RVCA Bangalore: Life at An Architectural College

I am currently finishing up the semester end examinations of 3rd semester of B.Arch course at RV College of Architecture. Apart from the college being a little far away from the city, it has a good atmosphere and surrounding. The labs are well equipped and the faculties try to help get you through the semesters by understanding the essence of each assignment and how it would help you in the future. The library is very well equipped and has a wide range of books, magazines and articles which would help to get a deeper understanding on the topics. The main factor which made me choose RV College of Architecture was from the words of alumni stating that the faculties at RV College of Architecture were excellent and I agree with it as far as I know.

The course I have chosen is the Bachelor in Architecture (B.Arch) at RV College of Architecture. I was a science student in college and was not sure about what course to take so I had attempted the CET. COMEDK, JEE, and PSAT examinations to keep my options open. As I had interest in Biology I thought it could be something I would like to pursue in the future but was drawn to architecture as my father was in the same field and I found it fascinating. My twin sister was already interested in the course and we decided to pursue it together. My sister had a rank of 51 with (NATA combined with CET) and I had rank of 151 so she got in through CET and I through COMEDK. You can get in through either CET or COMEDK combined with NATA or JEE paper 2 marks and also by management fees. The admission process is not that tedious, you will just need to have to fulfill all the requirements and will usually be able to take all the materials required for the course after the admission process. The course is mostly based on the continuous assessment and will have mid semester as well as end semester examinations from the VTU. There are total 10 semesters with a total of 5 years in this course. Most of the assignments are either based on practical and real life problems or have takeaways which can be used later on.

The yearly fees is dependent on the examination you have gotten the seat through, whether CET or COMEDK or management. The fee of CET is Rs. 97,000 with Rs. 14,000 extra for registration while for COMEDK it is around Rs. 2,64,000 + Rs. 20,000. The management fees vary depending on the availability of seats at the time of registration and remain either the same throughout the years or might get reduced. The fees also vary for people with quota and categories.

Each semester we have different subjects with some evolving in difficulty while others are completely new. Thus each semester we have 3-4 faculty members for major credit subjects like design and others have 1-2 faculties depending on the subject. For a major credit subject we have one faculty for 10 students as the ratio. The faculty are well equipped and ready to solve any problem arising and are also actively involved and ready to understand the problems faced by the students.

Since I am currently still a student in 3rd semester, I am not sure about the placement related information.

Yes, RV College of Architecture offers residential facilities. It is divided into two parts, the girl’s hostel is connected to the main campus and the boy’s hostel is at a road next to the college. There is also a basket ball court present next to the girl’s hostel.

The campus is a huge and large complex situated near the Turahalli Forest on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The academic block has 4 floors, each floor constituting 1-2 semester students and has studio spaces with capacity to accommodate 40 students and 2 theory classrooms with the same capacity. They have storage spaces as well as smart board and black boards for lectures. The library of RV College of Architecture is one of the most equipped one in Bangalore with many articles, books and magazines available in both soft and hard copies. The canteen opens from 8-5 pm. The campus also has a seminar hall as well as an auditorium for bigger events. There are different labs like Potter lab with a kiln, woodworking lab with laser cutting machine and 3D printer and structures lab for hands on experience. My most favorite area on the campus is shaded by trees.

The campus life is good, stressful but for the right reasons keeps you motivated to strive to be better. The college crowd is a mini India itself, there are students from all the different parts of India. There are monthly events like open mic, etc. Kannada Rajyothsava is also celebrated as a huge cultural festival. There are different clubs for theater, music, dance, trekking, photography, and pottery workshop. I am a part of the theatre as well as the dance club and enjoy working with the different people present in these clubs.