The hostel life at IEM Kolkata is believed to be very bad. The food that is served to the students is very unhygienic, unhealthy and tasteless. It is very bad and many students have to order food from outside the campus. The students complained about this issue to the authorities but there was no change or improvements. 

The hostel fees are pretty high but in return the facilities provided to the students are very poor. The wifi is also poor in speed and most of the time it didn't work well. Also the limit is only 4GB per month which is very less data in today's world as we need the internet for a lot of things.

They have a strict rule of entering the hostel by 6:30PM which is pretty early. So the hostel life will be very bad and it will be better for a student to stay in rent or PG outside the campus.

Being a central university and highly popular national university of importance, IIEST Shibpur not only attracts the best faculty from across the country but also receives funding from the central government on a yearly basis which helps the university maintain its infrastructure, upgrade to the latest trends in the world and better their services. IEM is a private university with a NIRF ranking of 191 in 2020.

• Placement Services: Considering placements are the most important deciding factor to understand the scope of an institution, let us have a look at the placement facilities across the two academic universities:

• Crowd: IIEST attracts students from all across the country due to its national importance and is the second oldest engineering college in India. IEM on the other hand being a private university does not see diversity among students and is not very popular as compared to IIEST.
• Campus: The infrastructure of both colleges are very different from each other. IIEST is known for its beautiful huge academic buildings, library, sports complex, and research labs. IEM, on the other hand, has a relatively small campus that offers hostel facilities, a cafeteria, a library, and an auditorium.
• Alumni: The alumni network at IIEST is unbeatable with world leaders like Dr. Bimal Bose, Leader in Power Electronics, and Dr. Kajal Gupta, Chief Technologist at NASA. IEM does not have a notable list of alumni considering it is not very popular amongst the masses.

Hence, if students have a good JEE score and are eligible to get into IIEST, it would be advisable to do so instead of choosing a private institution such as IEM- based on the factors mentioned above.

Your JELET rank should be under 1000. You can easily achieve that as the exam is not very tough and most of the questions are from the basics of 11th and 12th. So all the questions should be easy. 

Also if you want to practice and study for the exams you can refer to Sourav sir’s classes where all the concepts are being taught in a beautiful way and solutions and study materials are also provided for better preparation for the exam. 

After getting admission in this college, you will get many facilities and benefits from the college which will make you fall in love with this college and studying here will be fun and enjoyable. As the faculty is experienced and knowledgeable, learning new things and understanding new concepts will get much easier.

IEM is best for its non-core (CSE/IT/ETC/ECE) placements comparatively that of core ones (CIVIL/MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL). Situated in the heart of the IT sector business area the companies visiting the campus for recruitment are mainly software companies.

• Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE) is the best branch in IEM. This I can say on the basis of closing rank for ECE which is generally the lowest when compared to other branches in IEM.
• Technically, one should think and then go for choosing streams. Because, you never know whether your true potential lies with ECE or in any other stream.
• Also, the other factor is that the recruitment which happens in IEM highly favors CSE and IT students, as most of the companies visiting the campus are IT companies or Tech startups.
• IEM Kolkata is one of the best colleges and offers quality education. The faculty members for ECE are the best as compared to other core branches.
• You can get easily placed if you pursue this branch.
• However, if ECE is not your choice then, you can go with other branches as well. Whatever you are interested in, you should keep your firm choice.

The IT sector has seen a slump, the core placement doesn’t reach up to the mark. But, if you do choose electrical you may have an extra opportunity to sit in both the core and non-core.

• Moreover, IEM is quite critical with its Electrical engineers and does hold a separate placement arrangement for Electrical students.
•  Also, faculties are fine and IEM has improved its labs and faculty has strengthened all its branches slowly and gradually.
• Overall you may judge it yourself based on the above points.

But choosing a branch totally depends upon you. If you really like CS or IT there is no reason to not to choose IEM; or any other branch you like. After all, it’s you who is going to adapt the particular field and enhance yourself in it in four years of time.

• If you are interested in programming and have secured the required cut-off rank then go for CSE stream else go for ECE. But if your rank is not good enough to join the first two then go for IT stream.
• Moreover, after the first year you can switch into the branch you like by just getting the cgpa around 8-9, which you have to do to enroll in the branch you think you can do well.

I sincerely hope you take the right decision and choose the branch which is best for you and not go with the flow and take the branch which stats say is the best branch in IEM.