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Manipal Institute of Technology has suddenly gained fame in the last few years. I guess you know why! Because it has a famous alumni – none other than Satya Nadella of Microsoft!
I must admit that I didn’t pay much attention to this college until Mr. Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft and his educational background became public. But after that, Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT, Manipal for ease of typing, not to be confused with the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has suddenly become a plan B option for any engineering aspirant. This is from my personal interaction with students in my network.
Should you consider joining MIT, Manipal? Let’s discuss.
Engineering Courses offered by MIT, Manipal
MIT Manipal offers some of the traditional engineering disciplines like Electrical, Mechanical and Civil as well as some new age disciplines such as Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Mechatronics.
MIT Manipal has 4 associated campuses for which the entrance exam is common – the Manipal Entrance Test (MET).
The 4 campuses are:
- MIT Manipal (Main campus)
- MIT Jaipur
- Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Gangtok
- MIT Bengaluru
The engineering branches offered at each campus are as follows.
MIT Manipal
- Aeronautical Engineering
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- Automobile Engineering
- Biomedical Engineering
- Biotechnology
- Chemical Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Computer Science and Engineering
- Computer and Communication Engineering
- Cyber Physical Systems
- Data Science
- Electrical and Electronics Engineering
- Electronics and Communication Engineering
- Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
- Industrial Engineering
- Information Technology
- Mechanical Engineering
- Mechatronics Engineering
MIT Jaipur
- Automobile Engineering
- Biomedical Engineering
- Chemical Engineering
- Chemical Engineering with specialization in Computer Aided Process Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Civil Engineering with specialization in Geoinformatics
- Computer Science and Engineering with specialization in AI and ML
- Computer Science and Engineering with specialization in IoT and Intelligent Systems
- Computer and Communication
- Data Science and Engineering
- Electrical and Electronics Engineering
- Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Electronics and Communication Engineering
- Information Technology
- Mechanical Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering with specialization in Robotics
- Mechatronics Engineering
Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology
- Mechanical Engineering
- Computer Science Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Electrical and Electronics Engineering
- Electronics and Communication Engineering
- Computer Science and Engineering (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data Science
- Information Technology (IT)
MIT Bengaluru
- Computer Science and Engineering
- Computer Science and Engineering (cyber security)
- Artificial Intelligence
- Electronics and Communication
- Information Technology
While MIT Manipal is the oldest campus, MIT Bengaluru is a new campus and was started only in 2021.
Quality of Education
The course curriculum offered by MIT Manipal and its associate campuses are pretty good and on par with some of the best institutions in the country. However, it is a known fact that engineering education in India is a lot theoretical and does not make the engineers industry-ready. Not even IITs!
However, the students of IIT are known to have cleared JEE Advanced and are some of the brightest minds in the country, therefore recruiters have more confidence in their learning abilities. Not so with MIT.
Students joining Manipal have to be prepared to study a lot on their own, outside the realm of the syllabus to get placed. MIT Manipal offers its students access to platforms like Coursera, enabling them to learn topics of their interest. It is up to the students to utilize these facilities and improve their skills.
For the motivated students, MIT Manipal does offer an innovation center, projects and other activities which can help them learn.
Some of the specializations offered are meant to make the students future-ready but it is not clear if the institute has good faculty who are qualified to teach these courses, especially in the Jaipur and Sikkim Campuses. There are not many students who have completed these courses, so we have limited information.
Peer Group
To be very honest, the crowd may not be as brilliant as the ones you find in IITs and NITs. There are many who are indeed serious about studies, but there are a lot more who weren’t ready for the grind of JEE and decided to take it easy. It is pretty easy to get a seat into branches like Civil or Mechatronics if you are an average student in 11th and 12th grades as the cutoffs are not that high.
This does not mean that these students are not good. Some are really intelligent and can go on to become leaders in their fields (Satya Nadella is an example). But you will find many peers who want to enjoy their lives, and not focus on studies. An above-average student in high school may find themselves topping their batch in engineering and becoming complacent with a false sense of superiority.
Internships
Manipal students need to do one internship in their second or third year, for which the institute offers less support, therefore you need to rely on your networking skills. It can be a little tough, especially for branches like Civil and Mechanical. Computer Science and Electronics branch students can manage something with their coding skills.
In the final year, companies do recruit interns for which the selection process can be very competitive. Some of the students end up with pre-placement offers too! Those who cannot make it have the option of doing an internal project at the institute. Some students even start up their own venture right from the campus.
For the serious students, there are plenty of opportunities. Students who are lazy and wait for things to happen will have a lot to whine about.
Placements
There are 2 categories of students who join Manipal or for that matter any engineering college. First, the students who want to work after B.Tech and second the students who want to pursue higher studies. Those who want to pursue higher studies may not have much of a problem, as the college does offer the freedom to prepare for GRE/TOEFL/CAT without too much impact on grades, because the peer group is not as academically competitive as the ones in NITs and IITs.
If your aim is to get placed after B.Tech, MIT Manipal branch does offer decent placements, at least in the IT field. Core placements are difficult, especially if you choose fields like Aeronautical and Automobile. A couple of students this writer has spoken to had chosen aeronautical engineering, just out of their interest but found very less opportunities in India and had to sit for IT placements, learning coding on their own.
But please note that this is not a problem just with Manipal. Even non-IT students in NITs do end up in coding related jobs.
The average package for 2022 was in the range of 10LPA in the Manipal campus as per their placement page and 7.5LPA at the Jaipur campus. These placements include not just companies that visit the campus for recruitments, but also the off-campus placement drives conducted by companies like TCS, Infosys etc., in open competition, which purely depends on the students’ abilities and has very less to do with the college.
Should you join MIT Manipal or its other campuses?
If you get a branch of your choice in IITs, NITs or BITS, go for them. However, if it is a choice between, say a civil in an NIT and Computer Science in Manipal, you need to take a call based on your interest.
MIT – Manipal campus can be your plan-B in case things don’t happen as expected in JEE or BITSAT. It is less crowded than VIT and offers more breathing space.
The admission process at Manipal is a little more transparent than the one at VIT, meaning, you have multiple iterations where it is possible to slide up if vacancies arise when people move to other colleges. Whereas in VIT, no one knows what happens to their category 1 seats if the students withdraw.
The fee is definitely on the higher side, but almost all private colleges charge around the same amount, including BITS. Manipal also has a good choice of hostel rooms, where you can even get a single AC room if you are ready to pay more.
Manipal is probably a lot better than some of the local state-entrance based colleges that have very poor infrastructure and faculty. If you are not getting into the top 5 engineering colleges in your state, you may consider Manipal or even VIT because of the all-round exposure and culture that these colleges offer.
P.S: Some parents are worried about their kids getting into bad habits at MIT Manipal. But you know what? It’s not just a problem in Manipal. Even top IITs have the same issue. If your kid is balanced and focussed, they will learn to be unaffected by them.
Since you are looking for reviews about MIT Manipal, you may also be interested in reading this review on VIT Vellore.
