IIT Palakkad for your engineering academics

Located in Palakkad, Kerala, this IIT is one for the five new IITs proposed in the union budget. Right after its establishment, the demand for its courses soared sky high, which was one of the factors that drove me to apply for admission here. The cutoffs for this university is quite high for mechanical engineering taking in mind the demand for this particular course here. The cutoff stood at 15043 as the opening rank and 17649 as the closing rank for admissions in general category. For applying offline, one has to visit the department to collect the form and submit it after filling. However, online registration is much feasible and can be done quicker. One has to pay a refundable caution fee of Rs 2000. The form also contains other details like marks of SSC and HSC, participation in extra curriculars and sports and other cultural participations. After getting shortlisted, I got a counselling call from the college executive to explain me the campus protocols and the flow of my study.

The curriculum here for mechanical engineering is advanced and up to date with the current happenings and upgrades in the technology. Our curriculum involved short term and long term courses like Calculus, quantum physics, Organic and inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, computer programming, Linear algebra, Fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, engineering metallurgy, thermodynamics, economics, kinematics and dynamics of a machine, microprocessors, and automatic controls. We had a special manufacturing practice lab to get our hands easy on machine learning and artificial intelligence. The faculty here was extremely trained and held a Ph.D. in data science or engineering. We had continuous revision lectures to brush up on our curriculum and bi-weekly tests for staying up to date with the course. The faculty-student ratio was a decent rate of 6:1. This helped students get the undivided attention of the professors and learned faster at a better pace.

IIT Palakkad successfully bagged the highest package of INR 31.5 lakh and average package of INR 11.42 Lakh. 90% of the students were placed and the most of the remaining went on for higher studies. Recruiting companies from R&D, IT and analytics visited the institution. These companies included Arista Network, Google, TCS Research, Mckinsey, Honeywell, Texas instruments and Larson and Toubro. According to the placement data provided, it was observed that the people who did internships and live projects during their academic year of study were given a placement preference above those who missed out on these experiences. The second criteria was soft skills.

The ministry of minority affairs provided a scholarship to OBC students with 50% and above grade and a family income below 2.5 lakhs. Apart from them, students with disabilities with parental income less than 6 lakhs were provided national fellowships for Ph.D. SC students with family income below 8 lakhs were also awarded the scholarship and ST students with family income below 6 lakhs were provided a fee exemption. IIT Palakkad also sanctioned the MCM for students with family income less than 4.5 lakh with a fee exemption and a grant of rs 1000 per month for study supplies and other necessities.

The campus life at IIT Palakkad was very enjoyable in the memories of my experiences. The sports and recreational facilities at the campus were what made the experience worth studying. The campus was 55000 sq ft. with well-equipped classrooms, libraries, workshops, conference rooms, and a cafeteria. We had several clubs and societies to brush up on our inner creativity outside the engineering world. This involved the art and craft club, the literature club, sports club, poetry club, economics club, etc. Not only that we indulged in productive seminars like HSS Department colloquium, Fairness in machine learning, etc. We even had amazing cultural events like Carnatic vocal concerts, Hindustani flute recital, kathakali orientation, and tholpavakutthu- a form of shadow puppetry performed in Kerala.