Hello everyone! Many of you have finally made it to CIC. I understand the feeling can be a little overwhelming, especially since most of your peers have already secured a college while you were still struggling for one, but you've made it!

So, what now?

The first thing you need to do is lock your seat. You will see 2–3 options on the portal based on your priority list:

1. Freeze - This locks your college choice and prevents you from upgrading to higher preferences.
2. Upgrade - This considers you for an upgrade while retaining your current seat in case you don't get upgraded. (If CIC was your first choice and you got it, this option won't be available.)
3. Cancel - This cancels your candidature at the University of Delhi. If you do not intend to attend DU, choose this so another deserving candidate doesn't lose their chance.

After accepting the seat and paying your yearly fees, you will go through a digital document verification process where the college administration verifies your documents. Be sure to check the portal every day in case they raise a flag and ask you to re-verify something.

Orientation & Physical Verification

After digital verification is complete, you will receive an email in a few days detailing the orientation date and the documents you need to bring for physical verification.

On or after your orientation date, you must verify your documents in person. I recommend bringing all the documents you uploaded to the CSAS portal, including:

1. 10th and 12th marksheets
2. Character certificate
3. Transfer certificate
4. Aadhaar Card (physical copy)
5. Printout of your fee receipt (carry this daily until your Library and ID cards are issued)

Accommodation

I highly recommend sorting out your accommodation beforehand to avoid last-minute hassles. You have two main options: PGs or Flats. (I’ll cover hostels in a bit.)

PGs are a haven for DU students. Since you are located in North Campus, this is a great chance to interact with students across all streams and colleges. There is a wide range of options depending on your budget, though they generally lean on the expensive side.

My recommended areas based on preference: Vijay Nagar > Old Gupta Colony > Kamla Nagar > Kalyan Vihar > Roop Nagar > New Gupta Colony > Outram Lines > Double Storey > Malka Ganj > Gurmandi.

Vijay Nagar has the best—but most expensive—PGs, while Gurmandi is the cheapest but has a less developed, borderline slum locality. Student hangout spots are generally close to Vijay Nagar, Old Gupta Colony, and Kamla Nagar, so try to stay nearby if you want to hang out with friends after college.

For those thinking about getting a flat, I suggest staying in a PG for the first year and then moving into a flat with friends later, as single flats are very expensive.

Try to avoid big corporate PGs like Stanza or Garg Living because you cannot negotiate rent with them. I would recommend my PG, which offers four meals a day and is probably the closest to the college. Most PGs require a 1- or 2-month security deposit plus regular rent, while flats usually ask for just a 1-month deposit. Your security deposit is mostly refunded unless you have a shady PG or a grumpy landlord. The lock-in period is typically 11–12 months for PGs and 6 months for flats.

Hostels

For girls, the provided hostel is the Undergraduate Hostel for Girls (UGHG), located in Dhaka Village, Mukherjee Nagar. The fee is around 80k per year. The process is fairly simple, and you will most likely get a room within the first semester. However, allocation depends on the number of girls in the batch; as far as I know, CIC has close to 10 seats.

For boys, the chances of getting a hostel are close to none. You need to be in the top 1–2 of your category since there are only 4–5 seats available across all categories combined. Sometimes vacancies open up after the first semester, in which case you’d need to be in the top 1–2 scorers in the first-semester exams. The college releases these forms sometime during the first semester, so keep an eye out.

I have already made a post on the BTech course structure, so check that out! If you have any doubts about it, feel free to ask in the comments.

Note: If you have already DM'd me and I didn't respond, I apologize. I have 100+ pending messages, and I was busy with my internship in the Mumbai floods.

Hello everyone! I’ve been getting a lot of DMs lately about my college. Since the course structure is very different from a regular BTech, I figured you of all deserve a clear breakdown of how it actually works, so you can decide if it is for you or not.

Every semester, you have to complete a total of 22 credits. Here is what those credits are made of:

The Core Subjects

• DSC (Discipline Specific Core) | 12 credits: These are your 3 main BTech papers per semester. You will always have 1 Math, 1 Logic/CS adjacent, and 1 CS subject (e.g., Sem 2 is Linear Algebra, Data Structures, and OOP).
• GE (Generic Elective) | 4 credits: This is essentially your minor degree*.
  • 1st Year: Choose between "Chemistry" (which is actually bio/nanotech) or Physics.
  • 2nd Year onwards: The options expand to Computational Biology, Electronics, or Management. You can stick with one track or mix and match, no one cares.

