SOFTWARE LOVE LETTER

Sweetheart,
I`ve seen you yesterday while surfing on the local train platform and realized that you are the only site I was browsing for.
For a long time I`ve been lonely
this has been the bug in my life and you can be a real debugger for me now.
My life is an uncompiled program without you,
which never produces an executable code and hence is useless.
You are not only beautiful by face but all your ActiveX controls are attractive as well.
Your smile is so delightful
it encourages me and gives me power equal to thousands of mainframes processing power.
When you looked at me last evening,
I felt like all my program modules are running smoothly and giving expected results.
(which I never experienced before)
With this letter, I just want to convey to you that if we are linked together,
I'll provide you all objects & libraries necessary for a human being to live an error free life.
Also don`t bother about the firewall which may be created by our parents as
I've strong hacking capabilities by which I`ll ultimately break their security passwords and make them agree for our marriage.

I anticipate that nobody has already logged in to your database so that my connect script will fail.
And it's all but certain that if this happened to me,
my system will crash beyond recovery.
Kindly interpret this letter properly and grant me all privileges of your inbox. Error free...

Assuring a virus free life ~

not my creation ( like all others ;) )

' I want to go back to the time,
when 'getting high' meant 'on a swing',
when 'drinking' meant 'apple juice',
when 'dad' was the only 'hero',
when 'love' was 'mom's hug',
when 'dad's shoulder' was the 'highest place on earth',
when ur 'worst enemies' were ur 'siblings',
when the only things that could 'hurt' were 'skinned knees',
when the only things 'broken' were ur 'toys',
and when 'gudbyes' meant only 'till tomorrow'. '

IITK placements

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR
STUDENTS’ PLACEMENT OFFICE

Placement 2004-2005

1. HLL , Mumbai (PPO) B Tech ME 01
CHE 01 02

2. Infosys Technologies, Bangalore
B Tech AE 01 CSE 02 CHE 01 CE 05 EE 02 ME 03 MME 04
M Tech AE 01 CHE 01 CE 01 ME 01 EEM 01 NET 01
M Sc I MTH 01
M Sc 2 Yr MTH 01
STAT 02
M Des M Des 03 31

3. TCS, New Delhi/Lucknow B Tech CE 04
EE 01
M Tech AE 04 CHE 04 CE 06 CSE 01 EE 01
ME 03 LTP 01 M Sc I PHY 01
M Sc I MTH 01 27

4. Oracle, Hyderabad B Tech CHE 02 CE 03
CSE 01 EE 02 ME 01
M Tech CSE 05 EE 01 MSP 01 IME 01 17

5. June Online, Hyderabad B Tech EE 02
ME 03 05

6. IBM India, Gurgaon/Bangalore B Tech AE 01 CHE 06 CE 01 EE 03 ME 04 MME 05
M Tech AE 02 CHE 04 CE 04 EE 05 ME 05 MME 01 MSP 03 EEM 01 IME 03 LTP 01 NET 01 50

7. Veritas India, Pune M Tech CSE 09 09

8. GE (JFWTC), Bangalore M Tech AE 01 CHE 01 CE 01 EE 02 ME 04 09

9. Sybase Software, Pune M Tech CSE 06 06

10. Wipro Technology, Gurgaon/Blr B Tech CE 02 CHE 01 EE 01 ME 03 MME 04
M Tech AE 02 CE 02 CHE 02 EE 03 ME 02MME 02 NET 01
M Sc I CHM 01 MTH 01 27

11. ITC, Kolkata B Tech CSE 01 EE 02 ME 02
MBA IME 01 06

12. Tata Motors, Pune M Tech AE 01 EE 02 ME 03 06

13. Tata Motors, Lucknow B Tech EE 01 ME 06 MME 01 08

14. Adobe Systems, Noida B Tech CSE 03 EE 01
M Tech CSE 01 05

15. Texas Instruments, Noida M Tech CSE 01
B Tech EE 01 02

16. Fluent India, Pune M Tech AE 01 ME 01
B Tech ME 01
M Sc I MTH 01 04

17. Inductis, New Delhi B Tech AE 01 CSE 02
CHE 01 04

18. Intel India, Bangalore M Tech CSE 02 EE 03
B Tech EE 03 08

19. McKinsey, New Delhi B Tech CSE 01 MME 01 02

20. Nvidia, Bangalore B Tech EE 02
M Tech CSE 01 03

21. Evalueserve, Gurgaon B Tech CHE 02 CE 02 EE 05 CSE 02 ME 01 MME 03
MBA IME 01 16

22. Thermax Ltd., Pune B Tech ME 02 CHE 01 03

23. ST Microelectronics, Noida B Tech EE 03
M Tech EE 02 CSE 01 06

24. DE Shaw, Bangalore B Tech CSE 03
M Tech CSE 01 04

25. GE Capital (PPO) B Tech CE 01
MBA IME 02 03

26. L&T, Delhi B Tech EE 01
L&T, Mumbai M Tech ME 01
M Tech EE 01 CHE 01 MME 02 CE 02 08

27. L&T (ECC), Chennai B Tech CE 01 01

28. Kanbay Software, Bangalore B Tech AE 02 CHE 02 CE 01 MME 01
M Tech ME 01 07

29. NexTag, Gurgaon B Tech CSE 01
MME 01 02

30. Trilogy E-business, Gurgaon B Tech CSE 02 02

31. Ashok Leyland, Channai M Tech ME 01 01

32. Samsung Software, Bangalore B Tech CSE 01 EE 02
M Tech CSE 02 EE 06 11

33. Hughes Software, Gurgaon M Tech EE 05 05

34. FairIsaac Corpn. B Tech EE 01 ME 02 CHE 01
M Sc I MTH 01 05

35. Mentor Graphics, Noida B Tech CSE 02
EE 01
M Tech CSE 02 05

36. Appulse Software, New Delhi B Tech CHE 01 EE 02
M Tech CSE 01 EE 01
M Sc I MTH 02 07

37. Persistent Systems, Pune M Tech CSE 02 02

38. Tavant Technologies, Bangalore B Tech CHE 01 EE 01
M Tech AE 01
M Sc 2 Yr Stats 01
PPO MBA IME 01 05

39. Induslogic India, Gurgaon B Tech CE 01 CSE 03 EE 02 ME 01 MME 01
M Tech CSE 01 EE 01
M Sc I MTH 01
M Sc 2 Yr MTH 01 12

