UPES College review from a first year student

UPES is one of the very few colleges in India that gives their students the chance to choose a specialization(that too in collaboration with IBM and Xebia) in their branch which makes it better than other colleges. Also now it is very well growing in Computer Branch after being among the top colleges in India for Petroleum. The only drawback it holds is its campus size which is quite small for a University but I feel its scenic location balances it out. Till now I have really liked how the college focuses on giving the industry exposure to their students making them practical in their field. One thing that the college should think about is improving the overall faculty because though most of them are Ph.D. holders but still there are some who are not well experienced and knowledgeable. For taking admission in UPES one has to fill in the Application form in the month of May-June from their website for the entrance exam and after clearing that they can move forward with the admission.

I choose Btech Computer Science as per my own interest and as this college provides me with an option to choose a specialization so it helps me to master a particular field in my course. The faculty is mostly of PhD holders except a few coming from top colleges of India like IITs and NITs and holding a great experience of more than 10 years in their field of teaching. The faculty: student ratio remains different in a theory session (1:50) and different in a lab session(1:20). Overall the friendly attitude of teachers makes it very easy for students to be open about their problems with them. Talking about the exam schedule we have one mid-sem and one end-sem in a complete semester. The breakdown for marks is as follows: 20(internal assessment)+30(midsem)+50(endsem). The difficulty level of term exams is medium to hard making it a well-balanced exam for all kinds of students. For me personally, it has never been really difficult. The college is very particular in conducting them timely.

Placements are good with an average package of 4.5-5LPA for the Btech branch. These packages also differ with the branch you select. A lot of companies like Tata, Google, Amazon, Adobe, IBM, etc visits the campus every year. I don't have much experience with the placements as I am in my first year only.

The fee is quite high as it is a private university. The average fee for Btech is around 1.5-2 LPA. For different courses the fee changes. There is some scholarship for girl students. Also, students are given scholarships on their board merit or JEE score. The placement record has been good overall as a large number of companies from both mass recruiters to good product-based companies visit every year opening a great opportunity for the student to grab. Apart from this the entrepreneurship cell of the college assists in setting up a start-up after college.

Some annual fests are UURJA which is the main fest of the college. Apart from this many technical fests like Prodigy are also conducted. There are many technical student chapters like ACM, UCD, CSI, etc. which students join and learn a lot of important things. These chapters also conduct various hackathons and competitions. The college offers a digital library where any student can issue a book digitally with the help of their MyUpes account. It also provides free access to Coursera courses for 2-3 months in the first year. I have not been able to experience campus life much because of Covid Lockdown.