Thapar Institute- The good and the bad.

The college will make you active. Opportunities are available but no one to push. You’ll learn to be self sufficient if you are brave enough to talk to people. Leave your introversion and bond with people around you. :)

Electronics and Communication is considered one of the toughest(maybe even toughest) streams of Engineering. It consists of lengthy derivations, super tough subjects like digital communications and analog electronics. The curriculum is good nevertheless. We were also taught computer related subjects like data structures, operating systems which ultimately helped in our campus placements. The edge that this stream gives you over any other stream was hardware and embedded concepts. The electronics’ students had much better concepts related to computer internals and overall hardwares. The day on the particular was neither too chill nor too hectic. It was kind of moderate where some of the days we were free at 12 in the noon and there were some days when we had classes till 5 and 7 PM.

Yes. The opportunities are very good in terms of placements and internships irrespective of a huge batch overall(around 2000 students now every year). Around 300-400 companies including startups come in our college for the students of 3rd and 4th year. I got my internship at Samsung Noida which have a stipend of 30,000 per month. The competition is high among the students, but according to me, everybody wins here in the end.

Ours is one of the colleges where ample number of events are held all year long at regular intervals. Not only events, but also workshops ranging from software building to photography are held here. There are approximately 45 societies and clubs which make the college eventful all year long. Overall, the events are: Oasis(workshops, tech events etc) Hacktober fest(hackathons and tech events) Elementos(electronics and hardware) TedTalks Punjabi cultural fest- Virsa Food Festival Frosh week(orientation week long fest) Saturnalia(College’s annual techno-cultural fests) Photography and fine arts fest And many more. The footfall of every event/workshop depends on the popularity of the club organizing it and the novelty of the event.

The fees is kind of expensive(approximately 2. 25 lakhs per semester including the hostel(40-48k)and mess fees(16k)) There are many scholarships available in the college which even includes full fee waivers to students. Types of scholarships are: Merit scholarships Alumni scholarships Merit cum means scholarships(for people having annual income less than 5 lakhs)

Loans: The banks inside the campus(SBI and ICICI) provide no collateral loans at minimal interests to students. Scholarships: I was one of the students who had a full fee waiver(12th boards percentage>95%) across all the four years and paid only for hostel and mess fees. The only criteria for this scholarship was to have a CGPA greater than 8 out of 10 every year(for two cumulative semesters) The other scholarships included merit scholarship for top 10% students of every branch. Merit scholarship to students having >90% in 12th boards. (50% fees) Merit cum means scholarships for less privileged students. (50% fees) Alumni scholarships (interview based and variable amounts) All had the same criteria of maintaining a CGPA of >8. 5 out of 10.

Extracurriculars: 9/10 Labs: 7/10 Sports opportunities: 8. 5/10 -The gender ratio overall is around 65 males to 35 females. -On every occasion a party was held in our hostels like lohri, diwali, semester end etc. -Students tend to stay away from politics in our college. -I, personally, didn't experience or witness any gender, religion, ethnicity bias among the students. People are very ‘chilled out’ regarding these matters.

The hostels are better than any other hostels of any college. There are around 15 hostels(both boys and girls, no co-ed) and every hostel’s infrastructure is very much above average. Private rooms, attached bathrooms, air conditioning- we have it all. I’d rate my hostel infrastructure 5/5 on every aspect. For first year, we had 4 seater hostels having a fees of 27,000(excluding mess fees). For rest of the years, you can opt to have single room hostels and they have an average rent of 45,000.

I have neutral views regarding out alumni network. It is improving definitely, and a dedicated society regarding alumni telatiins is also present in our college. We bonded well with seniors through clubs and societies (only?). Once we were friends with them, we had pretty good relationship with them. We went on trips together and also partied together.

Until 2016(the year I got admitted) the process for rest of the good colleges consisted of the normalised score of your 12th Board percentage and your JEE score. For Thapar, its just JEE score. From this year, a few seats are reserved for just the merit holders of the respective board(Without JEE score). The cut off in 2016 for my stream was around 140 out of 360 and its depreciating every year. I chose Electronics over any other stream due to many reasons: 1 I had interests in hardware and project making rather than software. (Didn’t matter till the end) 2 The computer branch had approximately 600 students as compared to 160 in Electronics. 3 You can learn coding by yourself as there are many online and offline courses available. At the end of 7 semesters, the stream Electronics and Computers proved to be a better stream( Not if you are targeting government based jobs. )

Truth be told; around 20% of Electronics faculty is very good in our college motivating you for the subject and also for research purposes. Considering the research, the stream doesn’t matter much because its kind of cross disciplinary as you can approach the faculty of computers or any other branch without any hesitation.