40. TechSpan, Mumbai B Tech CE 01 CSE 01
CHE 01 EE 08 ME 02
M Tech CSE 01
IME 01 15

41. Atrenta India, Noida B Tech CSE 01
M Tech CSE 02 EE 01 04

42. DRDO, New Delhi B Tech ME 08
AE 03 M Tech MME 01 12

43. Pricewaterhouse coopers, Kolkata B Tech CHE 03 EE 01 ME 01 MME 01 06

44. SkyTECH Solutions, Kolkata M Sc 2 Yr STAT 01 01

45. GSSL, Pune B Tech AE 02 CHE 01 ME 01
M Tech AE 03
ME 02 09

46. Bharat Forge, Pune B Tech ME 02 EE 01 03

47. Amsoft India, N.Delhi M Tech CSE 02
EE 02 04

48. Schlumberger Asia, Mumbai B Tech ME 01 01

49. Citigroup, Mumbai M Sc 2 Yr STAT 01
M Tech IME 01
MBA IME 02 04

50. Satyam GE & I IDC, Bangalore B Tech AE 02 02

51. Reliance Infocomm, Navi Mumbai M Tech EE 06
B Tech EE 02 08

52. BPCL, Mumbai B Tech CE 01
EE 01 ME 03 05

53. Yasu Technologies, Bangalore B Tech AE 01 EE 01 02

54. Contata Solutions, Noida B Tech CHE 01 CSE 01 EE 01 MME 01 EE 01 05

55. Solidcore Techsoft, New Delhi B Tech CSE 02
M Tech EE 01 03

56. Jubilant Organosys, Gajraula B Tech CHE 01 EE 01 ME 01 03

57. Quantech Global, Hyderabad/Blr. B Tech ME 02
M Tech ME 05 AE 02 09

58. Goldman Sachs, Bangalore B Tech EE 01 01

59. Cendura Software, Hyderabad B Tech EE 02 02

60. Interra Systems, Noida B Tech CSE 01
PPO B Tech EE 01 EE 01
M Tech EE 01 04

61. Tata Steel (Auto Div), Jamshedpur M Tech MME 02 02

62. LSI Logic, Bangalore M Tech CSE 01
EE 01 02

63. Hero Honda Motors, New Delhi B Tech EE 01 ME 03 04

64. American Express, Gurgaon M Sc 2 Yr MTH 01 01

65. Sterlite Industries, Mumbai B Tech EE 01 01

66. Samsung Electronics Ltd, Noida M Tech CSE 05 EE 05 10

67. Infineon Technologies, Bangalore B Tech CSE 01 EE 02 3

68. Microsoft India Development B Tech CSE 02
Center, Hyderabad CSE 04 06

69. International Technology Transfer B Tech EE 01
Corporation, Japan/Pune M Tech ME 01 02

70. Ador Welding Ltd., Mumbai/Pune M Tech MME 03 ME 01 CHE 01 05

71. Nirma University, Ahmedabad M Tech CHE 01 CE 01
M Sc 2 Yr MTH 01 03

72. HCL Tech., Gurgaon MBA IME 03 03

73. HCL Comnet, Noida MBA IME 02 02

74. Honeywell Lab., Bangalore M Tech AE 01 ME 04 05

75. B&K Securities, Mumbai MBA IME 01 01

76. GE Capital, Bangalore M Sc 2 Yr STAT 01
M Sc I MTH 01
MBA IME 06 08

77. Power Finance Corp., New Delhi MBA IME 01 01

78. AF Ferguson, Mumbai MBA IME 02 02

79. MarketRx, Gurgaon M Sc 2 Yr MTH 01
M Tech IME 02
MBA IME 03 06

80. BSES, New Delhi MBA IME 04 04

81. Airtight Networks, Bangalore MBA IME 02 02

82. Interra IT, Noida B Tech EE 01 01

83. Systat Software,Bangalore M Sc 2 Yr STAT 05 05

84. Niksun Networks, Gurgaon B Tech EE 01
CE 01 02

85. M&M (Auto Sector), Nasik B Tech ME 01 01

86. Jindal Steel, Hissar M Tech MME 02 02

87. Eaton Industries, Pune M Tech ME 01 01

88. Redpine Signals, Hyderabad M Tech EE 01 01

89. Yamaha Motor, Faridabad B Tech ME 01
M Tech CHE 01 02

90. Tejas Networks, Bangalore B Tech CSE 01
M Tech EE 02 03

91. National Instruments, Bangalore B Tech AE 01 01

92. CareerNetworks, Bangalore B Tech/ M Tech All streams None 00

93. KritiKal Solutions, New Delhi B Tech All Streams None 00

94. KLA Tancor, Chennai B Tech MME 01
M Sc I CHM 01 02

95. Eicher Engg. Solutions, Gurgaon M Tech ME 00 00

96. GM Tech. Centre, Bangalore M Tech ME 01 01

97. Airvana Networks, Bangalore B Tech EE None 00

98. Minda Industries, Gurgaon B Tech ME 02 02

99. NTPC, New Delhi B Tech EE 01
ME 01 02

100. TKS (Off campus) M Tech MME 01 01

101. LEA Associates, New Delhi M Tech CE 01 01

102. CES, New Delhi B Tech CE 03
M Tech CE 01 04

103. ABB, Baroda M Tech EE None 00

104. Citifinancial, New Delhi B Tech All Streams None

105. ATC Labs, Noida B Tech CSE/EE None 00

106. Prudential Plc, Mumbai B Tech EE 02 02

107. SRM TechSol, Lucknow B Tech CHE 01
MME 01
M Tech NET 01 03

108. MG Mobiles, New Delhi B Tech CSE 01 01

109. MIDHANI, Hyderabad M Tech MME 01 01

110. L&T (ECC), Chennai M Tech CE None 00
M Tech EEM None 00

111. HCL Technologies, Noida B Tech CSE 01 01

112. BHEL, New Delhi B Tech CE 03
M Tech CE 03
B Tech ME 01
M Tech MME 01 08

113. LURGI INDIA, New Delhi M Tech CHE 01 01

114. Godrej & Boyce, Mumbai M Des M Des 02 02

115. Snecma Aerospace, Bangalore M Tech AE 02 02

116. Eperium Business, New Delhi M Sc 2 Yr PHY 01 01

117. Netscaler, Bangalore (Off campus) B Tech CSE 01 01

118. Mellon Financial Services, Pune § M Sc I MTH 01 01

119. NexTag, Gurgaon § B Tech MME 01 01

120. Read Ink, Bangalore (Off campus) B Tech CSE 01 01

121. TCC, USA § M Tech MNET 01 01

122. Hindustan Zink Litd, Udaipur M Tech EEM 02 02

123. Cordys, R&D Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad M Des M Des 02 02

124. IFB Automotive Pvt. Ltd.,
Bangalore
B Tech ME 01
M Tech AE 01 ME 03 05

125. Teng & Associate, Chicago § B Tech ME 01 EE 01 02

126. Metta Technologies, Pune(Off
Campus)
M Tech EE 01 01

127. Icem B Tech CE 01 01

128. BPCL, Mumbai (R&D) M Tech CHE Result Awaited

129. Engineers India Ltd, New Delhi B Tech CHE, ME,
MME

Result Awaited

Misc Off Campus Job Offers 24

Students joining higher studies at IIM, MS/Ph D Abroad 45

iitm placements 2008 (before recession) 3

iitm placements 2008 (before recession) 2

iitm placements 2008 (before recession)

Is Testing inferior to Development ?

First job , first day of your career ……First half of your training batch (sorted on names) gets Java development and the second half (the half to which you belong ) gets allotted TESTING stream..

To many of you the whole existence ceases .You curse your luck, why is your roll number in the second half. A feeling of disgrace to your talent overpowers you.

HR of the company is approached and bombarded with questions if you can get your stream changed from testing to coding. Long calls are made by you to seniors and friends seeking advice what is to be done next .Some of you feel so disappointed that you quit the present job and look for other opportunities. And a few take it as a compromise, as a job which someone or the other has to do.


But is testing actually inferior to the development?

It is a widely accepted myth that testing is a less rewarding career than development. Both coding and testing are integral and indispensable part of the software production cycle. Coders are like interpreters .They translate the logical requirement into a technical piece of code. Many times it is not required for them to know the entire business domain for which they are coding. On the other hand, the job of a tester may not be very challenging on the technical front; however, it requires great business sense and application knowledge. A good tester needs to understand the entire business functionality to spot any shortcomings in the code.


Taking a very simple example, a coder writes a piece of code to read an input name from the user and match if the entry is present in the database. He may write a code meeting the requirements, but the code may give unexpected results, where the user enters the name in small case instead of uppercase .Such kind of checks are also ensured while the testing of the code.

Testers also get an added advantage when it comes to exposure to the business domain knowledge over the coders. To grow higher up the ladder requires more and more of the domain understanding and less of the technical coding proficiencies. All the directors, vice-presidents of a company are domain experts. Good domain knowledge can be capitalized much more in a B school interview than a technical certification. Besides, testing offers a lot more automation opportunities to save time on any repeated activity. It in many cases offers much better work life balance.

Testing is not a test of patience or a compromise. It is equally, and many a times, much more challenging. CISCO testers are revered in the market for their domain knowledge in networking. Even in companies like ADOBE and Microsoft, testers constitute a big chunk of the total work force and are equally treated.


There are some profiles which are offered to non-engineers and which only involve testing cases and creating excel sheets, but then there is the same number of copy and paste tasks even in the so-called development work. But then creating a test case( however monotonous it may be) is better than copying a piece of code and running it. Isn’t it?

So, if you are in the testing profile, don’t curse yourself and instead learn the most of the business and domain knowledge which will help you immensely in your career, and the next time you hear from somebody getting a testing profile, say congrats to him and ask him to read this article

Aricent or CDOT ?

Last year I ended up with two job offers in the first phase of campus placement in college.With the placement season virtually over I have to deciede which one to join.
On one hand is private sector job as software engineer in Aricent and on the other hand is research engineer position inCDOT(a public sector Telecom and networking RnD firm).Package is comparable with in hand of 25K per month in aricent(3.5 lac per annum CTC) and 37K per month in CDOT(4.65 lac per annum CTC before sixth pay commission) and both offer job near home (in NCR).
I am inclined to join CDOT but it is still undecieded.you can help me out.

My resume at the time of campus placements in IT BHU( August 2008)

MS(research) IITD CSE part time

The MS (Research) programme is a special research-oriented Masters programme offered to students who are interested in exploring in-depth research problems in any area of computer science. The emphasis is on conducting original research and writing a thesis of publishable quality. Interested students who have demonstrated excellence in their academic performance and research potential may convert to the Ph. D. programme. There are currently a handful of students in this programme.

Applicants to this programme are expected to have excellent backgrounds in computer science. Since the programme is a research programme, the candidates are typically expected to be superior in training and academic performance to students admitted to the M. Tech. programme. The main differences with the M. Tech. programme are:

(1) The MS (R) programme has 40 credits of research to 20 credits of course work versus a 20-40 breakup in the M. Tech programme.
(2) There are no fixed core courses. Instead each individual student is advised on courses to take based on their research interests and background.
(3) Full-time students are expected to identify their thesis advisor by the end of their first semester, and begin research in the second semester.

