two-thirds waived. They pay Rs 20,800 as tuition fee every semester along with the full amounts of all other charges. Additionally, a mess charge of Rs 19600 is charged separately from all students. The semester fee has increased to Rs 90,600 for the batch admitted in 2024.

The social life on campus is incredible, if one is able to find like minded people. There are over 20 student run clubs as well as departmental societies for each department. These clubs are for a wide variety of pursuits, including dedicated clubs for every possible hobbu or interest, ranging from classical and performative arts, photography and videography, coding, robotics, debating and acting, management, entrepreneurship and many more. A large number of students join clubs to pursue their interests and collectively organize all fests and events. Aarohan, the annual techno management fest of the college, is usually in februray or March, while Recstacy, the annual cultural fest, is held in March or April. Apart from these, the larger clubs organize their own fests, including the Indian cultural fest Virasat, the entrepreneurship fest E-Summit, the debating club fest Vistaar, along with large numbers of events and competitions held throughout the year, leading to a vibrant campus life. The college actively participates in inter college competitions in both academics and sports. The college teams from various clubs have won accolades for street plays, dance and music performances, robotics conventions, hackathons, etc organized all over India. The facilities for some sports are better than others depending on their popularity, The college teams actively participate in inter-nit tournaments in varous sports like football, cricket, volleyball, lawn tennis, badminton, chess, hockey etc and NIT Durgapur hosted and won the all india inter nit football tournament last year. THe sports fields and playing courts are well maintained. However the gym and equipment need rennovations. The older classrooms are poorly ventilated and urgently need air conditioning and microphones. But the new academic building, research building have great infrastructure along with a well equipped and well stocked library with books and journals covering a wide range of topics.

The rooms in the undergraduate girls hostels where I stay are large and well ventilated, and are shared by 3 students. Boys hostels are also shared on a 3-4 student basis. The rooms are large enough to comfortably accomodate three students. The rooms include three beds, three chairs, three tables and three large almirahs for storage. Some hostels also include three smaller almirahs. The rooms also include three charging points and three lable lamps, along with two larger tubelights and fans. The hostels include common rooms for studying and small gatherings and recreation areas with badminton courts, table tennis tables, carrom boards, televisions, etc. The campus is fully residential and the hostel registration is done during admission and subsequently during semester registration every year. The institute charges Rs 5000 for hostel seat fee every semester as well as a refundable caution money of Rs 5000, which is refunded at the end of the term. The hostels also include a mess for the hostel residents and Rs 140 is charged per day towards breakfast, lunch and dinner for residents. The menu includes balanced meals like bread and jam, milk, cornflakes, fruits, and dishes like chole bhature, sandwiches, noodles, icli etc for breakfast, rice and roti, dal, seasonal vegetables, and suitable veg and non veg dishes for lunch and dinner, with as many portions served as an adult requires. A special dinner is served every wednesday with additional items like friedrice, mutton, ice cream and cold drinks. While the rooms are perfect with no room for complaint, the hygiene and quality of products used in the mess need massive improvement. Insects are frequently found in food, along with rotting portions in vegetables and eggs. The water coolers also need to be cleaned more frequently and are frequently out of service on one floor or another.

NIT Durgapur accepts candidates solely based on their rank in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). After the JEE results are announced, candidates register for counselling by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) for seats IITs, NITs, IIITs and other GFTIs. They fill in colleges and courses according to their order of preference and are allotted seats in 6 rounds, according to their ranks, based on the college and course preferences of those with higher ranks in their category. My all india general rank was 50455. I filled in the higher ranked NITs like NIT Trichy, NIT Surathkal, NIT Rourkela, NIT Warangal and NIT Calicut befor filling in NIT Durgapur, based on their higher NIRF rankings, better reasearch oppurtunities and better placements statistics. I wanted to study Mechanical or Biomedical Engineering in a prestigious NIT, and secured a spot at the mechanical department of NIT Durgapur based on my examination rank. I chose NIT Durgapur over the other NITs, IIITs and GFTIs due to its very reputed mechanical engineering department, which was also the branch i wanted to pursue. Students are eligible to appear for the JEE exam thrice in three consecutive years starting in the year they appear for their 12th board examinations. The other eligibility criteria is the general, EWS and OBC-NCL candidates must have scored over 75% marks in their 12th boards while SC and ST candidates must ahve scored over 60% marks. The cutoffs depend completely on the examination pattern for that year, the number of available seats and the on campus placements and academic records of the institute in the preceeding academic year. Previous year cutoffs for all institues in all departments and categories are publishes and can be followed for analysis.

The faculty to student ratio is approximately 1:20 overall, but varies accourding to the departments. As long as the concerned student is respectful and sincere, faculties are very open to guiding them with insight and projects. From among the faculty I have interacted with, Dr. Subhas Chandra Rana. Dr. Arjajyoti Goswami, Dr. Deepak Kumar and Dr. Jayabrata Dhar from the mechanical department, Dr. Oindrilla Mukherjee from the biotechnology department, Dr. Sutanuka Banerjee from the humanities department, and Dr. Paresh Nath Chatterjee from the chemistry department have stood out to me as educators and academicians committed to helping their students advance their professional as well as their personal wellbeing to the best of their ability. As for negative experiences, there have been professors who have overreacted over trivial issues or deliberately tried to sabotage students who offended them, but such incidents have been relatively few, with the positives outweighing the negatives. As long as students take care to choose mentors whose interests align with their own, they are unlikely to run into much trouble. Laboratory courses are marked on continuous assessment and end of semester viva exam For theory courses, a mid term examination of 25 marks and an end term examination of 60 marks, along with 15 marks allotted towards continuous assessment taken in the class. These 15 marks depend on the instructor and can be based on attendance, class tests, assignments, etc. Exams are a healthy mix of easy and tough questions. While some papers can be exceptionally tough, a thorough study of class notes and analysis of question patterns in assignments is usually enough to score well above average marks. The number of students failing to clear a course varies according to department and instructor, but around 25-30% of the class fails to pass a particular course. However most students do pass in the supplementary exams and less than 15% of the class end up with backlogs.

After a long and tedious day of classes, students can usually be found unwinding at Nescafe or Wonder Cafe or with a quick game of football, basketball or badminton. A cup of tea and the infamous poach maggie with friends at the "jhoops" outside campus attracts multitudes of students. Groups can also be found jamming at Mini Ovals, Nescafe huts or the Lords stands, or going for club meets, rehearsals and hangouts. Hostel in-time is 8:30 for first years, and 11:30 for the higher years, though the timings are not strictly followed after first year. The entry timing at all three campus gates is strictly 10:30pm. Movement inside campus late at night is usually unrestricted, except for the areas with staff quarters, and students can be found hanging out in less crowded places like nescafe huts or lords stands or even the stairs outside department buildings at night. The campus is very safe at night with little to no untoward incidents reported,