Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) is an autonomous institute situated in the city of education, Pune. This college has turned 40 years old this year (2023) along with having a heritage of 40 years of being one of the best engineering colleges in Maharashtra. The college doesn’t have a much bigger campus, but it consists of much more talent, love, and joy.
There are various engineering fields like Computer, Information Technology, and Mechanical, including newer branches like AI, etc., to learn from experienced and talented professors. Learning in VIT is a fascinating experience because of its student-friendly timing. I am saying student-friendly because its classes are taken for the 4-5 hours mostly for a particular class, which gives students free time to explore extracurricular things. The college’s academic structure is one of the best I have ever seen. Instead of following old teaching techniques, the college focuses mostly on innovative and feasible techniques. The college’s academic calendar consists of two semesters of at most 5 months.
The college course and exam pattern are industry and practical-oriented, which enables students to gain real-time experience in the current industry and practical study. In most of the colleges I have ever seen, more value is given to end-semester written examinations to clear the semester, which seems boring to any student. In the case of VIT, more weightage is given to the skills and practical knowledge of students. Let’s take an example of one subject for understanding. Each subject is evaluated with a weightage of 100 marks, including mid-semester and end-semester examinations. Out of that:
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20 marks are given for a PPT presentation in which students will have to choose one topic and get that approved by teachers. After that, students will have to present their topic, and evaluation is done based on
- Quality of the topic selected
- PPT appearance
- Knowledge about that particular topic and presentation skills
- Questioning and answering session.
- 20 marks are given to the Home assignments in which students have various options like research on a particular topic and paper preparation, blog writing and posting, survey study on any topic, etc.
- 20 marks are given to the course project for the particular subject.
- 20 marks are given to the viva examination, and the last 20 marks are given to the end-semester written examination.
Along with this subject-wise work, students have to build one major project for each semester and will have to publish research papers on their previous semester project.
Looking at the summary of the examination, VIT is an ideal model for other colleges that follow traditional patterns, which neither build skills in students nor worth the time investment. This was all about academics, but VIT is one of those institutes that promote students to think out of the box and encourage students to participate in extra activities like hackathons, competitions, and celebrate their achievements with all the VIT members. VIT is the kind of institute that focuses on the development of students from all aspects.
For awareness about our environment, VIT has introduced a new course that is compulsory for 2nd-year students in which students will have to work for society and the environment, like tree plantation, waste management, conducting classes for uneducated people, etc., either individually or in collaboration with any organization like SWD.
As I talked about other activities, so VIT organizes a lot of seminars and meetings for the awareness of new tech trends, industry skills, soft skills, social skills from tech experts, industry managers, and sometimes alumni. VIT has a lot of clubs, including domains like software, hardware, soft skills, coding, photography, and so on.
This was all about the teaching at VIT, but VIT is an institution that has enough capability to make students’ hard work and gained knowledge worthwhile by giving them opportunities to prove themselves to industries and get good internships and placements. VIT has the arrival of about 250 companies, including tech and other fields. Generally, from the third year, students can appear for industry internships and placements.
In the end, I would like to say that VIT is pursuing a teaching scheme and pattern along with promoting other skills of students, which are really needed for today’s youth to compete in this aggressively progressive society. This was about the teaching and all, but along with VIT, teachers’ behavior is very kind and student-oriented. I will must say that I am proud to be a part of VIT and this legacy.