Students are provided laboratory and infrastructure facilities similar to that of Ph.D. scholars. We endeavour to provide financial support at Master's level stipends to all GATE-qualified full-time students. Full-time students not resident in Delhi are given priority in allotment of hostel accommodation.

While the MS(Research) programme is currently small in numbers, faculty tend to consider it more prestigious than the M. Tech. programme. Candidates are encouraged to consider conversion to Ph.D.

Curriculum and Requirements of the MS (Research) Programme in Computer Science and Engineering
Duration. The duration of the MS(R) programme is 4 semesters for full-time students and 6 semesters for part-time students.
The maximum extensions can be to 6 semesters for full-time students and 8 semesters for part-time students, under special circumstances.


Credit Requirements.
Total credits: 60
Course credits: 20
Thesis credits: 40


CGPA Requirements. Minimum CGPA requirement for award of degree: 7.0
Minimum CGPA in course work for continuation of registration: 7.0
Regulations for registration.

First semester: Full time students to register for 15-20 course credits only; part-time students to register for 6-12 course credits.
Later semesters: Students to register for remaining course and thesis credits. Part-time students required to complete all course credits in the first 4 semesters.
There are no core course requirements (other than the thesis)
All Post-Graduate level courses of the CSE Department are available to the student for course credits. Courses offered by other departments may be taken for credit on the advice and approval of the programme coordinator / thesis supervisor.
Student will register for courses on the advice and approval of the MS(R) programme coordinator (first semester) and the thesis supervisor (subsequent semesters).
Conversion from full-time to part-time on approval by Dean PGSR on recommendation of the DRC, on completion of course credit requirements.
Supervision
Supervision
Maximum 2 thesis supervisors. DRC to assign thesis supervisor within 2 months of registration in Semester 1.
DRC will constitute a 4-member SRC
SRC will monitor thesis work, based on written reports and presentations made every semester and will recommend number of thesis credits considered as cleared at the end of the semester.
X grade will be awarded for continuing thesis research.
Evaluation and Examiners
Submission of synopsis one month before submission of thesis. Pre-synopsis seminar to DRC.
Dean PGSR to appoint external examiner on receipt of title and synopsis of thesis, from a panel of 4 experts recommended by supervisor and approved by DRC. Cannot be from sponsoring organization in case of sponsored candidates.
Examination board = thesis supervisor(s) and external expert examiner.
Thesis Grading
Thesis Defence Committee = External expert examiner (from India and outside IIT Delhi), supervisor(s) and SRC.
Assistantships On par with M Tech students.
Conversion to PhD On application by the student, and on recommendation by the DRC. A minimum CGPA of 8.5 after first 2 semesters is required. Student must satisfy other requirements for admission into PhD programme. The date of conversion is the date of registration in the PhD programme.



FAQ

How is the part-time M. Tech. / MS (Res) programme different from the full-time programme?
The part-time programmes constitute an opportunity given to working professionals in the NCR area to pursue an advanced degree at IIT Delhi.

Academically, the part-time programmes are identical to the full-time programmes.
The normal duration of the Master's programmes is 6 semesters instead of 4, to complete the 60 credits of work.
A part-time student can take no more than 12 credits a semester.
There is only a small difference in the admission requirements (e.g., GATE is not mandatory, the academic performance requirements may be slightly different) and the admission test process may involve additional tests.
The only other "concession" for the part-time student is that we will hold classes for core courses in the morning slots [C: 8-9 and D: 9-10 on Tue, Wed and Fri; and A: 8-9:30 and B: 9:30-11:00 on Mon, Thu]. Students should select elective courses on the basis of convenience and interest.
Am I eligible to apply for the part time M.Tech/ MS (Res) programme?
Yes, if you have the academic qualifications in terms of degree and academic performance as specified by the department (not just the minimal requirements specified by the institute). In addition, you need:

At least one year's experience (by the start of the academic term, i.e July end or January 1) in an organization where your work is computer science related.
You must be resident and working within 50 km of IIT Delhi.
You should get a NOC from your employers at the time of joining in the format prescribed by IIT, and they must have consented in writing to your appearing for the interview.
Do I need GATE for the part-time programmes?
No, GATE is required only for full-time students getting assistantship from the Institute.

What is the selection procedure?
Based on your application, you will be called for a test and interview. The written test is technical and objective, and will test your familiarity with basic computer science subjects --- programming, data structures, discrete mathematics and logic, programming languages and compilation, theory, algorithms design and analysis, operating systems and other systems software, networks, architecture, etc.

What is the duration of the course?
Normally 4 semesters for a full-time student and 6 semesters for a part-time student

What is the fee structure?
The same.

Are there any classes conducted? Will these be on Saturdays and Sundays only?
Yes, of course, classes are conducted. These are conducted at the usual times on weekdays. You need to attend these classes, and be present. Part-time programmes are not remote programmes. The only other "concession" for the part-time student is that we will hold classes for core courses in the morning slots [C: 8-9 and D: 9-10 on Tue, Wed and Fri; and A: 8-9:30 and B: 9:30-11:00 on Mon, Thu]. Students should select elective courses on the basis of convenience and interest.

Is there a Minor/Major Project in the part-time course?
Yes. Approx a third of the M Tech credits are project credits; Two-thirds of the MS (Res) credits are project credits.

You can do your project at your work place or at home, but should archive and be able to demonstrate and document your work on the Department's machines.

If I shift my job within the NCR to e.g., Gurgaon/Noida will I still be eligible?
Yes, if you are in the 50km range. Please note that if you change jobs during the programme, you should get a fresh NOIC from your new employer. Please note you need tobe employed to avail yourself of the part-time programme.

As a part-time student, can I get hostel accommodation?
No, you are not eligible for hostel accommodation

As a part-time student, can I get any form of assistantship?
No, you are not eligible for an assistantship from Institute sources.


Eligibility:
The candidate must have a 4-year B.Tech./B.E. degree or a MSc./MCA degree in a computer-science related area (preferably in computer science itself, or else with extensive experience in computing) with an excellent academic record.

There are two different ways in which you can register for the MS (R) programme. in CSE at IITD.

Full-Time : The candidate resides on the IIT campus for the entire duration of the programme. The student should have an excellent valid GATE score in CS/IT.
Part-Time : The candidate should be working in an industry or organisation involved in computer science research/teaching and located within 50 kms of IIT. The organization should certify that it has No Objection to the candidate pursuing this degree.

Admission Procedure:
Download the application form from the IIT Delhi web-site or collect a paper application form from IIT Delhi, PGS&R Section. Fill the form and attach a draft for Rs 300 made payable to the "Registrar, IIT Delhi" at New Delhi.
Also attach a curriculum vitae listing your academic record, Industrial/Research Experience, Research Publications (also include a copy of your best publication), academic honors and awards etc.

Send the application to the "Deputy Registrar, Post Graduate Section. IIT, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016". The application can be sent at any time of the year. However, interviews for admission are conducted twice a year, and admissions are synchronized with the semesters (late July - early December and early January - mid May).

After looking at your application we will decide whether to invite you for an interview. You would be informed of the decision by email. The interview will test your research potential in terms of familiarity with basic concepts in Computer Science and your ability to analyze and formulate a solution to a problem.

Recommended CS/IT Programs Outside IIT System

Here I am listing a very small set of colleges about which I have some personal knowledge either through a visit, or by checking out their website extensively, and based on my limited knowledge I can recommend these departments for good-quality undergraduate education in CS/IT areas. I am also trying to give some reasons in brief as to why I think these departments are good. If I have not listed a college/department here, it is almost certainly because I don't know about it enough, and not because I consider that college not good enough. So please don't feel bad if your college or alma mater is not listed here.
Other minimum requirements for listing here:

I only list colleges which are autonomous in academic processes (that is, they are either university themselves or have been declared deemed to be university by UGC).
I only list colleges which have an under-graduate program in Computer Science.
In addition, they must be running a proper PG program whose admission requirements include an undergraduate degree in Computer Science or related area. (for example, MS/ME/MTech or PhD program.)
The list is as follows. (You can jump to the description of each department by clicking on the name.)

IIIT, Hyderabad
NIT, Calicut
DA-IICT, Gandhinagar
LNMIIT, Jaipur
BITS, Pilani
College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai
Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh
NIT, Hamirpur
While I will by and large refrain from ranking colleges, I have to admit that I consider IIIT, Hyderabad as the best alternative to IITs (from amongst the colleges I know or I have been told of). This Institute is already competing with IITs on attracting faculty, and I am sure very soon they will start competing on attracting students also. (I believe that they are already getting students who are as good as those in IITs. I believe that a rank in AIEEE is equivalent to a rank in JEE. After all, how many good students will give JEE but not give AIEEE. But on any given day, someone could do well or not so well depending on health, luck, and other such factor. So there are many who for some reason get a better AIEEE rank than a JEE rank, and such persons, who as I said above are equally good, just a tad unlucky, chose to join IIIT Hyderabad.) I have visited IIIT Hyderabad umpteen number of times, and I come back more impressed every time I go there.

