Saamarth Singh's Review On National Institute Of Technology - [NITK], Surathkal

The admissions to NITK is solely by the JEE Mains exam. I appeared for the JEE mains exam and got a score of 192 combined with a CBSE percentage of 92.2 based on which final rank is announced. I got a rank of 12393 and chose chemical engineering in NITK. The college is one of the best in south India with a reputed faculty and great infrastructure. Its location and recent placements in chemical engineering along with my interest in chemical engineering made me choose this field.

The course curriculum is quite vast and there is a minimum number of credits one needs to complete at the end of four years. There are some core compulsory courses along with a choice of electives. The first year is common for all branches and then in the following years you have courses according to your branches. The curriculum also involves a mini-project which helps build research scope. The course covers quite well the topics needed to be studied for becoming an able engineer.

The college does provide internships based on merit at the end of third year. It holds internship opportunities for some companies which may hold exams and interviews for selection. Some companies have a merit cut-off for writing the exam. While most companies offer stipend in the range of 5k-20k others may not provide stipend. In chemical engineering some companies which visited were Reliance and Lal path labs. Reliance offers internships to 5-6 students with a stipend of 5k. The internship offers a great deal to what it is to work in an industry after studies. It involves application based knowledge.

The placements and job opportunities is quite vast in chemical engineering in this college. In chemical engineering 31 of the 32 eligible students were placed. The highest package was of 15 lakhs. The minimum placement was of 4 lakhs. The average was around 7 lakhs. It is considered quite well as it above the college average and the salary usually increases after 2-3 years of experience.

The college holds several cultural and technical fests in a year. The first is a technical fest named Engineer held in October and involves lots of workshops and competitions. The cultural fest is held in march and is named Incident and is the biggest fest in south India. It involves lots of games, competitions and musical performances. Several renowned names are invited to perform and DJ nights are held at the end of each fest. People and students from various other college come to participate in the competitions.

The fees for a semester is 40,000 for academics and 17,000 for hostel.The room rent is usually 5,000 which is already added in the academics fees. Some of the hostel fees is refunded at the end of 4 years. The fees was increased and is a tad expensive for some people. The fees remains same for all 4 years.

There are a wide variety of scholarships offered which can be availed by the student. Some of which are CBSE scholarship of 10,000 per semester, Siemens scholarship of 90,000 per year and some merit based scholarships which also considers family income. Loans can be availed at zero interest rate from the college bank itself.

The campus life is one of the best among the other NITs and is very enriching in ones life. The gender ratio is 3:1 in favor of boys. But it is still better than other government colleges. The infrastructure facilities is one of the best in sports and studies as well. Several competitions are held by various clubs which offer great deal of experience. Musical nights, several festivals and fests offer a great amount of entertainment for the students.

The college has a very accomplished Alumni Network which have gone on to become quite renowned in their field. The seniors are very helpful and offer guidance related to any issues. They help us build on our academic performances and make us aware of placement processes.

The exam structure consists of end semester exams, mid semester exams and quizzes. The weightage of end sems in 50%, mid sems and quizzes 25% each. The exam are held within a week usually in first year but its not hectic as one can score well easily by studying in one night. In the following years there are holidays between exams and its quite chilled out. The marking is relative and the grades are given relatively. There are usually one or two labs in a semester and lab exams are held separately from the end semester exams.

The faculty of this college is quite reputed and are very diligent towards teaching the course. They are very disciplined and are unbiased in marking the students. Some professors have experience over 30 years. The teachers explain everything in course plan and are open for doubts. It is the quality of teaching that makes this college one of the best in India. The teachers usually have PhD degree and have vast amounts of experience in teaching the subject.