Navrachana University B.Tech Review By Brijesh Patel

I joined Navrachana University in 2015 and did B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. Vadodara which was considered as an education hub of Gujarat has now become famous for some of the worst Universities. No wonder many students in Vadodara have started migrating to other states or cities for studies. The University is fantastic in terms of infrastructure and location which is a little far from the main city. The bustling city crowd or the noise will not bother you at the University but students speaking in Gujarati more often and even the faculty love teaching the same way had somehow killed my mojo of studying. Schooling in Vadodara is much favorable and I hope some of the schools start their Universities because the way Universities are coming up in Vadodara and nearby villages students will find it easy to have engineering degree but quality will always be missed. As a mechanical student, I knew that it is challenging in the outer world but rather than making us tough the University made us lazy. The education was general as the classes will commence and will end and we have to go back home. There was no new learning or something beyond books and that is why I have such harsh words to say.

A proper system was there and classes were quite regular as well. However, the students were not stopped when they asked their doubts in the local language. Most of the students were from English medium and for even if those who weren’t the language inside the campus I feel it has to be English mandatory. Even our school had such restrictions but not a so called best University. The syllabus was never done on time as some students keep poking at the faculty and they wasted the whole class giving them lectures rather than taking the class seriously.

Some of them were postgraduates from Universities of Gujarat and therefore there command over language was, Oh My Word!! Some of them couldn’t even speak 2 sentences in English and some of them have just by hearted the whole book. You ask them any question and they will answer what’s in the book without looking and one will feel as if they are so brilliant. The faculty barring a couple were not qualified or deserve to be a teacher at the university level. The experience was hardly there with them and I hope the University takes these points seriously.

For the mechanical department the placements were awful. Not just mechanical but every course and stream placements were a formality as the companies visited had a look and I don’t know if they signed any. Many of my classmates are still trying to get a job but are unable to or are doing jobs that are completely irrelevant to their field. Collabera Careers and Alembic Pharma have hired some of the students but that was also through an off-campus placement that the University organized after students protest. All in all the placements at NUV are woeful.

The Viram House campus is located 1.5 km from the university campus. Navrachana University hostel campus has 2 buildings. The hostels have relatively lesser rooms and thereby the rooms are allotted on the basis of first cum first serve basis. The main hostel building has a hostel mess or canteen which is common for boys and girls. From the entrance to the entire campus, everything is under CCTV surveillance. The first 2 floors of the hostel building are girl’s rooms and from the 3rd to 5th floor are boy’s rooms. The hostel was nice and there was also a common room for the guests as the guest were not allowed to enter the rooms of the students. However, on a request, not friends but parents could be taken to the room.

Navrachana University Campus is big as there are 5 different colleges on one campus. The labs of the engineering department were high-tech and classrooms are facilitated with projection technology. CCTV cameras are installed on the entire campus. The college cafeteria is grand as 200 students can sit and have their food inside the cafeteria. The campus is large and the corridors, staircase, and Amphi Theater are always full of students interacting with each other. The college has 2 auditoriums, one closed and one open. Open auditorium hosted cultural events and yoga sessions and all. The closed one was mostly used for practicing and all. The college has a sports ground, 2 basketball courts, one volleyball court, and a swimming pool. The infrastructure is good if not the best.

Universities in Gujarat intake students from Gujarati medium and therefore Gujarati becomes the national language at the campuses. I am not against it as even it’s my mother tongue but in a University where we are getting ready to take our country’s name on the world map, we need to be well-versed in English. I came to University with a lot of hope but the campus was boring. The events were held almost every month and Khel Mahakumbh at the University was one of the grandest events I saw. University students participated and there were 16 sports competitions organized. The cultural fest was also quite good as some of the prominent personalities of the Gujarati film industry are called upon every year to grace the event.