In September 2006, I had a chance to visit NIT Calicut, and I must say that I was very impressed. As you can see from the short list of colleges on this page, I do not get impressed easily. And let me tell you why. The first thing I noticed was that pretty much every faculty member in the department had a degree from either an IIT or IISc. Thry do hire people who have a BTech degree, but then ask them to do graduate education from outside. In most colleges, they run graduate programs (MTech or PhD) primarily to ensure that their own faculty members can get part-time graduate degrees. But this in-breeding is dangerous for the quality of a department. The maintenance of the campus is another thing that struck me as something great. In many campuses I see buildings in black or green colour because of what they will like to claim is heavy rain. But NITC, all the buildings looked good from the outside, and I was told that they put a coat of paint frequently to ensure that the buildings do not look ugly. The infrastructure is very good, and is one of the few colleges who have actually used up the grants given to them under the TEQUIP program. The faculty is very cohesive. They have resisted the temptation of starting a program on IT. (Why shouldn't CSE and IT departments be merged in all NITs? There is hardly any difference in the programs, and these differences can be handled by offering electives.)

Another Institute, which is sure to make an impact in future is DA-IICT at Gandhinagar. I recently went through their website, and was very impressed with the number of faculty members with PhD degrees from various IITs and mid-level US universities. And let me admit, being a faculty member myself, I think that an Institute which has so many of PhDs in their faculty, has to be on the right track. Of course, having "Dhirubhai Ambani" in the name of the Institute will ensure that the ADA (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani) group would never let it down, and become a second-rate institution. Further, in their curriculum, there is a unique mix of Information Technology (CS) and Communication Technology, and depending on one's interest, one can go into the depth in either direction. In most colleges, you decide at the time of admission whether you want to do a BTech in CS or a BTech in ECE. That dilemna is not there, if you join DA-IICT. And they seem to truly believe that under-graduate education is about broadening the horizons, and not become an expert. So not only do they have humanities courses in their curriculum, and they claim all the standard things about extra-curricular activities, and facilities, but they have a six-week stay in a rural setting as part of curriculum. (By the way, this is the only college on this list, where I have not personally visited. What I am writing here is based on reading their website, and interacting with a few faculty members when they have visited IIT Kanpur.)

L N Mittal Institute of Information Technology is the third of the IT-focused institutes which has a potential to compete with the IIT system. (The other two being IIIT, Hyderabad, and DA-IICT, Gandhinagar.) The institute has excellent infrastructure, beautiful architecture, and some of the best teachers in the country, who have retired from IIT system in recent times. Lack of sufficient number of young faculty members is a small cause for concern, which I am sure the Institute will work on. The curriculum is modern, and has only 40 courses. (Elsewhere, I have argued that a BTech curriculum should not have more than 160 credits or so, which is equivalent to regular 40 courses.) And of course, Jaipur is arguably the second best city to live in North India, after Chandigarh.

Recently added: I have recently been offered to join LNMIIT as its next Director, and I have accepted the offer. I will be shifting to Jaipur soon. I am really excited about the opportunity, as the first Director has laid a wonderful foundation, and now the Institute is in the take off stage, where it can dream of competing with the very best in the country. Feel free to contact me for more details.

LNMIIT is a unique experiment of education in the joint sector. It is not a private college, nor is it a government college. It is a joint venture between the Rajasthan Government and Laxmi Mittal Foundation.

I also admire BITS, Pilani for a lot of innovation that they have been doing in the engineering education. Whether it is the one semester training (Practice School) in the industry, or their online entrance exam, they always seem to be a step ahead of others in the new ways of doing education. They have an excellent dual-degree program, more flexible than any IIT can boast of. They are accredited by NAAC. They also have a very significant presence in distance education sector. While IIMs will keep talking about opening campuses abroad, BITS has gone ahead with a campus in Dubai. They also have a campus in Goa, and are working on a campus in Hyderabad. (The Goa campus is a beauty.) They have the best admission process, which takes some amount of language abilities into account. Of course, one concern that I have is whether BITS is spreading itself too thin by growing so fast. Also, their focus on research seems less than other top class institutes in the country.

Another excellent place that I visited in 2006 is College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai. The CS department has a fairly large faculty, and lots of them have a PhD degree. There is an active research program, and one can find several publications from that department in literature. It is an active and vibrant department. Also, they have a very interesting part-time under-graduate program. Whenever I visit a department, I am looking out for something unique, an idea which is worth emulating, and I don't know of any other place which has such a part-time under-graduate program. The curriculum is based on a credit-based system, which is a big positive.

A college which was always considered good, but has improved significantly in the last couple of years is Punjab Engineering College or better known as PEC. In 2004, PEC gained Deemed University status, and since then has undergone a complete transition in its academic processes. Its then Director, Prof. Vijay Gupta (from IIT Kanpur) is a visionary, and has fantastic leadership qualities. To me, his presence in PEC was enough to place them in this list of mine (though the college has to now show that it can continue the good work even after he has left). Of course, the college was not an unknown quantity earlier also. Around 2001, news reports had suggested that PEC will be one of the colleges selected for an upgrade to the status of an IIT. Politics play a big role in these decisions, and another committee chose another set of colleges for a possible upgrade. The college requires each student to have its own laptop (bulk discounts, loans, scholarships available for poor). This is something which is very significant, and I doubt whether any other government college of engineering has this as a requirement. It is a gutsy decision, and I admire PEC for that. They have a good curriculum that allows students sufficient breadth as well as depth without overloading them. The infrastrcuture is good too. And, of course, the city of Chandigarh is one of the best cities in the country to live in.

If one were to look four years from now and say which college has the best chances of breaking into top 10, I have no doubt in my mind that that college has to be NIT Hamirpur. Besides being the most beautiful campus that I have visited (and I have visited more than 100 colleges in the country), the improvements are everywhere to see. You talk to anyone and they have a story to tell, a story of change, a change for the positive. The infrastructure improvement (computers, Internet bandwidth, buildings, and everything else) are taking place at a very fast place. It is no longer a sleepy NIT, with no link to the outside world. Now they welcome visitors from other NITs, IITs, and everywhere else. And once you go there, you are bound to fall in love with the campus. The curriculum has seen major changes (for the good). There is focus on hiring more faculty. They are starting new MTech programs. They are starting to build relationships with their alumni. Everything that a college can and should do is being done at NIT Hamirpur, and I am sure they will be in the top few soon. So if you are looking for a college which has less brand equity now (and hence easier to get into) but is likely to have a good name when you graduate, my bet will be on NIT Hamirpur.



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If you have any comments, you can send me email at: dheeraj[AT]iitk.ac.in.

Comments about MCA Programs

In a couple of my articles I have expressed my reservation about the MCA program. These are the only comments which have attracted some criticim to me so far. And some of that criticism has been rather harsh. Hence I thought I will explain my comments regarding MCA program here.
First of all, let me clarify one thing. I think there is something wrong with most of the MCA programs today. It does not mean that MCA programs were always bad. Of course, people don't like to be told that the program that they did 10 years ago is no longer doing as well, and they still will be unhappy about my comments (and certainly I am endearing myself to people who are doing MCA today), but hopefully the explanation here will reduce the feeling of hurt that these people have after reading my articles.

MCA was a historical necessity till the late 90s. Our IT industry was growing very fast, and our education industry wasn't moving that fast. It wasn't easy to start lots of engineering colleges, and have huge admissions in each of them, as a typical BTech program requires a lot of different labs, a lot of different disciplines to be taught, etc. You don't just need a PC lab, but you also need labs in Physics and Chemistry. You also need a workshop. You need labs in electronics, and so on. And, of course, you need faculty members in all sorts of disciplines - sciences, humanities, and other engineering disciplines to do some core teaching.

Long ago, AICTE recognized (with the help of NASSCOM) that a huge shortage of manpower existed in IT area, and it wasn't going to go away unless some innovative pro-active steps were taken. And the best minds of the country got together and came up with the idea that perhaps we can teach students just the IT skills. India has a huge university system, produces a very large number of graduates in 3-year degree programs, and at that time, the employment opportunities for these graduates were limited.

So on one hand you have a huge number of bright graduates with limited options, and on the other hand, you have a huge shortage of skilled manpower in IT. Could we do something that could kill two birds with one stone. MCA was that stone. You provide IT training to these people, and you solve employability problem on one hand, and fuel the growth of IT industry on the other hand. And this could be done quickly, because you needed only computing hardware and software in terms of labs, and you only needed IT faculty (which though difficult to find, but at least you didn't need to find non-IT faculty).

