Background: Nursing students, the future manpower of health care services, play a key role in providing empathetic and unbiased care for the mentally ill in all settings. Prejudice and negative attitudes of nurses, the healthcare providers, adversely affect the quality of care, treatment outcomes, and education and create awareness among the public. Aim: To identify the level of attitude towards mental illness and its association with demographic variables. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was adopted for this study. A total of 113 first-year nursing students were conveniently recruited to complete the self-administered CMAI (Community Attitude of Mental Illness) tool along with baseline demographic information. Results: Overall, the nursing students had a moderately positive attitude towards mental illness. The overall mean score was 124.50 ± 13.53, and the lowest mean score of 29.86 ± 5.13 in social restrictiveness suggests that strengthening a few areas is planned to improve the level of attitude. There was no significant association of level of attitude with the selected demographic variables. Conclusion: The moderate level of attitude towards mental illness underlines the need for nursing education to foster the change of attitude. Keywords: Attitude towards Mental Illness; Nursing Students; Community Attitude of Mental Illness (CAMI); Mental Illness