My cousin had got a branch change from Mechanical engineering to Electronics engineering (ECE). He shared his experience with me of how easy it was to get a branch change.

The primary and most important thing is to be regular and give equal attention to all subjects. You have to focus on your studies only and not let any distractions take the better of you. Be firm on your goal and give up all time-wasting activities.

You need to be rightly motivated and determined to achieve these goals. Not losing hope is the key as one or two exams do not define you. You will get ample opportunities to prove yourself so just keep working hard.

My cousin scored below average in the middle of the 2nd semester. However, she got this sudden motivation and studied hard and was able to score an overall CGPA of 9.64. She studied consistently every day and was able to change her branch eventually.

After doing some research online, here are some pointers that might help you answer your question. 

• Prepare off-track topics. 
• Questions can come from the unnoticed chapters in the NCERT textbooks. 
• You can refer to the NCERT books and the JEE main books for preparing for the aptitude test. 
• JEE MAIN and NEET sample papers can also be practiced. 
• NEST questions are available online every year for smooth preparation of the examination. 
• After solving the NCERT book, you can refer to Halliday, Resnick and Walker, H.C. Verma, J.D Lee, and R.D. Sharma.
• The reference books will have a strong involvement in your preparation if pursued relentlessly.

The questions in your aptitude test should be solved with confidence. There should be no random guessing and overall knowledge and accuracy is important.

My brother appeared for IIT JAM Physics 2018, given below are some tips and tricks that were helpful for his preparation.

Tips: 

• You should buy a combined question with answers book (for 7 papers), like Samvedna publication. 
• IIT JAM Physics syllabus contains inter syllabus so read the inter books and clear your basics. 
• It is always better to solve past year papers and practice set question papers to increase your accuracy and speed and for this, you can refer to any recognized practice set as per your comfort. (For ex- Arihant Publications IIT-JAM Physics practice set.

Important Topics: 

• Matrix, Algebra of complex numbers in the mathematical physics section is very important.
• While preparing mechanics and general property central force, Moment of inertia, Gravitational low are the main topics that you need to cover mandatorily.
• Other main topics in oscillation, wave, and optics include Travelling and standing wave, Group velocity and wave velocity, Doppler effect, Diffraction of light, Polarisation. 
• When it comes to electricity and magnetism you need to cover all the topics as all are important and on the other hand in kinetic theory & Thermodynamics, you need to prepare and cover topics like Mean free path, degree of freedom, Second law of thermodynamics, and entropy, Thermodynamic potential, questions on isothermal and adiabatic formulas.
• While you cover modern physics, don't forget to cover all the questions related to the Schrodinger equation(calculations of energy of given state, wavelength, dimensional box problems), try to solve all questions related to the Schrodinger equation, Radioactivity, Special theory of relativity to score better grades.
• Last comes Solid state physics, electronics devices - It is relatively easy. Make sure that you can solve questions related to boolean algebra, Transistor problems.

Apart from that while you appear in the IIT-JAM physics exam, keep in mind some important tips like reading questions carefully before solving them and try to get maximum points by solving the questions correctly, even the use of a virtual calculator with speed and accuracy is very important as the exam pattern is online, so practice that also to cut off the last-minute hurdles.

For software jobs, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering is very good in terms of Placement. Here are some of the observations about the college placements.

• Software companies like, Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Wipro are major recruiters of this college. One needs to maintain 60 % in his/her overall academics.
• Infosys usually comes in the first slot of the placement drive of the college.
• If you want to get into the core technical job then you might not get that in college but this is true in the case of other colleges as well.
• If your branch of engineering is electrical, mechanical, and biomedical then you should definitely participate in the campus pool drive of the college.

The placement recent statistics of Dayanand college are as follows. 

This college also provides soft skill training programs and a digital lab facility as well. This will help you in developing your communication and technical skills.

This answer would be exclusively based on how IIIT Lucknow is doing currently. To start with this, let us first understand what all factors together comprise to make any college a good college.

These include the following - 

• Curriculum- The entire curriculum that IIIT Lucknow offers is two separate courses. These are B.Tech in CS and B.Tech in IT. This sort of course structure is apt for anyone keen to pursue their career in the technology field. 
• Faculty- All the professors teaching at IIIT Lucknow are Ph.D. holders. But what you need to realize is that the faculty would not pay much heed to your skills and progress. 
• College life- IIIT Lucknow may not be able to fulfill that desire of yours to be exposed to aspects like sports, dance, drama, business, music, qualities of a budding entrepreneur, etc. Their sports ground isn't as big as other IIITs have. You would have two badminton courts, two tables for table-tennis, two carrom-boards, etc.
• Placements- Perhaps the most false claims about placements are made by IIIT Lucknow. All of IIIT Lucknow's placement credit goes to IIIT Allahabad. 

• Internships- No student was able to grab an on-campus internship for them in 3rd-year at IIIT Lucknow. And this is simply because of a flawed system and no lab facilities. No one in my knowledge had an on-campus internship and this doesn't happen in general.
• Fest- Lately, a technical fest was conducted by IIIT Lucknow. The students were happy and all excited but there are always bigger and better fests in other institutes. IIIT Lucknow is planning to execute a cultural fest, but accommodating the number of colleges will be a problem, as it is not spacious enough.

In case you're looking to join IIIT Lucknow in 2020-21, make sure you check out some Google images of hostels. The number of hostels is less. They have just one hostel that is cluttered with all the students from each year, including Ph.D. and M.Tech students.