Many a people may refute the above title, especially the guys in REC, Tiruchi. Anna University is one of India’s oldest universities and if I am not wrong, celebrated their 100th or 200th anniversary a couple of years ago...
Anna University is not a single college but a loose name given to the 3 institutes that fall under its purview
College of Engineering, Guindy
AC Technology
Madras Institute of Technology, Chrompet
While the first 2 share the campus in Guindy, the third is situated some 10 kms away. A small digression .... Anna University is located just opposite to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT, Chennai) and the story is that the government allocated 1 extra acre of plot to Anna than IIT, to keep up with the Tamilian spirit. The only thing that seperates Anna University from IIT is the road in between, literally speaking
Courses:
Back on track, the courses offered by College of Engg., Guindy is the plain vanilla of Engg colleges - ECE, CSE, EEE, Mech, Production, Industrial etc. AC is much more diverse in that they offer 4 courses - textile, leather, ceramic and chemical. CHrompet campus offers a hybrid - aeronautical, automobile, rubber, electrical etc.... Thus I feel that amongst these 3 campuses they have nearly covered it all.
Teaching and Content:
Once again the line of demarcation is quite unclear. There are very good professors in many a areas and some real disasters also. But with my limited interaction with many a profs in one area (ECE)., and if the same can be generalised across to others, Anna University is quite well equipped in their faculty.
Infrastructure:
The main building is quite old and looks dirty but no problems with the facilities.... the labs are good and many are industry sponsored. Full marks in this field
Overall the college is a very good career launching pad for all... be it a MS in US., an MBA in India or a good place to walk with a job., you get all that in Anna University
Cons:
One of the major problems with Anna is that the admission is through a enterance test across Tamil Nadu and follows the System of 69% reservation in seats. What does this translates to ...???
a general category person, to get to anna should score n my times ... 285/300 and above .... while an SC should score between 240 - 250 and an ST between 200 - 220.
hence we see a lot of not so great quality students also in Anna... the grapewine is that there is a quota for Ministers and if that is true, meritocracy will take a further beating
This aside, Anna is a great place to study ....
One last point .... anna also has this alumni club (called by the same name) ... and this club is exclusively for anna univ graduates and topshots of the batch can get admission once they cross 30 - 35 ... this is one club that not a lot of people want to miss in Chennai .....