How I chose my college: Pshya Jindal

I was average in studies. In Class 12, I thought that studies are just a waste of time. I was interested in doing other things like sketching, designing clothes, etc. But these are not enough for your career. So after my Class 12th, I went to 2 colleges i.e. “Chitkara University” and “Chandigarh Group of Colleges”. During my visit to Chitkara University, there was nobody at the time of admission. The students of the university were not there due to the semester break and I visited the college in June. The admission block of the university was nice but there were no other students for admission. After a while, I went and explored the girls’ hostel. There was not a single girl in the hostel at that time. No doubt, the hostels were fully air-conditioned and also had a lift. After the formalities, I went to my college i.e. Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran. On the way of entering in the college to the admission block, I decided to take admission in that college no matter what. The buildings of the college were amazing and there was a lot of greenery. The most important thing was that there were so many students roaming around in the college. Then I visited the admission block and I had to choose between the streams - CSE and IT. I got to know that there was chaos for the CSE seats in the college as everybody wanted CSE, but I opted for the IT stream.

An interesting thing was that there were students available to help you if you wanted to see the college, canteens or the hostel. The college gave the students money for this work too. I felt a positive environment here and there was a group of friends playing, laughing and studying in the college park. In short, the college was full of students. Then I went to the hostel. The wardens showed me the rooms, then the TV room, the gym, washrooms, the mess and there was one tuck shop where you got all stuff for girls. In the mess, I had seen a variety of dishes. There was a different section for chapattis and salad, and the food was good.  After that, I went back home.

College life

My college tenure started in August. I went to the hostel 2 days earlier so that I can arrange my clothes, bucket and most importantly, the mattress. When I went to the hostel, I was surprised to see that all the things I wanted were available outside the hostel at cheap rates. The hostel environment was amazing and most importantly, there was no sign of ragging. One thing I like the most was the food in the canteens which is just awesome. Also, outside the college, there are many shops, all of which are famous for food. This college makes you into a foodie like me. Chitkara’s students also come to my college for the different varieties of tasty food.

My college was a bit strict about the discipline. I remember that in my 1^st semester, there was a teacher who was so strict that if you were late to the class even by 2 minutes, no matter what, you had to write an apology letter that “Yes, I am late in class and I won’t do this again.” and also, you had to take permission from the HOD. I wonder if that teachers got a bundle of apology letters within 1 week. The college was a mixture of students from all over India. If you ever opt for my college, then you have to study hard because the checking of papers was done outside the college.

In the 2^nd year, you get to know how to appear for exams and how many sheets you have to fill for scoring good marks. I got a backlog in one subject i.e. Human Resource Management which was not an important subject, so in that exam, I filled 19 sheets out of 33. I thought that was enough but it was not. My results came and I got 19 marks out of 60 in that subject. At that time I thought that each sheet carries only 1 mark but back in school, 19 sheets were more than enough. Then I realized that if you didn’t fill at least 30 sheets, then you couldn’t pass in that subject. Studies were a little bit tough but interesting.

In IT, the subjects you have to study are OOPS, DS, DBMS, WT, BI, BEA, JAVA, etc. All these subjects are very important in your future jobs. In the 3^rd year, the college conducted a pre-placement process in which if you wanted a job, then you had to join that. They took around Rs. 5000 as the fee for that process and the duration was 2 years. They hired experts for the placement process. Courses in the process included Communication Skills, Aptitude, Programming Classes, etc. The teachers were very helpful and were very concerned about students’ placements. If you wanted a good job, then you would have to brush up your knowledge in one computer programming language at least (for CSE and IT). The teachers help you in making projects, and they also give you extra classes for group discussion and HR rounds. You could go to them at any time and they would solve your problems. The teachers provide you with the placement papers of specific companies and fix a week for 1 company-specific question paper and module. When the companies came, they had different criteria i.e. 80%, 70% and 60%. Companies like Microsoft, Deloitte, Amazon, Wipro, Cognizant, HCL, IBM, Hyundai, Maruti and around 250 other companies came for placements. My criteria was 60%, so after 10 companies, I got a chance to sit for Wipro, which was my dream company. So after a lot of hard work, I got placed in Wipro and I was very happy at that time. I was the second girl in my department to get the placement at that time. In the end, I would like to say that I love my college and I recommend it to everyone.

About the Author:

My name is Pshya Jindal and I am from Hisar, Haryana. Recently, I have completed my BTech degree in the IT stream from Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran. I got a campus placement in Wipro.