Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University B.Tech Review By Tarun Sharma

My overall experience here is neutral. Everything here is just average or a little above average. The location of the college is in a very remote area. It is very difficult as the transportation is very scarce. You literally have to wait for two straight hours or more to catch the local matadors which leave you at the nearest highway from where you can catch the bus to nearest towns or cities like Jammu, Udhampur or Katra. This makes it is very difficult for students to do up down from university and the students who are not from Jammu are in more trouble because of this as they are not familiar with the local transportations. I particularly choose this college because it was the best college after NIT Srinagar and IIT Jammu in our UT and also it was close to my house so I could come home from hostel anytime. Anyone who is fine with an average college or is a nature lover can come here as this is surely a place to miss after your graduation.

Academically this university is far behind from others. Even though the course curriculum is great as it was copied from IIT Delhi in its initial days as IIT Delhi being the mentor institute of the University. Most of the Faculty has done their Pd.Ds or M.Tech from here only and got the jobs of professors here after that. Talking about the admission process, you can come here either through JEE Mains or CUET. After JEE mains you can come here through JOSAA or CSAB or the direct counselling of SMVDU based on JEE mains. CUET based admissions are done a bit late. For CUET you need to appear in Physics, Maths and English exam of CUET. You should have passed class 12th with 70% marks in Physics Chemistry and Maths. There are two types of scholarships provided to students; one is given to students having JEE Mains rank under 1 lakh. The scholarship is given till three semesters on a condition that the student has to maintain a minimum 7.5 CGPA with no backlogs. The other scholarship is given to meritorious students scoring a staggering CGPA of 8.5 in one semester.

Faculty as I have told before is very pathetic when it comes to teaching. They do not know how to teach. Their style of teaching mostly includes just sharing their presentation through the projectors onto the big screen in classroom as all the classrooms are well equipped with projectors and boards. They just read their presentation out loud and that is it. Most of them have done their Ph.D from this university and some are graduated from NITs or IITs too. One professor teaches at least two courses throughout your eight semesters. Although lab assistants are all very great and helpful with your studies and other stuff. They have immense knowledge regarding their parts in labs and teach those practical parts very well through experimentation and implementation.

There is Training and Placement Cell in the university situated at the 3rd floor of B block. It tries its best to provide placements to the students. Around 50 to 60 percent of people gets placed in a batch every year while those who does not get placements opt for higher studies while some intentionally opt for higher studies some go for it according to their plans. Students become eligible for placements from 6th semester given that they have no backlogs. Mostly only two core companies come for recruitment of core branches last year. Maruti Suzuki took 4 students at a package of 12 LPA and another one known as Forbes Marshall offered a package of 7.5 LPA. Apart from these two companies, a lot of mass recruiters come and takes a lot of students at a package of 3 or 4 LPA. Companies like Orange, TCS, Wipro, etc. are the mass recruiters of our campus.

There are a total of 6 Hostels for boys and 3 hostels for girls. Hostel rooms are provided with basic amenities like one table, one chair, one rack shelf, one bed and one almirah along with one tube light bulb and one ceiling fan. Mostly rooms on double sharing are given to first years students, triple sharing to second year students and you can get single rooms from third year. Every hostel has a small ground in which volleyball and badminton can be played. Hostel admission process is quite easy you just have to submit the Hostel allocation form, Anti ragging Affidavit, hostel honor code along with mess and hostel fees challan to hostel caretaker to avail the facility. Mess food is uneatable, very poor quality and even if you complain they just assure you that it would be better the next time but it never gets good.

University has a nice campus amongst natural mountains and hills. An absolute cinema for the nature lovers. University has lush green campus of 470 acres which to be honest has not even been put to great use. The structures and buildings have not been maintained properly and require a lot of maintenance. There is one huge sports complex, one huge auditorium, one grocery, one academic block, one administrative area and four blocks namely (A, B, C, and D), one central library, and few other departments that could not fit in the four blocks. There is ample space for evening walks and sports. There is Wi-Fi facility available all over the campus. Though most of the sites are blocked. The university has the best aerial view you can go check it up on YouTube. There is good water supply and everything is just moderate in the Infrastructure section.

Overall, the campus life is somewhat good as long as you make some great friends here. There are various fests held here like the annual sports fest Sarang and Titiksha which are managed by engineering departments, Resurgance which is managed by language department, Tatva which is managed by management students and many others too. There are themed events and DJ nights in these fests mostly. There are various clubs that are managed by students only like music, dance, astronomy, literary, photography, etc. which students can join and learn more about the topics discussed among them. All these clubs come under the board of cultural activities and the board of professional activities. The university provides funding to these clubs if needed. For sports there is a lot of scope as there are a lot competitions held along with the sports fest Sarang like inter department, inter house, and inter college. The university has their own league too made by students in which players are auctioned and then made to play in different teams. Students excelling in all these sports activities and competition get the chance to play in all India university competitions.