Suparno Banerjee's Review On University Of Calcutta, Kolkata

Calcutta University Engineering Department which is present in Rajabazar Science College campus in Kolkata is one of oldest technical institutes in Country. The dept. which I am studying in was established in 1925 (Applied Physics) and has rich heritage. It was until recently that CU started taking students through WBJEE because previously only the cream BSc degree holders from CU affiliated colleges in Bengal were admitted. So I feel extremely privileged to be part of this prestigious institute. Also the placement statistics for my dept. is good as 70% of students got placed this year in core sector with median CTC of 6 LPA in companies like Linde, Technip, CESC, Worley, Haldia Petrochemicals just to name a few. Considering the total fees is just THIRTY THOUSAND rupees, the ROI (Return On Investment) is best I could find in India (Other than Jadavpur University).

The course curriculum was recently updated in 2018 and many electives were added. Students have lot of freedom when it comes to choosing courses. Even the first year syllabus is different in CU for different students as we (applied physics- EE & IE students) will be dealing with physics related subject only where as (Applied Chemistry -CE, CT & PST students) won't have to deal with Physics and they will be studying Chemistry only in Second Semester. The faculties are very Good in CU as almost all of them have some post doctorate level experience or teaching experience of atleast 15 years. Faculty : student ratio is very healthy due to small batch size and we get to clear all our doubts in class itself. These faculties are excellent researchers and they do teach the subjects in-depth. Cracking GATE or interviews seems to be no-issue as our basic concepts get crystal clear. Many students publishes research papers under their guidance which gets accepted in international journals and every year, some students from our dept. gets Direct PhD or MS admit from top graduate schools abroad. So from academics point of view, I couldn't be more happier.

No. I am in BTech 2nd year now. I am currently volunteering for an organization called Youth Empowerment Foundation which works for the welfare of underprivileged children in society. I also do freelance content writing whenever I get free time.

The companies that visited our department (Applied Physics) this year were Linde Group, Worley, Technip FMC, Haldia Petrochemicals, DCPL, CESC, Amplus Power, TATA Power, TCS and Cognizant. There might be one or two other which I can't recall currently but since the batch size is low in both EE or IE stream and these two branches has the oldest alumni network in India, placements never really becomes an issue. Also, CU recently hired a TPO last year (since the 4 yr BTech couse is newly introduced in 2015 and there was no TPO before for last 15 years), placements will be improving a lot now.

Campus life is vibrant. We have many clubs in CU like Coding Club, Robotics Club, Drama Club, University Rowing Club, Google DSC, E Club for Hult Prize etc. The campus is located at the crux of the City of Joy. Students from other colleges attend CU workshops/ seminars/ research projects and we also visit JU or ISI Kolkata for same. Saltlake City (Sector 5) is the IT hub of Bengal which is located just 9km away from our college and all major tech companies in Kolkata is located there. We have a reunion called Reflexion every 2 years which lasts for a week, where alumni come to meet us and share valuable experience.There is also a tech fest in CU conducted every year.

Our university provides scholarships for financially weak students and toppers of departments too. The fee is often waived off for selected students and are provided with stipends.

The campus infrastructure in Rajabazar Science College is very good. All of our classrooms, labs, libraries are air-conditioned with state of the art computing facilities, fast internet connectivity, advanced lab equipments & free subsciption from Matlab, Scada, Prisom, Autocad etc for 4 year of graduation. Sometimes it feels wierd (in a positive way) that we are getting so much of facilities for just 30k inr whereas many private colleges couldn't even provide a good lab for research after spending lakhs of rupees. Anyhow it is especially a boon for economically weaker students or those who care about ROI and I feel glad that W.Bengal Govt. is subsidizing so much for us.