Karimdad Khan's Review On Vivekananda Institute Of Technology, Bangalore

In conclusion, I would like to say that the college is not one you should choose. If you are looking for a quality education with a proper college experience which will help you grow from a school student to a college graduate, this is one college you should run away from. The college management is a veritable hellhole, complete with redundant paperwork to be filed for the smallest of issues to cripplingly slow operation although the admission process is fast (for obvious reasons, they want you to get in fast and not get out). With the horrible location, to poor connectivity, poor management and a host of other issues, this is one college that should shut down.

I undertook COMEDK which is the entrance exams for private engg. colleges in Karnataka. Being an outsider, (Assam) I was eligible to take this and not CET. I was ranked around 6500 which was pretty good considering the scope of the exam and the number of students taking part in it. However it wasn't good enough to merit a seat in the "creme de la creme" of engg. colleges in Bangalore. Not being aware about the colleges (That being my single biggest mistake that would plague me still), I was recommended by my sister who knew of a friend who studied in this college and boasted of it having a pretty good computer science department. I would soon find out how wrong that could be.

The course curriculum follows the VTU prescribed syllabus which i have not much qualms about although i had hoped it to be much more than the "study, memorize and vomit" cycle that most education systems in this country follows. There is little or no focus on research or even imaginative thinking. Every class follows the same trope of monotonous lectures, notes, assignments and labs. Initially it was fine with classes going smoothly and subjects being interesting. Pretty soon (Around 3rd Year which was very important), the subjects became more theoretical, the lectures very monotonous and everyone seemed to attend class only for attendance.

For the college to provide was a different matter altogether. There were no internships or referrals that would help a graduate secure a job. Campus recruitment during my time was abysmal with not one student being placed. A few never-heard-of companies did come and go like those random stalls of food that pops up during an event. No one knows where they came from and they never will be heard of since. The recruitment in-charge was, in my time one of the most incompetent persons i have ever come across. There was this incident where this person managed to convince the senior faculty to force the students to cough up 2000 Rs each for "placement activities". For refusing to pay, the HOD of my department had numerous times reprimanded me and asked me to do the necessary i.e. pay up. Of course, their incompetence also was in the realm of intimidation as i remained adamant in my ways. 2000 Rs was a big deal for me as a poor penniless college student.

As i mentioned earlier, there were very few who were placed. Most of the recruitment happened off-campus and few student attended placements in other colleges. I noticed that there was a lack of care when handling students who were graduating. There were no real help offered and the few that came my way was sub-par and had the air of incompetence that became synonymous with VKIT. What i noticed the most was that the students who were from the city ("localites" as they were termed by the general population) were the ones who were placed and North Indians ("Northies" as termed by the "localites"), even the most gifted ones were struggling with getting a job. When a college graduate successfully finishes his course and is still not confident on cracking job interviews, i believe the college has failed in that regard. It is pretty difficult to mention which colleges had come in my time as I personally had attended no interviews in campus. When i had initially joined the college, there were flyers all around of students being placed in L&T, Wipro etc and it seemed very optimistic.After i graduated, i heard again of students being placed in good companies and getting reasonably well packages. I felt the college failed most in my time and hence this review will reflect my disappointment. I joined Engg. with hope and optimism, focus and I believed I had talent. Sadly, by the time i graduated, the college had managed to remove all my earlier convictions and replace it with nothing more than a feeling of just getting it over with.

The major event was the college fest, which was a celebration of mediocrity. I shouldn't be too scathing in this regard as i neither participated nor gave it much time (I attended it twice). I heard of few bands which had come and played Rock music which was refreshing. There were quiz competitions and other events which were fun but far too few. Sports was never my cup of tea but I did follow the exploits of my friends who partook in it. The college had a football team which was sub-par but that is what you get without much backing from the college, neither the incentive to try hard, except maybe getting to not attend the class which was, as mentioned before akin to being bombarded with Sub-par lectures in horrible grammar. I had a friend who was very gifted in cricket. His idea of college sports was that he could breeze through with bad grades as long as the college would support his dream of playing professionally. He had hoped through college tournaments that he would be noticed and possibly recruited. Sadly, here was a place where dreams came to die and he too would give up on his dream. He did manage to gain a good enough reputation to be hired by other colleges to play in their team in exchange for money.

The fee structure was standard VTU fees, which favored CET students with lesser fees than COMEDK students. Few unfortunate souls even got admission through "management" (colloquial term for admissions using the power of cash) but as with the colleges reputation being similar to Trumps ideals (non-existent), the money they asked for is pretty less.

No. There was none that i knew of. The college is affiliated to a Grameen Bank (Yes, the ones that offer small loans to Farmers; No, not the one that won that nice gentleman from Bangladesh the Nobel prize). A few of my friends did take Loans from banks but there was little intervention from the college.

