IIT Bombay Campus Experience For M.Tech
The M.Tech program starts with 2 days of orientation. In these two days of orientation, you are told about various things related to the M.Tech program. 2nd year M.Tech people will interact with you during these two days. Later you will be given a presentation about the course structure and a lot of things related to each course will be told. Seniors are helpful during this part(and even after this).
After all this is over, the classes will start. The first semester at IITB M.Tech is the most hectic of all. This is mostly because there is a huge gap between the standard of colleges from which the students are coming and the standard of IITB. One has to work hard during this sem to match the standard. At IITB you have to take courses worth of 60 credits(excluding some compulsory courses and projects)over the entire 2 years. Each subject is of 6 credits. In the first sem, normally students take 4 subjects and one subject(Software lab) is compulsory. To select these 4 subjects you are given two weeks. During this time you can attend lectures on any subject that you like. There is a website for adding and removing subjects. You can add/ remove as many times as you want. However, once this period is over you cannot add any new subject. However, you can drop a subject(that too within a given time). There are some audit courses also. In these courses, you don’t have to take the exam. They are purely for learning purposes. You don’t get any credit for attending audit courses. Video lectures are uploaded regularly so even if you missed a class you can learn from them. Attendance is taken through biometric ID cards.
The course selection is not an easy task. You will want to take some subject only to find that the professor sucks at teaching or there is a limit on the number of students that can enrol for the subject and you are on the waiting list. You add a subject only to find that it is way above your level or not something that you have expected. Some courses are prerequisites for courses in the next sem. So if you miss any of them, you miss the complete chain.
Classes start at 8:30(or 8:45, I don’t remember clearly). Since the campus size is large there is a high probability that your hostel is at least one kilometer away from the classroom. But don’t worry. You can buy a bicycle or even rent one(This is the thing that I like the most). There are taxi walls inside the campus that will take you anywhere at a reasonable price.
Class experience varies much between different subjects. For machine learning, there was little participation in the class. This was due to the reason that most of the students have taken machine learning without having any idea of what it is. The OS class was the one that had the most participation. Network security and Computer networks also had active participation. All students have a good idea about these subjects since they have come through GATE.
The faculty is really good apart from a few cases. Machine learning was taught by Preethi Jyothi, a P.hd from Ohio University. OS was taught by Mythili vutukuru, P.hd from MIT. I found all the teachers to be very good apart from one. He was pathetic at teaching. Every week you would be given some assignment. This is the thing that makes life hectic at IITB. The assignments carry a substantial weight and they are not easy. Even if they are easy they are time-consuming. Be ready to write 1000 or more lines of code each week. And don’t try to copy the assignment. They have software for that, which is very good at detecting plagiarism. Strict action will be taken if caught for plagiarism. At times you would feel that this is too much. This is where the seniors help you. Most of the seniors told us that this was the most hectic sem and asked us to keep going. Other items would be easy because by that time we would have adjusted to the IITB standard. You will be provided with an IITB mail ID(another thing that I loved). This ID can be really useful. I once had to get a GitHub student pack for which the processing time is around 2–3 days. But when I sent them an email with my IITB ID it got accepted within minutes.
Hostel rooms are allotted on a sharing basis. Two people share a room. You will be provided with a LAN connection with a decent speed. Mess food is good. However, it becomes repetitive after some time and then the canteen becomes a lifesaver. Canteens remain open till 3 AM. Food at the canteen is subsidised.
You would be assigned duty for some subject for which you will be provided a stipend of around 13K. I don’t know much about this since I never attended my TA duties.
I miss my time at IITB. Hope to return there as a sponsored candidate from ISRO.