Sitting pretty at the foothills of Bouluvanpatty ranges of Western Ghats in Ettimadai is the 430-acre campus of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, headquarters of Amrita University, founded by Mata Amritanandamayi, a spiritual guru. Established in 1994, the college started with the School of Engineering. The college was first affiliated to Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. In 2003, it was rechristened as Amrita University and became a deemed-to-be university. With state-of–the-art facilities, students of Amrita live a blessed life despite being away from their homes. The cool climate, courtesy the hills, prolific presence of flora and fauna plus an intelligent set of students grace the highly reputed institution, which is also rated ‘A’ by NAAC.
The institute, which started with 120 students and 13 faculty members, has around 3,500 students and 600 faculty and staff members. The college is located just three km from the Ettimadai railway station. “In an endless desert of education, Amrita is the oasis,” claims MP Chandrasekaran, dean of Amrita School of Engineering.
Courses offered
Students have to clear an entrance test to become part of Amrita institutions. Around 40,000 students attend the test for three campuses out of which the top 1,200 students are admitted. The college offers eight specialisations in BTech like aerospace, chemical, civil, computer science, electrical and electronic communication, electrical and communication engineering, electronic and instrumental engineering, mechancial and 12 PG courses. The School of Business, Departments of Social Work and Communication, research centers including CEN, CES and Cyber Security are located on this campus. The college has collaborated with 19 universities in US like Univeristy of California, Davis (UCDAVIS), University of California, Los Angeles, University of Michigan and 15 universities in Europe such as Sofia University, Bulgaria, and Malardalin University, Sweden.
They have a student exchange programme, where students get a chance to do their final semester in a college abroad. “The college permits student exchange programmes and funds either the travel expense or the entire trip for six months.,” says Chandrasekaran. “Amrita is a safe place for girls and is a green campus. The foreign exchange programme ensures that students have good exposure to the outside world. The studio for Mass Communication department is very useful for us, as we get to practice what we learn which is more fun,” says Gaurango Banaerji, second year student, MA mass communication.
Infrastructure
This sprawling campus has around 1 lakh trees of 220 different species, a separate section for medicinal plants and a greenhouse where seedlings are nurtured. The university has a Centre for Environmental Studies which supervise the planting of trees. The University lays a lot of emphasis on eco-friendly and conservationist practices. It is also equipped with three water treatment plants in which waste water from hostels and college is treated and used for irrigation. They have a centralised kitchen with 100 employees working in shifts.
Life on campus
The college accounts for a mini city with all the facilities provided for students within the campus. “Amrita provides holistic education, which provides an education for a life and not just for a living. It’s not just about finishing college, but also imbibing the values taught here,” says Somali Chowdhury, a faculty from the college. The college has a Central Library database system that consists of more than 45,500 books, 300 journals, 4,000 Project reports, 5,300 back-volumes, 50 magazines, 3,800 project reports, and 4,000 CD/DVD resources. The library also has access to the digital library of the State University of New York at Buffalo. The college has more than 13 computing labs and has around 2,500 computers all with internet facilities. The aerospace department students are provided with a helicopter and fighter plane that was procured from the defence department. They are in working condition and are used for lab purpose.
The campus also provides digital multi-camera television news and interview studio for mass communication students to learn practically. The college conducts inter-campus tournaments, CICAA (Coimbatore Inter Collegiate Athletic Association), and TIUS (Tamilnadu Inter University Sports). Apart from this an annual sports day, and sports matches —intra and inter department levels — are conducted. The college also has a swimming pool of 50m X 25m in size with different timings for girls and boys. They also have different gyms for boys and girls. There is also a state-of art machinery that can purify 2.4 million litres of water within six hours. Dhanalakshmi Bank operates a branch with ATM facility in the campus, a general store to cater to the requirements like household items, provisions and books. The complex also houses a tailoring shop, Photocopying facility, a men’s hair dressing centre and STD booth.
Extracurricular activities
Gokulashtami is celebrated by all on campus, where each department presents different walks of lord Krishna’s life, in a float and the best department gets an award. After which a procession takes place. Throughout the day cultural events take place. The Shrishti Club focuses on literature, Ragasudha on singing and Natyasudha on dance. A tech fest, Anoka, is also conducted every year in which students from various colleges across the country participate.
Placements
The Directorate of Corporate and Industry Relations (CIR) works to bring in companies for placements for students each year. “Placement for the year 2012-2013 in engineering was 99.23 per cent with around 80 companies that visited,” says the dean. Around 105 companies visited the school of business this year and 97 per cent of students were placed.
The average package offered to an MBA graduate is around `5 lakh pa and the highest package received so far is `20 lakh pa is from Ericsson, Kuwait. An engineering graduate can expect an average of `3 lakh pa as a starting salary. Some of the companies that visited are Caterpillar, CISCO System, Mindtree, MRF, NOKIA and Microsoft “I graduated with much pride with three offers from three different companies when I was doing my final-year B Tech computer science engineering,” concludes Giridhar V, an alumnus of Amrita, working with Infosys currently.
— Disclaimer: The writer is an alumnus of Amrita University