Andhra University B.Tech Review By Anshu Kumari

I was from the 2013-2017 batch of the Andhra University College of Engineering. The University’s reputation and ranking speak for it as it is not just one of the oldest universities of India but was one of the best in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Apart from education, NSS and NCC centers are there in Andhra University Visakhapatnam. The Alumni base of the University is as good as the IITs or BITs. Alumni of the University are often invited as some of them are working as CEO or CFO in top companies of India and abroad. The placements were below average as many IT companies have their requirement on papers of the number of candidates they wanted. During our time, IBM came with a requirement of 10 students, and luckily they announced that they will only be hiring girl students.

From what I heard from Alumni they have their view straight that the quality has deteriorated even though I had no complaints apart from irregular classes. The labs have been upgraded and the University keeps upgrading them every 3-4 years. The syllabus too is upgraded as and when required. The irregular classes though were an issue as the teachers I feel have no accountability and there is no place to file a complaint against them. The alumni base that I talked about were all passed out 10 years back and in the gone decade the University hasn’t produced many notable students.

The faculty has dropped down the University’s merit as most of them are Ph.D. and still busy with their researches. Many times they have sent in their juniors who are doing Ph.D. research under them to take the classes. As a student, we didn’t have a choice but to accept what was there on offer. The standard has started falling and since most of the faculty are in the mid-50s, it’s time that University should upgrade the faculty as well. Trust me, if that happens the falling standard of the University will take a U-turn.

As CSE students, we knew that we don’t have to bother for placements. However, the pay package too has seen a dip and for the reasons that I mentioned above. Who doesn’t want to work with an MNC and there were plenty to choose from. All 60 from our batch appeared before multiple companies and 50 of us were handed offer letters. The pay package though after 4 years of grinding was 3-5 lakhs. Many students also decided to boycott the kind of job offered but University big guns held a meeting and beg your pardon but they threatened us that if we don’t accept the placements, we will never be able to find placements on our own beyond the campus.

There are 2 hostel buildings in the engineering department. One each for boys and girls. Andhra University Hostel building is not maintained and the girl’s hostel building which looks pink in colour is actually off-white in reality. The buildings are not maintained and being a resident of Vizag, I was not even allowed to stay in the hostel even though I had to travel 16 miles daily. Even if I had the option, I don’t think I would have chosen to stay at the hostel. The stay at the hostel is cheap but is still not worth it.

Not entirely maintained or entirely lose but Infrastructure doesn’t have that many drawbacks. The Britisher’s styled Andhra University campus is spread across 600 acres and for the engineering leg its 110 acres to be precise. The grand history and some old buildings make the look of the University serene. Each department had its own library and the engineering department’s library called VS Krishna library was bigger than many colleges of the city. The library had a reading area for 500 students and there’s a beautiful garden with benches to sit and study. One thing that I like the most is free Wi-Fi and fortunately, the entire campus was Wi-Fi enables. The University has 3-4 sports grounds and the engineering sports ground was the biggest sports ground in the city. I have seen VDCA Cricket Stadium and University’s cricket stadium trust me is bigger than that. The one drawback if I have to pinpoint is that it's not maintained well.

Every other day we had issues with the faculty and that was the hottest discussion point. The University has limited seats and we didn’t have any outsiders as in students from other states. Telugu was the preferred language at the campus which shouldn’t be the case. The University hosts a lot of events but with a small budget and students had to gather funds themselves if we had to do it on large scale. I had some good memories and some really bad memories and I am still in between to say whether one should join this University or rather avoid joining the University.