Manipal is a reputed and well-known university today! I don’t think we need to even talk about all our famous Alumni that are conquering the world.
I don’t know if you are looking at an IIT or BITS, but I can speak for Manipal.
Manipal (the town) is a university town, one of the few that we have in India. It’s close to numerous beaches and has world-class infrastructure that it’s really proud of. You’ll find super smart people from all over the country and get enough exposure to many social skills. Since there are other colleges in the university other than engineering, you’ll be surrounded by over 40,000 students and students only. There are plenty of clubs, research facilities and super cool people to work with.
All in all, it’s an experience that I find very valuable, and you’ll end up learning a lot of things apart from academics because of the amazing environment.
As for the CSE department, I’ll say the professors are okay-ish. They could be much much better, but there are a lot of really good professors who you will learn a lot from. You’ll obviously have to work hard and learn how to learn things yourself as well, so it’s all up to you!
Hope this helped