BITS, Goa

Submitted by Neil Dhruva:-

Birla Institute of Technology and Science

Birla Institute of Technology and Science is an Institution declared as Deemed to be University under Sec. 3 of the UGC Act. It is currently the No. 1 ranked private institute in India, 7^th overall following the IITs. It is located in Pilani, Rajasthan, with three more campuses, one each in Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai (mainly for overseas students).

Admission:

BITS offers admission to students based on their performance in an all-India Entrance Examination called BITS Admission Test (BITSAT). The exam tests the candidate's knowledge, reasoning and analytical abilities in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, English and Logical reasoning, and is based broadly on the higher secondary curriculum in India (NCERT curriculum). To be eligible for admissions, prospective students are also required to obtain a minimum aggregate of 80% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (subject to a minimum of 60% in each of these three subjects) in their 10+2 board exams.

BITSAT differs from the conventional written examination as it is an online exam held at more than 20 places all over India. As it is difficult for all the students (nearly 2 lakhs) to appear on a single day, this exam is conducted over a period of nearly 40 days. A candidate can choose the date of exam and the time-slot. There are around 50 sets of papers and necessary precautions are taken to maintain uniformity in the level of difficulty of all these sets.

Another very important aspect of the BITS admission model, unlike most of the other colleges in India, is that admission is purely on the basis of merit and not through any kind of reservation. Further details regarding BITSAT, admission modality etc. are provided at BITS Admissions (for students pursuing undergraduate studies).

Curriculum:

The Institute has a three-tier academic structure viz. Integrated First Degree, Higher Degree and Doctoral programmes. Each tier offers many degrees and within a degree a number of courses are offered.

Integrated First Degree (undergraduate studies):

BITS offers Integrated First Degree programmes in Bachelor of Engineering (B.E. (Hons.)), Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm (Hons.)), Master of Science (M.Sc (Hons.)), Master of Science (M.Sc (Technology)), and Master of Arts (M.A (Hons.)). Various programmes are offered with the degrees and these are classified into 3 groups A, B & C.

• Group A: Chemical, Civil, Electrical & Electronics, Mechanical, Pharmacy, Computer Science, Electronics and Instrumentation, Electronics and Communication, Manufacturing.
• Group B: Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Economics, Mathematics, Physics.
• Group C: Information Systems, General Studies, Engineering Technology, Finance.

The unique feature in the BITS education system is the option for dual degree which I am pursuing at the Goa campus. Students who opt for a degree in Group B, are offered a dual degree from Group A at the end of the first year according to their performance in the first year. In my case, I missed out on B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science at the Goa campus by a couple of marks on my BITSAT score. Thus, instead of settling for a B.E. (Hons.) degree I could get at my score, I have opted for MSc. Economics and according to my performance in the first year, I’ll be offered a B.E. (Hons.) course next year onwards, which means I get one more shot at pursuing Computer Science. I thus have a 5-year integrated course instead of 4, that’s the only difference between me and a CS student. For the first year, every student studies the same courses, so I don’t miss out on anything at all. For further details check out “More Details” at: Curriculum.

Campuses and Campus Life:

The campus at Pilani was the first to be established, followed by Goa and recently, Hyderabad. Pilani still holds priority on students’ list for admission, but Goa and Hyderabad are fast catching up.

There is no difference amongst the campuses as far as the curriculum, teaching methods and opportunities are concerned. Even the text books used for each course are the same. The only difference lies in the cut-offs, Pilani being at the top. Well, that would indeed mean the brightest of them all study at Pilani, but the campuses are not far from coming at par with each other.

I study at the Goa campus, and my experience so far has been great. Faculty in the first year hasn’t been what I expected, but for the core courses, we have some of the best teachers in the country. Each of the campuses has three events that take place during the course of the year covering cultural, sports and technical fields. At Goa, these are Waves, Spree and Quark respectively. Students from various technical institutes from all over India including the IITs and NITs participate in these events.

Along with these, we have intra-college festivals and activities taking place throughout the year. We also have departments and associations for each course like ASCII for CS, EEE Assoc. for EEE students and so on. Along with these, various clubs are run by student elected representatives and usually coordinated by a faculty member for each. These include Music Society, Dance Club, Drama Society, Literary & Debating Club, English Press Club, Rock Club, Mime Club, BITS & Bytes Computer Club etc. Students can participate in any of these clubs and their events. The representatives manage entire activities and budget of the organization beforehand and plan out events for the entire semester in advance.

