Goa Engineering College also called ’GEC’ is the foremost engineering college in Goa. The college is located atop Farmagudi hill and sprawls over 200 acres. Started in 1967 with 3 specialisations and a student strength of 60 per batch, today it has 6 streams namely Computer Science, Information Technology, Mechanical, Electronics and Telecommunication, Electrical and Electronics and Civil. The strength being 60, 60, 40, 60, 60 and 40 resp. i.e about 320 plus a few Govt of India seats mostly from Noth East and Dadra. The college is about 3kms from Ponda. The students of this college identify themselves as ’THE ENGICOS’
Admissions and Fees: Admissions are made through aggregate PCM marks in the higher secondary exam. GEC is the first choice for admissions over some other private colleges. The tuition fee is about 16, 000 per yr.
Teaching: The college has some dedicated professors esp in Mech, Civil and Electrical. The college is trying to maintain high standards in ETC, Comp and IT. Of late there has been a spurt of visiting faculties who are essentially BE passouts with little or no experience. Classes are held from 9am to 5pm. Labs are good but like most govt colleges are ill maintained.
Other facilities: The college has an excellent library. The library also has the seminar room (with LCD) which houses all the talks, symposia and placements. Computer labs are reasonably good. The lab has access to some recent softwares. The labs as well as hostels have net connectivity. The Gymkhana though ill maintained is still used by students. The college has a basketball court, badminton court, table tennis facilities as well as a huge ground which serves as a football ground, cricket ground and also a running track for yearly sports fest. The college has its own buses which ply every half and hour or so from the college to ponda bus stand. There are 4 boys hotels and 2 girls hotels. Each hostel has its own mess facility. The canteen serves the day scholars.
Exta-Curriculur Activities:The students are involved in a variety of activities around the year. Ganesh Chaturthi, Holi, Diwali, Krishna Janmashtami, Teachers Day are celebrated with great pomp and joy. An all goa singing competition is organised on Teachers Day annually. Inter year games are organised throughout the year. Some of them being Inter yr. cricket, football and basketball.
Cultural Festival: Happenings is the cultural festival of the college and is held every feb (somehow 14 feb is one of the day) The festival has completed 25 years and is the best of its kind in goa. Though the festival is losing its popularity of late the students are putting their best to keep the flag flying. The festival hosts a rock show on the final day which brings all the ’ROCK FANS’ onto the engineering hilltop.
Technical Festival: Kalp is the technical festival. Started in 2003 it is picking its pace. Each of the branches has its own association. Talks are organised regularly by these associations.
College magazine: This is called REFLEX. It is out by the end of the academic year. The magazine is finding it difficult to maintain the standards which some earlier editions had enjoyed.
Placement: The college has a seperate placement section. This section invites companies for placement, organises sessions to groom the students to face interviews and maintains the neccessary statistics.
Alumni and laurels: The college has some great alumni. Manguesh Korgaonkar, Head, SOM, IITB. Ashank Desai, Mastek CMD to name. Many of the alumni have made their mark as prominent industrialists in Goa, other parts of India. Many are settled in US. A few of them are serving the college as professors. The college has a few people joining IIT’s, IISC, IIM’s and GIMS every year. However, it is sad that the college doesnt have a good alumni association. The students engage in University sports and win quite a few events every year.
MOU with IITB: The college has signed a MOU with IITB which entitiles few students to do their final yr project in IIT. A few faculties get to do their PG in IIT and profs from IITB come to deliver lectures.
Trivia: The college has a huge windmill which never worked right from its installation. The college doesnt have a single coconut tree even though it is located in a state full of coconuts and toddy tappers. Near the civil dept there are some trivial structures which dont seem to be built with any possible motive in mind
Memoir If you happen to land in there dont forget to ask the boys around for the SARDAR in room no 7 in Hostel 2.