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

IITs are well known for engineering, and the stream I was interested in (Engineering Design) was only being offered in IIT Madras. The course is a mix of mechanical and electrical engineering along with relevant product design courses. I also aimed at the Robotics specialization which is provided here after the 5th semester based on the students preferences and CGPA.

The course is relatively a new course, and was introduced in 2006. It is hence quite updated and offers specialisations in automotive design, biomedical design and robotics(the allocation for robotics is CGPA based). A lot of focus is given on labs. Another benchmark is a semester long 6 month industrial internship during the eighth semester which is mandatory for all the students of this branch (this is unique to the branch of engineering design). We have a lot of experienced and dedicated faculties. Prof T Asokan, Prof Srikanth Vedantam, Prof CS Shankar Ram, Prof. Kavitha Arunachalam, Prof M. Ramanathan, Prof G. Sarvana Kumar, Prof. R Jayganthan, Prof Tuhin Santra are amongst a few to name.

The placements are very good and are infact quite flexible. There are core mechanical (automotive, biomedical) companies, IT/software firms, ML profiles, Finance, Consulting firms coming to hire. However, as compared to the non core profiles, there are relatively few number of core profiles coming. Most students here prefer for non core profiles or opt for further studies abroad,or go for research/start ups. Our department alumni have so far produced two major startups : Ather Energy (electric vehicles) and Ghost Vision (augmented reality). The entrepreneurship cell constantly fosters a lot of start ups and have the Nirmaan dedicated for it. E-Plane is also another notable IIT-M startup. A lot of start ups are being incubated in Research park and Nirmaan.

Two major fests : the tech fest (Shaastra) and the cultural fest (Saarang) which take place on a grand level. Saarang holds the name for the largest student run fest in Asia, with about a team of 100-150+ students working throughout the year for successful organization of the fest. A lot of people visit the fest and there are numerous celebrities and well known speakers being called for the fests. Along with this, various departments have their own department fests annually. The entrepreneurship cell annually hosts the E-Summit, with various competitions, seminars in order to promote entrepreneurship. The International and Alumni Relations student council conducts a lot of events throughout the year. One of them is the Sangam, a huge grand event. Various speakers are called and a lot of people as well as IIT M alumni attend the day long event. Coming to extracurriculars, there are various clubs, for example the music, fine arts, oratory, media clubs, etc who conduct events and competitions throughout the year. There is also LitSoc and TechSoc which are inter-hostel competitions in which a lot of students participate with much enthusiasm to represent and lead their hostels. Each hostel on campus has their own hostel night once a year. Institute Ethnic Day is celebrated once a year, along with each department having its own ethnic day. various events are conducted on this day. Diwali, holi, onam, ganesh chaturthi are also celebrated on campus.

A lot of loan schemes are provided to IITians. A lot of banks provide schemes. These banks usually send officials on the day of admission who interact with parents regarding he same. One facility I am aware of is the loan provided by SBI. This loan in interest free.

The campus has a lot of sports facilities. The gym, various grounds, Students' activity center, badminton courts, swimming pool, cricket ground to name a few. We have a very good WiFi speed, a stable institute network. The library is huge with the ground floor+ 4 floors, with lots of different books and can accommodate a lot of students. Being a Centrally Funded Institute, the labs are equipped with a lot of costly equipments, there are numerous labs in all the departments where a lot of research work is going on. There is a lot of technical staff in these labs. IIT Madras is infact known to be one of the best institutes in our country as far as labs and research is concerned. The college also has a research park with various incubated start ups.

Most of the hostels are pretty old ( the college was established in 1959) and hence are not really elegant. However, we are provided with almost all the basic facilities. There are single, double and triple sharing rooms. For freshers hostels, it is mostly double sharing rooms. Most of the boys hostels have their own grounds. Each hostel has a common room and a music room. Basic sports equipment are kept in each hostel. Some hostels have a vending machine. The amount of facilities in the hostels depends on the student-elected hostel secretaries who then plan the budget. For example, some hostels have a projector and bean bags and some games in the common room for leisure time, while some don't.