"The BIT Tale"

The college management of my college, I feel, acts a bit too strict at times, but also in welfare of the students in a longer run. For example, classes are a regularity and students not adhering to the minimum attendance criteria are penalized. The only thing I find here not up to the mark is lack of opportunities for research and development, which is a major problem for almost all of the premier institutes in our country. Apart from that, it's a fine place to groom yourself for the future ventures.

I got admitted to this college through JEE Mains examination, conducted by CBSE. Other examinations I had appeared in were JEE Advanced, BITSAT, WBJEE & BCECE. My score in JEE Mains was 147 and after considering the 12th grade marks into account, my rank reached 38,538. Now, I had very few options left in my bag, as far as the branches in any NIT or reputed GFTIs are concerned. Branchwise, I preferred Mechanical Engineering, as I had knack for learning about machines and enhance my visualization skills. Also, I didn't want to compromise with the college. Thus, I went for Production Engineering in BIT Mesra, which helped me keep my both points of interest alive, as Production is considered as Mechanical's sister branch, having a lot in common. And needless to mention, BIT, Mesra carries a pretty good reputation all. around.

The course structure here, is quite intact and precise as far the standardization of syllabus is concerned. In the first year though, one subject related to every department was made to study, which proved to be a bit annoying to me. Third semester onward though, things started falling into place and we got to study things we were going to have specialization in. A language subject was still there, in our case, German, but as far as our specialization is concerned, it may prove to be handy as most of the automobile companies and industries are German based. As of now, we have five theory papers (which includes one breadth paper too, Project Engineering, in my case) and three lab sessionals. We have not been introduced to any elective till now, which hopefully will initiate from the next semester. The syllabus of almost every branch is quite similar to that of GATE, which is an examination for the Masters' degree in reputed institutions of India and abroad. As far as the research field is concerned, the course structure has become a bit obsolete in my opinion and by and by, some modern concepts and techniques should be incorporated so that the students feel more instigated towards the research area.

Yes, indeed. In fact, one of the best companies do come and offer internship opportunities here. For example, this year itself top notch companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, DirectI, Walmart Labs, Smartprix, Tata Steel etc. visited our campus for providing internships to the 3rd year students. That too, with handsome stipends as much as 45,000 in Microsoft, 35000 in Goldman Sachs, 35-40k in Amazon, 75,000 in Directi to name a few and rest others ranging in between 20000-40000. Not only that, if worked seriously in the internship, Pre Placement offers (PPOs)The But, the case is not the same for the students of non-circuital branches, viz. Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, Production etc. 90% of the internship opportunities are provided to the students of circuital branches, i.e. Computer Science, Information Technology, Electronics & Communication etc. The reason probably being the higher demand rate of skilled employees in these areas. But this is a field in which the administration should ponder upon.

Placements opportunities also follow the same trend as that of the internships. The students from the circuital branches are offered way higher packages as compared to the non-circuital branch students. Although, a lot of consultancy companies also do visit the campus for placements, which are less branch-specific and also provide mediocre packages, just enhancing the placement percentage to a large extent. Also, a few core companies also do visit the campus for recruitment. A few companies that have visited are mentioned below (with packages mentioned alongside): Directi (26 lpa) Amazon (16 lpa) Arcesium (16 lpa) Goldman Sachs (13 lpa) Kronos Incorporated (9.18 lpa) Freescale Semiconductors (10.2 lpa) Grey Orange Industries (10 lpa) Make My Trip (9+1 lpa) Future First (9.2 lpa) Tata Steel (8.5 lpa) Axis Bank (8.2 lpa) Maruti Suzuki (7.2 lpa) ZS Associates (6.8 lpa) EXL (6.5 lpa) Vedanta (6.5 lpa) Accenture (6.05 lpa) Hero MotoCorp (6 lpa) Stelium (6 lpa) PWC (6 lpa) Capgemini (6 lpa) Exide Industries (6 lpa) NBC Bearings (5.8 lpa) MuSigma (4.5 lpa) Infosys (3.25 lpa), and a few more.

There are a plethora of events going on in the college throughout the semesters. The biggest extravaganza is BITOTSAV, the annual cultural fest of BIT, Mesra. It involves a large number of fun events, competitions and power-packed nights with stars coming to the college and performing. It involves a large scale participation, not only from our college, but also students from other colleges come and showcase their talents. Other major event here is PANTHEON, the annual technical . These fests too, see much enthusiasm and excitement among the students, through their large-scale participation. Apart from these, there are many events organised by respective clubs in the college. Some of them include DHWANI, the annual music fest; VAJRA, the annual sports fest; ROSTRA, the annual literary fest; DRAMZEST, the annual dramatics competition etc. All of these fests too have participation from both inside and outside the college and lucrative cash prizes are given too to the deserving ones. For example, the winners in MUN event in ROSTRA are awarded with handy internships in reputed organisations. Also, events like LIVE JAM, DRAMA NIGHT, LIT NIGHT to name a few, play a vital role in keeping the atmosphere of the campus quite lively and enjoyable too.

The fee structure of BIT is expensive enough as this being a Government Funded Technical Institute (GFTI) and not a fully Government college. The entire fee including the hostel fee amounts to 8.68 lac for all four years and after considering the mess fee, the figure reaches as high as 10.44 lac. This figure is obviously, not feasible enough for even a middle-class family which compels students to borrow hefty loans.

