PEC Chandigarh is a government college and the hostels are okayish as these are typical government college hostels. There are different hostels for each year students with spacious rooms and from the second year onwards, each student gets their own separate room and this is the best thing about PEC Chandigarh hostels. 

• Food provided in the mess is okay.
• The environment is clean.
• There are good indoor game facilities like Table Tennis, Carrom, etc. The institute also has various hostel clubs.
• The washrooms of the hostel are not clean and the condition is very bad, which is a major drawback. The washrooms are only good at the Shivalik hostel. 
• Also, per room, there will be one fan provided. Although you can secretly use a cooler for the 4 years of your stay. 

These are a few of the major things that you should know about the hostels at PEC Chandigarh. 

One of my friends is an alumnus of PEC Chandigarh. According to him, the Mechanical branch has good placement statistics. Here are a few highlights of the branch that may be helpful. 

• You can easily secure an average package of 6-7 LPA.
• In recent years the highest CTC offered to students of this branch is around 15 LPA. Although companies offering software-based profiles even offer 22 LPA.
• Some of the major recruiters for the Mechanical branch are JP Morgan, Tata, ITC, Hero, Bajaj, ZS Associates, Maruti, etc. 
• The placement average of the branch is almost 80% and only students with low CGPA remain unplaced. 
• PEC doesn’t have a good research culture. If you are interested in good research exposure, go for an internship at any IIT.
• According to my friend the quality of teaching is average. 

Lastly, if you have options to go for better NITs such as Allahabad, Bhopal, Raipur, etc. go for it. Many reputed PSUs visit the campus placements of these NITs and offer Design profiles.

You can definitely opt to enroll in PEC Chandigarh. It has a better placement record and the rankings are far higher than GKV Haridwar. NIRF has ranked PEC Chandigarh at 68th position among top engineering colleges in 2020 in India.

Following are the reasons why you should avoid GKV Haridwar:

• GKV Haridwar has mandated only for boys and their main campus is comparatively compact, which makes it somewhat not very attractive as a whole. 
• The courses in GKV are limited as well, which adds up the various reasons as to why you should choose the former.
• The campus is quite a bit far away from the main city, which is burdensome for students as well. 
• The hostels of the institute are almost 2 KMs away from the main building which sometimes affects the students.
• GKV Haridwar only offers 4 branches, which is a problem in itself. It includes Computer Science, Electrical, Electronics, and Mechanical.

If you want to study B.Tech in Civil Engineering, then you can without further hesitation choose PEC Chandigarh since it is a good institute. 

Yes, if you have an SAT score, then you can get into PEC Chandigarh. But there is a small disclaimer. You should not have completed your 11th and 12th studies from any school or college based in India.

• PEC Chandigarh follows the same admission procedure as NITs, IIITs, and other Govt. Funded Technical Institutes (GFTIs) and takes admission through JEE Main entrance test and JoSSA counseling. 
• NRIs are eligible to take admissions at PEC Chandigarh under the Direct Admission for Students Abroad (DASA) program run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
• Any student applying through the DASA channel can produce his/her SAT test scores and thus is eligible for admission. 

The fees for the same are higher than regular Indian students with a per-semester fee of USD 4000. Students from SAARC nations have a fee of USD 2000. Children of Indian Workers in Gulf (CIWG) countries however are covered under a quota where students have to pay the same fee as that of regular Indian students.

Upgrading your branch after the first year is not an easy task. Although upgrading to civil will be easier as compared to other branches like CSE and ECE. Nevertheless, the only thing you need is a really good CGPA which is probably 9.5 or above to be on the safer side. And the grading for individual subjects is relative, so you will have to be amongst the toppers in your batch.

So, if you have a strong desire for up-gradation, then you will have to really get down to study and avoid major club activities for the first year particularly.

The choice of a branch clearly depends on you. But, if you are wondering which among both these would be a better choice, then you can undoubtedly go for IT at NIT Kurukshetra. 

There are several reasons why-

• Placements: The average package is about 9 to 10 Lacs for CS or IT at NIT Kurukshetra. On contrary to NIT Kurukshetra, the average package provided by PEC Chandigarh for students whose branch is Electrical is known to be around 5 to 6 Lacs.
• Brand Name: The second most influential reason for choosing NIT Kurukshetra is its NIT tag. It does offer certain advantages. 

However, both of these aforementioned branches are completely different and have no personal interlinking. Thus to say, the scope for IT in various government sectors is at present near about zero, while at the same time, there is seen to be a lot of scope in the government sector for the electrical branch.

Otherwise, the salary package that a branch like IT receives is more than Electrical, since the demand for it is currently at a peak.

Well, one of my friends is studying at BIT Mesra and according to him, it is a very good college especially for CSE. 

• The teachers here are very good and experienced in their subjects. Professors like Arun Sir and Mustafi Sir are great and helps the students a lot in completing their projects. They are always ready to help anyone irrespective of their branch or year. 
• There are coding matches held every Saturday at the campus and many workshops are also conducted by ACM which turns out to be very profitable for the students. These are great interactive ways to learn and practice new things.
• The placements are also amazing as top companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Practo, Coupon Dunia, Goldman Sachs, Snapdeal visit the campus for interviews, and offer packages more than 10 LPA. 
• Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs also hire interns from the CSE branch.

If you want to know about PEC Chandigarh, then ask someone who belongs to that college like a college alumnus or a student studying there. They can provide you genuine information about the college. 

I have friends studying production engineering at PEC Chandigarh and they have come across that it is somewhat similar to mechanical engineering. You can expect a lot of mechanics and physics, however, some subjects differ as you get into the core.

Coming to the question, it totally depends on your pool of interest whether you are into mechanics and production or metallurgy. Here are two major factors you might consider before choosing any of them

• Production Engineering can get you jobs and packages similar to mechanical engineering. Also, it is a versatile branch where you can learn about manufacturing, operation, maintenance, etc.
• If you are planning to get into research work after completion of engineering, then you must choose Metallurgy. It has broader research scopes than production engineering.

At the end of the day, follow your passion and know where you can invest these 4 years of your life. Nevertheless, if getting a job is your goal then go for production engineering. On the other hand, metallurgy engineering can open doors for good research work if you are interested in doing so.