A Second Home.

My college life was amazing. One of the reasons for it was the behavior of the teaching staff and the principal etc. They were always well behaved and never took advantage of their power position and even though they had favorites, they didn't completely shun the others like us. The management and administration however was awful. Even though it's a private organisation, the administration is worse than a government facility. They enjoy delaying and create an uncertain environment which causes students quite a bit of harassment.

I had a rank of 16331 on the WBJEE and Netaji Subhash Engineering College was among the best private engineering colleges in West Bengal. It was 4th among my choices but in any case I never thought that I could make it here because my rank was quite high. However after the 3rd round of e-counselling I got the subject of my choice here, in NSEC.

NSEC is a college under Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology and it had the exact same course curriculum as every other college under MAKAUT. Our college is currently trying to obtain accreditation from NBA and hence research opportunities are limited. But if a student is dedicated, then the departments make sure that they get a chance to do the work they want to do.

The college as such doesn't provide internships. The departments have to arrange for them. Our department did arrange for internship opportunities and only those students who worked hard enough for them, got them. One of those internships also gave placement to the better interns.

The placement scenario has drastically improved since 2015. Almost over 90% of the students in my department got placed from our batch. The highest pay package that anyone from our year got was 6LPA. But everyone else from our department who got placed had a minimum package of 2LPA probably.

Our tech-fest, Avenir, is among the most reputed ones in the city. It has huge turnover every year. Our cultural fest, Mesmerizer, has never really had much of a mesmerizing effect though. Alumni meets, teachers day, departmental picnics and farewells are organized by respective departments. Last year we also had a few events under the Google Students Ambassador program.

The fee structure of our college is feasible than most other private colleges. For every semester we had to dish out 35,000-40,000. Apart from that there were the exam fees, registration fees. It also had the tuition fee waiver scheme for students who were under financial stress.

I do not know of anything as such offered by the college. Although some of the toppers might have got some extra perks. But I couldn't say for sure because I'm nowhere near being a topper.

Admission to B-Tech courses in West Bengal is on the basis of rank. SC/ST and OBC people do get an unhealthy level of advantage. But there's no gender discrimination. In most departments girls are fewer than boys but that is only because there were fewer female applicants than male and there are no other reason. But once we're students we are all treated as equals no matter what and get equal opportunities and the only basis on which we get different treatments is based on who is a better student and who isn't. There are forums for robotics, photography, coding etc. We have a cricket and football team. I won at debate once. And there are various other opportunities for extra curricular work.

I lived at home throughout the four years of college and hence do not have any insight on the hostel or mess facilities in the college. All I can say is that in general the mess and PGs in Kolkata try to fit as many people as they can in tiny spaces and hence they fill rooms with beds. And the food served in most mess is bad.

I believe that I was a very helpful senior. Our campus is mostly ragging free and that was a disadvantage. Since the ragging laws are so strict, I didn't get a chance to interact with my seniors in my first year at all. And towards the end of first year it was too late because I'm shy and I was never able to approach any of them ever. However, that's on me. The seniors in general were approachable and helpful both in and out of college.

Nobody likes exams. They are always a headache. Personally I hated appearing for the vivas as they brought my marks down. The exams were common department wise for every college under MAKAUT. The students from other colleges often said how they could easily cheat in the exams. That was something I found was almost impossible to do at my college, especially in our department.

It's not my place to discuss qualifications of my teachers. What I do know is that they are passionate about their subjects. I for one happen to be among those students who never studied. But my teachers have always encouraged me to approach them if I needed any kind of doubt clearing. They are good teachers who are their for their students.