Jadavpur University B.Tech Review By Manas Pratim Biswas

Jadavpur University constantly tops the NIRF ranking in the Engineering category. It is currently ranked as the 5th best university in India. The most striking feature of this university is its Return on Investment (ROI). The fee is a meager 13k for the four years of your engineering study. In the case of Information Technology, the fee is 1.2 lac for 4 years and that is also very very low compared to any other engineering colleges in India. On the contrary, CSE and IT boats of mammoth placements are much better than all of the NITs and comes just after the top 5 IITs. The other circuital branches and the core branches have equally good opportunities and placement that are at par with the NITs and middle-aged IITs.

I am a student of Information Technology at this university. Academic life here is very much balanced and you have sufficient time to pursue your interests and other non-academic endeavors. Attendance is lenient in the theory classes in most cases although labs and workshops need compulsory attendance. Admission to this university is purely merit-based and there is no management quota. Students are admitted as per their ranks in the WBJEE entrance examination. In the case of Architecture, admission is also done through JEE Mains B.Arch entrance test.

Professors are well qualified and JU and teaching is very much standard in all the core engineering departments. This is reflected in the university students' high rank in GATE and GRE examinations. In particular, CSE and ETCE (popularly called ECE in the rest of India) produce top rankers. 2018 ECE Gate Rank 1 was from JU.

The placement at Jadavpur University is impressive. For the year 2020, the mean salary of CSE went as high as Rs. 20 LPA and for IT it was 16.5 LPA. Big tech companies as Adobe, Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Samsung, DE Shaw, Salesforce, and startups like Uber, Swiggy have been recruited from the college which clearly shows the quality of the undergrads produced here. The rest of the core branches have a decent placement scenario in both core and non-core sectors. Non-CS/IT students are also allowed to sit for IT-related jobs during the campus interview for which they need to qualify for a screening test that is held by the Code Club.

Although JU is a day-university where most of the local students are daily commuters to the college, it also has hostel facilities. The hostels are very very cheap. The cost of meals is also very low. The unfortunate thing about the hostels is that they are low in number and hence many cannot avail themselves and have to settle for a paying guest (PG) at a nearby location. The hostel rooms in the main campus are shared by 2 or 3 students and the rooms are a little shabby and old. The Salt Lake campus provides single rooms for the students and is well maintained with Wi-Fi facilities.

The Faculty of Engineering at JU is well furnished with all the necessary labs and equipment that a technical institute requires. All the core departments have separate buildings of their own. The campus is well connected with Wi-Fi but there have been issues with the speed and the range of the network. The Salt Lake campus of JU boasts of a huge cricket ground where many famous International Cricketers have to practice matches. In case you happen to be lucky enough, you can have a glimpse of international cricketers from very close.

There are two campuses. The Main Campus is located at Jadavpur itself. The main campus has 11 engineering departments along with the Science and Arts departments. The second campus is at Salt Lake and it consists of 5 engineering departments. The main campus, due to its more strength and multi-disciplinary people is more bustling while the Salt Lake campus is comparatively less crowded and peaceful. Srijan is the annual techno-management fest while Sanskriti is the annual cultural fest. The former is organized in the JU Salt Lake campus while the latter is organized in the main campus. JU also boasts of many popular and vibrant clubs. Photography and Debating clubs are worth mentioning. At JU you can always find similarly minded people.