This is purely dependent on your personal choice. As a general rule, we tend to think that in case you have been good at Computer related subjects in school and/or college, you will be having a good aptitude in Computer Engineering. This is not generally true. Up till the 12th Standard, everyone studies the common subjects and there is just a little specialization.

Think about what you’ll be really good at. Or more importantly, think about what would give you pleasure or satisfaction. Selecting the right stream for yourself is the MOST important criteria. Why is that? Well, quite frankly, chances are that you would be working in this field for probably the rest of your life!

So if your getting into Engineering, what’re the kind of fields you’d be getting into? Well, here’s a short list of some of them:

1. Computer Engineering
2. Civil Engineering
3. Production Engineering
4. Mechanical Engineering
5. Information Technology Engineering
6. Electronics Engineering
7. Electrical Engineering
8. Chemical Engineering
9. Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering
10. Instrumentation Engineering
11. Polymer Engineering

and many many more…

As you can see, the list is amazingly exhaustive! How do you select? Well, I think that by the time you are completing your 12th Exams, you’ll have short-listed a small number of subjects that you actually like a lot! Make a note of those subjects. Go out and buy the Syllabus books for each and every Engineering field that you think would contain your subject of interest as a major. You can get these books at just about any stationary store in your town. (NOTE: Every University has a different syllabus. Pune University, Mumbai University, North Maharashtra University, Delhi University, IITs, all have totally different syllabi). Although the basic underlying subject is the same, the approach taken is very different. So keep that in mind.

I think now you’ll be able to think about what Engineering field you want to go into.

How to select a college?

Once you have finalized which field you want to go into, make a list of the colleges that offer that field. Then you make a sorted list of these colleges. Sort them according to their ranking (first), then you resort them according to their proximity to your locality (second). For the third step you’ll have to do some ground work. This is the tough part!

Start visiting these colleges. Go see the department that you will be studying in. Check out the infrastructure that is present in the college. Talk to the students that you meet in the college campus. Go to the hostels, check out the rooms, check out what all facilities they provide, ask the students in the hostels about the kind of life they have there. Ask about the food, the timings, the curfew times, etc. Also ask them if there’s anything that differentiates the college/hostel from others. Most of the students will be very helpful and they will readily provide you with all the information you need. (Note: Some students might try to mislead you with ulterior motives in their crooked minds. Be Careful when judging who to ask for advice. Especially if your a female with relatively good looks!) You should also go and talk to staff members. This is very important because talking to staff members will give you an insight into what you will experience if you take admission in that college. The staff is very essential, because they will be teaching you. You will be paying steep tuition fees to be taught, not to study by yourself!

As you get the information from these people and from your observations, make a checklist of the things you saw, heard, interpreted. Use this as a guideline for EVERY college you visit. You will then get a very clear view of a colleges standing. You also won’t be misguided by some ratings that I don’t trust! Do you really know how colleges are ranked?! Think about it…

Make sure that you visit the college in an off-season. This means visit it before the admissions season starts! This is because most colleges will try their best of put up a good front during this season to woo students to join the college. If you visit them in the off-season, you will be getting a view of the REAL DEAL! You will actually see what the status of the infrastructure and staff is.

Hostel Life vs. Living at Home

Living in a hostel is a cool thing. You learn a lot of things about life. You tend to get the feel of reality! You learn how to live with people from varied backgrounds and outlooks. You learn how to adjust!

But on the flip side, you spend your first 6-7months just adjusting and not concentrating on your studies. In Engineering, the first six months are the most crucial of your life. You next couple of years will be determined by what your First semester results would be like. Also, you tend to submit to peer pressure (drugs, booze, smoking, parties, sex(??), Boyfriends, Girlfriends, etc). You may be a strong willed person right now. But after constant nagging from your colleagues, you might either go insane, or you might give in to the pressure! Keep these things in mind.

Living at home is a much better choice (in my opinion). You are comfortable with your home’s surroundings. There aren’t too many factors to disturb your mindset. You can set out to your task with little or no distractions. You don’t have to adjust to food, unknown people, etc!

This also has it’s disadvantages though! Since your at home, your parents could feel that you need to do some household chores etc. But this isn’t as bad as it sounds! Think about it, you’d have to do everything on your own if you were living in a hostel anyways!

In my opinion, Living at home and studying at a College near your home is a better option than living in a hostel. It provides you with a lot of flexibility!

CONCLUSION

Ok… so now that you’ve done all that, you will see a clear picture of how things are in reality. You will be able to judge the colleges better. This is just a guide… You will have to use the Sprite Punchline. Of course, if something goes wrong in your selection, then there’s no one you can blame other than yourself! And it’s better to make a mistake after trying yourself, rather than relying on somebody else’s views and thinking!