Trips to NITs for campus hiring

This year I participated in my company’s campus hiring program and as part of that I visited three campuses. I had always wanted to go for campus hiring and this year I got my chance. The campuses I visited are, NIT Warangal (near Hydrabad), NIT Suratkhal (near Mangalore) and Guindy College of Engineering, Chennai. It was a mixed experience, but one thing was common that the new crop is not so serious about programming. Some of the candidates were very good in data structures and other theoratical concepts, but in programming just average!

I got to know lot many other things and it was really fun to be there. The NITs, or National Institute of Technology are known as RECs or Regional Engineering Colleges earlier. Professor Venugopalan at NIT Warangal told me interesting history behind all this name change and all. In REC days, these colleges were goverened by State Governments and were in a pathetic conditions. It was evident from the look of NIT Warangal campus. It was looking like that building have never been painted or repaired ever since they were built, somewhere in 1950s. I was just taking a walk and passed through a building which looked like locked to me. When I got closer I realized that it was Deptt. of Electrical Engineering 🙂

Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi (in NDA era) gave this idea of making RECs as NITs. As part of this transformation, NITs would become autonomus bodies, just like IITs and will be funded by Centre. It was a good concept. As part of the execution, 12 directors were appointed for the first 12 converted NITs. But in our country, everything is politically driven. In the present government, Mr Arjun Singh (yes, the same reservation guy) didn’t like the idea. He threw out all the directors, and now most of the NITs are running without a director. Now, most of the colleges have funds but no person to lead the effort in making NITs as world class institutes like IIT.

I was most impressed by Professor Venugopalan at NIT Warangal. He organized the overall hiring program in an exceptional way. Deptt of Placement was very good and it displayed all the numbers. I was awed to see that last year NIT Warangal has generated as many as 708 offers. All the B.E./B.Tech. students got placed and only few M.Tech. student didn’t get the placement. This year, the story is even better. All the top companies were visiting the campus.

While arrangements were really cool at Warangal, it was opposite in NIT Suratkhal. Actually, it was opposite in many ways. The campus is nice. In fact, this is the only college in India which has its own private beach!!!  No kidding. This campus is 20 KMs from Mangalore. The road between Mangalore and Suratkhal is hell and it took us more than an hour to reach there. The students were nice, but placement coordinator was keen on talking about himself rather than students. No planning, no arrangements, nothing. While I was giving presentation, another company arrived and I was asked to finish early!!! I liked Mangalore as city and I think state govt. should put more efforts in developing it as big city. Infosys has a centre there. Mangalore, though small, is a very advanced town. At least two nationalized banks (Canara Bank and Corporation Bank) started from there. Karnatka Bank also started from there. This city has given lots of hoteliers as well. The beach was nice and I had lot of fun there. The city has lots of Ice Cream parlours and ‘Gadbad’ is famous ice cream from Ideal Icecream Parlour. Another famous thing I couldn’t try is Golli Bajji. I hope I will try it next year.

Chennai was no-event kind of experience.  

Overall, it was a nice experience and a good way to learn about the history and geaography of places. I am hoping that next year I will be visiting to new places.