Hi there!

Information Technology is one of the youngest departments of NITK Surathkal. Having said that, it's doing a pretty good job in training its students. The strength of the IT Department is the course structure. The courses are well structured and me being one of the undergraduate student from the Department, I found it very relevant when I started off in the industry. There might be some of the courses in your program which might not be completely useful in the current industry expectations, but it does gives you a fair idea on how the things work really. Don't listen to people who say that - People who don't get CS, go to IT. There have been instances where IT has outnumbered the CS department in various aspects not limited to the highest job offers, research papers getting published etc.

The instructors are both good and bad at times. Most of the senior faculty teach well with the exception of one of two. Mostly, you will be expected to be a self taught student with not everything spoon-fed. But that really helps you a lot in finding out things when you go for a Master’s degree.

On a flip side, lately, the obsession is about producing more and more research papers with minimal or no value given to the content of the papers. Every team in group projects are PUSHed to publish a paper. That really shouldn't be the case. Emphasis should be on how much the student has learned by doing the project. I have also observed that most of the project evaluation happens based on the look and feel and not bother about the back end logic of the project. This really shouldn't be the case where a couple of fancy HTML pages would fetch you a top grade. Exam structure is very practical experience oriented. That's one of the good things about the Department. There are very few theoretical knowledge testing questions in the exams. So be ready for applying the concepts that you have learned in the classroom.

As for the location, it's located on the west side of the campus with classrooms that come with absolutely breathtaking views of the Arabian sea, making it one of very few classroom setup in the country with such a great sea-view. Since it's the youngest department, it has a very good infrastructure compared to other departments. It's very close to the main gate of NITK and has access to all amazing food joints that one can go to, after classes.

Dr. Ananthanarayana V.S was the previous head of the Department. A lot of good changes happened during his term being the HOD. He's a very simple, amazing person yet so knowledgeable and can be easily approached. He knows when to loose cool and when to stay calm. I and my other fellow students liked the way he administered. Other faculties like Dr. Sowmya Kamath, Dr. Geetha. V, Mr. Biju. R. Mohan and others are very knowledgeable in their field of interest. Taking up projects under them can be a great way to learn. A couple of them, like the well known Mr. Gaurav Prasad, did not quite do justice to their position and power.

All in all, the Department of Information Technology at NIT-K Surathkal is a great one when it comes to the course structure, associated labs and projects. What you make out of the opportunity really depends on you. The faculty members are really helpful and with the exception of one or two, they really want you to learn at the end of the day. Also, you need to know that for some illogical reasons, very few of the companies that come for the on-campus placements do not allow IT students or allow only the folks with a higher CGPA cut-off than that of CS folks. These are very few and there are also instances where certain big well known companies have hired only IT students and nobody else. It really depends on the circumstances on that particular placement year. To keep short, if you select the Information Technology department at NITK Surathkal, you wouldn't regret.

Thank You.