Campus life was non-existent. I spent most of my time in the city which is quite far from the college with very less connectivity although i did see recent developments (A new basketball court, indoor stadium etc) gender-ratio is pretty ok. There wasn't an inherent lack of female students but there was an air of oppression in my time and girls-guys together alone were frowned upon. There was though opportunities, although few, of extra-curricular activities and they were pretty enjoyable. I had quite a bit of fun participating in the very few that happened. There was though a lack of educational activities such as debates, the general incompetence also spread to English diction and vocabulary as the students were content in conversing in the local lingo although this may be a symptom of the people here rather than the college. Tolerance was something that was severely lacking. I have heard stories from friends about racism (The aforementioned Northies were generally looked down upon) although i faced no such issues. I did however encounter numerous incidents of close-mindedness which although not so severe was very irritating.

The hostel and other facilities were pretty good. Being from a boarding school background, i had a good idea about facilities and what makes a good hostel. Food as always would be poor but it was hygienic and even on its worst days, was edible. The rooms are spacious with good beds and big cupboards. My recent trip to the college was met with surprise as a lot of trees and natural beautification took place. The girls hostel is in the city which I have heard from my friends is fine. For students opting out of hostels, the college will provide no support or help in finding accommodations.

I saw nothing regarding an alumni network partly due to the fact that most people who graduated spoke no good about the college. I met a few North-Indian Seniors (This being a very recurring issue of the North-South divide and how needless and irritating it was) who were more concerned with who was "allowed" to conduct ragging and who wasn't. They spoke nothing that could actually help me and I soon realized the kind of students it churned out were never going to be of any help to me or anyone else. Of course it wasn't all bleak as there were few who were ready to help and we became good friends but that is how every place is. There are few "Cool" people and few who should be shipped off to Mars. What worried me the most, although it is an Engg. college standard were the sheer number of senior students who had year backs and were stuck repeating a particular year. The worrying part was not the number but the students themselves. I knew most of them (albeit from Electronics but that drives home the point more) and with a little encouragement and support all managed to graduate. What the college failed to do, a few of my friends succeeded.

The VTU curriculum required three Unit tests of 25 marks to be conducted and the best two be selected, of which the average of them would be added to the final semester marks which was of 75 marks. The college did have good facilities when it comes to their laboratories and I found few of the best teachers there. I say few because there was incompetence there as well. What stymied me the most was how programming was being taught. I had come from a school where i was lucky to be taught programming languages so i had knowledge of them which gave me an obvious edge. However, my not-so-lucky peers had a hard time with the same. Each lab would start the same with the program being written on a board and then being executed on the system. We were required to parrot the same, writing on our notebooks and then typing it out to be executed. No knowledge on syntax was imparted and it was a ridiculous attempt at forcing students to memorize and vomit full programs i felt it was again these "busy-idiots" at play, with more focus on maintaining lab notes and attendance than actually imparting knowledge on programming as a skill.

I wasn't aware about most of the other colleges and to be frank, i hadn't done much research of my own which probably was the most single biggest mistake i could or will ever make. I chose this college during the "counselling" session of COMEDK. I expected a bit more than simply telling which college i would want and getting the necessary paperwork to initiate the admission process. We went to the college and met the principal which was pretty optimistic in the start. I did not expect much but the college did have pretty impressive buildings. After making the payments for the first year and also opting for hostel accommodations, i was officially admitted.

I believe good teachers are hard to find and one is very lucky to encounter the few. There were a few good teachers, most of which were young masters' degree graduates that were genuinely trying to educate and teach rather than go through the motions. I also believed that a college teacher (not using the term professor as there seems to be a difference) knows his students are adults and treats them as such. These young educators were the only ones that followed this credo. However, the senior faculty was a different ball-game altogether. Apart from a few, most seemed to take delight in creating problems for the students. I termed them "busy-idiots" that would rather be more worried about which student brings a cell-phone to class rather than their ability to engage the student in open discussions or make the subject enjoyable and easily digestible to the students. The lectures were boring and the teachers' inability to properly convey what she meant to the student was hampered with horrible diction and bad attitude. The students were treated like school children which made them rebel, which led to friction between students and teachers. I found very few senior faculty in my department who had a good rapport with the student crowd. The HOD (Head of Department) in my department was an incompetent loud angry woman who regularly would shout at students as though personal pride and decency were non-existent and we lived in savage times. I once was attending a college lab and she managed to reduce a fellow student to tears because she wrote the wrong program (we were randomly assigned programs to execute using chits) and wound up not having enough time to rectify her mistake. I felt the situation was handled very poorly and any teacher who makes a student cry does not win but fail at her job as an educator. The very few good teachers came and went like the breeze and many a cries would be heard about "That teacher was so good, shame he/she had to leave". The incompetent ones however remained like a bad stain on a white shirt. I found one particular incompetent Math teacher, who would rule his class with fear rather than respect (not one to judge, to each his own) become an important member in the management as well. The most infuriated and humiliated I felt was during my first year when i had to take an extended leave due to medical reasons. As i went to get the necessary approval from the principal, he outright said I would be held back a year because of this. When i came back from my medical leave, only one teacher bothered to ask about my health and one incompetent nincompoop also told me to "Go back to Lalu Prasad Yadav"(I am from Assam although I don't have the distinct features).