National Institute of Technology Karnataka
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National Institute of Technology Karnataka |
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| Motto | Work is Worship |
| Established | 1960 as The Karnataka Regional Engineering College, Surathkal |
| Type | Centre for Education and Research |
| Chairman | Dr. Goverdan Mehta |
| Director | Dr. Sandeep Sancheti |
| Undergraduates | 1,900 |
| Postgraduates | 490 |
| Location | Surathkal, Karnataka, India |
| Campus | Rural, 295 acres |
| Surroundings | Arabian Sea and Western Ghats |
| Colors | Blue |
| Website | http://www.nitk.ac.in |
The National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, popularly known as KREC, is a premier autonomous university along the western shores of India. It was founded in July 1960, as a joint venture between the Government of Karnataka and the Government of India, originally under the name Karnataka Regional Engineering College, Surathkal (KREC).
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[edit] History
Karnataka Regional Engineering College began in 1960, through the efforts of U. Srinivas Mallya and V.S.Kudva. The foundation stone was laid on August 6, 1960. KREC began with three under-graduate courses in engineering: Mechanical, Electrical , and Civil, with affiliation to the University of Mysore. 1965 saw the beginning of undergraduate courses in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering.
In 1966, the college started its post-graduate courses with a course in Marine Structures and Industrial Structures, following it up with post-graduate courses in Industrial Electronics (1969), Heat Power (1971), Hydraulics and Water Resources (1971), Chemical Plant Design Engineering (1971) and Process Metallurgy (1972).
Further under-graduate engineering courses were added: Electronics and Communication (1971), Mining (1984), Computer Science (1986) and Information Technology (2000).
KREC came into the jurisdiction of Mangalore University when it was started in 1980. All the under-graduate courses were converted to four year terms (from five years earlier).
On June 26, 2002, KREC was renamed National Institute of Technology, Karnataka and awarded the status of a deemed university by the University Grants Commission, in a bid to provide increased autonomy in decision-making.
[edit] Location
Located on National Highway 17, by the shores of Arabian Sea, NITK Surathkal is one of few universities in the world that boasts of a private beach. The campus is an idyllic spot covering an area of about 295 acres and is covered by lush green vegetation in many areas. The sylvan surroundings provide a lovely backdrop for serious academic pursuit and relaxation.
The nearest town is Surathkal, about four kilometers south of the college. Of the larger cities, Mangalore is 22 kilometers south and Udupi is 40 kilometers north. Access to NITK is best by bus; from Mangalore and Udupi, express buses leave at regular intervals. Surathkal town also has a railway station on the scenic Konkan Railway line. The Mangalore Airport at Bajpe is about 20 km away, and is served by Indian Airlines, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and Air Deccan for domestic passengers; Air India Express serves international destinations such as Sharjah, Dubai and Muscat.
Tourist spots near the institute include Mangalore, Udupi, Dharmasthala and Manipal. Udupi is famous for Udupi cuisine. Udupi and Dharmasthala also house several famous temples. Sandy beaches close to the college include the NITK campus beach, Panambur Beach, Kaup beach, and the St. Mary's Island.
[edit] Departments
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Humanities
- Civil Engineering
- Mining Engineering
- Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics
- Mechanical Engineering
- Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science
- Computer Science
- Electronics and Communications Engineering
- Electrical and Electronics Engineering
- Mathematics and Computational Sciences
- Chemical Engineering
- Information Technology
- Office for Training and Placements
- Central Library
[edit] Admissions
[edit] Undergraduate
The B Tech admissions are based on the AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination). The exam consists of three sections on Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry and is one of the most competitive examinations in the country, with lakhs of students competing for the privilege of a few hundred seats.
Undergraduate admissions are on reciprocal basis regionwise. 50% of the seats are reserved for students from Karnataka. The remaining 50% are distributed over other NITs on a reciprocal basis. This state-wise allocation of seats is unique to Regional Engineering Colleges, set up as worthy successors to the renowned Indian Institutes of Technologys.While the efficacy of such distribution based on region has been hotly debated, there is no doubt that as a measure to provide quality education to students from all over the country, the move has been successful. In addition, it provides the students an opportunity to interact with other students from all over the country, giving them a unique perspective of India along with technical education. It is utmost important to maintain a cosmopolitan atmosphere at such a centre of excellence. The issue of reservations is a hotly debated topic on the campus.