Scholarships are a hard nut to crack here, if you belong from General category well-to-do family. The only scholarship that the college provides is the GP Birla Scholarship on the basis of performance in the semester examinations. But here also, only those General category candidates can avail this opportunity, whose annual family income is lesser than 3 lac. Apart from this, there is no provision of scholarships provided to the General candidates. If anyone wants to borrow loan, he/she can do so through the bank situated in the college campus itself with a decent interest rate of 10.30%.

The overall aura of the college here is just too good for a college to be. The campus life is full of too much of hustle and involvement. Be it the fests, club events, festival celebrations or the competitions, the ambience is very interesting here. The gender ratio is in accordance with the general trend observed for a technical institute, i.e. around 3:1 (boys:girls). It's very different here if we talk about the student councils or student bodies, as in other colleges. Here, we don't have any such student bodies or councils. There are as many as 25 technical as well as cultural clubs at BIT, Mersa, based on robotics, racing cars, off road cars, music, drama, literature etc. and every single one of them is a great learning hub. Important requisites for a complete personality can be imported among the students by being an active member of these clubs. In other words, it's these clubs which make the students feel live and at the same time enable them to have some really good learning experiences. Talking about the diversity, students here come from almost every nook of India and from all types of religion, caste and creed. All of us maintain a quite healthy environment here and live together quite happily irrespective of anyone's religion, race or caste. Yes, you won't find students from economically backward state in large numbers, the reason being the sufficiently high fee structure.

The hostel facilities aren't that good in accordance with the fee that the hostel charges and also, if compared with the institutes having same fee as ours. A few basic problems persist, such as- unavailability of electricity at times for long hours (specially in summers), too old buildings leading to accumulation of dirt in shorter periods to name a few. Coming to the mess food, the standards are pretty high here. Generally, hostels in colleges have a pretty bad reputation in the food department, but here, there isn't enough to complain about. The menu keeps changing from time to time as per the requirement and some really delicious food is provided o special occasions. The taste is also above average, I would say, keeping in mind the large number of people the staff cooks for.

This is again, one of the best things in BIT, Mesra that makes its different from other places. Here, the seniors instead of ragging and harassing the students unnecessarily, are very warm and helpful in behavior. Probably, the strict administration has also an important role to play here as any case of ragging or any sort of torture is not accepted and stringent actions are taken to abstain it. BIT, Mesra has an excellent alumni network, as this being one of the oldest and premier technical institutes of our country. A few of the notable alumni passed out from here are: Arup Roy Choudhury, Chairman & managing director at National Thermal Power Corporation; S.N Agarwal, Chairman at Bhoruka Group; Alok R. Chaturvedi, Professor, Purdue eBusiness Research Centre, Krannert School of Management, Purdue University; Deven Sharma, Executive Vice President Standard & Poor's, a Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies; Karan Bajaj, author of Keep off the Grass, Johny Gone Down M. Chandra Dathan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Sanjeeva Kumar Singh, recipient of Arjuna Award (1992) and Dronacharya Award (2007) in archery Shree K. Nayar, T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science, Columbia University; Hemant Soren, former chief minister of Jharkhand.

The examinations held here are quite straight forward in itself without much of unnecessary burden on students. Every semester has two examinations involved, the Midsems and the Endsems. Midsems carry 25 whereas the endsems carry 60 marks assigned with themselves for every subject, which totals to 85. The rest 15 marks is with the professors and it's upon his/her will, whether to give a class test or an assignment. As far as the labs are considered, every semester comprises of 3 lab sessional subjects which have a sessional per week, which either isn't hectic at all. The daily schedule stretches from 8 am to 5 pm, although sufficient gaps are provided in between. Overall, the normally the class schedules are not that hectic and students get sufficient amount of time to study and involved themselves in non-academic stuff as well.

The admission process for BIT Mesra is the same as for any NIT as of now. As in, you need to appear for the JEE Mains exam and after the a few days of All India Ranks being out, you need to go through the counselling process, where you fill in your choices of branches in respective colleges in the order of your will to study a particular branch in a particular college. In my case, I had opted for a lot of options seeing the last couple of years' trend of opening and closing ranks, as I didn't want to miss out any opportunity, but of course all of them were the ones I wanted to pursue. After the counselling results were out, I was notified that I had got a seat in Production Engineering, BIT Mesra. It felt really really great as I knew this could be a nice platform for me to achieve new heights and obviously, a great opportunity to learn a lot. After the counselling got over, I reported at the college for admission in a couple of days. The admission process here, was unfortunately, not the way any reputed institute would have. It took an entire day to just fill up a form and get the documents verified. The account section was quick though, as the admission fee submission work was over quickly. By evening, I got my roll no., hostel and other details allotted and finally, I was a student of Production Engineering, BIT Mesra.

Most of the times, it turns out to be a very vague argument that the quality of faculty of a particular institution is qualified and knowledgeable. But here at BIT, Mesra, it's an area in which the college stands fairly well. Almost all of them have been a part of the premier technical institutes in India. Also, the professors here have a large number of research papers under their belt, a few having published as many as 100 odd research papers. Rightly so, the academic environment build up by the faculty is pretty sound. They feel free to devote time on students, even personally, if the students reach up to them for help, be it any project stuff or regarding the semester subject doubts. So, I really feel the faculty here is up to the mark.