TECH TITAN

BITS PILANI PROVIDES TOP-NOTCH TECHNICAL EDUCATION, SYMBOLISING THE MATURING OF INDIAN TECHNICAL PROWESS AND 'CAN-DO' ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT

- ROHIT PARIHAR

If there’s one institute in the private sector that has been consistently rated at par with top IITs in quality engineering education, it’s BITS Pilani, as the snazzy acronym goes for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science. When the iconic industrialist G.D. Birla started a small school in his native district back in the early 1900s, he had already dreamt of a centre of excellence in this arid northeast of Rajasthan. The institute gradually grew into a set of colleges for higher education, offering courses from Humanities to Engineering until 1964, when all these institutions amalgamated to take the shape we know today: a unique deemed-to-be university of international standing. In its formative years itself, BITS Pilani tied up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. It also adopted a semester system, modular structure of courses, continuous and internal evaluation, letter grading and the like. Not to speak of the industry linkages that went on to yield a structured ‘Practice School’ as an integral component of its education model.

Over the years, BITS Pilani has provided high-quality technical education to students—symbolising the maturing of Indian technical prowess and ‘can-do’ entrepreneurial spirit. To ensure complete transparency in student intake in the undergraduate courses, BITS has instituted BITSAT, an online exam that tests students for admission.

“The freedom the college gives its students with its zero per cent attendance policy is unparalleled. The college does not bind any student with a set timetable or teachers or courses they have, and students can opt for almost 40 per cent of the curriculum based on their interest,” says Anshal Shukla, who graduated this year with a BE degree in Electronics and Instrumentation, and has landed job offers from the HyScale Lab of NTU, Singapore, and Polygon.