Monday 24 November 2014

Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur (IIT KGP)

Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur (IIT KGP)
Foreword:
The Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur is the oldest IIT in the country and almost at par with metro cities. Usually referred as IIT KGP, this institute was established way back in 1951, just after India attained Independence. Being the oldest institute, it is recognized as the Institute of National Importance by the Government of India. IIT Kharagpur is an autonomous engineering, technology and management (Vinod Gupta School of Management, VGSOM) institute.



Location:
IIT KGP is located on the east coast of India in the small city of Kharagpur, West Bengal. The campus is located in a pretty rural area and most of the students find accessibility a major issue. Moreover, unlike other hostels, IIT KGP’s hostels are not within campus. Some prefer to come on bikes/scooters, while some use public mode of transport. Oh, some choose to walk as well. There are no big multiplexes and malls close to the college. All in all, the locality is pretty dull and boring.



Campus and Infrastructure:
Even though the campus is located in quite a rural area, the college building is pretty modern in terms of its facilities. Most of the classrooms are air conditioned with quite comfortable benches and projectors. There is a vast library with books of all the possible streams of engineering and management available at any odd hours as well. Laboratories, an integral part of an engineering student, are well maintained. The campus is WiFi enabled, thus speeding up the research activities and projects. Also there's active ODC (high speed intranet) maintained by students for quick and efficient data sharing.

Unlike other IIT’s, the hostels are not located within the campus. More than 20 hostels are approximately a kilometer away where the facilities are quite decent. Beds are decent and not dusty, rooms are neat and clean, internet connection with unlimited download, and the above average washrooms. All in all, the facilities are pretty satisfactory considering it’s a hostel. Sports facilities include gymnasiums, swimming pools (with water polo in some) and hockey ground apart from the regular cricket, football, volleyball, basketball, badminton and table tennis.



Fees:
Rs 57876 per year



Courses Offered:
Undergraduate Courses : B.Tech
Aerospace Engineering
Agricultural & Food Engineering
Biotechnology & Biochemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Chemical engineering
Computer Science & Engineering
Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Energy Engineering
Instrumentation Engineering
Industrial Engineering
Manufacturing & Science Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mining Engineering
Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture
There are more than 100 programs offered for dual degree, post graduation, management, doctorate and others at IIT KGP. For a complete list visit the official website.



Fees:
Rs 57876 per year
View breakup of fees, hostel/mess charges & fees for SC/ST students



Faculty:
IIT and its teaching go hand in hand. Definitely, the teaching is at a premium level professors having immense knowledge related to their subjects. The teachers at IIT KGP are highly experienced and completed their degree, PhD’s and what not from excellent American universities. The college has a facility for guest lectures as well. There are some professors who are extra ordinary and renowned while some are pretty ordinary and students find them just about tolerable. Most of the lectures are conducted in English, of which some are fluent, some aren’t.

Least attendance criteria is 50% before deregisteration. The rules are mended as per the wish of the professor taking the course.



Crowd:
Engineering is one of the streams in the world which is definitely male dominated. At IIT KGP, there are almost 90% boys, and one lacks to see a pretty face in the campus. Since, it’s a renowned and arguably the best institute in the country, students from all parts of India are seen here. Neither there is any race discrimination nor is a specific religion quota followed in the IIT. With such a varied crowd, understanding and maturity automatically follows. The students celebrate their college festivals on a large scale balancing their time with studies, placements and project work. Ragging is almost extinct now though there’ve been complains in the past.



Rankings:
Roughly, one needs a rank of around 400-500 in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to get a desired stream at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. If you’re willing to compromise a stream for the heck of joining IIT (which many would), then any ranks around 4000 will fetch you IIT KGP.
Being the oldest IIT, it’s still not ranked no.1 among other IIT’s, due to the lack of its location. Any which ways, it’s still ranked 4th or 5th after the metros.



Placements and Internships:
The placements at IIT are pretty different from the thousands of engineering colleges in the country. You need to maintain a good CGPA (academic score roughly around 7 on 10), to get short listed by the great MNC’s that visit the college every year. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, YES Bank, Nomura, Facebook and hundred more companies recruit students from the IIT Kharagpur campus. There are no mass placements, hence the salary students are offered is roughly around 7-9 lakhs per annum. International offers reach upto 50-75 lakhs per annum depending upon the company and your performance.

Students get on campus internship offers from excellent companies during their third year of engineering. They get paid around 35,000 per month (varies with the company). And yes, needless to mention, 100% placements.



Festivals and Activities:
IIT is quite famous for the numerous festivals that are conducted round the year. There are various hostel events and games that are played on regular basis. Apart from the zillion national level competitions, there are two main festivals conducted round the year. Spring Fest, the cultural festival, is held in the month of January, where you see participation from all over India and live performance by great musicians and singers. 'Kshitij', the techno management festival, is held around February.

There are active clubs for robotics, Formula SAE (making racing cars), Kraig (artificial intelligence), E-cell (entrepreneurship), Technology Transfer Group (TTG - it's links academic research to industry), etc.



Canteen/Mess/Hangouts:
As the campus of IIT KGP is located in a rural area, hangouts and fun activities lower down on a good scale. Students find happiness in their canteen and mess. The canteen serves decent and edible food at a nominal rate. Most of the items are junk food and students sometimes crave for desi food. Each hostel has its own mess which are just like in any other typical college - average. It serves moderately hot lunch with less variety but always on time. Students aren’t completely satisfied thought they haven’t complained much about the same. There are a few night canteens, nescafe and small vendors for milk, momos etc present at night.

There's a tech market within the campus, Prem Bazaar just outside the campus and Gol Bazaar about 30 minutes from campus. Government owned restaurant Tikka (within the campus), Chhedis, Veggies, Billo etc are popular restaurants. There is a CCD and a Baskin Robins outlet too. There are a couple of theatres in Kharagpur which students hardly care to explore. But one movie is screened every weekend in insti's very own Netaji auditorium.



Contact:
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur 721302
West Bengal, India.
Tel: +91-3222-255221
Website: www.iitkgp.ac.in



Famous Alumni:
Arun Sarin- CEO of Vodafone
Arvind Kejriwal- close aide of Anna Hazre in anti-corruption movement
Arjun Malhotra- Co-founder of HCL technologies
Prith Banerjee- Director of HP Labs


Verdict:
IIT Kharagpur is definitely on the wish list of every ‘to be’ engineer of India, after Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

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