There are also a number of research centres developed for students pursuing higher degree programmes. Various student chapters have also been established like Nirmaan’s Goa Chapter. Nirmaan is a non-profit organisation dedicated "To achieving a poverty free, knowledge driven and thus an economically empowered society".

Residence: It is compulsory for all students to reside in the hostels at each of the campuses throughout their time at the campus. These are pretty well maintained. For further details, refer to: BITS-Goa.

Practice School:

A very unique feature of the BITS model of education is Practice School. The Practice School (PS) system of education is essentially an effort to establish institutionalized linkages between the industrial world and the academic world. PS education establishes classrooms in the industrial world (designated as 'Practice School Stations') across the country, and even abroad. Students are drawn from all the disciplines of engineering, science and humanities. They involve themselves in problem-solving activities of direct interest and relevance to Practice Stations. This gives the students a hands-on experience of working for various companies associated with BITS (which includes giants like DreamWorks, Accenture etc.) with the knowledge gained in their college years.

The Practice School programme for the Integrated First Degree has two components, namely Practice School-I of two months duration offered during the summer following the second year of the degree and Practice School-II of five and a half months duration offered during either of the semesters of the final year of the degree. The Practice School programme for Higher Degree has a single component, namely Practice School for Higher Degree which is also of five and a half months duration and is offered in the final semester of the Higher Degree programme. Further details are provided here: Practice Schools.

Alumni Association:

The BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA) over the years has increasingly contributed to its alma mater and is very active in India and abroad. The BITSAA International's primary purpose is to engage in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching and research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology & Science at Pilani. It also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communications amongst former students, current students, faculty and friends of the Institute. Various initiatives have been taken up by BITS Alumni recently:

Initiative-1: BITSConnect--The Gigabit backbone was a $1.5 Million project jointly led by BITS Alumni and BITS Pilani resulting in a state-of-the-art campus wide network. This initiative provided broadband access, telephones and video conferencing abilities in every room, staff quarters & guest house, as well as wireless access in Sky lawns & the library. It also connects all the students to each other and the institutes’ computers. Instructions, lecture slides etc. are shared by the teachers with students though the intranet. Also, students share up to an average of 50TB of information (incl. sitcoms, movies, e-books etc.) round the clock along this network.

Initiative-2: The Oysters Lab(OLAB) Center for VLSI and Embedded design. In the second initiative, BITS Alumni are working with BITS Pilani to create a state-of-the-art VLSI lab. This is to provide the university with advanced computing infrastructure for Very Large Scale Integration(VLSI) and embedded design.

BITS, as I mentioned earlier, is one of the most prestigious and premier institutes of India. Students studying here belong to the cream of the country and it is an awesome feeling to be a part of this institute. You can also refer to the following website created by two students of BITS-Pilani; the forum consists of all the topics that you may require assistance with or have questions about, answered by BITS students themselves: BITS 360.

DDIT, Nadiad

The author wishes to remain anonymous:

You all may hav read somethin or the other abt doin engineerin in colleges abroad so let me give u all a brief insight into the education in india especially gujarat.

i hav had 2 years of experience in engineerin in DDIT which is counted as the second best college in gujarat after Nirma. but let me tell u all frankly, even if u r studyin in d best college in gujarat just dnt expect tht u'l be gettin d best education.

i hav studied in Snk for 15 years n according to me if a person has these many years of experience in SNK, then he/she should not opt for admission for graduation in engineering in gujarat n tht implies to all colleges in gujarat. The standard of colleges here is really not comparable to our school's level.

The students of SNK's calibre just dont deserve to be in gujarat. Im not saying tht these colleges are bad or anything but if one wants to excel then he/she cant do tht while he's here.

The best choice would be to go abroad after 12th for higher education coz the students here just dont get the enough exposure in these colleges though d syllabi or courses are similar to tht taught abroad.

Another major advantage of going outside India or for tht matter to US is tht we can choose our courses n classes according to our will i.e. they hav the credits system whereas in india once u choose a course u dnt hv d freedom of choosin different classes. u hav to go for the classes pre-decided by the college n u hav no other option.

One of the main drawbacks which atleast i hav faced while studyin in my college is tht we tend to lose tht touch over d english language, we just dnt hav enough control of it as we used to hav earlier. Tht is coz we'l be among Gujarat board students n teachers as well. Im sure after 4 yrs in DDIT i'd hav forgotten all the grammar n vocabulary n d basics.

