Vivek's Review On IIT Madras - Indian Institute Of Technology - [IITM], Chennai

Overall it was a great place to spend 5 years. College was managed by highly qualified people. Our registrar was an IAS officer. Campus was around 600 acres.

I took IIT JEE was the exam taken by me. Got a rank of 1098 in the year 2003. For the rank I got I opted for Dual Degree in Electrical engineering at IIT Chennai.

The dual degree course is for 5 years. We have a minor which has 4 subjects to be taken in 3 rd and 4 th years. First year had only 2 courses in electrical engineering and most of the others were in maths, physics etc.

We do our internship in the third year summer holidays. We had options from few companies. Few students got opportunity from colleges abroad in USA and Australia. I did my internship at Indian railways. It was for 45 days period with no stipend.

Placements usually start in December and go on in two phases. First phase for first 10 to 12 days in December and the next phase at the end of December. Most of the students get placed in December. Companies come even after that in Jan to April. Packages are high with some oil companies like schlumberger,giving posting in other countries. Many reputed companies like McKinsey,goldmansachs,Google come for recruitment. Usually there are 4 to 5 companies per day. Only one offer per student is allowed.

We had one technical festival Shaastra in the month of October and a cultural festival in January. Both are very big events with participation from various colleges. Both span for 4 days. In the cultural festival we had stage performances from KK,UDit Narayan back then.

Fee structure back then was around 19000 per semester for tuition and around 6000 for hostel. Fee was affordable with loan facility available. Fee has increased now. All students had hostel facility available.

Loan facility was readily available for all the students with a bank in the campus itself. Scholarships were there for economically backward students with almost 80% of the fee being covered.

Campus life was great with many activities to keep oneself busy. We had a gym and swimming pool. Many hobby clubs were there for interested students. Gender ratio was not good 1:5. Ragging was strictly prohibited. Strict action would be taken for any indiscipline.

Almost all students stayed at hostel. Each student was given a single room from their second year. Each room had internet facility. Room was good. In the first year rooms were on a sharing basis with 3 students per room in a big room.

Senior students were there to help always. Few passed out students came to give the students valuable info on life after college. Alumni network is very strong with many funds coming from them.

Exams were conducted in 3 phases. First two carried a weightage of 20% each. Last exam carried 60%. First half of the semester was chilled and the second half was a bit hectic. Assignments were given at times.

Faculty was great with most of them being IIT alumnus themselves. Maths and physics departments did not have any IIT alumni but were great. There is a humanities department too.