PEC - Inside Story

I had a rank of 4098 in JEE Main 2020. My JEE Advanced rank was 11628. I had many options to choose from NITS. I chose Punjab Engineering College as it is near my residence and has a good reputation and placement record. Though I had sufficient rank to get admission through All India Quota also I was given admission under the Chandigarh quota as my education is from Chandigarh only. Admission in Computer science engineering is offered upto 11000 general ranks in jee mains for Chandigarh quota. The admission process is conducted by JOSAA only. College just verifies the documents. Counselling was online this time due to the Covid scenario. But overall admission process as smooth as it was online. It saved lots of time wastage and unnecessary travel expenses.

I chose Computer Science Engineering due to my self-interest as well as demanding Software industry. The course offers lots of learning and experiences. In my course student: faculty ratio is approximately 25:1. Most of the faculty are PhD's and the remaining are masters degree holders. Faculty members are good and interactive. All the faculties are from reputed institutes of India and abroad Teaching methods are good but they can be improved. This time term exams were held after 3.5 months of course beginning and were according to syllabus only. They were not too difficult to pass.

Many companies come for internship hiring like Microsoft, Amazon, Flipkart, JP Morgan, Rubrik etc. Hiring begins from the end of the 4th semester and the stipend offered is also good approximately 35000- 90000. Some students apply for off-campus internships, research internships in IITS and Nits and some also go abroad for internships in tech giants like UBER, AWS etc, Many students chose to work for startups and consultancy profiles in many companies. While some chose not to sit for an internship and prepare for placements. Whereas some accept PPO's. Projects requirement is also there and some online coding tests are taken to screen some students.

In my course, maximum students are placed and placed in good companies like Microsoft, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Flipkart, Google (off-campus) and amazon. Microsoft and amazon visit the campus every year and hires many students from all the branches, Campus placements begin from the 7th semester whereas internship hiring begins from the 5th semester onwards. This year highest CTC offered was 42 lacs and the average was around 12 lacs. Above 90% of students are placed. I am planning to do masters after my BTech.

Fees seem a bit higher for students from middle-class families. Though it is a government college but fees here is higher than in many private colleges. Fees hike is not seen there in college till now. Hostel and mess fees are higher than in many colleges, making it difficult for students from outside Chandigarh. The fees are higher as per the facilities provided in the college and needs reviewing. But if a student works hard he may get enough opportunities to meed the return of investment. There are few scholarships and fee waivers for category students, The college provides full and half fee waivers to students having top ranks in jee main. There is also a full tution fee waiver for merit students in each branch. Category students get a half fee waiver and some also get a full fee waiver based on financial condition.

The campus is green and clean and has few canteens, a Nescafe booth and a Cafe coffee day sitting place. The campus has a market, and few bank branches and many stationary shops. All the basic services are inside the college. Pec has a very famous fest called PEC FEST, an annual footfall of more than 40000 colleges for north and south regions. Many competitions are conducted and prizes are distributed. It is commonly conducted in November. The colllege has a big air-conditioned library having three reading halls. Some books are short here but overall the library is good and has a good wifi connection. It also has a digital library and has many journals. Due to the online semester, we cannot see many classrooms, but those we have seen are broad and well ventilated. There are many grounds in college and many sports facilities and a nice gym. The campus also has an open-air theatre. There is a very famous dramatics club and many other clubs and socities.