Let me share my experience of the first few months after comin to DDIT. Being among gujrat board students i just didnt fit here. For the most part of the 1st yr i felt very uncomfortable n constantly felt like running away from this place. This was mainly coz d teachers over here are nothing compared to those of our school. Only a few of them are very good, others are just the pass outs/ freshers n thus hav no experience in teaching. Constantly bein under this type of guidance suppresses one's curiosity as tht teacher is not able to answer our questions satisfactorily. And im not sayin tht there r no good teachers. Some of them hav so vast a knowledge but they are hard to find.

Another disadvantage of studyin in gujarat is tht there are very few seats of CBSE/ISC Boards in all colleges. Only 4 out 120 seats is just too scarce a ratio!! This further downs our chances of getting admission into best colleges.

Now lets look at some positives abt studyin in gujarat....

• here once u hav made good friends group which is very easy over here, one can hav quite a good social life n can enjoy life to its fullest.
• there's very less work load or u can say no workload at all, no pressure from d teachers to study, no tension of submittin assignments. Thus u can be very carefree.
• Sometimes u may hav heard tht a student has gone into depression or he may hav been harassed beyond limits during ragging. U needn't worry abt stuffs lik tht while u r in gujarat especially in DDIT. Its not at all severe unlike other states for eg maharashtra where sometimes students leave d college just coz of ragging.

So in all i'd lik to say tht you get to enjoy with ur friends here in guj very much unlike US where one can enjoy only on weekends but if you give preference to ur EDUCATION rather than other factors lik good social life, the best choice would be to go to US.

And I’d be glad of course to answer any queries which may arise.

Law in India

Post by Ranjita Talukdar:-

In India , legal education has been traditionally offered as a three years graduate degree conferring the title of LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws) or B.L. (Bachelor of Law).

However the legal education system was revised by the Bar council of India, the governing body of legal education, in 1984.Various autonomous law schools were established which administer five years undergraduate degree programme and confer an integrated honours degree, such as "B.A.,LL.B. (Honours)", "B.B.A, LL.B. (Honours)", "B.Sc., LL.B. (Honours)", etc.

Both the types of degrees (i.e. three years and five years integrated honours) are recognized and are also qualifying degrees for practice of legal profession in India . The eligibility qualification for the three year law degree is that the applicant must already be a holder of a Bachelor's degree, for being eligible for the five years integrated law degree, the applicant must have successfully completed Class XII.

The National Law School of India University(popularly 'NLS'),in Bangalore was the first to give the five years course.These law universities were meant to offer a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach to legal education. It was therefore for the first time that a law degree other than LL.B. or B.L. was granted in India . NLS offered a five years law course upon the successful completion of which an integrated degree with the title of "B.A.,LL.B. (Honours)" would be granted.

Thereafter other law universities were set up, all offering five years integrated law degree with different nomenclature. For example the National Law University, Jodhpur offered for the first time in 2001 the integrated law degree of "B.B.A, LL.B. (Honours)" which was preceded by the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences offering the "B.Sc., LL.B. (Honours)" degree. We have our own law university in Gandhinagar too.

However despite these specialized law universities, the traditional three year degree continues to be offered in India by other institutions and is equally recognized as eligible qualifications for practicing law in India . Another essential difference that remains is that while the eligibility qualification for the three year law degree is that the applicant must already be a holder of a Bachelors degree, for being eligible for the five years integrated law degree, the applicant must have successfully completed Class XII.

The holders of the three year degree and of the five year integrated degree are eligible for enrollment with the Bar council of India upon the fulfillment of eligibility conditions and upon enrollment, may appear before any court in India .

Entrance exam

Earlier each institute conducted its own entrance exam. It is from 2008 that the Common Law Admission Test has been introduced. The Application Form is available from 12th January, 2009. The last date for submission of duly filled-in Application Form is 10th April, 2009. www.clat.ac.in

Apart from taking coaching, you can prepare for the exam on your own. If you seriously want to pursue the course, start preparing after 10th itself. Base your preparation on the previous papers of the institutes of NLS, Bangalore www.nls.ac.in and NALSAR, Hydrebad www.nalsar.ac.in, as they have been conducting their individual exams from quite some years. You will have to order them by post. The placements are good including foreign ones, especially of the top law schools like NLS, NALSAR.

