Praddyumn Shukla here. MTech 2024 passout. Currently at Amazon.

And also the longest serving SPC (Student Placement Coordinator) of IIITH who solely carried my MTech batch to a stat of 96% placements DURING RECESSION.

I don't think anyone in this thread knows about the placement committee of IIITH and the former TPO Devi Sir more than me. This is not a boast because I've worked with him in the same room for almost an year.

P.S. a very long post ahead. I'll use the SPC word very frequently.

I was probably the first person to expose PGEE to a very big audience via my Youtube channel but I haven't been active around IIITH on LinkedIn or YT for the past 2 years. I usually try to avoid drama in life because of a high occupancy with my full-time job at Amazon but someone just passed this thread to me and I feel I really need to pitch in here as a senior.

Also, I'm sorry I'm very new to this platform and it's anonymity. This is my first post. You can google my name to know who I am. I don't sell any courses so I don't have "a shop to run" as author said. I went through the comments and there are a few things I wanna clarify and suggest as a senior and a former SPC:

1. Firstly, I understand the intention of the author here but my dear friend, this is an extremely inflated post in a negative direction coming at a very vulnerable time when folks have just given GATE. My simple question is: "Why would you NOT want to give PGEE when your GATE did not go well?". Having an option is always better than not having it. All the things author has asked to confirm and validate should be done once you clear PGEE and get the admission letter. You guys have not even qualified the exam yet. So deciding to NOT give PGEE solely based on this post is not a good idea imo. You can always chose to not join later.

2. I have already spoken about this on Youtube multiple times and at multiple channels that internships in IIIT are unofficial since as the author said, it's a RESEARCH institute (it's literally their tagline) and they do not support internships at all. But the SPCs very well handle it unofficially. Also, you can NEVER compare placements of UG folks with MTech students. They have been doing Codeforces since 2-3 years whereas you are just coming out of GATE with theoretical concepts so they obviously have an upper hand. Majority of them get internships and convert into PPO. Hence the number of BTech folks available to help their batchmates in placements is very high as compared to MTech folks with PPO. In my MTech batch, we were 7 PPO folks helping 100 students during placements. Out of those 7, I was the SPC. And this is a common template even if you join any top IIT.

3. Leave the students, I as an SPC never received any support from the college. Not even basic attendance relaxation. But if you think the situation of placement support for PG students is great in other top colleges, then you are living in a delusion. I have spoken to folks from IISc and it's even worse for them. The day I left the campus, I had 2 hours of meeting with the Placement Chair, Prakash Yalla sir where I gave inputs on what all needs to be fixed. Because I didn't want my junior SPCs to go through the things I faced. After that, a lot of things did actually improve. PPOs increased. The SPC team grew enormously (they got a dedicated team while I was mostly alone at my time) and the placements improved in my junior batch. The number of MTech students placed in companies like Apple increased drastically.

4. Although, I agree that the TPO Devi sir had his own issues but ik he's a good person by heart. Plus, he has very good connections in a lot of companies. He made sure all these years that everyone gets placed despite the thrift from the core administrative committee of IIIT who only cares about research. But the last time I spoke to him in December, he told me that he's planning to leave because of his health getting down with age. He's been with IIITH for more than a decade. So him leaving must have fucked up the current situation. But they'll backfill that position with someone else. That does not mean the college or your 2 years of MTech from here is not worth it.

5. Someone said the alumni network is only exposed to UG folks. Are you kidding me? We literally have whatsapp groups with Alumni from almost every tech giant. A lot of my batch-mates, juniors and seniors keep utilizing this network. So again, trust people with credibility.

6. "Doing MS and PhD is better than doing MTech from IIITH." - Oh my god. Again, a very inflated statement. If you are interested in research then there's nothing to argue on this. But ik a majority of folks want to do MTech for placements. And I've seen MS, PhD folks struggling in placements. Because truth be told, they are not good at DSA. Not their fault because they have just been publishing papers in their 2-3 years at IIITH. Majority of the companies don't allow them. During my time, I've fought to god knows how many HRs for allowing MS and PhD students.

7. "Edit : Also your bhaiya and didis have themselves cheated in their placements so they really know nothing." - I didn't sit in placements since I got a PPO from Samsung. But you're very innocent to think that cheating does not happen in OAs these days be it students from top IIT/NIT or any Tier-1 institutes :)

Despite all the flaws, I still vouch for the culture, professors and academics that IIITH provides. Be mature enough to understand that placement is just once piece of the very big cake that MTech from IIITH will give you. As per the author, if this college was overhyped "purely for the purpose of marketing" all these years, then that bubble would have burst long back. One year of bad placements does not turn everything down.

If you put in efforts in your MTech at IIITH, you'll always end up in a good place. One of my seniors who got unlucky in placements got into Google in 6 months. One of my batchmate who could not code properly while joining IIITH got placed at 10 LPA in placements but recently switched to Microsoft because IIITH significantly made him capable of it. These are his words, not mine. I can go on and on with multiple such examples but you get the point.

So focus on your preparation, talk to a lot of passouts from the current batch or recent batches and make the final call. But do not let one single post on the internet demotivate you and that too coming from someone who is not even a IIIT alumni.

Lastly, I don't plan to reply to every question if they come as a follow up to my comment since I already spent more than an hour writing all this. So if you have a doubt, send it in a note with a connection request to me on LinkedIn. And if you really wanna chat 1:1 with about anything, you can book some slot based on my calendar on Topmate.

Again, I have nothing to gain from this post since I'm already well settled in my career and what you all decide to chose or do with your life does not affect me.

I am also planning to create a video of my life after IIIT and how it's tag helped me land at Amazon where I'll talk a lot more on these things in further detail. Until then, good luck :)

For people who are considering IIITH here's a reality check.