A very unofficial guide to MNNIT – Updated

Below is a list of information about MNNIT. Please remember that it is an opinion mostly based on personal experiences and therefore may differ from person to person. However, I feel it is the truth and hope anyone wishing to enroll in the college will read the post carefully before doing so. Any questions regarding the post and the institute itself is highly welcome. This is by no means an “I hate MNNIT” post. I like MNNIT, that’s why I’m here. It’s more of a guide for students working their butt off to get to a college of good repute and is written with the hope that this post might help them in some way by giving them information on what to expect from the college. Also, I have passed out from the Institute in 2010 and I have no way of knowing what is the current situation. Therefore many of these points may no longer be valid (if they were ever valid in the first place).

You get (mostly) good students

Any student wishing to be an Engineer would always opt for the IITs first. Next comes some colleges like BITS, IIIT, IT-BHU and then come the NITs. So, statistically speaking you get the top 20% engineering students of the country stydying at MNNIT. This is true for the BTech programmes. In MCA, it may be around the top 30% and 55% in Mtech and MBA.

Pure technical curriculum

Now, I cannot say for every course that is being offered but as far as I know, most of the subjects for Btech, MTech and MCA courses are very technical in nature. So you don’t have management related papers that is now quite common in other universities.

It’s not that innovative

MNNIT is the first college in India to have a BTech course in Comuter Science. It is also the home of the PARAM supercomputer. At present, however, in terms of introducing innovative courses, MNNIT lags way behind other colleges of similar repute. Just think, the only new course to be introduced in the 2008-09 session is MSc Mathematics.

Free internet

This is one of the best things about MNNIT. Although the connection is not that fast considering the fact that it is shared by about 3000 students. It’s comparable to a decent dialup connection. But the fact that it’s completeley free and you get it for 24 hours makes it an attractive facility nonetheless.

If you’re a sports enthusiast, you’ve come to the wrong place

MNNIT being a technical institute, sports is not given that much preference. Cricket is naturally the dominant sport followed by volleyball. Other sports like basketball, football and badminton etc. are also played at a smaller scale. On the other hand, if you’re into FPSes like Counter Strike, you’ll find somebody to play a multiplayer game any time of the day (and night).

The dating scene

It is a universally proven fact that the most attractive people either takes Arts or did not graduate from high school. So, its unfair to expect supermodels in a technical institute and that too amongst the best in India. However, it is human nature to want to mingle and socialize. Therefore, people do go out on dates and have fun. And these guys aren’t necessarily at the bottom of the class academically either.

Weather and climate

Allahabad is freezing cold in winter and scalding hot in the summer. However, in some months, especially November and February, the weather is moderate and these are definitely the best months of the year in Allahabad. The college is in the process of renovating some of the buildings and equipping them with air conditioners. But it will be some years before/if the hostels have the A/C facilities.

Education is cheap

Because of the huge funding NITs received from the government, the fees for all courses are very low compared to most technical institutes and even amongst the NITs, MNNIT probably charges the one of the lowest fees. It’s lucky that we can get quality education without spending a fortune.

The teachers

Senior teachers are either good or cracked. The junior teachers especially those coming from UP and the surrounding states usually have a problem speaking Hindi. This is the reason why the college receives so many criticisms from both foreign students and non-Hindi speaking Indians. All in all, you get ok teachers, but if you expect to see innovative, inspirational teachers, you’ll probably be disappointed.

Power cuts

There is a power cut between 10am and 1pm. This situation is the same throughout the city. The institute has a generator which provides the required power during these hours but this is distributed only within the classrooms and labs. The hostels have their own generators but they are turned on only at night and that too only during exams.

The hostel is cramped

There are 8 hostels (6 for boys and 2 for girls) in MNNIT. Out of these, only one (PG Hostel) is singly seated. In all the other boys’ hostels, students are arranged in such a way that 3 or sometimes even 4 students share a room constructed to seat 2 students and all rooms built as single seaters host 2 students. This is going to get even worse in the 2008 academic session as MNNIT will start implementing the 27% OBC quotas. The Director speaks of renting nearby houses to host post graduate and senior Undergraduate students to ease the space crunch. Even then, the problem is unlikely to go away for some years.

You will be ragged

Actually, you will not be ragged because it’s called “interaction” out here. You will be abused verbally, some may even be violent. It doesn’t sound that bad but if you’re on the receiving end of it and considering its your first few months in a foreign environment, it can get pretty depressing.

Update: The Institute has done an amazing job in eradicating ragging in the institute. Since last year, they have stepped up their efforts and ragging has virtually been eliminated from the college. One of the most welcome development I have seen in my years at MNNIT. (Maybe they’ve heard about this blog?? 🙂 )

The seniors don’t know everything

It is human nature to boast about yourself to people and MNNIT-ians are no different. So, every year, the seniors will claim the placement is better than it really is, that their class is way superior compared to others. I even heard one of our seniors claim that he is going to do the grading for our papers – what a loser! So its always good to exercise caution and use common sense before blindly believing whatever is being said by the seniors.

The seniors know more than you

They’ve been in the college longer than you, so the seniors probably know more than you. It’s best to take advice from trusted seniors about how to behave, what to do and which places to avoid etc.

Kissing the MTech guy’s butt really helps

Final year (and sometimes first year) MTech students sometimes takes lab classes and are usually used as paper evaluators by the senior teachers. Although most of them are very fair in evaluating your papers and giving assessment for your lab classes, there are some dishonest people who will favour some particular students because they kiss their butts. Although I strongly disagree with the practice and believe that favouritism have no place in deciding a student’s career, if you really want to do well, you can kiss the Mtech guy’s butt and if you’re lucky he will give you an extra couple of marks and this can really go a long way in determining your final grades. There’s this one Mtech guy from and he used to evaluate the papers for one of the professors. In our first class test, the girls really received great marks while the boys weren’t so lucky. In the second class test, people who were against ragging (he supports the seniors who used to rag us) gets lower marks again. All the while people from his hometown never seemed to get low marks. Even in the final lab exams, he will ask the students whether they could run their programs, and when they replied in the negative, he would give either a “not executed” or “partially executed” depending on the person. However, this is an example of one of the rare extremities of favoritism.

The food sucks

Search “MNNIT mess food sucks” in Orkut and you will find a community with over four hundred members. This tells the story of the kind of food that is being served in the kitchens of the institute. But considering the fact that you paid 6000 rupees for 6 months, it’s probably the best they can give you. Even then, I’ve said this a million times and I’ll say it again “MNNIT mess food sucks”.

You get to experience different technical festivals

Avishkar, Gnosiomania, Robofest. These are some of the festivals where you get to explore your creative side and escape the rigors of day to day classroom lectures.

Allahabad is not a friendly city for outsiders

Rickshaw-wallahs trying to cheat you, shopkeepers trying to sell faulty goods, people calling you names – you will experience all these in Allahabad. You have to be really careful especially if you are coming from outside the state. All this compounded by the fact that most Allahabadis speak only Hindi can make it a nightmare for outsiders. However, the area around the Institute is better in this respect compared to other areas of the city like Naini.

MNNIT is still one of the best

I very recently visited a blog from someone called Meenakshi at http://allaboutmca.blogspot.com/2008/06/nit-colleges-ranking-for-nimcet-2008.html and it made me wonder whether she’s ok while writing the review. The reason? She ranked MNNIT 6th among the NITs offering MCA courses. Now, I’m the first to admit that MNNIT does not usually live up to expectation but seriously, which institute does? Although it may not be the best college but it certainly is one of the best relatively and there is no way in hell MNNIT is below the NITs from Calicut, Bhopal or even Surathkal.