My cousin(Upamanyu Talukdar) who is in the final year of the 3yrs L.L.B course,Law Faculty of Delhi University can be contacted at upamanyu.talukdar@gmail.com. This is something that I asked him to write,hoping it might help:-

"there is nothing like getting in2 1 of the top notch law schools rght after ur 12th.......these law schools include NLS banglore -NUJS kolkata -NALSAR hyd - NLU jodhpur -ILS pune and 1 or 2 more........placements r like rocking......u gt 2 wrk in foreign law firms.....interestingly a few years bk the entire batch of nls banglore opted 4 foreign placement....isnt it gr8?

but the catch is that u ve 2 crack CLAT 2 b in 1 of these premier LAW SCHOOLS.... wat i'll suggest is read frontline magazine regularly and religiously.....becos clat is a test designed by nls faculty and they r a l'il biased 2wards south india and south indian events.....frontline covers south indian news......besides be good at writing short notes....and mind the word limit.....maths is very preliminary so not 2 wrry much....a lil practice wld do good.....reasoning is very trickey as far as i remember....so try 2 go thru RS aggarwal's logical reasoning......

besides law people can also opt 4 courses in designing 4m NIFT it's 2 good but i dnt knw much about it's entrance....so u nd 2 find it out.....

ok that is all i can say .....if u want 2 knw something mre lemme knw...

ban2."

Towards Eureka

There are those who love maths and those who hate it. This post is targeted at students in the first category, to present a career option they may not be previously aware of.

When I was in 11th standard at SNK, now and then my thoughts turned to the famous "What after school?" question. I dropped biology after 10th (It's an excellent subject but not for me) and I was not particularly excited by the traditional engineering option, partly because I was too lazy to put in the amount of effort a good rank in IIT-JEE requires. As with all good stories, help came at the right moment, in the form of the training camp for informatics olympiad.

Which reminds me: if you have a strong interest in math or any of the sciences, it is a sin not to appear for the olympiads. Olympiads are international competitions at school level in 6 subjects: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy and Informatics. Each of them typically involves a regional stage, a national stage, a training camp at the national level and the showdown i.e. the actual international competition. Another thing you should do is appear for KVPY in 11th.

Moving on, at the aforementioned camp, I came in contact with Professors and students from Chennai Mathematical Institute (henceforth, CMI) and started considering research as a serious career option. I subsequently joined CMI and am now pursuing a PhD in theoretical computer science at NYU.

I would recommend that you check out the Math and CS (Computer Science) program at CMI. Be warned that the "math" at CMI is highly different from school-math and olympiad-style math. I'm not saying it's more difficult (though some of my batchmates may disagree), but it's certainly different. Similarly, the CS courses at CMI will not merely teach you programming languages but ideas and concepts that are at the very centre of our notion of computation. Also, CS at CMI is different from CS taught at IITs, i.e., more of theory (algorithms, complexity) and less or almost nothing of engineering (systems, networks, computer vision, machine learning). One may call this a drawback but this narrow focus is probably a reason why the CMI model has worked well.

Having said this, let me stress that CMI assumes only basic mathematical background and absolutely no CS background on the part of the student. In my opinion, the important qualities of a prospective CMI student are a penchant with puzzles, problem solving skills and the willingness to take up a career which values these traits. In short, do you have it in you.

Now, let's get real. What does a CMI graduate do for a living. Many students who enter CMI do so with the express intention of following a research career and many others get inspired to do research. These typically join a Phd program in India, Europe or USA. Phd programs are almost always funded, and I believe a Phd from a good university is as close to a "safety degree" as you can get. CMI graduates are placed in top-notch institutions around the world. Other options include pursuing fields such as financial mathematics and quantitative economics in India (Applied Statistics and Informatics at IIT, courses at IFMR etc.) and outside (eg. NYU and many other universities), masters program at CMI and other institutions. It is sometimes possible to get funding for Masters programs. Of course, as a graduate you can also appear for CAT and one CMI student *has* ended up in IIM Lucknow, but if your inclinations run that way, in my opinion CMI is not the best choice for you.

Lastly, "college life" considerations: CMI is an extremely small institute. It is growing, but it is still quite small. You can get an idea of the numbers by looking at the alumni page. The upside is that there is no scarcity of resources or facilities. The downsides are a small campus, lack of cultural events (more or less) and a scarcity of pretty faces. A CMI student in the Math and CS program receives Rs. 5000 per month as stipend conditioned on satisfactory academic performance. Also, there are legions of hiking places and holiday spots an overnight train journey away from Chennai.

I have been harping on about CMI because it is my college, but you should also check out the B.Stat program at ISI Calcutta and the B.Math program at ISI Bangalore. The B.Stat program focuses (predictably) on Statistics, and is older and more famous than either CMI or ISI Bangalore. Compared to ISI Bangalore, CMI is more informal and flexible as an institute. It also has a strong presence in theoretical computer science because of its own faculty and institutional ties with IMSc.