Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology M.Tech Review By Shalini Bahuguna

The only wound that I carried coming here was the placements. I tried my best for many of the top Colleges, but COT was where I had to be, and as I said, my wounds were fixed here. Out of poor placements, out of family's expectations, I was deeply hurt, but COT is a formidable force to get rid of all the pains and sorrows that one carries before joining here. If there's anything that was most correct here, then it is that, like IITs, COT is a calm place that doesn't do many tricks but does the right number of tricks. As they say, why fix it when it isn't broken? COT may be old in some ways, but thus far the system that they follow has worked for them, so even I would say there is no need to change. COT has one thing, though, that the College doesn't do unnecessary cute things to make students happy. Students are here for grinding and that is how we were treated from day one.

Academics here were the innovations, and it shows in the numbers as well. COT is the second-best engineering College of the state after IIT Roorkee. There were two things in academics that they did brilliantly. One was the fact that faculties here were one of the best teachers in the world; and secondly, the kind of level of maturity that the College has shown in terms of academics makes it one of the most significant places to study. It's your wish to see the glass you want, but at COT, you can get intoxicated or hypnotized by the number of hours you will have to spend at COT in studies. The studies were never-ending here, but what students don't realize is that if we take care of this aspect, the rest of the other things will take care of itself.

Faculties kept us ahead of schedule so to get a little bit of extra time at the tail end. One-third of the portions of a semester were done in one month, and so for the remaining 2/3rd, we had time to go through all that's been taught and ask the faculties doubts that we had. If not anything, they were helpful to the moon as students here come from places to study and many had to deal with some personal issues too. Faculties did understand all those things and always stood by us as a pillar of strength.

Impact and context of the placements were such that it was almost 100%. Firstly M. Tech only has a few seats here, and all the students who are cleared with all their first-year subjects were the only ones eligible for placements. So, 80% of the students were eligible and correct me if I am wrong, but all those 80% students had campus placements. All the top companies of the world were present and took a nice interview as M.-Tech students are not easily chased. No M.-Tech students will ever accept a secondary role, and to have the first role one has to show all that they have got. We were trained in such a way that getting 8-10 lakh placements was as easy as it can be at COT.

There are two girl's hostels for the Engineering College of the University. The hostel was off-campus but still at a walkable distance from the College. The hostel also had juniors, so, the third and fourth floor of the girl's hostel were reserved for girls doing PG. The warden used to stay at the junior student floors to ensure that no one was exploited. The food was average but what bothered me the most was that the curfew time of girl's hostel was 6.30 pm. It was indeed a joke for me as on days our classes got over at 5.30 and the only option that we had was to rush back to our hostels.

I saw sign boards that said it is the biggest University in India and second in the world in terms of area. Agricultural technology is the core course of the College and therefore the campus has over 12k areas of farms inside the campus. It sometimes feels like we are walking through the field and modern-day students are working in the fields. I captured a lot of snaps as many of my friends who were at IIT Roorkee and other Colleges were also surprised to see our campus. The campus has a bicycle shop and you could rent them at a minimum rent as students here are seen riding bicycles through the fields. The College had a market that sold almost every stuff that one needs. In all, the University infrastructure is different as it is like we are studying in a field.

Campus life is such a big factor that your entire time spent is what you take back as a memory. I have taken back a lot of good memories and most importantly, the positive vibes that COT has is something that I wish stay with me till eternity.