My Experience at VCACS, all you NEED to know!

I chose this course solely because of the exposure I was getting with respect the porgramming language, Java. Every since 8th Standard, I have been in love with Java and it is the only thing that tempted me strongly towards optiong for this course. Other aspects were the subjects which are the base for Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning, which are Data Science, Data Analytics and Python, since AI seems to be the new future. The curriculum is theoretically very great, but practically is falls short a little, that gap is expected to be filled by doing relevant extracurricular courses or internships, so that is my inference, it is great theoretically, but falls short a little, practically. The course could improve it's coding knowledge and actually have better coding practices to make sure the students become great, if not perfect, in coding, since at the end of the day, the recuiters look out for coding skills more than the theoretical skills. The teaching methods and methodology does not need any improvement, it is necesarrily adequate. The frequency of exams are once every 6 months, that is the duration for a semester. The first 4 months are full of lectures and practicals and the internal examinations are conducted during this same time, the 5th month usually has the practical examination and finally the 6th month has the semester examination, all of these take place at SSPU's discretion. The exam timings were off by 2 months back when I was studying in the college due to Covid, but now I am sure they are held timely and punctually. The difficulty level of the exams overall, is moderate to hard, but this should not bother a well prepared student.

The students usually become eligible for employement from Second Year or Semesters 3 and 4 of the course, for the position of "trainee" in various companies, both campus placement and self applications. Due to covid and a global slowdown during my time, there were not many companies that came to the college for offering placements, and those who did come, hired about 20 students overall. Rest of the stuents either were rejected or did not apply since they had future endeavours planned, like Post-Graduate studies etc, or simply the did not apply. The highest package offered, which I know of, was 4,50,000 LPA which was great for a start as a fresher. The percentage is tricky to put since it is open for everyone but it is on the discretion of the students who are willing to apply for the placements. So over all the situation was pretty grim regarding placements. To improve the situation, there is a placement cell in the college which is spearheaded by Mrs Ajum Patel, who is the placement head / officer. The placement cell has a Whatsapp group on which they regularyly post jobs which come their way. Besides the students themselves become so competent that they tend to hunt for jobs themselves, for their desired postion and package, so overall the placement situation is well sorted. I persoanlly did not opt for placements because my plans post degree was to appear for the civil services examinations by taking a year gap, and that time has already passed, righ now I am a Post Graduate student.

The fees for my course was 47000 per year. This sum of 47000 consisted of almost everything like the tuition fees, lab fees, etc. The Lion's share of the 47000 per year went to the tuition fees, naturally. There was a difference between the fees charged to students who are from other states. The students who are domiciled in other states har to pay a slightly higer fees, which was around 50000. As far as i can reckon, there were no other category students during my batch, but I believe the that there might be some difference in the fee structre for different category students. The students are also required to pay for the assignment sheets and files which is important for the curriculum, and they need to pay it separately, they cost around 1000-2000. Other than that, students require to pay the exam fees for the semester exams conduted by SPPU, which is paid in the college, and the fees ranges from 1500-2800. The exams fees might see an increase if a student has backlogs. There are scholarships available in the college, however, neither I nor, as much as I remember, any of my classmates availed the scholarships, so I do not know much about them, but I believe that the college does have scholarships.

The annual fest is known as "VishwaCarnival" and it is exclusively organised by the student council. Students themselves volunteer to take part in the preparations for the fest, and they make sure to have a blast and a pomp regardless of the budget the college allots them. This annual fest lasts for 4-5 days and is typically held during the summer months, keeping in mind that all the students have either finished their exams or their exams are taking place much later than the actual fest timing, which is thoughtful with respect to studies for students. There are other events like teachers day, women's day celebration etc, which take place the year round and are held with great interest. The library, aptly named as "Dyansagar", is a treasure trove of books, it is well equipped with all sorts of books, both academic and non academic. A student can find all course relevant books, the library also has journal, magazines and foreign language books, they also keep newspapers. The classrooms are spacious and smart ( they are equipped with projectors connected to laptops and other PCs ) and the laboratoies of Electronics and Computers are well equipped with all the necessary equipment, and not tot mention, the Labs are air-conditioned for the comfort of the students. The college has a dedicated sports department and room and it hold regular sporting events too, and those students who wish to represent the college at university or inter-college cporting events, can get help from this department. As far as I can reckon, there is no social group in the college, however recently the college has it's own, exclusive and student run club which the popular Google Developer Students Club or GDSC which is a boon for students who are aspirational developers, and of course, it is powered by none other than the tech giant and a favourite of all, Google!

