University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya [Review by Prasurjya Gogoi]

Since I am a budding writer and poet it was obvious for me to choose this course of BA. English. The curriculum we have here prepares us though for future prospects for a career in English literature like Professor. There are scopes for improvement though in the teaching methods as I want teachers to be more practical and innovative in their approach to students. The frequency of exams is every 90days approximately and the difficulty we can say is moderate. If you go through the books and notes provided then you can easily get around a 7 to 8 SGPA.

Internship opportunities varies through out departments. The department of BBA and MBA provides the best internship opportunities all throughout. The departments such as B.Tech and BCA also provides decent internship opportunities as it is important for the overall development of a student.

The placement are diverse and comes with packages ranging from 3 lakhs to 10lakhs based on your capability. Some companies which offers placement are Infosys, Microsoft etc. The students getting placements are normally of high percentages such a 85%+ and also have exceptional problem solving ability. My plans after getting my undergraduate degree is to pursue a master degree in English literature, preferably outside the country.

The year wise fee I would be paying for my course i.e BA. English is Rs. 80,000. But the admission fee is extra Rs. 40,000 at first. Scholarships are available for students who either belong from SC/ST category or have poor financial status (Family income being lower than 2.5 Lakh per annum)

There are many annual college festivals here in USTM and they are more often celebrated in a grand manner. The biggest is the Esplendidez (organised by the B.Tech department). Our central library offers a variety of books and journals related to the course curriculum of each of the available departments here. There are smart classrooms in each department and projectors in each classrooms which assists with smart teaching. Sports facilities are decent with basketball court, football field and volleyball court available in the campus along with a student gymnasium. There are social groups of different communities in the university as well, for eg: Assamese, Naga, Arunachali, Tripuri etc.

Hostel facility is decent as well with properly nutritious food provider specially during lunch and dinner. Though the amount of food during snacks and breakfast is sometimes not adequate. Registration for hostel can be done during admission only if seats are available. We have two hostels inside the campus and two outside the campus with large accommodation capacities. Rent rooms are available nearby as well or you can choose to live in six mile or Panjabari.

I gave CUET and applied for Delhi University, Tezpur University and Cotton University. I got in Tezpur University but didn't go there since I had already started attending classes here in USTM. The admission process of USTM is quite simple as if you get more than the required criteria of marks in your 12th board exams i.e 45% for most departments then you just have to pay the fee and you can get in.

The faculty to student ratio is about one teacher for 30 students, which is impressive for the English department. The best faculty I ever got till now in my department was Neer Sir, though I got to learn from him only during 1st semester. Currently, the best faculty in our department is Richa Sharma ma'am and Gayatri Das Ma'am. The faculty we hate though is Salma Begum ma'am and Pramasa Saikia ma'am, they just annoy us. Normally we have three sessional exams every 1.5 months and then the end semester exams in the last month of the semester.