NIT Calicut, the fit option for your Engineering Life

NITC had a huge syllabus updation in the year 2023. Since then, for us engineering physics students, it has been a blessing. There is a plethora of topics and courses to choose from based on our liking. We have the ablity to choose electives from S3 onwards itself. I chose this course because of its flexiblity, allowing students to move to both research and placement pathways. The amount of exposure our faculties put us out to makes us ready students for higher studies at prestigious colleges anywhere in the world. However, there are cases of rote learning here and there, but it has been reduced to a great extent. Exams are at the right intervals, with enough gaps to study and enjoy as well.

In the case of Engineering Physics branch, internship opportunities from companies are fairly low. However for other core branches, plenty of internship opportunities are available. For example. top companies such as Oracle, Bajaj, Microsoft come for internship calls. In companies like Oracle, internship normally is like a confirmed ticket for a placement at Oracle. In the case of Engineering Physics, we have the opportunity to work with Professors in Universities in and out of India, especially in IITs, IIScs, etc. Normally, this works by establishing contacts with professors in these institutes and requiesting for such opportunites. Sometimes, some faculties help the students by establishing contact with these professors, thereby ensuring an internship opportunity at those prestigious universitites

Placements for the other branches are quite attractive here at NITC. Highest placement packages go upto 50LPA. Average is at around 9-10LPA. A huge number of companies come to NITC. In the case of Engineering Physics, more than placements, people opt for the research pathway, higher studies and then a PhD and research. One of the benefits of choosing Engineering Physics is, you wouldnt need a masters degree to take a PhD, if you have CGPA above a threshhold. My plans after the degree are to do higher studies, I am still discovering my interests in the field, but I have made my mind to not go the placement pathway. However, there are more placements in Engineering Physics lately. Since a lot of electronics based courses have been added, companies such as Texas Instruments have been looking for EP students for placements.

I paid about 125000+Extras of about 50k for caution deposit and such, in the first year. Second year onwards, around 72000. For each annual family income slab, there is a certain discout in fees. For Annual incomes of 1 lakh to 5 lakh, students only pay 30% of the fees I believe. For annual incomes less than 1 lakh, tuition fees is completely waivered. There are plenty of scholoarships here at NITC for students with lower economical backgrounds, as well as students with reservations. For example, for native students of Kerala, Kerala government provides the E-GRANTZ scholarship for SC and ST students, waivering the hostel fees, if im not wrong.

Two most important fests at NITC are the Ragam, the cultural fest and Tathva, the technomanagaement fest, it is one of the largest in South India. The library is well equipped with many e-books, journals and printed books. It houses a state of the art digital library. Classrooms are modernized, with top notch tech, WiFi all around the campus. NITC offers wide variety of sports facilties with football, volleyball, badminton, basketball courts, indoor courts for badminton and table tennis too. It also houses a gym. Here there is a lot of encouragement for students to join technical clubs, cultural clubs to enhance their extracurricular activities. A lot of student run clubs such as indian cultural association, ISTE, adventure club are housed by NITC and organize activities, promoting a rich student culture.

In the first year, students are provided with a 3 person per room system. The first year hostels are very old, hence are not up to the mark. From the second year onwards, students share a double room in the fairly new Mega Hostel. It is spacious enough with quality internet connection. For fourth years, they get a single room. NITC hosts a variety of messes, students can choose from which mess to eat, each mess provides a variety of cuisines, to satisfy the palettes of students all over India. Hostel facility is present for all students studying at the campus and it is affordable enough and worth it considering the facilites provided. This locality is called Kattangal/ Chathamangalam. There are plenty of PG facilities in and around Chathamangalam

I was interested in the engineering physics course. I had not qualified the JEE Advanced, hence the only two NITs offering this course were NIT Calicut and NIT Hamirpur. NIT Calicut, being one of the first tier colleges ended up being the obvious decision. I had gotten EEE too at NIT Calicut, but this course was very attractive, the course is structured in such a way that anyone who is into physics will surely fall for it. Here JEE Mains is the admission criteria, admission takes palce through the main stream JoSAA. For NIT Calicut, if youre a homestate student, you would need a rank below 20k, for other state students, about 15k, (general category). It is worth the fees, I can assure you on that.

I do not know the exact stats, but there is for sure a good enough faculty to student ratio. In my case, my branch, engineering physics has very less number of people. Hence, each faculty is able to focus on each and every student properly, giving enough attention. In the case of Physics, we have most of our faculty supportive in both academics as well as personal life. Some names to mention are Dr. Natesan Yogesh and Dr. Sayani Chatterjee. They are wise and top notch in the work they do. However, there are very few faculties that arent very approachable, one Dr Raman Namboodiri. He is not very approachable, and can be quite rude at times. Exams at NITC are known to be quite difficult. We have two exams per semester, mid sems and end sems. They are quite difficult. But the grading system is relative, making it not impossible to pass the exams.