A period that changed my life.

This was a place where there was no gender equality. Girls had to come back to hostels at 10 pm. I never had the chance to see the campus in the beautiful night sky while boys could do whatever they wanted. This is the only regret I had.

I took IIT JEE in 2008 and got a rank of 3789. Being from south India, My first choice of college was IIT Madras. However, my father had connections in Roorkee where everyone said the Mechanical department was the best in terms of placement and most top salaries (oil companies) were bagged by these students. This is how I ended up here.

The course curriculum was well thought of The first year, all the students were taught subjects from all the departments. We had well-rounded education in the first year which enabled students to take a learned decision on whether to change their branch to something else. From my second year, I was taught earth science courses and some math and physics to complement it. Overall the course structure was well made.

There were a few companies that came for an internship, but for a class strength of over 80 in my batch, There were not enough. Companies paid different amounts ranging from 10,000 Rs a month to 70,000 Rs a month. If students do well in internships they had a chance of getting a pre-placement offer as well. For other students, we had to search for our own internships or apply to foreign university internship programs.

There were plenty of companies which came for placements. But There were still limits for the number of students that sat for placements. I had a Pre-placement offer in hand in an oil company Shell with 14.5 LPA and therefore did not sit through the placements. but I know several friends of mine who did not get placed until Jan or Feb and when they did it was in TCS which was quite low-paying (3.5LPA).

There was a cultural festival that happened in the Fall semester, around November-Dec. This was a meal in the true sense. There were several food stalls arranged. There were plenty of events one could attend, some of them by famous people. There was dance competition among colleges, and a music competition called the battle of bands. We used to eagerly await our cultural festival "Thomso".In the spring semester, there was a technical festival, Cognizance. I have seen some of the most brilliant minds at work in this event. People come up with innovative ideas, there was robotics competition and several quiz competitions organized.

The fee structure was quite nominal. In my batch, it was Rs 40,000 per semester including hostel and mess fee which was around Rs 10000. From my next batch, it was Rs 50,000 per semester. Additionally, we used to spend about 5000 Rs per month on outside food or trips to Deharadun for a movie.

People from various economic backgrounds came. Some people who had a family income of less than 5 LPA could avail a merit cum means scholarship of Rs 5000 per month. Loans were offered by the State bank on the campus with no interest till the student passed out of college. Some departments also had a scholarship for a top all-around performance like the hamrock scholarship.

The gender ratio was pretty poor in my department. Most classes of 80 or more students had one or 2 girls. Even within the entire batch, there were 200 girls in 4000 students. This kind of gender ratio was quite common in IITs.Extracurricular sections gave an opportunity for people to display their talents. In dramatics sections, 2 plays were organized every year. These plays will seem as if they are made by professionals. Music section had 2 performances each year which were of good standards. The debate section was not as common as a quizzing club. Quizzes happened at regular intervals but there was always a difficulty in getting rooms to organize quizzes.

We had a good alumini network. Passed out students from all over the world contributed to the facility of the institute and also to the scholarship funds. We sometimes had lectures by alumni who accomplished something good. Students' senior interaction was nice. we had very helpful seniors and we became really good friends.

Exams used to happen 3 times in a semester. 2 mid-semester exams and one end semester exam, This was quite frequent and from our next batch, they changed the structure to one mid-term and one end semester.

The faculty was highly experienced. Most of the faculty were old and used old school methods of teaching. If there was a mix of young and old professors it would have been better. However, the faculty was highly regarded in the outside world.