As a B.Tech Mechanical Engineering student at NITK, I am sharing some facts about my department-
One of my friends wanted to work at the IITs. He told one of the professors about the same. The teacher mailed an IIT Hyderabad professor and arranged for my friend to work with him. My friend also wrote a conference paper under the same IIT Hyderabad professor.
Several workshops are organized by the department, like Metal fitting workshop, Carpentry workshop, Lathe machine workshop, etc. The campus also offers virtual labs, which are present in some IITs and NIT Surathkal only.
Apart from these UG labs, there are several PG labs as well. UG and PG students can also work with each other.
Overall, the Mechanical department of NIT Surathkal is quite good. In fact, NITK is known for its CS, Mining and Mechanical studies.