K J Somaiya Institute of Technology B.Tech Review By Ramesh Sharma

KJSIET Sion is a unit of KJ Somaiya Group and this institute is located in Ayurvihar Campus. I am not here to promote the college as the quality of teaching was A-one but the placements suck. The total intake is 360 and there are just 4 departments in KJSIET Mumbai. BE in Information Technology was my field and there were just a couple of students who got placement worth 10 lakhs as the rest were stranded in the range of 3-5. KJSCE Vidhyavihar was my first choice like everybody else but because I didn’t get the admissions there had to join KJSIEIT. This was common for all the students as all battled the same issues. The thing that impressed me the most was the crowd at the college. Not just from Central Mumbai but students from Western suburbs also used to come to KJ Somaiya Institute of Engineering. Unlike KJSCE not many outsiders were a part of this college because honestly speaking not many people know about this institute. Since I used to come by train, I had to battle many issues like you will hardly find a bus for this route and coming by rickshaw daily will cost you 50 bucks. Money was not a problem but the college was difficult to reach as it was 15-20 minutes from Sion station.

The labs and the classrooms are air-conditioned. This is one thing that not many can boast about their college because there are just a handful of engineering colleges in Mumbai that has air-conditioned classrooms and labs. For our department, the labs were fully equipped and awesome. The institute provides a lot of internship and competition opportunities as a student. Technical teams like VYOM, and NLI have presented their projects and crafts at the National level. Do involve yourself in these clubs as otherwise, it would be difficult to spend 4 years at the college.

The core faculty was good but it changed after the 2nd year. The new faculty that walked in were mostly from KJSCE and therefore it wasn’t much of a problem to adjust for faculty or the students. It was nice interacting with them but even they told us about the drawback of this college. There were not many industrial visits from the college end and it were the faculty members that used their source and sent us for industrial visits. KJSIEIT faculty was one of those shining sparks of the college that has kept the college name in reckoning.

In the IT department, the core companies were IT companies. We got a small training session of a week and that was it from the college end as after that we were asked to look for ourselves. This is what it was and obviously had no choice. Wipro, TCS, and Capgemini visited the campus, interviewed us also tested our soft skills and mental strength. After all this drama for a week, we were offered a job worth 3-5 lakhs. At once, I was like is it for real because if it is, I wouldn’t have even chosen engineering. This is why I have bombarded the college on every front apart from the crowd and faculty.

The campus is so big but still, there’s no hostel in it. One hostel started building but I am sure it wouldn’t have been ready by now because students of who opt for the hostel are sent to the Vidhyavihar hostel. Transportation facility is provided to such students but having a hostel within the camps is better for sure. There are many PGs in Sion East and Sion West and are reasonable as well rather than staying in expensive suburbs and also wasting time on travelling.

I will explain this in 2 parts and so let me start off by taking all the good points like the campus is huge and lush green. There are just 2 buildings on the campus as one is Somaiya Medical College and the other one is ours. The engineering building is an 8-floor building with 4 lifts. 2 for students and 2 for staff. The IT lab was air-conditioned and was huge. The library was also inside the building and had a good reading area. The playground was again awesome as curators and gardeners have maintained the ground really well. I am done with the good portion and will take some beating. The ground that I talked about is often seen children from slums playing cricket on. There are just 3-4 watchmen and they guard the already secured building. The area is not safe at all and most of the girls used to take walk along with boys to the rickshaw stand. The canteen that charges 15 rupees for less than 30ml tea was cheap as per college management. There are no restaurants or any places to go by near the college. The college also didn't have CCTV cameras in our time but I hope they have been installed by now.

The college had some really good clubs and we were free to stay at the campus as long as we wanted. Being with club members and sharing and gaining knowledge is the only way you can become a pro here. The fests are also average and not something that you will wait for an entire year to participate or witness the fests. I have seen our college faculty asking us to post some nice reviews about the college. I have given an honest review so don’t blindly trust the positive review about the college.