A brief review of the student life at SASTRA University

The curriculum for biotechnology has a mixture of life sciences and industrial bioprocess subjects and the overall goal was to apply the concepts studied in the life sciences portion in engineering problems. There are also relevant electives offered for the same which offer more in-depth understanding. I would suggest no improvements for the teaching methodologies adopted in the university as they use both digital and chalkboard method to teach/lecture. There are 3 monthly cycle tests that are conducted before the semester examinations and the best of the 2 cycles test scores are considered for the internal score of a particular paper. The end semester carries 50% of the grade and the cycle tests and assignments carry the rest 50%.

Wells Fargo, fidelity, Amazon, PayPal and other companies offer Developer Roles for the internship with a guarenteed stipens of atleast 30 thousand. The topics include anywhere for financial analysis, web development, software development and other domain specific roles.

The students are eleigible to sit for placements from their 7th semester having a minimum CGPA of 6.5. Top companies like Wells Fargo, Freshworks, TCS, Zoho and other domain specific companies all visit the campus and offer upto 15LPA if the candidate is hired. The placement percentage is around 80%. My plans would be pursue PhD abroad upon the completion of my degree.

The tution fee is pretty affordable and there is only little hike throughout the course duration. The complete cost of education is around 4 to 7 lakhs depending upon the duration of course and if the student is a day scholar or hosteller. There are financial aids available, but I'm not sure about the names for it. It caters to students with a difficult financial or family background. The university also offers internships to people of selected departments like CSE, ECE, MECHANICAL which also guarantee a stipend if confirmed.

KURUKSASTRA and DAKSH are the annual cultural and technical fests. It happens in the even semesters, usually in the months of March and April. There are books catering to all disciplines and genres and the library subscribes to 500+ journals. There are sports festivals also held namely Colosseum where many colleges are invited. Also intra college cultural and technical fests Carpe Diem and Utsav are conducted in the months of October/November. There are several cultural, non cultural and co curricular clubs where students enthusiastically partake and take the club to newer heights. There is a well established gym for both boys and girls where in fitness enthusiasts can work out.

There are multiple hostel blocks having single rooms, double rooms and four in one rooms. There are single rooms/ 4 in 1which also have an attached bath facilities. The meals provided are vegetarian and it's pretty okay. The hostel registration takes place before the start of the academic year through the student portal. If taking PG, there are rooms near the campus or in Trichy or Thanjavur cities.

The admission process was purely merit based. It was either based on board exam score or scores in competitive exams like JEE. Having a 80 to 90% score in board and decent percentile in JEE will guarantee an acceptance in the university. There are also NRI admissions for Indians staying overseas. The admission process is very transparent and ranks the candidate according to the board marks or board marks + JEE score criteria, and is allowed to choose the best of the 2 ranks. There are also minimum 3 rounds of counselling for the same.

The faculty present at college are qualified both academically with the bare minimum qualification being a PhD in most cases. For example in Biotech there are around 100 professors for a batch strength of 500 to 600. They are very aproachable irrespective of the fact that it's either in the classrooms or in their cabins and more strikingly it's very nice to see them offer help in both academic and personal mentoring to the students. This makes the student feel at home away from home as well.