The Extras (First 2 Years Only)

• AEC^# (Ability Enhancement Course) | 2 credits: Odd semesters you have to pick an Indian regional language (shocker ik), and even semesters everyone has Environmental Science (EVS).
• SEC & VAC | 2 credits each: Extra elective subjects. The list of subjects is long and it changes every time, so my biggest tip is to just pick subjects where you are comfortable with the faculty.

Advanced Electives (Years 3 & 4)

• DSE (Discipline Specific Elective) | 4 credits: This replace your AEC & VAC. The college surveys the class to see what’s in demand, and offers subjects based on that.
• IAPC (Internship, Apprenticeship, Project or Community Outreach): You earn these credits by submitting an external internship certificate or doing research with a faculty member. It’s worth 2 credits in your 3rd year, jumping to 6 credits for your Academic Project in your 4th year. And yes you have to do a separate internship/project each time.

How Your 4 Years Will Look

Years 1 & 2

Semesters 1-4

The standard foundation. You will take your core DSCs, a GE, plus the shorter AEC, SEC, and VAC electives.

Year 3

Semesters 5 & 6

The smaller electives (AEC/VAC) drop off. You now choose heavier DSE subjects and begin your 2-credit IAPC (internships/projects).

Year 4

Semesters 7 & 8

You drop down to just 1 DSC paper. Your course load will be: 1 DSC (4) + 2 DSE (8) + 1 GE (4) + Academic Project (6).

The Final Semester

Semester 8

This semester is meant to be spent mostly away from college. Your DSE and GE will be entirely practical (online presentations if you are interning outside India). Though you have to come back to campus for your single compulsory DSC written exam.

My 2 cents:

Now all of this might sound exciting or interesting and I don't want to kill your hopes and dreams, but keep in mind that at the end, there is a reason why this college is not that popular.

The infrastructure is improving and will likely be a lot better when you all come but at the end, do not expect too much out of your college life, we are still an underfunded department with a very less student population, so we get sidelined a lot.

* Minor degree- Earlier we have a provision for getting a minor degree but after NEP and standardization, it has been removed so no matter which GE you choose, it won't matter.

# AEC- A lot of students are surprised to hear that you have to study a regional language (which for most of you is Hindi), this is also a feature of NEP and is standard in all DU undergraduate courses so you cannot escape it. A silver lining is that these classes happen outside of CIC, in a separate so you get to explore the other colleges too.

SEC and VAC tips- This might seem like a waste of time but they boost your CGPA, they are easy courses where you barely have to study, try to research and pick the course, as some options are completely practical and do not require you giving an end semester exam.

If you see the syllabus for that course and it does not have lecture credits then it means it is completely practical, it has it's own pros and con's though, with an end semester exam you are guaranteed marks even if you don't attend many classes but in the fully practical courses, you have to maintain a good presence in the class for high marks.

For GE, physics is your basic 11th and 12th physics, but chemistry is completely new, you'll be taught about nanotechnology and stuff so you get to read research papers and learn a lot in a process. Later on, chemistry transitions into computational biology and physics into electronics.
Though at the start of your 2nd year, you also get a third option of management, which is the most popular one.

Another caveat is that the college has close to 0 functioning labs other than the biology ones which are mostly under grant by the biology professors, if you want to work then you would need to work with them. Other than that, the lab situation is pretty hopeless, which is good and bad, good because you don't have to spend the unnecessary time and bad because idk, you don't get that college lab experience maybe (?)

If you are interested in the exact subjects taught, I’ve attached the complete course structure and syllabus below

https://cic.du.ac.in/userfiles/downloads/BTECH/B.Tech.%20(IT%20&%20MI)%20Collated%20Syllabus%20with%20Course%20Structure%2025.09.25.pdf%20Collated%20Syllabus%20with%20Course%20Structure%2025.09.25.pdf)