Graduate students are admitted to the program through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) conducted by the Indian Institute of Technologies and the Indian Institute of Science. Graduate studies are offered in a variety of disciplines by various departments and students may specialize in fields of their choice. Graduate students are required to complete a minimum number of courses in addition to a thesis or dissertation that entails independent research under the guidance of faculty. Graduate and Doctoral students are also actively involved in teaching certain undergraduate courses.
[edit] Placements and Career choices
Nearly all eligible students from the senior batch are offered employment in multi-national firms through campus placement services. Placements at NITK reflect its proximity to the software hub of India, Bangalore. Every year, multi-national companies like GE,Cisco, Intel and IBM recruit students from campus, usually a year before they graduate. Last year also saw investment banks participate in the placement process, namely, Goldman Sachs.
(A short list of companies that have selected students from campus: Samsung, Ittiam Systems, Philips, Siemens, Cognizant,Trilogy,Intuit, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Oracle Corporation, D.E. Shaw, Tata Motors, Novell, NVidia, Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Larsen and Toubro)
The placement process begins early in the 7th semester of the undergraduate course and 2nd year of the post graduate course. Students rank companies who have expressed interest in campus recruitment; on this basis, companies are allocated days on which they will test and interview candidates. Usually the entire placement effort lasts around 1 year, but most students are offered jobs within the first month.
Companies first present a pre-placement talk (PPT) with active participation of students. Tests, Group Discussions and a series of interviews are then conducted to select candidates . Until late 90s ,the policy of one-man one-job prevailed, but with increasing numbers of recruiting companies, students are allowed to entertain multiple offers. Placements form the career choice for a majority of the students, with some also opting to continue their education abroad or in the country.
Several NITK alumni have passed through the portals of the Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Institutes of Management and various institutions outside the country. It is worth mentioning that some of the students from the erstwhile KREC and the present NIT Suratkal have gone on to do Masters and Ph.D in prestigious institutions such as UCLA, Georgia Tech, Stanford University among others.
Most third year and final year students often prepare for GRE (for higher studies in science abroad), CAT (for the premier institutions for management in the country) and GMAT (for management studies aboard). The entrepreneur spirit among students of NITK is at par with institutions such as IIT.
[edit] Student activities
The two most famous annual events held at NITK are, Engineer (the national level technical symposium) and Incident (the cultural festival).
These events are entirely planned, organized and managed by the students themselves - from fund collecting drives to the final events. The intra-college events are organized by the students' activity clubs.
Local chapters of the Institution of Engineers, the Indian Society for Technical Education, the Rotaract Club, the Computer Society of India, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE) organize their respective events during the academic semester, including diverse events such as blood collection drives, cricket tournaments, fashion shows and freshers' parties. The NITK Music Club Band routinely organizes music shows and play popular music at the outdoor auditoriums, which see wide attendance. A variety of musical styles are on display at these events, from Indian classical music to fusion to thrash metal, in keeping with the varied tastes of students. There is also an amateur astronomy club - Star Gazing Club, which conducts many night shows for the students and the faculty of the campus. Also appreciative are its efforts to spread astronomy across the region in the form of various workshops for the school students in the region.
The Quiz Club of NITK is one of the best in the country, having produced several quizzers of outstanding caliber who have participated in and won competitions all over the country. The excellent sports facilities on campus provide students the opportunity to hone their skills, and NITK boasts several fine sports teams that participate in events all over the country. The Press Club of NITK brings out a fortnightly wall magazine "Newswagon", providing a tongue-in-cheek look at life around the campus, besides bringing out the official yearbook, "The Vitruvian".
The Recreation Committee of the institute organizes all the recreational activities for the students and faculty on campus. Students compete in varied sports: Cricket, Hockey, Badminton, Table Tennis, Soccer, Swimming, Basket Ball to name a few. The much awaited inter year sports festival "PHOENIX" is organized during the even semester where the students battle for the gold, siver and bronze medals apart from the over-all shield.
While weekdays are spent in classrooms and labs, weekends are often spent indulging in these various activities organized by the clubs, leading to a healthy atmosphere of fun and work together, promoting the overall development of individuals at the institute.
[edit] Engineer
Engineer[1] is the technical symposium of NITK Surathkal. It has, over the past years, consistently attracted participants from all over the country.
