All about Presidency University, Kolkata

I was first admitted to Asutosh College. Meanwhile, I appeared for the entrance tests for Presidency University and Jadavpur University respectively. The entrance test for getting admission to Presidency University is named PUBDET and it is held by the West Bengal Joint Entrance Board, whereas, JU entrance test is taken by the university authority itself. I qualified in PUBDET and I was called for the first counseling at WBJEEB. The admission criteria for my course, i.e. B.A. in Bengali, demands 60% marks in the subject in Higher Secondary examination or in any other equivalent examination. As I fulfilled the criteria, I got admission to Presidency University. Presidency University provides one of the finest Bengali departments in the country, so I shifted there from Asutosh College.

I have always been into literature since my childhood and have strong intimacy with my mother tongue. So I chose Bengali language and literature as my graduation course. Presidency University provides one of the finest departments in the country for the subject. The class strength is 35 and there are 10 assistant professors in the department. Some of them have done their PhD. and some are still pursuing that. But we can easily demand that we have some of the finest professors with us. We have a great time with them inside the classrooms. Exams are semester based and we get a yearly schedule mentioning the tentative dates of my examination. It helps us anyway. To pass the exams, one must attend the class with all their attention and interest. We do not have to take tuitions outside which is indeed a great help.

The placement cell is currently inactive. Departments like Statistics, Economics have some placement programs after graduation and post-graduation, though less in number. Being a student of humanities, we do not get to know about the companies visit for campusing and number of offers the make. Hardly 10-15% of students get placements.

For each semester, we have to pay 1100 rupees only. There are some Government aided scholarships a student can apply for, like Swami Vivekananda Scholarship, West Bengal Government merit scholarship, or something like that. The university authority helps their students to get these scholarships. The only issue is that the placement cell is not working in our university for a few years. But the authority is trying to rebuild it. Otherwise, departments like Statistics, Economics, etc. get placements but few in numbers.

Students have their own campus experiences. the Presidency is a place where students from every socio-economic background join nowadays. So we have canteens for everyone to avail food at a pocket-friendly price. We have two rich libraries and individual departmental libraries that reduce the headache of buying expensive books. Students can access the J store, several journal websites, etc also. Professors also help the students with required study materials. Inter-departmental access is very easy here. Students' organizations have their own freshers programs individually but the annual college fest, named Milieu is organized by the students' union. Though for the current time being, it's not possible to organize the annual college fest. We have separate sports and cultural fests too organized by the respective societies under the union. There is a huge playground, a basketball court, a badminton court, and a carrom and table tennis room. But the most famous is the 29 card game.