Terna Engineering College B.Tech Review By Modak Bhargav

Terna Engineering College, located in Nerul, is decent. It's difficult to boast about any particular quality of it, (unless speaking of two specialized courses in Engineering design and some fully solar based labs), but it will get you by. The facilities provided to us during Covid were amazing and the college email also allows for gaining several benefits. The committee for events and clubs is very energetic and does hold several events which made the college experience a little more memorable than I expected. At least I have some stories to tell in the future. Recently, the upper management has been mismanaging the allotment of the teachers and preparing schedules and managing the overall time-table of the college, which has led to several mishaps, and could be avoided easily with proper planning and communication between departments and between the departments and the students. There is a lot of encouragement to do a lot of things, like to do NPTEL courses, Internships, attending seminars, workshops, and others, but there is limited actual support to perform those activities.

The Bachelor of Engineering course for Computer Engineering is the standard one, provided by University of Mumbai which contains all the subjects given in the curriculum. The eligibility requirements are also the same as University of Mumbai regarding the 10th and 12th percentage. Terna Engineering College takes admissions both on CET as well as JEE performance. If you are EWS, caste or other similar category, you will receive scholarship from the government. There is no scholarship specifically provided by Terna Engineering College itself. One should enroll in this course if they want a standard Engineering education for Computer Engineering, which includes the base subjects like Discrete Structures and Graph Theory, Data Structures, Analysis of Algorithms, Database Systems, Data Warehousing, Computer Networks, Theory of Computer Science, System Programming and Compiler Construction, Internet programming, etc. Optional subjects that were not available during my time due to faculty issues include Augmented Reality, Quantum Computing, Deep Learning, Digital Signal and Image Processing, Information Retrieval, Computer Vision, and Project Management.

There are several good teachers teaching in the Computer Department, and the ones teaching base subjects are generally very competent, given that they are assigned the same subject and are also assigned to your class. For me, the teachers for Data Structures and Analysis of algorithms were quite good and hence, I formed a strong base in those. Unfortunately, there was some mismanagement from teachers of Computer Networking, assigning non-relevant teachers to the subjects that they had no expertise in. Especially in later years with advanced subjects like Blockchain, there were no teachers assigned initially. For Social Media Analysis, Big Data Analytics and Distributed Computing too, the teachers were of different departments or expertise. This is no way to discredit the teachers themselves. They tried their best to make sure we had a complete education, but there is only so much they could do when assigned a subject wholly outside their expertise. The teacher for Data Warehousing was an excellent one, one who had been to CERN in Switzerland and several other such projects. That teacher commanded respect and took a good approach to teaching. The faculties for Machine Learning, Applied Data science and Cryptography were also very excellent.

Yes, there exists a Placement Cell at the institute, the Terna Placement Cell. They recently (2023) had a change of leadership and therefore a lot of systems underwent change. They had grand plans to overhaul the screening process and the placement training, but ultimately due to lack of funds and training this was not possible during our years there. There was training both for Aptitude, English speaking, and comprehension as well as for coding; however there was some mismanagement in the technical training, which caused dissatisfaction among the students. There was appreciable positive response for the aptitude training, however, it did mess a lot with the schedules for the regular college year, putting a lot of stress on the students. The Training and Placement Cell did bring a lot of companies like Godrej and Boyce, Cognizant, SBI, Sankey Solutions, Capgemini (females), HSBC (females), Hexaware, Aurinpro, Jio CX, Deloitte, QUASTECH, Turing, Qubehealth, TCS General NQT drive, Sutherland, Yes Bank, Hike Education, Jaro Education, ExcelR, and Jio Haptik. It seemed like students got placed in most of the companies, however some of the high package offerings were from Sales companies. The high package from other technical companies did not select any students.

Terna Engineering College does have a hostel, the upfront fees are quite high, however, the facilities are very nice. There is a place to store bikes, a separate canteen from the college canteen, and also the rooms are gender segregated. The hostel also has a strict policy for curfew after 10pm.

Terna Engineering College is part of the Terna Institute, there are three colleges. Terna Hospital and Medical College, Terna Dental College, and Terna Engineering College. There is a turf between all the three colleges which is used for playing games and sports events. Other students can even rent the turf for practice. The campus is quite close from Nerul railway station, west side. The main Engineering college building has two entrances although the back entrance may be closed. The front entrance has a ramp for the disabled. The building is divided into two wings, left and right, with 4 floors on the right and 5 on the left, with each wing dedicated to a branch. The computer engineering labs are on floor 3 right wing. There are 2 toilets for both genders each on each floor, one on each wing. Both wings are connected on all floors except the fourth floor, where the connecting hallway is instead a reading hall, only accessible from the right wing. The library is on the middle section third floor, gymkhana below it, seminar hall below it, and main office below that on the ground floor. There are no weights in the Gymkhana as of 2024, only table tennis and carrom. The labs all have air conditioning. Only one classroom on right wing has air conditioning. The labs are well equipped. I did not visit all labs but the Computer Engineering labs do have Windows 11. Some of the labs for operating systems also have Ubuntu Linux installed. There is also an Apple Lab, although it wasn't available for Computer Engineering Students.

The canteen is directly opposite the gymkhana. It is taller than required and the upper space could be used to install another floor to the canteen. There is a wash basin available with multiple seats and charging stations. The food is decent, but I haven't tried it enough. The crowd at Terna is generally well behaved, but often can become rowdy. I didn't see any instances of ragging. There are several clubs like E-cell, IEEE committee, Resonance, Google Developers Club, Avalon, Antarang, and others which hold events. There are two hackathons every year (by Avalon and E-cell), plus some additional project showcase events. I participated in two hackthons in my last two years, it was a good experience, but the food and ventilation could do better. There are a number of fun days hosted in February and March. The main festivals are divided into two, one is the Terna Festival, which includes SportTEC (sports championship) and several days like Gang Day, Bollywood Day, Traditional Day, etc. and Revive, which includes concert, standup special, and also DJ night. There are several dancing events, two DJ nights for the two events, plus Dholida in Navaratri. The committees do really put a lot of effort in making the college life memorable so kudos to them.