I had applied to two colleges in total, namely Vishwakarma College of Arts, Commerce and Science and Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT, Pune).I was accepted in both the colleges, with me actually clearing the entrance exam and the interview round (which lasted for 5 minutes) for MIT. Eventually, I chose Vishwakarma College of Arts, Commerce and Science over MIT, because of three very essential reasons. First reason being VCACS is affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University which is ranked third in all of India, and MIT is a deemed and autonomous University which tend to have an impact when applying for jobs(personal opinion). Second factor was the distance, MIT was close to 10 kms from my place, while VCACS was just over 5kms, making it affordable and easy for me to commute to and fro the establishment. Lastly, the third reason was the fees, MIT had a yearly fees of 1,50,000, that makes it 4,50,000 for the entire course, while VCACS had the yearly fees of 47,000 per year which adds up to around 1,50,000 for the entire course, which made it clearly evident that the fees of MIT was high since I could get the same course, with same content for a better price, "better" is putting it mildly, I literally got the entire course at VCACS for the worth of one year's fees of MIT. I was never rejected from any other college, nor did I apply to any more colleges. The admission process was pretty simple in the college, just meet the teachers who consult you about the curriculum and also make you go through each step of the enquiry. Once you are positive about taking the admission, the process takes just one day to complete, provided you have gotten all the necessary documents and one installment of the fees. The teachers and other faculties (non-teaching) are very helpful and cooperative and guide you throughout the admission process.The admission experience, is simply unmatched, it just takes one day to get fully registered to the college. There were no exams for this.

The faculty to student ratio was great, about what one would normally expect, I am not able to put it into numbers, but there are enough faculties for all subjects, sometimes even more than 2 for a subject. Some faculties I liked are Professor Mrs Swati Poojari,Asst. Professors Mrs Prajakta Patil, Mrs Poonam Chavan, Ms Prajakta Lodha and Professor Dr. Sudhir Chitnis. I like them and consider them the best because they are very knowledgable, approachable, friendly in nature and are overall outstanding teachers. There were no faculties that I remember not liking, almost everyone was great there. The faculty to student relationship in this college is well-balanced and great. The faculty makes sure that the students are well informed about necessary events, exams and the like, they also make sure that students are preparing for all the exams well, and they provide whatever material is needed by the student. They are friendly and empathetic towards the students, and strict too when needed. As I have mentioned before, well-balanced. There are three types of exams in the BSc Computer Science program, first is the internal examinations which are easy to moderate in difficulty, second is the practical examination, which is moderate to hard in difficulty and lastly the semester exams of the SPPU, which are also moderate to hard in difficulty. But I am of the opinion that the level of difficulty one student may come across is solely based on the level of their preparedness. For practicals there would be usully 1 or 2 students who did not clear the exam because of absence and I remember alot of students having backlogs in the Final Year, Final Semester exams as there were tough subjects like Compiler Construction and Java, but with time they cleared it. The course curriculum is very relevant for what we are expecting from it, it consists of everything, from hardware to software, every single thing, not to mention the number of coding languages one learns during the curriculum.

I am not really aware of any nightlife whatsoever, but the college is open till about 8 in the evening and it is pretty different from day as, somehow, it is more vibrant, I experienced this during the annual fest "VishwaCarnival". There is no Hostel in the campus, but one can find plenty of hostels in the vicinty of the area surrounding the campus. I believe the campus timigs are from morning 6 till night 9 (open and close) but majority of the schedule of students lasts till only 6 in the evening. There is an exclusive and well equipped and privately run canteen at the right left side of the college and it has all kinds of foods and freshly cooked meals. There are a number of temples for hangout places around the campus like Swami Narayan Temple and ISCKON Kondhwa, other than that we have Katraj Ghat but one must proceed with caution. The college is not residential and hence there are no opinion from me with respect to places being safe to roam at night.