And throughout 90s, MCA programs were very successful, and helped a great deal in bridging the gap between demand and supply of IT manpower.

But things have changed since then. The number of seats in BTech programs just keep increasing every year to the extent that today we produce more BTechs in CS/IT/EC than what our IT industry can absorb. (We still have a shortage but that is due to quality and not quantity.) So, if you look at the top 1-2 lakh students from 12th class, more and more students are able to join professional courses like engineering, than what was the case in the 90s. Also, several other sectors of economy are booming and good jobs are available in lots of different spheres, which means that a lot of good graduates from the university system are getting excellent jobs, and are not as inclined towards doing another three years in IT. Further, while the number of MCA programs as well as BTech programs have mushroomed, the availability of quality faculty to teach all these programs hasn't increased in the same ratio. So the quality of faculty on an average has gone down. (Of course, this has gone down for both BTech and MCA.)

As a result of these changes, the input to MCA program has dried up in terms of quality. There still are many students who would prefer a Bachelor of Science from a good 3-year degree college, and then think about moving to IT by doing an MCA, but the numbers have reduced substantially over these years, and the quality has deteriorated a lot.

So far we have talked about from the input side. Now, let us talk about the output side, or the employability.

Everyone who criticises my comments on MCA loves to point out that in their favorite MCA program, the placement is 100 percent, that they themselves and their classfellows have got jobs in MNCs, in research labs, and what not. Sure that has happened. As I said above, MCA was an important program in the past, and some of the departments/institutes will continue to attract good students and good companies for some more time to come.

But my question is whether there are jobs in industry which can only be done by MCAs and not by BTechs. And second, in the institutes which offer a BTech (or BE) program in Computer Science, as well as offer an MCA program, who gets the higher average salary - MCA or BTech (CS). Also, across the country, how many MCA programs can boast of 90+ percent employment, versus how many BTech programs in CS can boast of 90+ percent employment.

And notice that ideally one would expect MCA programs to be doing far better than BTech programs. After all MCA programs really have a 6-year college, while BTech program is a 4-year college. Also, the number of courses in MCA and BTech in the same college are either equal, or the number of courses in MCA is more. So MCA graduates should be more mature, and should be more knowledgeable, and therefore, demand getter jobs, and higher salaries. If that is not happening, it points to some structural weakness in the MCA programs.

Let me do some star-gazing now. Right now, industry is still in fast growth phase, the quality of technical education is still quite poor in lots of colleges, and the industry wouldn't mind hiring any smart person. In fact, they hire a lot of non-IT persons as well (like those who do BTech in Civil or Mechanical, etc.). But all this is fast changing. What is the likely scenario for future. Someone who is going to join an MCA program in 2008, and graduate in 2011, what will be the likely placement situation. In my opinion, the placement situation will stabilize in IT industry within the next 4 years, and as industry becomes a bit more choosy about whom to hire, some BTech programs will suffer, but a lot more MCA programs will suffer as a result.

So in terms of employment potential, MCA is already on a decline. The average salaries are already lower than BTechs. The employment ratios are already lower than BTechs. And my prediction is that in future, while situation will become worse for both BTech and MCA, relatively speaking, MCA programs will decline faster.

And now, let us talk about the perspective of a college. Why does a college teach a particular course. To me, it seems that the decision should ideally be based on the demand of the society for the graduates of that course. Of course, there is a demand from society in lots of different fields. Out of those areas, a college has to identify its strengths. In what fields can it attract the best students and the best teachers and funding and so on. What should a college do so that it can become more famous, achieve excellence, and so on.

So, a college has a choice of offering lots of different programs. In particular, it has a choice between MCA and BTech (CS). If MCA program was able to satisfy a niche demand that BTech does not adequately serve, then of course, MCA should be there. Or if MCA attracted (for whatever reason) better students to the college, then MCA should be there (and we should perhaps talk about winding up BTech program). If a lot of potential faculty members were deeply interested in teaching in an MCA program (and not in BTech program), then we should keep MCA program. (And depending on the situation, seriously consider getting rid of the BTech program.)

But what is reality. As I have already said above, the MCA employment is no better than BTech, even though they do two years extra, and in most cases, a few extra IT courses as well. There is no niche segment in the industry which MCA appears to be serving.

Also, if you look at the comparable numbers for comparing the input into MCA and BTech at these institutions (like 12th class marks for students of both the courses), you will find that the average input is better in BTechs.

Further, I have been on a few selection committees for hiring faculty in some colleges. If different departments offer MCA and BTech programs, and you ask a faculty candidate - do you want to join the department which offers BTech program, or do you want to join the department which offers an MCA program, invariably the answer is that they want to teach BTech students.

So, if the average input is better for BTechs, and the average salaries are higher after just 4 years, and faculty wants to teach BTech students, why should any college offer an MCA program today. Please note that I am not at all suggesting that MCA programs were always bad to begin with. Not at all. Let me repeat what I said above. They served a historical need in India's IT industry, and did attract excellent students from the university system at that time. But today, there does not seem to be a rationale for continuing that program.

Most colleges continue with that program because either it is money spinner (in the private sector primarily) or because of inertia and not knowing what else the faculty can be used for (in the government sector). Many times there are political pressure to continue with IT related courses. At other times, alumni feel bad if one closes a program, and in deference to their wishes, you continue for one more year, and then one more year. In fact, I have talked to Directors/Principals/Heads of many colleges/departments who offer MCA programs, and I have never heard even one person say that they offer MCA program because it enhances their reputation, because it fits into their scheme of things to achieve excellence, or that they genuinely feel that MCA does meet some niche needs of the society that other similar programs can not meet.

Now, in India, we hardly ever close any program. It is not just in NITs and state engineering colleges, it is even true for IITs, who claim to be excellent. And any suggestion that a particular program may have outlived its importance raises the hackles, particularly of those who are or were closely associated with that program. Any criticism of the current state of the program is taken immediately to mean that everyone associated with that program not just in present but also in past is of poor quality, and that obviously hurts.

But my intention is only to point out that the current situation of most MCA programs is not too good, and the future is likely to be worse. A good past is no indicator of the good future.

So, if you want to join MCA, please be careful. You should do substantial research about quality of faculty, other students, infrastructure, and so on, before embarking upon it. Statistics does not mean anything when it comes to an individual, but it still is a good tool to know what should one be careful about.



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If you have any comments, you can send me email at: dheeraj[AT]iitk.ac.in.

How to Chose An Engineering College Other than IITs

Since my page on JEE Counselling was published, I have received a lot of requests on my views on engineering colleges other than IITs.
However, I cannot claim to have known a lot of colleges. I travel a lot, and must have visited more than 100 colleges all across country during my career so far, talked to thousands of students, and I can claim to have some understanding of the higher technical education in the country. However, all these visits and browsing the website cannot really tell you everything about any particular college. So I am going to do two things here.

One, I have prepared a small list of colleges, who have made a significant positive impression on me. This may be due to my visits to that college, or my interactions with faculty or students there, or sometimes just visiting the website of that college. So, if a particular college is not listed, it is most likely because I don't know enough about them, and not because I don't consider them as a good college. Also, please note that I do not claim to know anything about programs other than Computer Science. When I visit a college, it is usually only the CS (or related) department. And, if I visit their website, it is usually the CS department website. So, when I recommend a college, I am really recommending it for CS and related areas only.

Two, I am writing below how one should go about ranking them oneself. If I had infinite time, I would have followed this approach myself to rank these colleges. In my opinion, the ranking should depend on the factors that I list below. You should check whether the department has a website or not. If the department does not have a website, or does not provide all the information on the website, then don't rank it very high. The assumption here is that in today's age, if a department in CS/IT area does not provide information for potential students, then it can only be because they don't have any meaningful information to provide.

If you go through the following details, you are bound to find it a very time consuming process. (You will be right, and that is exactly the reason I am giving the process, and not doing the exercise myself.) But choosing a college will have a huge impact on your future, and you should be willing to spend a lot of time in doing this exercise. Of course, you always have an option of looking at the last year's closing ranks in all the exams like AIEEE and use that as the basis of making your choices. But then you didn't need to read even this much.

Before I talk about what are the important criteria for selecting college, let me add that the eventual goal is to do well in career, and be happy in life. Success in career depends on a lot of factor: your passion and interest in the area you are working in, your preparedness (this is where education comes in), your ability to keep learning lifelong (this is why good faculty is absolutely important - to not just teach you some technical stuff, but tell you how to learn yourself), your network of friends (this is where brand name of college will help), and a huge amount of luck.

In today's society, almost all students and parents take the value of the first paycheck as the only measure of success. So, if you visit the forums where students discuss which college to join, the most important questions are: how is the placement, how many companie came, what was the highest salary offered, and so on. People don't want to know whether students of that college are going for higher studies, to just give an example.

