| Jan - Mar | Apr - Jun | Jul - Sep | Oct - Dec |
1.3℃ |
17.8℃ |
3.0℃ |
15.7℃ |
North Carolina State University (NCSU) is a public research university started in 1887. It has an enrollment of over 30,000 students, making it the largest university in Carolina by a margin. It’s also one of the cheaper universities around and hence is extremely popular amongst students. NCSU is especially well known for programs like ECE, CSC and Computer Networking (which is offered in very few other universities), and this fact coupled with its low tuition fees makes it a dream college for many a student.
NCSU is located in Raleigh, which is the capital city of North Carolina. It is pretty self-sufficient itself, which is a good thing since there isn’t too much to do once you’re out.
NCSU’s main campus has three sub campuses, North, Central and South. Although your life would be pretty much centered around the Engineering buildings (which is in the wonderful centennial campus), you should definitely take a few long walks around the rest of the campus, because well, it’s quite breathtakingly beautiful. Add to that the fact that all the libraries, laboratories and research centers are state-of-the-art, and you get the perfect ‘university feel’. The gym, recreation center and the sports/athletic facilities are mind-blowing as well. The brand new Hunt Library is certainly one of the most amazing structures you'll ever see. Magnificent and hi-tech, it is the worlds first artificial intelligence involved library. In a word, it's brilliant.
As for accommodation, most grad students choose to live off-campus - it’s cheaper and more convenient. NCSU has its own student apartment complexes like University House and University Suites, which afford students a fair amount of privacy and space. You'll find the largest concentration of Indians in areas like Avery Close, Colonial Arms, Kensington Park, Kings Court, Gorman Street and Champions Court.
Rayleigh experiences a humid subtropical climate. What’s that? Well, summers are typically warm to hot while winters are cold and wet. In summers, day temperatures range from 31 to 34 degrees Celsius while night temperatures range from 19 to 21 degrees Celsius. In winters, day temperatures of 12-15°C are normal while temperatures at night may fall as low to as -8°C. Rayleigh also tends to receive heavy snowfall and Ice-storms aren’t terribly uncommon either.
Most students are full of praise for the professors, although there’s a common complaint that not all professors are equally approachable. We would think that quite obvious, so we choose to believe that the faculty, on an average, is pretty excellent. It's common to hear students go "Ooh my God, they're amazing! They'll make you fall in love with the subject!" when quizzed about their teachers. Professors go out of their way to help, provided the initiative comes from the students. Plus, the course is structured in such a way so as to give you excellent practical as well as theoretical knowledge. NCSU also has a rather excellent Tutorial Center, where you can get free one-on-one help whenever you may need it. Now don’t go and spend all day there even if you don’t need any assistance; save such cheapness for your native land, where it’s certainly more appreciated.
It's impossible to get a scholarship, and even Teaching or Research internships are highly difficult to get. Any kind of financial aid is very, very difficult to get because you'll be competing with about 1000 people, most of who will probably have better profiles and marks. The best chance you have of getting some kind of funding is if you're doing a thesis under a professor, but those are terribly hard to get too- you normally need to either have industry experience or be a PhD student to get TAs or Ras.
Where and how well you get placed has a lot to do with what course you’re studying, and your performance in it. A fantastic number of companies visit the campus, and offer brilliant jobs, but you have to struggle and really work hard to get placed. Companies like Cisco, Netapp, EMC, Yahoo, Amazon, RIM, Google, Microsoft, nVidia, Intel, Qualcomm and IBM are regular recruiters, so clearly your life is quite set once you get yourself a job.
People from all over the world come to NCSU. There's a dominance of 'Asians' (Chinese and Korean students), but there are a number of Indians and Arabs as well. All are highly competitive and quite talented, so you're really going to have to slog to make it big here. But it's a lot of fun as well; they have a fantastic organisation which helps new Indian students at NCSU settle in, and also organizes various events during Diwali, Holi, etc. Raleigh isn't the most lively of places, but it has some fantastic things to do. The brilliant museum is one of the best you'll ever see, but unfortunately most students are too busy studying to go and take the city in. The only area with any kind of nightlife is downtown Raleigh. Common hangouts there are The Flying Saucer, the Players Retreat and Rum Runners. Since there aren’t too many great bars around, most students prefer partying indoors.
James W. Owens - Chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc. James Goodnight - Co-founder and CEO of the SAS Institute
It's a fantastic university, which is quickly climbing up the rankings. A major downside is the fact that it's not in a very big city, but other than that, NCSU is wonderful.