India's First and Still the Best: IIT KGP

The course has been designed keeping in mind that people would like to explore other fields and hence in a few semesters one can choose his favourite courses offered by other departments. The course is well designed with a huge focus on Materials Sciences which is a very relevant field of research of this day. Labs are equiped with highly expensive and imported equipments which enable in depth research over various topics. The syllabus is ever changing and always adapts to new advances in technology although a few professors might not be very keen on onboarding new tech.

A lot of companies come around for internship on campus which include all the big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. So if you are planning to get into tech you have a huge opportunity out there the only condition being that you should gain enough skills to clear there assessments. Tech is not the only role offered by companies coming to our campus. IIT Kharagpur has always hosted all roles i.e. consulting(BCG, McKinsey,etc.), finance(JPMC, MS, etc.) and of course not forgetting the core roles.

If you have opted for a 4 year B.Tech. course the placement season commences in your 7th semester and if you opted for a 5 year dual degree program it would begin in the 9th semester. As of 2024, most of the profiles offered by companies were related to either software development or data analytics. With a total of more than 200+ companies, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung and almost all the big tech companies you might've heard of, the average package offered was around 17lpa with the highest going around 2.4cr. Almost all of the students get placed by the end of phase 2 of placements which means that even if you have made a decent effort towards your placement, you will have a job before you graduate.

The annual fee for general category is around 280000 per annum which includes 80000 for mess and hostel charges. Although, this might seem to be quite a significant amount, there exist scholarship for economically weaker sections and underprivilleged students which have mainly certain income criteria. If you qualify for a scholarship your fees can by half and if not, you can avil for educational loans at lower interest rates wherein the interest amount for the course duration will be paid by the government.

Every year two fests are conducted on campus namely Kshitij, a tech fest, and Spring fest, a cultural one. Both are held almost one after the other around January mid to January end, both being a very grand expereience for anyone and students flocking from all over India. With respect to books available in the central library, each book has multiple copies and at least one copy of a certain book is always present there although now people have shifted to online means. IIT Kharagpur has every kind of sports ground you can think of which is well maintained and accessible to all. There are numerous students run societies, social groups and research groups wherein one can socialize, make new friends, meet like minded people and learn from each other. I believe it is very essential for one to be part of at least one society/goup to get exposure to new people and get a flavour of a variety of things before they choose their career paths.

As a fresher you will most likely get a triple sharing room in one of the new halls after which you will most likely be shifted to double or single rooms at some of the old halls. New halls even offer centralised ACs now. The menu varies from hall to hall but is almost always boring and being in Bengal you couls overhemlmed by the sheer amount of potatoes you might encounter in your dish. You can always go around the campus and eat around almost anything you want for a change for a reasonable rate.

Although I wished for getting admission into IIT Bombay because of its proximity with my hometown, i was not getiing a desired course at the said college. When cnsultexd with other seniors with respect to placements and extra curiccular activities of the reamaining top 5 IITs, i found IIT Kharagpur to be suited to my choices. Also, i wanted only a 4 year course which meant that I wouldnt be able to choose the same course from other IITs considering previous years data.

THe course structure is well defined and can be found on the official college website. The course has been designed such that you have enough time to explore and lear about other disciplines as well. There are plenty of courses taught along with their corresponding professors. Most of the professors are very friendly and approachable but sometimes a few can be grumpy because of your low attendance or inattentivity in the classes. A few professors are old school and do not like one pursuing other career goals than core but most are understanding and helpful. Overall one can score well in the exams if they are regular to classes but for a few courses extra effort is required. More than 90% of the students never fail a subject. Special thanks to Prof. Manas and Prof. Sankha who supported my batch as faculty advisors through thick and thin.

The campus is a very safe place to live and isolated from all the pollution of the metro cities. You are free to roam around the campus with your friends at any odd hour and there would be no one except the dogs howling who could possibly even scare you. You can always go for a round of "2.2" at 3 am for a nice walk in the dark with your friends or visite the haunted house near the professors dwelling for some gooosebumps.