Calcutta University for English literature

I love literature that's why I took up this course. This course is not limited to just literature, we also learn about history, philosophy, psychology and linguistics. This course has so much potential but all are wasted as nobody teaches us how to apply it in real life. There are no active journals in the department that we could publish our papers in. Hardly any seminars. We are not required to write a thesis of any kind. We are just not taught how to go forward with this. Our classrooms are big but that doesn't mean we would all sit in the same classroom in 40° C. We have separate sections but are told to sit in the same room. We also could use projectors. Semesters are reduced to trimesters. No time to study. And they don't want to give you marks, the highest cgpa you can get is 7.

The course fees was pretty nominal. Admission fees was around Rs1000. Each sem you have to pay exam fees which was Rs150 for first three sems, and Rs180 for the 4th sem. We also had to pay monthly fees that would be taken all together of 4-6 months at once. Our last year's fees was total Rs1244. Tuition fees Rs1200, rest are game fees library fees etc. Whatever you have to pay, it never crosses Rs.1500. I don't think fees were any lesser for reserved category students. One think to mention, all payments are taken through SBI collect portal, even if it's Rs1. For the scholarship part, you have your Swami Vivekananda or K3 scholarship, 24k each year of you complete without backlogs. Reserved category students also have their own scholarship. There also a single girl child scholarship, which you could aplly to if you're the only child of your parents and you're a girl. But you can only apply for one.

There are no annual events first of all. It's just we students would put together events like fresher's, fairwell and teacher's day. We constantly have exams so it's hard to have events. The library is the best part. Most books are available, fiction/ non-fiction. You have to learn to navigate. They could improve the infrastructure. The mics often don't work. They also should intall projectors. There are no extracurricular activities, unless you organise one , as students. No sports or whatsoever. No clubs, no social groups. There is "union" of course but I wouldn't suggest them.

I applied to VBU, PU, and RBU , I got selected in this uni only. Because CU's marking system is different. We won't stand a chance in other universities in terms of our cgpa. Most of us who were of UR category had around 75% whereas the reserved category students had 55-60%. The admission process was quite simple. Applied through their website. They first gave us an overall list of candidates. Then they provided merit list. If you are merit listed you would have a portal open for you to submit further documents like declaration forms and stuff, then a payment window would open. I made the payment, printed out the receipt and went for the orientation. Our batch didn't face the physical verification.

The faculty is too small. They often struggle to complete the syllabus still they won't hire more people. Professors are good but not as approachable, at least not all of them. S.M. sir, S.B. sir are really good professors in terms of what they teach. Their classes are never boring. Others are good too. No hatred to anyone. There are 4 sems, 5 papers each sem , and we have 1 ge paper in the last two sems included in the 5 papers. We also have an internal exam before the main exams each sem. Exams are difficult. Very difficult. You have to attend the classes or won't be able to answer anything. Around 50% students had backlogs in the 1st sem, but it decreased after that because we got the hang of it.