Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology M.Tech Review By Taniya Pawar

COT is meant for students from Uttarakhand as over 80% of the seats are reserved for students of Uttarakhand. If there's anything that the Institute needs to change, then my answer is nothing. I mean nothing because the best thing that they have done is that they have got everything on time, and that has made the academic burden on the Institute lighter. One more point on COT, which badly deserves to be talked about, is that many wounded students from Uttarakhand have joined this College and those wounded birds have been given wings. There's only one wound that every student carries while doing a PG program and that is placements, and because they were given wings, we all felt a lot lighter. We had a few off days with campus life, but if you have a few off days and more good days, you will be fine with it. The College's placement record has gone up year after year, and it is right next to IIT Roorkee in a true sense.

Academic travel here is no fairy tale because one may look at Pantnagar as a village, but the College is as advanced as any smart city Colleges of the country. All the average students or rather the ones who became average after joining UG, came back to bite their hay days because one has to be at their best to pass here. Internal markings were also so tough that one can't take anything less than seriously. Practicals here never ended because as much as we spent the time in classrooms, we spent the same hours in labs. If classes and labs were not enough, we also had to go for workshops, attend seminars, and also industrial visits and compulsory internships made education a lot tougher than I expected.

Faculties were highly qualified and knew exactly the points where they could press the students. We enjoyed a lot during the UG course by going late to the classes and bunking on occasions, but at COT, you have a choice to bunk but that will only harm the students. One of our faculty mentioned in one of our classes that he hasn't taken a single leave in the last 8 years. He has taught at various Universities and has an absolute gem of a record. So, all in all, the faculties here were gems of a person who has done exceptionally well in helping the students out in the best possible way that they can.

I have already mentioned that wounded birds are healed over here, so let me explain how healing is done. The placement cell assists every student in their capacity. So, that month-long training and two to two and a half months of the internship was more than good enough to make us ready to take on the world. The companies that visited checked our caliber and offered us placements which to me was out of the sparse.

Even on such a large campus, the University couldn't find space to have an on-campus hostel. I agree it was close by, but having a hostel inside helps as the hostel didn't have much recreational facilities as apart from our rooms, there was a discussion room and mini library to go to. No dinner was served after 8.30 pm and for our midnight munching, we had to stock up on our stuff. No complaints regarding hostel cleanliness or the rooms because they were peach, but apart from that, too, students need a few things in their favor to bide time outside their homes. It was tough to find interest at the hostel and as soon as I got a break, I used to rush home.

Since, it's an agricultural University having farms and warehouses at the campus is no surprise. However, one should just look at the warehouse as it was one of the filthiest places on campus. The campus is arguably beautiful, but some areas were filthy. The sports ground needs no mention as there are multiple grounds and students can multitask at the students club area. There are separate clubhouses and the best part is that the College is around the main city, so one doesn't have to travel much for their essentials. The central library of the University was great as books of all eight departments of the College along with daily newspapers, journals, and magazines were also available at the campus.

To be fair, the fight of competition was never there at COT. The campus life here has made me stronger because this was the first time I stepped out of my home and I can talk at Infinitum about the campus life of COT. Since the clubs and societies of the College were so active, they showed what they did at the club meetings during the events. All these made an overall good campus life.