My MIT days

 My MIT days

At that time in 1966 in MIT, the intake was only 100 students every year- 10 in Aeronautics, 30 in Automobile Engineering, 30in Electronics Engineering  &30 in Instrument Technology. At the end of 3 years (6 semesters & practical training for a total 6 months- can be taken during semester holidays ) each successful student shall get DMIT certificate. For its admission, a minimum B.Sc graduate with Mathematics & Physics was necessary. In some rare cases even BE engineering graduates used to seek admission for DMIT; in their cases, they shall be admitted directly in second year since they would have been conversant with the basic engineering subjects during their BE course. The DMIT was recognized equivalent to an engineering degree course but with special subjects- at that time , no other engineering institution in the country catered to these subjects. So that factor made job assurance easy.

Rather, many students after giving their final 6th semester examinations, simply pack and travel to Mumbai or Delhi and call on their seniors for job placement! It was an unwritten mandate that the senior (even if he is married and staying with family) has to accommodate him temporarily  and arrange placement for the junior in a couple of days. After that, on receipt of the first salary payment ,the junior has to host a decent party for the senior & his family members. The junior has to perform sashtanga namaskaram to that senior & his wife.This was in practice until the late 1970s.

During admission in the first year, each student is given a Technology number T No.  based on the year of joining- faculty- alphabetical order intra faculty. That way I got 1888 being an 18th batch IT Faculty student In the first year of MIT classes, irrespective of the faculty, all students attend the basic engineering subjects together. We had the subjects-  basic mechanical engineering, engineering drawings, structural engineering basics, electrical engineering, mathematics, physics and chemistry (only material science). The faculty lecturers were :

Mechanical & Engineering drawings - Prof.Garg   

Electrical engineering -  Prof. N K Suryanarayana & Mr Rajah                                              

Structural engg. basics - Mr Sharafuddin                                                                                  

Mathematics - Prof.Dr Surya Prakash, Prof. Thiruvikraman, & Mr Narasimhan      

Physics - Dr Jayaraman  & Mr Narayanaswamy                                                

Chemistry - Mr KNV Raman

Here I would like  to bring  out one important incident.                                                                                      The electrical engineering class by Sh NKS used to be  the Monday morning class first period starting at 8 AM. That professor is one who was very particular that his classes should not be disturbed by late comers; but at the same time he was not bothered to take attendance. So any late comer, if he desires to enter the class once it started, without any disturbance he should enter through the rear entrance only and not the front door. It so happened that on one Monday in August '66, I was late to that class since my electric train was delayed that morning. Following the set norms, I entered the class silently and tried to occupy a seat. Surprisingly most of my classmates wished me  and I was afraid that the professor should not mistake me for disturbing the running class. I was blank ; Luckily nothing happened and that period got over. After that when I queried some of them for their  wishes, they responded saying ' have you not seen the notice board '?That made me more shaky and I requested them to clarify. Then they congratulated me declaring that I have been rewarded with a merit scholarship and that is displayed in the students notice board. They said that you have scored very high marks in the institute conducted scholarship examination and rewarded with the Govt.of India Merit Scholarship  The resultant benefit was : Free tuition fees for my entire MIT studies, reimburse the amount already paid &  Rs 75/- per month as allowance for my sustenance. I could not believe myself and ran to see that on the notice board. In the evening when I shared that good news  with my parents, they enjoyed & my mother made payasam to celebrate the occasion. From that scholarship amount I used to spend Rs 35-40/month towards my mess fees for the afternoon lunch in the hostel and the electric train season ticket  Mambalam- Chromepet. The rest have been given to the house for general expenses.

As regards the engineering drawing classes, since I had the basic exposure during my high school days itself, I was able to grasp them fast. Otherwise, all subjects were vast in quantum and the time period was too short. Most of my classmates had arrears in various subjects and they passed out only in re-examinations. Luckily I could escape that &passed out with no arrears; otherwise my merit scholarship continuation would have come under review.

Coming to the group studies & semester examination preparations :

 As a  day- scholars self, my schoolmate Sh N Chandrasekhar & Sh.Rajah Kumar  combined together for group studies in the first year. They both were from the Electronics faculty whereas I was from IT faculty. But that did not matter then since all subjects were common. After MIT graduation, Chandrasekhar had his entire services at Bharat Electronics, Bangalore whereas R Kumar did his Doctorate degree  and rose to the rank of MD in M/S Philips International, an universal major in Electronics. Invariably we used to assemble in Kumar's house at Alwarpet for those combined studies. His father was a DIG in Madras Police and they had all the facilities in their home. His mother used to take care of our food, refreshments as well as study arrangements etc. Here it is  necessary that I should mention how she took care of us during those days. She was the person who induced me to read Vishnu Sahasranamam and Indrakshi- Siva Kavacham on every Sunday. Happy to note that virtue still continues even today .

When the semester examinations approached, I used to move to the college hostel itself  and stay with either Mr R Sundar or Mr S Muthukrishnan, both my IT classmates. There we used to study until 2AM or so. The entire hostel used to be live throughout nights with students exchanging notes from one room to another & on. Passing out the first year in MIT was a challenge in those days. I managed to pass without any arrears and moved to second year.

Regarding the first year end  factory training I shall cover in the next.