‘Engineer’ in its first edition in 2005 drew tremendous response. Engineer 2006 was planned on an even larger scale, with more innovative events. The events at Engineer 2006 included paper presentation competitions, project presentations, Shrishti, where participants are required to apply engineering for the greater good of society, robotics events (Perfect Machine, Automata), Hacking contests, Programming contests, Design problems for various disciplines and a variety of workshops and seminars. Guest speakers in the past have included Richard Stallman, Sam Pitroda, Dr. Devi Shetty, Sir Anthony James Leggett, Ankit Fadia and other personalities.
As a forum for interaction between students and industry, Engineer has proved to be immensely successful, with several corporates providing sponsorship and conducting workshops and talks during the 3 day event. Previous sponsors and mentors included the GE,Indian Oil Corporation Limited, AMD, Tata Motors, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Reliance industries, Dell, Ansys, Novell, McAfee, the Indian Space Research Organization, Thoughtworks and Biocon.
The sponsors for Engineer 2007 are Hindustan Construction Co Ltd. (main sponsor), Thermax, GE, Accenture, Microsoft, IBM, Intuit , MRPL, ICICI, Sun Microsystems, Perot Systems, Exeter, Infosys, NVidia, SunGard, HP, PNB, HPCL and many more.
[edit] Incident
Incident,[2] the national level cultural festival is a celebration of the multitude of talents and experiences that are an essential part of life at the institute. Incident was first conducted in 1980 and has grown over the years to become one of the largest cultural festivals in South India and attracts student participation in huge numbers.
Held over five days, the festival encompasses a gamut of events, ranging from dance and dramatics, music, painting, fashion and quizzing. Incident provides an ideal platform for students to get together and display their considerable non-academic talents while still having fun. In addition, the Incident Pro-Nite features top Indian bands (Incident 2006 featured Euphoria whereas Incident 2005 featured Parikrama, Yell-O and Vinapra) and draws crowds from all around India. A large number of the events are conducted and judged by professionals. Incident also has a rich heritage of quality literary events, named QuizFest, that have produced some of the brightest and best quizzers and debaters in the country. Another thing that makes Incident unique are the Beach events which no other college in the country can boast of. It is a major attraction for students to have fun on the exotic Arabian Sea coast.
[edit] Other regular activities
Students regularly organise various treks and trips to numerous scenic hills and waterfalls nearby. Some of the waterfalls and treks include Sita Falls, Agumbe, Jog Falls, Joomla Theertha, Kodachadri, Arshinagundi falls, and Kumara parvata.
[edit] Infrastructure
[edit] Hostels
The National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal is a residential engineering college hence all attending students are required to enroll for hostel accommodation. Students from adjoining areas commute from home, however, with a permission from the institution. Separate hostels are provided for women's accommodation.
There are 11 hostel blocks in all - 6 for under-graduate boys, 2 for post-graduates and 3 for girls. There are a total of about one thousand four hundred (1400) undergraduate students, three hundred and ten (310) postgraduate students and two hundred (200) women students. Hostel life forms the basis of social life at NITK, with hostel parties, cricket matches and other events taking place continuously, in parallel with academic rigor. Seniors are offered single room accommodation while juniors, sophomores and freshmen are required to live with roommates.
The hostels are equipped with dining halls for the students, however these operate for only specific times of the day. The eight dining halls provide basic Indian cuisine, inclusive of both vegetarian and non vegetarian menu. (There are separate vegetarian and non vegetarian halls)
In addition to the regular messes that function out of the hostel blocks, there also are two "Night Canteens". The dining hall in the eighth block, run by a private vendor doubles up as a night canteen. The night canteens are open until 2:00 A.M.
The hostels have been connected to the college network using optic fibre cables and 1Gbps backbone connections. However, the internet connection provided to the hostel is highly unreliable. This is partly because the NITK Server has been globally blacklisted for spamming.Though the issue of spamming is completely unintentional; efforts are underway to control the menace. Due to this peculiar phenomenon, terminals connected in the hostels are unable to access the NITK Server.[citation needed]
[edit] Ranking
NITK Surathkal was ranked the 1st best institute in the country for engineering in 2002, and 8th best in 2006 by India Today (a popular weekly magazine). In another ranking by NASSCOM, IDC and Dataquest Magazine[3]the college was ranked 3rd best for placements in India with an overall ranking of 11.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| National Institutes of Technology, India |
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Agartala | Allahabad | Bhopal | Calicut | Durgapur | Hamirpur | Jaipur | Jalandhar | Jamshedpur | Kurukshetra | Nagpur | Patna | Raipur | Rourkela | Silchar | Srinagar | Surat | Surathkal | Trichy | Warangal |