Even if money is important to you, shouldn't the career earnings be more important that the first paycheck. And that, as I said above, will depend a whole lot more on quality of education than the first paycheck. And the quality of education is primarily driven by quality of faculty. So, if there is only one thing that you want to check in a website, it is the quality of faculty.

When I look at the lists prepared by students of the order in which they will seek admission, I am sometimes shocked. I visit the website of the two colleges, and at the outset it is absolutely clear as to where the faculty is far superior in every respect, and one still goes for the other place because the closing rank last year was better, or because someone said that a company offered a huge amount of salary to one student.

Another bias that I notice on these forums is that government colleges are better than private colleges. I can understand (and myself advocate to an extent) joining an IIT even if the faculty size is very small, compared to a non-IIT with good faculty, because the brand value is just too high, and that does help in one's career, but I notice that the closing ranks in some of the NITs, IIITs, etc., are very good, even though few private places (like BITS, IIITH, DA-IICT, and LNMIIT - the last one isn't exactly private but a partnership between Rajasthan Government and Mr. Laxmi Mittal) may have superior faculty. Some NITs are excellent, no doubt. But many of them really suffer badly from lack of faculty.

Enough ramblings. Now the parameters:


The most important component that goes into making a good institution is a good faculty. So when you visit the website of a department, look for the following information:
Number of full-time faculty members. Please make sure that you read the details, and find out who is a full-time faculty member, and who is a part-time or adjunct faculty member.
Their qualificiations. How many are PhDs. Where did they do their PhDs. Similarly, how many faculty members are having MTech qualification. Where did they do their MTech.
If a significant portion of faculty received their highest degree (whether PhD, MTech, or BTech) from the same college, then that should raise some alarms. On the other hand, faculty members having a lower degree from the same college, implies that they value the place enough that they returned back to the same place after getting a higher degree from elsewhere.
If the highest qualification for any faculty member is MCA, then be alarmed. Top places will only higher PhDs. Good places may have some MTechs. But if colleges are hiring BTechs and MCAs for teaching courses, it means that they are not able to attract enough good faculty, and that should be a cause for concern.
What are faculty doing. Are they teaching three courses a semester or two. Are they doing at least some bit of research publications.
Look at the Curriculum of the college. If the college is a deemed university, only then it has the flexibility of deciding its own curriculum. Otherwise, it has to follow what the university prescribes. Some of the things to look for in the curriculum are:
How many courses do they teach. Unlike the conventional wisdom in India, I believe that the college that teaches you less is a better college. It means that they do less spoon feeding, and give you more space to grow and learn. If you look at international examples, MIT and other top universities have as low as 32 courses as the requirement for undergraduate degree. The next level universities in US require upto 36 courses for the undergraduate program. In India, IITs and the other top departments usually have 40-42 courses in the undergraduate curriculum. Some of the deemed universities require around 45 courses, and many of the universities require even 60 courses in the undergraduate curriculum. There are surely exceptions to this general trend, but by and large colleges will try to teach you more, if they know that they are doing a poor job of teaching, and hope that if they try teaching you lots, then perhaps in some courses they will be able to teach you something.
How many electives are there in the curriculum, giving flexibility to the students to learn what they are interested in. Many colleges may have slots for electives, but they treat that slot as their choice to offer a course. So they won't offer three courses, and ask students to chose one. But instead they will offer one course of their own choice (basically for whatever course they can find a faculty). Also, in most colleges, the curriculum will only contain professional electives, but no open electives.
Do they have enough number of humanities and social science courses (at least 10 percent courses).
How is the Infrastructure at the college. Now, this is something that most colleges will score equally well. In CS/IT areas, what you really need is a bunch of PCs with some standard softwares, something that increasingly students are anyway affording on their own. But still there are pieces of infrastructure that the college has to provide. Also, how good is their support staff to manage that infrastructure. Here is what you can check.
What is their Internet bandwidth. (Consider the per capita bandwidth.)
Do they have their own domain name for the website.
Do they list some email addresses for faculty, and others on the website. If yes, are these addresses from free service provides (yahoo, gmail, rediffmail, etc.), or are these of the domain name of the college. If everyone seems to be using yahoo and gamil accounts, then it means that they do not provide a good email service internally.
Do they have BOTH a Windows lab and a Linux lab. Ideally CS departments should be preparing you for both Windows and Linux platforms.
Another parameter in determining a good college is to look at what happens to their students after they graduate. After all, you want to study there because you feel that the education will result in a good career for you. But Do not over-emphasize this parameter. So look for the information on the following:
What all companies did they attract for campus placement. Do they attract any multinationals. Do they attract only those IT companies who have local offices, or companies with no presence in the local town also come to the college.
What percentage of their students got hired by these companies.
What is the average and median salaries. (Maximum salaries are attractive but very deceptive. Beware of colleges which only talk about the highest salaries.)
How many people are going for higher studies, whether in India or abroad, whether for doing MS/MTech or for doing MBA.
Do these students care about the college after they graduate. In particular, does college have an associated Alumni Association. Is there any interaction (not necessarily donations, may be just visits) between alumni and the college.
Research output of a department is another factor to look at. One might argue that research is not that important for undergraduate education. Firstly, I do not agree with that statement. Doing research keeps a teacher uptodate on the area, and makes his/her understanding of the subject better. This can only help the quality of teaching. But more importantly, research flourishes when there is an institutional support for it. If faculty members are doing research, then it shows that the college management is serious about the quality of education. Research can be measured by the following parameters.
Publication by faculty members. Higher preference should be given to peer-reviewed journals and conferences of high quality and reputation. Then one should also look at local conferences. At least someone is putting some effort in the right direction.
Sponsored research projects by various funding agencies like Department of Science and Technology (DST), AICTE, Dept of Information Technology, etc.
Any industry interaction in terms of research projects or consultancy.
Do they invite several researchers to give seminars.
Do they organize workshops and conferences.
Does college management have any scheme to reward good research.
What do others say about this college.
Have they been ranked by any major survey like India Today, Data Quest, etc. Note that most of these surveys are only about perceptions and not realities. And it is not that easy to get all the comparable information any way. So take the ranking information with a HUGE pinch of salt.
Has the college gone through any formal accreditation by AICTE (NBA) or NAAC, etc. If yes, what is the result.
Is it a deemed university.
I wouldn't be swayed by the number of MoUs or exchange programs that a college may have with so-called foreign universities.
A few miscellaneous things. They are gross generalizations, hence be careful in applying them to specific instances.
A fully residential or at least mostly residential college has a much better environment than a college which has mostly day scholars.
I don't recommend anyone to do an MCA degree. If you are interested in knowing why I say so, please read my views on MCA programs.
On a couple of occasions above, I have referred to the status of Deemed University. In my opinion, it is very important to be declared as deemed to be university. When you get this status, you can decide your own academic processes, including curriculum, exams, grading, and even admissions, etc. Invariably, colleges with this kind of autonomy have much better quality of education than others.
If you feel that the information provided on the college website is incomplete, or you think that there might be exaggerations, you should send emails to some faculty members and students. Hopefully, the website would have email addresses of faculty, and at least some students (like those who organize events, etc.).

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If you have any comments, you can send me email at: dheeraj[AT]iitk.ac.in.

Choosing "other" colleges

a) IITs rule in India especially in the engineering and technology sectors. The IITs in the metros have much better facilities in terms of infrastructure, travel and accessibility. Hence academic and industrial contacts are biased towards well connected cities. If one looks at the choice of management schools, IITB and IITD rules over every other IIT. Between them IITB is the clear topper.
An unheard of fact is that IITB has the largest number of successful alumni amongst any institute in India. This includes all Indian higher education institutions.

