Manipal Institute of Technology (shortened MIT Manipal or MIT) (formerly Manipal Engineering College) is a constituent institution of Manipal Academy of Higher Education that specializes in engineering. MIT contains 17 academic departments and awards undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees. Established in 1957 in Manipal, Karnataka, India, it is one of the first self-financed colleges in India. Until the early nineties, the institution was affiliated to Karnataka University, University of Mysore, and then to Mangalore University. After the establishment of Manipal University in September 1993, MIT became one of its constituent institutions.MIT Manipal’s campus is located 65 km (37 mi) north of Mangalore. The campus is located 3.5 km from Udupi’s railway station and is spread over an area of 188 acres (76.0 ha) housing 10 academic buildings, and 22 residential buildings, with a total capacity of 6,080 inhabitants. Kamath Circle has been renamed and renovated as Student Plaza with a two-floored Colosseum-like structure and a musical fountain at the center also containing a couple of general stores to cater to the student’s everyday needs. It has a musical fountain that runs occasionally on evenings during the academic year. It serves as a point between the academic and the residential areas of the college campus. The food court, with a seating capacity of 1200 people, caters to the food needs of about 840 people daily. A second food court was constructed in 2018 near the 16th and 17th Hostel Blocks. In late 2019, a cafe named the Pavilion Cafe was being built next to the Student Plaza and was opened for students and visitors in early 2020. It is located behind Hostel Block 22.
Academic Buildings
The academic area of the campus is segregated from the rest of the campus. There are five academic buildings. Two of them – Academic Block 1 and Academic Block 2 have been there since the inception of the campus while the others were built as intakes increased. Academic Block 3 is also known as the New Lecture Hall, which was the first building to have fully centralized air-conditioning. Academic Block 4, commonly known as the Innovation Center, has Manipal’s incubation center MUTBI (Manipal University Technology Business Incubator). Academic Block 5 is the largest building on campus. As of 2020, the Academic Block 3 rooms serve as classrooms for all First-year undergraduate students, while senior undergraduate students attend theirs in Academic Blocks 5 and some in Academic Block 3. Academic Blocks 1 and 2 house laboratories for different departments, and Academic Block 1 also houses the Directors’ and the Associate Directors’ offices, as well as the Chief Warden Office. Faculty offices are divided by departments and are in Blocks 1, 2, and 5. Academic Block 4 has IT labs for First-year students and for postgraduate programs.
Academic programmes
MIT has been using a credit-based system since 2001, in which each course is assigned a number of credits. The odd semester starts around the month of July and ends by December and the even semester starts around January and ends by May. Manipal Academy of Higher Education is accredited by the Government of India’s National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). MIT Manipal offers full-time, four/five-year undergraduate (Bachelor’s degree) programs in the various disciplines. as well as Master of Technology (M.Tech) degrees and various other postgraduate programs awarding Master of Science (M.S.) in Software Engineering, Master of Computer Applications (M.C.A.), and an integrated M.B.A. program (in conjunction with other programs in MAHE). Admissions to postgraduate programs are either on the basis of an entrance exam or the performance in an undergraduate degree program. All applicants are required to have appropriate bachelor’s degrees. The institute also offers Ph.D. programs on a full-time or part-time basis for suitably qualified candidates.
Rankings
Manipal Institute of Technology was ranked 21 among engineering colleges in India by India Today in 2020, 20 among engineering colleges by Outlook India in 2019, and 45 among engineering colleges by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2020.
Research
Enhancing research skills among the students and scholars is one of the primary objectives of the institute. The institute makes adequate budgetary provisions for the maintenance of research equipment through capital allocations. An amount of ₹1.5 crores was sanctioned to the institute in 2008–09 towards innovation. MITians have access to various journals and educational materials to facilitate research by students and scholars. Students of the institute take up a summer internship as a part of their curriculum. Several research programs in the areas of nanotechnology, nuclear engineering, VLSI design, and pattern recognition are being pursued in the interdisciplinary labs under the Institute’s innovation center. Manipal Dot Net (MDN) is a privately owned software and hardware design and services organization located close to the campus, that offers internship opportunities to students.