Vellore

1. Attendance is important. 75% of attendance is the minimum requirement to appear in semester examination.
2. Don't count on last lectures attendance which will boost your attendance from 73% to 75%, lectures gets cancelled and you won't be able to cross that 75%.
3. CGPA is important. A student who has CGPA greater than 9 is exempted from minimum attendance criteria, which can be a huge relief and benefit.
4. CGPA is important because at the time of placement, students who have better CGPA will get shortlisted for exams first. Minimum 8.5 or 8 is the safe CGPA to get shortlisted in most of the companies.
5. CGPA is important because it gets you the priority for FFCS (FFCS is a system which is followed in VIT which allows you to choose your own teacher and make your own time table).
6. Failing in lab will result in failing the whole course.
7. Choose your teacher (FFCS) well. Do some research work on the subjects being offered and teachers being assigned, talk to seniors and have a clear idea. Some teachers make the life of the class hell for no reason, and you would want to avoid that. It can be done if you talk to your senior and ask about the teachers before choosing them.
8. Again, choose your teacher well. One kind will get you higher grades, another kind will get you superior knowledge. Decide what you want.
9. There will be a lot of distractions (especially in Vellore campus) with all the events, fests, etc. Be focused on what you want.
10. Four years will end sooner than you think, with you getting lesser than you think (in terms of knowledge, experiences, and opportunities). So don't waste a lot of time by playing games for unrealistic amount of time, hanging out for unrealistic amount of time, watching TV series for unrealistic amount of time.
Keeping all this apart, just stay relax and enjoy your 4 years of engineering life. These days are never going to comeback.
All the best for future.

Civil Engineering in VIT is good. Faculties are decent and the opportunities of projects are also as per standards of good engineering colleges. However problem with Civil Engineering is that it is literally a dying field. Don't ever anticipate that after 3-4 years, there will be any progress in this field. Because no matter how many infrastructural projects come up the intake of civil engineers in core jobs will be same. I don't know why it's that way. Talking about placements in the Civil dept of VIT, it's downright poor. About 30-40%. The best company that recruits from VIT is L&T construction. However you'll have to be in the top 40s for it. Godrej Properties gives good package, however their intake is less that 5. Tata housing, saint gobain are other 2 core firms that recruited last year but they too have a meagre intake and pay package. If you want to go for higher studies then you might take up civil in VIT.