The 7 Mantras for the MIT Manipal Freshers

By now, you folks would have had secured your admission, and most of you will stick with Manipal. So welcome to the family! Here’s some more general tips for you. Long post, but probably important for you nevertheless.

1. You might have already gone through the Grading Scheme posted before.

The scope of this grading scheme is not over a particular branch or class but rather over a particular subject code. This means that two different branches can have 2 different math subjects with two different subjects code and hence they come under different grading schemes. On the other hand, if both streams have the same math course with the same subject code, you all will be competing as one single group.

2. If anyone tells you GPA/CGPA is not important, and it is the ‘skills’ that matter, stop talking to them.

Skills are definitely more important, but if you forget your CGPA, it is inevitably going to bite you in the ass. As long as you don’t slack off and you are using your time to improve your skill set outside the college curriculum, you don’t need an amazing CGPA, but it shouldn’t be bad either. Anything above 8.5 is more than sufficient. Anything above 8 is OK and anything below that must be improved.

3. An important thing to remember is that while the subjects in your first year are all common and not branch specific, they contribute just as much to your CGPA.

People slack off in the first year and end up with low CGPAs, one they can never recover from. People assume after the first year that they still have 3 years before you pass out so and since now the subjects are branch specific, they will score more and make up for the bad first year performance. That is a wrong assumption. You actually only have 2 years. In the beginning of your 3rd year, you will have internship recruitment, which trust me are much more important than the placements in the fourth year. So until then, all that counts are the CGPA from your 1st and 2nd year. 1st year hence contributes to 50% of your CGPA prowess in this case. Mess first year up, you are going to have a really tough time ahead.

4. You do not really need to buy books.

I didn’t get any books in my 4 years in Manipal. You pretty much get everything in the form of e-documents (pdfs and the likes). Don’t make buying books the first things you do once you reach Manipal. Its not school anymore. Wait and see if you really need them. Most of the people I know who bought these books hardly ever touched them. In fact, the way the system works, studying from the books may be more harmful to scoring good as compared to preparing from the materials you are provided with.

5. You will get no where in your professional life in Engineering without putting in your own effort.

The college course itself isn’t enough to help you develop life skills for this profession. Put in those extra hours. Internships are crucial. How to get one is also a part of the learning process. Managerial Skills, Communication Skills and a desire to make things happen. All go a long way.

6. If you are gonna unnecessarily fight with a teacher.

Remember that teachers here aren’t vindictive and won’t go out of their way to get back at you, but at the same time, they won’t put in the extra effort to help you either. Get on the nice side, don’t be a basic asshole and you’ll be fine. You will find out that over the years, teachers talk to each other about their students, and if you at least act like a decent bloke from the first year, teachers may go a lot easier on you in the coming ones.

7. The only condition you have to satisfy with respect to attendance is to maintain a 75% aggregate attendance over the whole semester for each subject separately.

Now some teachers are a little more lax about this criteria, while some are extremely strict. And if you cross this mark by even one, you could be in trouble. What it means is you will be detained in that subject. That is bad. If you have medical issues, there can be exceptions but if your plan is to take more absences and account for these using medical certificates, please be known that while it is not impossible and there are some people in the college who are pros at this, if you ask me it is more trouble than it is worth, if at all it is indeed even possible. Anyways, you can take 25% of the classes as off days. Use them to your advantage.

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