First thing when you come to UPES that attracts you the most is weather and surrounding. I am from Rajasthan so you can understand how fascinating it would be for me coming to live in a place all surrounded by mountains, forests and nature. But let me tell you frankly after living here I am really annoyed by the amount of rainfall at unusual timings. You have a class and its raining, You went for lunch and it is wet mud all over but these things gets adjusted slowly.
Classes starts with Personality Enhancement Programme. We call them PEP classes. It is for freshers for 3 days before start of the actual academics. Believe me the amount of fun, enjoyment and interaction you are gonna do in these 3 days will remain in your heart throughout your college life. The friends you will make in these 3 days will be your friends for life. I can guarantee that.
Then starts the academics. We all fascinated by movies about College life, life is this or that comes on the first class of college. Life starts here. Gradually your batch unites and then after 20 days or so you have your first Mass Bunk. Very feeling of completing something together as a batch will make you feel awesome. Then after 1 month you feel the Engineering pressure or better say you start to live an Engineer’s life. Bunking classes just because you were enjoying with friends late night in the hostel. I missed almost every morning class after 1 month. Then comes Asignments, Common Class Tests and Mid Semester examination. It is the high time you finally realize that posts on facebook page The Frustated Engineer are damn true.
Meanwhile you will develop a friend circle at hostel and at college. Soon your facebook profile will be flooded with the pics of your first outing with friends. Dehradun is a place for all Travel enthusiasts. You will come across all the clubs and Student Chapters in the University. They conduct various events both Technical and Non Technical. When you join them you will meet the most awesome seniors, most of them will help you throughout your career.
You will surely discover something new in yourself and might be it can be your passion. Football, Table tennis, Guitar, Photography, Dance or anything else it can be.
Mussorie, Dhanaulti, Paonta saheb, rishikesh will be your travel destinations along with your friends.
Just before End Semester you will realize of your attendance being less than 75 and it needs attention. Somehow you will get past and sit for End Semester examination. You will feel the satisfaction of just passing above cutoff is much more than getting 90 in school.
All in all life has been good for me here. Like any other college might be it is same but it feels nice being here.
Problems that you will face are-
- No Night life and for campus hostel students, your day ends at 8. For girls last entry is 7 at evening. It sucks.
- No food for you at night. Hardly there is any shop which will open after 12.
- Transportation problem. UPES is 9 km from city. Tracker is the only transportation source as Ola cans won’t come here. You will learn adjustment that you have to make in your life after your first tracker ride.
- Backlogs are frequent here.
- Guards won’t allow you entry without ID card, Tie, Black shoes etc. They are very strict about it.