Kanpur and Kharagpur suffer in terms of location. Roorkee the new kid has been unjustly pushed to the bottom by students even though its brand as the University of Roorkee used to stand against the IIT bandwagon at one point. It should have been better ranked than IITM if it was able to capitalise its brand equity. But one reason for its fall from grace is because the successful alumni from IITR has been minuscule to say the least

b) Even though BITS as such has a better brand image than any of the NITs separately, the NIT bandwagon has also come into the picture. Similar to how the IITs build their brand, any achievement of any NIT becomes a achievement for all. Within a few years, it will have a great brand. Already colleges like Caltech choose NIT students over top IIT students for their programs. Caltech is amongst the places where IIT had a big stranglehold so far
Source: http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=29458057&tid=2522177851197886275&start=1

c) One major reason for BITS to take a fall was its flawed selection policy during 1998 to 2004. For 6 years, the BITS brand took a big big beating. Till 1998, the best students used to join BITS Pilani and Roorkee University after the IITs. It was clearly as good as say IIT Guwahati once. From 1998 the 12th marks of Tamil Nadu and Andhra became much easier because of attempts to pander to the public. A huge chunk of students reputed to be 90% at one stage, came from AP and TN. Most of them were ordinary students, who were not like the original quality output of BITS. For some reason, BITS choose the ignore the overpowering statistic for a long time. Finally only when the alumni could no longer watch the huge slump in brand perception, they lambasted the administration and forced BITS to amend their admission procedures. By then the damage was done. A generation of students got the BITS brand without being worthy of it. Even recruiters and admission officers sensed the fall and their offers dramatically dried up.
Source:
"And the admissions process seems to have broken down in the past couple of years with disproportionate students from a few states being represented in the student body. Regardless of the facts, the perception that the process is unfair has the potential to seriously harm the BITS brand".
Most importantly students esp the CBSE students during that period got the feeling that BITS does not recognize true merit. This is the worst that can happen to a college. IIT's have for long taken pride in the fact that no backdoor entry is possible not even for Ministers or IIT directors. Infact it is said that for a long long time, no wards of IIT directors have cleared the IITJEE.

Now BITS has among the most transparent and sensible admission procedures which are infact much more sensible than even the IIT JEE. Butt reversing the original damage takes a long time.Source
By the time they get back to ground zero in say another 1 year ( the time it takes for the 2004 entrants to move away), they will realize that they have reached the 1998 position and they have fallen back back by a decade almost. Others have gone forward at the time BITS slept.
BITS Goa and BITS hyderabad are a good attempt to provide quality education and widen the BITS brand so that BITS -IIT fight becomes a 3 versus 7 affair.and not a 1 versus 7 affair as it was earlier. Even though BITS has ensured that it will never be flanked, it will take a decade at least for the other campuses to get established.Source

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[Adding another entry on BITS:]

STRENGTHS:

1) Discussed under Choosing other colleges.

2) It has an excellent alumni base as big as that of any other individual IIT except that of IIT Bombay. Networking is also supposed to be much better than that of the newer IITs.
BITSians in academia, research
BITS entreprenuers
BITSians in business
BITS being a private college has established a good reputation in industry over time. One reason why this has happened would be the fact that almost one third of its successful alumni have a MBA from the US. This is higher than any of the IITs and also an indicator of the relative affluence of the people entering BITS Pilani. It also appears that almost all MBA grads who had finished their degree decades ago are in powerful positions today. This is true not only for BITS but even for colleges like College of Engineering Guindy , Delhi University, Bombay University or even the MS University Baroda ( which surprisingly has a power packed alumni network).
Trivia: Sabeer Bhatia left BITS after 2 years to join Caltech for his UG. He is not an graduate of BITS unlike what BITS wants the world to believe.
M Damodaran, Head SEBI reportedly dropped out of IITM to join a B.Sc course. And no one claims he is an IIT alumnus.
3) Nowadays its students have started getting scholarships to top colleges like Stanford etc - a steady return to the 90's era. But again its got a lot of catching up to do with respect to the IIT's.

4) BITS has come up with an unique model of GRE type testing which removes stress and allows a better performance in exams. A model which the IITs must learn from.

5) BITS has implemented a uniform 80% cutoff irrespective of state. An admirable action which follows the MIT model that only class toppers need to apply for their programs. But this may also alienate the rural students who may feel at a disadvantage.

WEAKNESSES:

1) The first impression BITS Pilani makes is that it tries too hard to prove that it is better than the IIT's. Right from the students to the faculty, they have a perennial inferiority complex, which is their greatest bane.
This is also reflected in their attempts to prove not that they are good but that IITs are crap. A good example is this link: http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=1499249&tid=2511366499402034699&start=1. The vitriolic and rabid anti IIT comments by many BITS students dont show them in a good light.
Constant comparison with the IITs every minute totally saps them. Unlike say ITBHU, DCE or the NITs they show an extreme inability to come to grips with reality. A BITSian seems to be defined by the anti IIT spirit.

2) BITS Pilani is also infamous for the "attitude" of some of their students who display a perennial snobbery at all other colleges especially the IIT's. ( The part about IIT is unique amongst all other Indian colleges). This was the trend a long time ago but hopefully things should have changed.

3) BITS forums claim that many IIT JEE selected students do join BITS. Normally no one who gets a bachelors degree through IITJEE ( ie in the top 2500 ranks) ever leaves it for any course in BITS Pilani. Still some students ( say around 4 or 5) with ranks around 2000- 2500 and getting a seat in IIT may take up BITS Pilani if they get CS or EE.

For that matter atleast 70 students in the top 2500 ranks and around 140 students below 3000 AIR in IITJEE take up ITBHU. But ITBHU never claims that they are better than the IIT's but only that they are equal to them. There has never been an anti IIT spirit. Infact they feel that they are as good as the neighbouring IITK and there is nothing left for them to prove.

BITS Pilani still offers admission to board toppers. It has never been established whether board toppers are really brilliant or have mastered the art of mugging and exploiting the loopholes of the umpteen state boards. The very fact that almost all board toppers come a cropper in competitive exams like the IIT (and which would obviously have been their first preference) questions the very notion of merit as defined by BITS since time immemorial.

4) BITS Pilani has an alliance with MIT which exists only in name. There has never been any report on what the alliance has ever achieved. Not an inkling of research or publications have been publicized. It appears that MIT had some role in setting up BITS Pilani and that too through the Ford Foundation. Extending that tenuous link till the present date is a clear overstretch. Overzealous students claiming that some internet cables extend to MIT and offering it as proof of an academic alliance mocks the very definition of a tie up.

5) The lesser said about the highly flawed college rankings, the better. But its a necessary evil no doubt. Once in the India Today rankings BITS climbed to 3rd place once and within 2 years, was out of the top 10. The court issue started after BITS did not figure in the rankings. Since then BITS Pilani and India Today have been at loggerheads with each quoting a reason blaming the other.

6) There was a mass resignation of faculty a few years ago. But that problem seems to have been solved now.

7) Official PR releases talk for themselves.
"There is an age old saying that Sun, Moon and Truth are the three things that cannot be hidden for too long and its time to know the truth about BITS Pilani."
And remember this is an official PR release by their Dean.

8) The BITS obsession with rankings:

BITS Pilani Rajasthan towering above the rest in India Today

The title itself is misleading claiming the BITS is the best in India. So much conscious of their public image. Compare this selective representation with IIPM. Quoting selective surveys and that too partial rankings seem to be the order of the day. Source

9) BITS Pilani being in Rajasthan suffers extreme fluctuations in weather. It is said that sometimes the temperature varies from the 40 degrees C in the daytime to almost zero in the night. Also Pilani is an altogether remote place, with almost desert like climate. The nearest cities are Jaipur and Delhi about 220 km away. Shortage of water during summer is also not a rare occurence.

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d) ITBHU is a case of always the bridesmaid but never the bride. A fantastic institute which rivalled Roorkee in every respect, it has taken in students through the IITJEE since 1971. The IIT culture is ensured by the proximity to IIT Kanpur. All the commissions set up to look into upgradations to IIT have consistently rated ITBHU on top of all other colleges. This means that the Government has recognised the fact that ITBHU is the best outside the IIT system. But its drawbacks are that its a stand alone institute and thus comes a cropper against the IITs and NITs. One hopes that soon it becomes an IIT, a future it strongly deserves. The quality of student intake and its long period of existence, ( it existed as 3 colleges under BHU before 1971) remain its biggest strengths. Its ECE, Metallurgy, Ceramic and Mining programs are among the first such programs in India and are supposed to be the best in India as per GOI - Government of India technical education reports.
The latest update is that ITBHU would become an IIT. Source. If and when this happens ITBHU should be as good as IIT Roorkee if not better.

e) The DCE - NSIT combo in Delhi has a deadly power punch. Inspite of differences in names, it presents a unified outlook to the world. The standard of students and faculty in both are almost the same. MIT has been giving admits regularly to these duo. Thats the ultimate stamp of quality. And the location factor is clearly in their favour. DCE ranks better because it has a longer history.

f) Arguably UICT formerly UDCT rocks in chemical engineering. Anil Ambani said that he left IITB for UDCT. Whether a hyperbole or not, that shows how famous this institute was. And at one time, at around the 1990's, people used to say dont apply to MIT unless you are a topper from IIT/ BITS or UDCT. Anyhow UDCT has become very good in many fields like polymers and material science other than their original core competency. But not sure about the job prospects - of course not talking of the ubiquitous IT jobs

g) COE Guindy along with Roorkee are supposed to be the oldest engineering colleges in India. Just opposite to IITM campus, Tamilians still treat it on par with BITS Pilani. But issue is lack of diversity other than the Tamils and also rumors of back door entry for politicians. The sons of popular ministers seem to have got direct admission under a quota especially created for them. There is a exam for entry of other state candidates, but hardly anyone knows about it. Maybe thats what they wanted

h) Jadavpur University is another regional centre of excellence. But again issue is lack of diversity and entry through regional exam.

i) IIIT 's started with much vigor rivaling the IITs in splendor in the initial year 1998 but fallen since then. But CS and EE branches still have a good reputation. Also they are among the few colleges to have a joint Ph.D program with top US colleges like Carnegie Mellon University. Also they have some excellent faculty doing good research. I don't use world class because thats a very misused term in India nowadays!!
IIIT gets the best of students through the AIEEE exam which numerically is far tougher to the IITJEE. It attracts very good students. Even though its young, national wide admission procedures are top class.

j)For some reason PEC got itself seared in the Indian consciousness and American consciousness after Kalpana Chawla. It has been having a good run since then.

k) COEP has enjoyed a good reputation over the years. But issue seems to be lack of diversity and regional entrance exams.

