It is one of the National Institutes of Technology campuses established by the Government of India to impart high standard technical education to students from all over the country.

It was largely due to the efforts of Pattom Thanu Pillai, then Chief Minister of Kerala, that the institute came into being.

The classes were initially held at the Government Polytechnic at West Hill before it moved to its present campus in 1963.

After Prof S. Unnikrishnan Pillai took charge as principal in 1983, the Training and Placement Department started organising student campus recruitments.

The college moved into the area of information technology in 1984 with the commissioning of multi-user PSI Omni system and HCL workhorse PCs.

In 1990 Shankar Dayal Sharma inaugurated the Architecture Department Block and construction of a computer centre was completed.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, accorded NIT status to REC Calicut in June 2002 granting it academic and administrative autonomy.

It was a lead institute under the World Bank-funded Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) which began in 2002.

Other facilities like Night Mess, indoor shuttle court, gymnasium, and an extension of the Co-operative Society store are available in the ladies' hostel.

NITC has a gymnasium, swimming pool, an open-air theatre, an auditorium, and facilities for outdoor sports like tennis, football, volleyball, badminton, roller skating, hockey and basketball.

NIT Calicut's supercomputer, Purna (Parallel Universal Remote Numerical Analyser), is accessible from anywhere in the campus and is provided for the use of all students and faculty members.

Its objective is to help the development of start-up ventures in electronics and IT.TBI provides workspace with shared office facilities with an emphasis on business and professional services necessary for nurturing and supporting the early-stage growth of technology and technology-based enterprises.

[16] The School of Management Studies (SOMS), NIT Calicut offers a two-year residential Master of Business Administration (MBA) program for graduates in any discipline from any recognised university/institute.

Admission to the MBA programme is based on CAT score, performance in group discussions, and personal interviews.

SOMS offers a two-year full-time MBA programme with specialisations in Finance, Marketing, Human resource management, Operations, and Systems.

[18] Admission to some other autonomous national level technical institutes (called Deemed University) is also through JEE Main.

Students who have studied outside India for a minimum period of 2(two) years may seek admission through DASA (Direct Admission for Students Abroad) which was managed by EdCil (Educational Consultants India Limited) and is currently being managed by the National Institute of Technology, Calicut based on the JEE Main rank.

Faculty from other institutes work as research scholars in NITC under the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP).

The final selection is based on the performance of shortlisted candidates in group discussion (GD) and personal interview (PI).

[24] The symposium was organised jointly by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the School of Biotechnology and was held at the Taj Gateway in Calicut.

The conference conducted during 19–21 March 2014, witnessed research works from numerous institutes within the nation and abroad.

Tathva 22 Returned with all its glory, featuring Shreya Goshal[32] And Events such as Robo-Wars for which Dedicated arena was set up.

[33] Aimed at inspiring innovation and technical interest among students and the public, Tathva has played host to lectures, seminars, workshops by companies like ParaMek Technologies, competitions, paper presentations, exhibitions, quizzes, model displays, and robotics events.

Abdul Kalam, G. Madhavan Nair, Harold Kroto, Johannes Orphal, Jimmy Wales, and Suhas Gopinath, were some of the eminent guests in previous editions of Tathva.

Colleges and universities from Kerala and outside compete in events like trivia quizzes, dance competitions, rock shows, and music concerts.

[35] Hoping to make their way into the Limca Book of Records, in Ragam 2015, students participated in an event to get the most people in a single selfie.

Apart from this, another cultural event called Sneharagam was organised, which is meant for differently-abled children from all over Kerala.

Professional bodies with student chapters include NIT Calicut ACM Student Chapter,[46] Computer Society of India, the Indian Society for Technical Education, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineers (India).