Each student has a different schedule so below listed are general routines that will try to cover everything. 

1st year: 

• There are only 5 subjects with hardly two labs in the 2nd semester and you usually get free around 3 pm. 
• At lunchtime, hostlers go to their mess, and day scholars can be seen eating lunch either at PEC market, admin stairs, or their classrooms. 
• Some will return home at 3 pm unless the student has some college activity after 5 pm. 
• NSS guys will be teaching students from 4 pm to 6 pm and the one with sports will be running, students can see NCC doing parade and drama clubs, students doing practice, and others having their workshops in classrooms. 
• In October students are busy with the fests and sometimes students will be planning for quizzes and assignments.

2nd year: 

• The most hectic year of your life. Almost every day classes will be from 8 pm to 5 pm and then again some college activities after 5 pm. 
• More quizzes, assignments, and labs are given on a regular basis.

3rd year:

• One semester left before the student leaves the College for internships. 
• Students are busy with the company's activity.
• College activities certainly get reduced and the academic load is less.

4th year: 

• Only two to three subjects unless the student is taking honors. 
• Classes get over from 11 am to 12 pm. 
• Students are now head of a society or club and have to wait for 5 pm to start the activity. 
• The student has to figure out what they will do in that free time.

This is the typical daily routine of a student at PEC, Chandigarh until they graduate. 

To change the branch from Civil to CS, you should have scored a CGPA of 9.8 or 10 in 1st year. It is not a big deal since the students are out of IIT preparations and you can easily do it. But there must be seats in the CSE branch and there are not too many people who are also opting for branch change.

If you lower your CGPA below 9.5 then it is difficult to get your branch upgraded in PEC. If you are doing only study and overcomes all difficulties or just mugs things up then there is more chance of getting the branch change because CSE students generally get 7-8 CGPA. 

You can also try to learn to code like hell while you are still in Civil and then you can surprise everyone by being the best coder ever being in the Civil branch. This will give you an upper hand among the actual CS student during any interview. 

There are several reasons for the downfall of PEC Chandigarh, including the improper efforts given by the institute for its development. These points state how the institute has lost its upper-level mark.

• PEC Chandigarh takes it as a matter of pride to be ranked 38 by MHRD in all-India rankings. The logic behind the celebration is that the institute is just below 16 IITs and 9 NITs, which is not quite an achievement.
• According to press releases, the institute gives all the credits for the 38th rank to its director Prof. Manoj Arora. Instead, there should be efforts for the development of the institute in the forward journey.
• It is considered that the faculties, alumni, and board members of PEC Chandigarh are too lazy to give efforts for its betterment, and have accepted its downfall in standards easily.
• The institute has not even accepted that there is a requirement of change for development, which is the first step towards betterment.

These are some of the factors responsible for the present conditions of PEC Chandigarh. There are a lot of efforts required in several institutional aspects, which would lead to some advancement of the institute.

Yes, there are several alumni of Punjab Engineering College who are creating great impact with their business ideas in the market. Some of them are already established with their business, while the others are in the state of establishment. The points below are a list of some of the entrepreneurs.

• Pankaj Guglani- He is currently establishing a company named Red Quanta.
• Vinay Johar- RChillies is the name of the brand he has set up. This is also an upcoming business.
• Karan Checker- Currently running an IT services company in Chandigarh.
• Kunal Nandwani- A Computer Science graduate from PEC Chandigarh. He has established uTrade Solutions, a financial trading tech. company. It deals with algorithms, analytics, and multi-asset trading platforms.
• Sahil Dewan- Founder of FuturEd. The company deals with alumni networks of colleges and schools. Alumni App is a product developed by FuturEd. This business idea was selected by Draper University, Silicon Valley.
• Arpit Jhamb, Ashish Mishra, and Gaurav Arora- They run a joint venture of www.throwmeamovie.com, an online movie sorting directory.
• Sangeet Saraogi- Let’s Alfred, a chat-based personal assistant.
• Apaksh Gupta- Restaurant business.
• Simarjeet Singh and Saurabh- They run a chain of shops known as Buddies Bakery in Chandigarh, having three branches.

These are just a few among hundreds of entrepreneurs who are successfully running their business ventures across the country and worldwide.

The hostels of PEC University of Technology are decent in quality, with several factors to consider such as quality of food, wifi availability, quality of rooms, etc. 

The points below give a brief overview of the hostels at PEC University of Technology.

• The entire campus of PEC Chandigarh is provided with high-speed wifi connectivity. There are occasional crashes in connectivity, which are repaired by the institute, but with a little longer time.
• The hostels in PEC have two and three shared rooms, as there is an increasing number of students in subsequent years. The Shivalik hostel has both kinds of rooms, but the size of rooms with three-shared accommodation is larger.
• The room facilities in PEC are quite comfortable and so, it is not a problem to stay in shared rooms at the hostel. There is a newly constructed block in Shivalik which would ease the accommodation of students further.
• The girl’s hostel has three and four sharing rooms, and it is somewhat uncomfortable to stay in those rooms.
• The overall quality of rooms is decent, as expected from a property which is 50 years old.
• The quality of food served in the hostels of PEC is not that good. Students can go to the PEC market where several shops sell good quality food. There are quite a number of dhabas in sector 11 too. Students usually manage their living for the first year and then figure out their comfort in it.

This is the overall condition of the hostels in PEC, which is of average quality, but quite good being an old enough property.

One of my friends had the same options a few years back and chose Mechanical at PEC. Here are the reasons why.

• The batch size of Thapar is huge. There are almost 500 seats in the Computer Branch.
• The closing cutoff is lower for Thapar University.
• Chandigarh will offer more exposure in comparison to Patiala. You will have more opportunities to prepare for higher studies like M.Tech or MBA.
• PEC is quite reputed among students. It is even considered better than some NITs.
• PEC has a better placement record as compared to Thapar.

Here are the recent placement highlights of the institutes.

Hope this helps you in making the decision.

Among the above institutes, PEC Chandigarh is the best choice, considering the factors of availability in streams, fee structure, etc. If you have a specific branch in mind to pursue, then you can definitely choose PEC Chandigarh. But if you are considering a non-IIIT or non-NIT tag then you can opt for DTU. 

The table below gives a brief level of comparison among the institutes.

Key Highlights:

• PEC Chandigarh is a government institute and so has a much lesser fee as compared to Thapar University, which is an autonomous university having a much higher fee structure.
• There are some subjects in PEC Chandigarh which are not available in other institutes like Thapar University or CEG, for example, Aeronautical Engineering.

Therefore, PEC Chandigarh is a better choice considering the factors stated above. Other than these, all the three institutes are incomparable to each other as they offer similar quality placement.