The best private engineering college in west bengal.

Overall, I liked the way the college management worked hard to maintain the quality of academic activities. However, I do feel that they sometimes went overboard with enforcing school-like discipline, which took the fun out of college life.

I took the WB-JEE exam in 2006, and secured a rank of 1748 within the state. I always had a fascination for Computer Science since childhood, and as IEM was the best ranked college in the state in which I could get admission in CSE branch on the basis of my WB-JEE rank, I naturally opted for it, despite having the option of choosing other (lower ranked) engineering streams in Jadavpur University. Once I made my choice, my seat was confirmed by the IEM administration without any separate exam/interview.

As with all the other private engineering colleges in the state of West Bengal, IEM is affiliated to the West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT), and hence follows the the course curriculum designed by them. According to this curriculum, the papers in the first year are common to all the different engineering streams, and then specialization takes place from second year onwards. The typical course load is around 5-7 papers per semester, with there being usually 3-4 theory papers and 2-3 lab papers. While most of the course structure is rigid, the student does get to choose one elective paper each during their seventh and eighth semesters. In addition, the student is also expected to complete an industrial internship during the summer break at the end of the third year. Moreover, every student is required to submit a dissertation based on a research project in his/her final year. Overall, the curriculum is relatively well-designed, though it lacks flexibility.

Due to the strong alumni network, IEM does provide pretty good industrial internships to its students during the summer/winter break. Some of the leading companies from which IEM students get internship offers include TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, Accenture, Wipro, HP etc. The stipend offered typically varies between Rs.3000-25000 per month.

IEM maintains excellent relationships with all the major software companies such as TCS, IBM, Cognizant, Wipro, Infosys etc. These relations are further strengthened by its strategic location (right in the middle of the IT hub), and its vibrant alumni network. As a result, IEM achieves nearly flawless placement records every year, with almost 100% of its students getting placed via on-campus interviews. The only year in which these figures took a hit was during the massive recession faced by the IT industry during the year 2009, but it as back to normal the very next year.

During my stint as a student (2006-2010), IEM used to conduct a bi-annual technical festival, but it had no cultural festival of its own, which was a huge letdown. However, things have improved significantly over the last few years, and nowadays IEM conducts both its own technical as well as cultural festival every year. The technical festival, named INNOVACION, has steadily grown in scale over the years, and it has students participating from all the major engineering colleges in and around Kolkata.

As one would expect from a privately run engineering college without any funding aids from the state, the fee structure was pretty much on the higher side, with the fee per semester being around Rs.42000 during my stint from 2006-2010. While this amount seems massive compared to government run engineering colleges (such as Jadavpur University), it is comparable to the fee structure of any other private engineering college in West Bengal.

I wasn't aware of any such scholarship / loan facilities, and I believe that no such schemes existed (at least during my time as a student).

The campus was really small, and due to the strict discipline enforced by the authorities, there wasn't much 'campus life' to write home about. The gender ratio wasn't that great either, with only about 25% of the population being females. As you would expect with any college in Kolkata, Bengalis made up the bulk of the population, and most of the remaining population was from the neighbouring state of Bihar. In terms of religious diversity, there were people from most of the major religions (Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs), but Hindus constituted about 95% of the total population. There was also a fair amount of diversity in the economic background of the students, with there being roughly a Normal distribution over family income. Overall, it was a pretty cosmopolitan environment with students of various ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, and political beliefs co-existing in perfect harmony. Extracurricular activities were pretty limited to be honest (though I've heard they've picked up in recent times), and sports opportunities were almost non-existent. However, the college did have a very vibrant robotics club, and a highly active community of competitive coders (of which I myself was a part of), who regularly used to win several accolades for IEM at national level techfests all across India. A large number of workshops on robotics used to be organized throughout the year. During my time as a student, a drive was launched to get the students interested in entrepreneurial activities, and such activities have grown tremendously over the last few years. Finally, one event we really looked forward to were the movie screenings in the college auditorium, which used to happen about twice a month.

Being a resident of Kolkata myself, I was never a residential student at IEM, and therefore, I do not have first-hand experience of the hostel facilities and/or mess food. The college did not really have too many hostel rooms of its own actually, and many of my batchmates used to stay in PG accommodation which they had arranged themselves. From what I gathered from the few of my friends who did avail the college hostel, the facilities were just about decent. Moreover, the hostel rentals were reasonable enough to cater to students from lower-middle income families.

The alumni network of IEM is really strong! We have alumni placed in prominent positions in software companies, who pave the way for a lot of industrial exposure for the current students through industry visits and internships, which later translate into job opportunities. Some of the alumni have also risen to prominence in the world of academia and hold research positions at some of the top universities around the world. Most of the alumni are extremely helpful, and they frequently spare time to visit their alma mater in order to interact and groom the current crop of students. Personally, I am quite indebted to a senior who gave us invaluable guidance in microcontroller coding for building robotics.

As mentioned earlier, the curriculum followed by IEM was that of the West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT). For each theory paper, 30% of the marks were reserved for internal assessment, which was done primarily on the basis of 2 mid-term exams during the semester, whereas 70% of the marks were allocated for the final exam conducted by WBUT. For a lab paper, the overall assessment was done partly on the basis of regular lab assignments, and partly on the basis of the laboratory exam conducted internally at the end of the semester. Overall, it was pretty chilled out for us, since marks were awarded quite generously in the internal assessment, and so most of us did not really bother to study for the mid-semester exams.

Once the WB-JEE results were declared, the rank holders were called for counselling over several days (in order of their ranks). When my turn came for counselling, I was told what are the options available to me in terms of remaining seats in different branches at all the engineering institutes in the state of West Bengal. So, looking at my options, I saw that IEM was the best-ranked (by common consensus) engineering college which still had seats available in CSE branch, and as I have always had a fascination for CSE since my childhood, it was a straightforward decision for me to opt for CSE in IEM, despite having the option of joining other engineering streams in Jadavpur University. Once the choice was made, the rest of the admission process was quite smooth, and my seat was confirmed once the admission fees were deposited via Indian Overseas Bank.

While the faculty of IEM are nowhere near to the faculty at elite engineering institutes such as IITs in terms of knowledge, background or teaching ability, I must say that they are probably better than the faculty at most other private engineering colleges in West Bengal. What they lack in terms of knowledge, the faculty often make up in terms of enthusiasm and a friendly attitude. As you would expect in any private college whose aim is to make profit, most of the faculty are overburdened with too many classes, but they still try to give their very best in each class. While most of the faculty are quite average in terms of their knowledge and/or teaching ability, a handful (about 4-5) of them really stand out. During my time, I have personally had many fruitful interactions with these 4-5 teachers outside of the classroom as well, which helped me a lot to delve into the subjects further and ultimately do well in GATE exam.