Group 2:
The other NITs:
As said earlier, the NITs united under a common umbrella have a very bright chance of elbowing out all other colleges including the BITS group by sheer number soon in the future. All the ingredients for success are there.

VJTI Bombay:
As good as COEP, it has some illustrious alumni and good brand image.

Group 3:
Vellore Institute of Technology:
Supposed to be the "hottest" rising college in the horizon. Around 70000 students wrote their entrance exams throughout India, bigger than even BITSAT at 52000. In the 1990's it was like any other ordinary college. Not sure whats really driving them now. Not much idea about this.

BIT Mesra:
Not allied with BITS ( like BITS Pilani Goa ) and different. Its administration is different from BITS Pilani, its more famous relation. Anyway seems much better than the BITS Pilani campuses at Goa, Dubai etc. Developed a good reputation over decades.

PSG Coimbatore:
Just below COE Guindy, but has the same strengths and weaknesses. One extra weakness is that its in the more remote Coimbatore.

HBTI Kanpur:
This is another chemical Engineering stud college like UDCT, but not as well known.

RVCE Bangalore
RVCE started like SVCE Chennai , but in Bangalore it still rules. And unlike SVCE, its brand cachet has been steadily going up year after year. Has been churning quality students for a long time and slowly becoming a powerhouse.

Others:
SVCE Chennai
SVCE used to be an good college, especially during 1998 - 2004, strangely the same time BITS had the skewed selection policy. All CBSE IIT aspirants from Tamil Nadu - who could have walked eyes closed into BITS if only they opted for the Matric board ended up here. Of course they were also the ones who could not convert IITJEE. But even a place like Stanford which as a rule takes only IIT grads only for their CS Ph.D programs made exceptions twice for SVCE students ( this was before the year 2002). That spoke volumes about their quality earlier. Lately it has fallen upon very bad times with the AIEEE exams and BITSAT exams robbing them of good students. Steadily plummeting day after day and losing out quality students. Even SSN Engineering college with extensive scholarships has leftSVCE trailing. SSN is now the numero uno choice for students in Chennai.


Misc - Unranked:

ISI Kolkata/ Bangalore
A very niche college for people interested in pure Maths or Statistics. Has a very good reputation abroad - especially for people interested in doctoral studies.

CMI Chennai
Of late there has been a lot of hype about this place. Again a place for Maths freaks. QUite a number of people with high ranks in the IITJEE have been joining this place. But this seems too new an institution. Either choosing Maths and Computing courses in IIT's or choosing ISI seem a better option for now.

IIIT Allahabad
Has been a very upcoming college in recent years even coming up in the top 10 of a few surveys. Need to deliver the same consistent results for a longer period of time to really push itself into the top. After all pedigree counts big time whether one likes it or not.


If you consider the quality and qualification of faculty and infrastructure then the best bet is as follows:

1) IIT Kanpur,
2) IIT Bombay,
3) IIT Kharagpur,
4) IIT Delhi,
5) IIT Madras
6) BITS Pilani
7) IIT Roorkee
8) IT-BHU
9) IIT Gauhati
10) IIIT Hyderabad
11) NIT Calicut
12) NIT Suratkal
13) NIT Warangal
14) Delhi College of Engineering
15) Anna University
16) DAC-IT
17) NIT Trichy

The quality of NIT Trichy and NIT Warangal has gone down for the past few years. At the sametime NIT Calicut and NIT Surathkal has made tremendous progress. NIT Calicut has outstanding faculty. Most of them are Ph.Ds from IITs.

Placement @ ITBHU CSE

Placement Info of 2005-09 CSE ITBHU Batch as of 1 February 2009:

Microsoft
4

DE Shaw
3

Oracle
8

Adobe
3

TCS
1

Aricent
6

Samsung(SISO)
1

Samsung(SISC)
2

CSC
10

C-Dot
4

DRDO
1

IBM-ISL
7

Mentor Graphics
1

Goldman sachs
1

Interra Systems
1

Verizon
4

Neev Technologies 1
Atrenta 1
Citrix 1

Rave Technologies 1

iRunway 1
Total Offers: 62



A brief placement stats of CSE ITBHU 2008 batch :

http://rahman.itbhu.googlepages.com/placementstatistics

http://deepak.cse87.googlepages.com/csebranchitbhu-placementstatus2007

Very true (for mee) indeed

IITR 2008 placements

the difference between comp. engg and cmp. sc. and engg.

In renowned computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra words "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The design and deployment of computers and computer systems is generally considered the province of disciplines other than computer science. So despite its name, a significant amount of computer science does not involve the study of computers themselves. Instead Computer science is considered to have a much closer relationship with mathematics than computers.

Whereas the study of computer hardware is usually considered part of computer engineering, while the study of commercial computer systems and their deployment is often called information technology or information systems.

Computer Engineering encompasses broad areas of both Electronics engineering and computer science. Computer engineers are engineers who have training in the areas of software design and hardware-software integration.

Product based Company vs Services company

It is a common notion among the freshers and also among some of the people in the industry to consider services company as completely devoid of innovation and thriving solely on labor arbitrage. I was myself guilty of similar thinking for a long time.

However, after the little experience I have in the industry and watching both Services and product development side by side, I have realized that both have their own unique challenges and it is not at all fair to put services companies on a lower pedestal than product companies.

Firstly, there aren't really any true product companies. No company can simply build and sell products without providing services around them. Microsoft - the epitome of software product development - has a very large fraction of its work force providing support and associated services around its products. Apple, IBM, Sun - you name it - all develop products and provide services around them. If anything - many of these companies (notably IBM) have realized that services is a much more profitable business to be in. IBM Global Services is probably world's largest software services company.

Secondly, unlike common perception, services companies constantly innovate to remain competitive. The innovation may be in the form of better processes, better hiring strategies, or in developing complex technical solutions for their clients. It is true that many large software services companies do routine incremental maintenance work for systems that were architected elsewhere. However, that is true for large product companies as well which need to invest majority of their resources in maintaining and updating previous versions of their products. If anything, a services company has better chances of doing interesting work in varied technologies as against a product company which is likely to be tied to a single platform and a single product. For a services company, every client and every project is an opportunity to pick up a new technology. The portfolio and technical breadth of services companies is undeniably greater than those of product companies.

The greatest advantage of working in a services company is that you learn to listen very carefully to what your customers are saying. On the shoulders of its clients, a services company gets an opportunity to look closely at varied business models, ship varied products and learn from mistakes and successes of others.

The product company on the other hand the product based company has its own systems in place and is more of ‘content’ than ‘presentation’.
Let me elaborate a bit. A product company is not necessarily great because it innovates. What makes a (good) product company truly stand out is its ability to place its bets on building something in a way that nobody else has, and then giving it all the company's got. Product companies invest in R&D, they take chances, and in their DNA is the ability to know “what” to build without somebody telling them to. The what is a very key element.

The technical challenges and innovation will be similar but a services company does not own the intellectual property and also does not take the responsibility of the success of the idea. This responsibility makes a product company special because it makes long term revenue for the company. (And explains the swelling packages offered to the employees!)

Which one’s for you. You decide yourself..
Product companies are about innovation, service companies are about understanding, listening to clients and addressing the solution within deadlines. The processing of listening to the market is the common aspect of both. However, the kinds of people required for these roles are fundamentally different. Think consulting firm, and you can imagine the big B school MBAs in client relationship roles. There is a lot more emphasis on soft skills, on formal processes, less emphasis on precision or sustainability, less time for innovation, less thought on the code line and more on getting to a solution that works in time. Product companies require more creative people, but their social skills might not be as good. Again this is an observation and not a rule of thumb.

Narad Vachan:
A product company uses its people to create intellectual property.
A services company rents its people out so others can create intellectual property.
A product company takes a $20/hour Java programmer and uses her skills to create a $20 million product.
A services company takes a $20/hour Java programmer and rents him out for $25/hour.