Here are some helpful tips if you are starting your first year at IISc Bangalore:

• Humble yourself- At IISc, you will find peers who will be better than you at one thing or the other. Humble yourself and be open to the plenty of opportunities offered to you.

• Involve in Conversations- Students, especially Masters and Ph.D. students, come from various backgrounds and are of different age groups. If you converse with the people around you and learn to accept differing views, you will hear new ideas and perspectives. 

• Be prepared to deal with uncertainty- You will face uncertainty on many occasions.

Ph.D. students have to be well-prepared to face uncertainty every single day. On numerous accounts, you are left on your own with no guidance at all. Also, no amount of guidance will ever be sufficient.

Even the Bangalore weather is very uncertain. One day it might rain heavily, and the following day might be a sunny one. 

• Enjoy your stay in Bangalore- The city is filled with fun places, and IISc Bangalore is located in the heart of it. There are numerous spots around Bangalore, located within a 500 km range. There is sufficient connectivity.

Hindi and English work fine but try to learn the local language. Many South Indians prefer dialogue in English or their local languages, so Hindi might not work in every scenario. 

• Work hard during your first year - The coursework at IISc is extremely hard and more demanding than even some of the top US universities. Assignments can get tough and the concepts may not be clear in the first instant. Courses with laboratory work are harder.

• Make time for fun- Make a habit of jogging, cycling, or walking on campus. Make good friends and have healthy conversations with them. Learn a new skill, especially something that will be of use to you in the future.

• Do not break ties with Old friends- Call your old friends and arrange meetups. This will help you during times when your studies will become overwhelming.

IISc Bangalore will challenge and groom you in numerous ways. Make the most out of your stay there.

Campus life at NIT Rourkela is one of the best you can experience in India. The infrastructure is amazing and the college spreads across a whopping 1200 acres.

• The hostel rules are very flexible with no restrictions on the timings. Students can even hang out late at night with their friends riding their bicycles and taking in the fresh air. 
• With enjoyment comes a huge load of responsibilities that make you self-dependent. The students have weekends off so Friday nights are highly cherished.
• The club culture here speaks highly of the institute's diversity. There are around 60 clubs each promoting a different theme.
• Garden fests and hall days ensure a vibrant campus life and you will end up creating some of the best memories here. 
• NIT Rourkela organizes some very amazing fests like the Annual tech-fest, INNOVISION, and NITRUTSAV, the cultural fest.

In addition to all the fun activities, you will have to maintain a good CGPA for better placements. 

IIT Palakkad is one of the newer additions to the prestigious IIT family. Dive into the academics, faculty, facilities, and placements that shape the student experience at this institute. From encouraging research to offering modern tech education, IIT Palakkad is following its mission to empower its students with knowledge and skills for the future.

Academic excellence: IT Palakkad's ranking by NIRF is 69 out of the top engineering colleges in India in 2023. Even the university got a sweet deal with Auckland University for a study abroad semester

Faculty: Professors are highly knowledgeable and always ready to help. They even encourage the students to dive into research and sometimes join in government-funded projects. The pedagogy here includes classroom learning, workshops, experiential learning, and simulations. Apart from these, conferences and guest lectures from experts add to the quality of education here.

Facilities: The university has comfy hostel rooms with super-fast Wi-Fi, and the students can keep fit and healthy with medical and sports facilities. The library might be small, but it's got all the books and study materials the students need for them.

Placements: Companies like Accenture, AMD, Arista Networks, BEL, GE Digital, HCL, ICICI Bank, Innoplexus, etc. come to campus with their exciting placement deals. The highest salary package hits 46.16 LPA, and the average package is around 11.5 LPA.

There are a few drawbacks of NIT Kurukshetra that students and faculty have reported. These include:

• Girls have restrictions on their entry and exit time.
• The infrastructure needs to be improved and the faculty needs to be more proficient in languages.
• The lab equipment is obsolete and not enough attention is given to lab sessions.
• The institute offers limited opportunities in terms of research and projects.
• The institute has an outdated syllabus that is delivered through old-school pedagogy.
• The examination date sheet and the results are not released on time.
• Students who are unable to clear any subject in the current year, have to reappear for it in the next year.
• The location of the institute plays a huge role in diminishing its reputation. Kurukshetra is not a city but a town with poor transport facilities, infrastructure, and no places to explore
• The marking patterns adopted by the professors are poorly designed. 
• The classroom sessions are monotonous and leave students disinterested in the particular course. The classrooms have poor facilities, such as no ventilation, projectors, and ACs. 
• The cultural fest is given more importance and receives more funds than the technical ones.

However, NIT Kurukshetra has more pros than cons so if you don’t have any other option, you can go for this institute and work hard to achieve your goals.

The three IIITs mentioned by you, namely IIIT Hyderabad, IIIT Delhi and IIIT Allahabad have no connection with one another. Only IIIT Allahabad is a member of a collective known as the IIITs.Out of the remaining two, IIIT Hyderabad stands for The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, and IIIT Delhi stands for Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi.

All these three are prestigious institutions and I would disagree that they are underrated. IIIT Hyderabad is very difficult to get into. It has high cutoffs which are at par with some of the top IITs. IIIT Hyderabad is considered as one of the best institutes to study CS. The same is evident through their CS placements, a number of entrants in GSoc, and their participation in competitive programming. As far as IIIT Delhi is concerned, the institution has grown tremendously in the past few years. It has cut offs comparable to NSIT and DTU. 

All these institutes are relatively new and have the tag of “Research Institutes” attached to them. These might be an obstacle to their fame. This is because in India, students choose those institutes that promise the best industrial career prospects and not the ones driven by research.

However, because these institutes are research-driven, the quality of their course content is top notch and they attract some of the best faculty. This also works to increase your overall development and opportunities in the industry. The popularity of these institutions is thus growing rapidly. 

Therefore, all three institutions are really good choices to pursue your higher studies.

The primary reason why BITS Pilani decided to follow the zero attendance rule was to imply that education cannot be forced and should be a result of individuals' own interests and passions. 

If someone is not willing to attend a particular class, he should be forced to do so because he will be attending it uninterested which defers the entire purpose of education. An uninterested student will affect the classroom ambiance and become a distraction for the faculty as well as interested individuals. 

Here are a few justified reasons why some students prefer skipping classes 

• Students at BITS Pilani are responsible for organizing huge events like OASIS, BOSM, and APOGEE (Pilani Campus) that require a lot of time commitment making it difficult to attend classes. 
• Additionally, some students are inclined towards research work rather than theoretical knowledge and thus prefer skipping classes. Forcing them to attend classes will hamper their development in the field of their interests. BITS Pilani believes in giving students the space to identify their interests and flourish within them. 
• Students also prefer skipping classes because the speed of teaching is slow in the class and they prefer going through their friends' notes instead of spending 50 minutes. 

BITS Pilani has come up with this policy because it believes that forced education might hamper one’s growth.