I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I've had DP1 installed on my 2013 rMBP for about a week now, and did a "dirty" install (i.e. an ordinary upgrade). The reason for me installing it was because I was getting sick of the poor performance of Yosemite, and I was hesitant at first because I try to avoid betas if I can because I like things to be reliable.
With El Capitan, the only issue I've encountered so far is that, after upgrading, my iCloud & Apple ID setup were wonky, so I had to sign out and back in again and re-enable things like iMessage and FaceTime. Besides that, though, surprisingly no issues besides Spotify acting up a bit, so I've been using the web player. I think the fact that I don't use many fancy apps may have something to do with it. Even as a beta 1, El Cap feels like what the GM of Yosemite should have been as far as stability and smoothness of the UI go.
For context, here's a picture of what's in my Dock, to illustrate the apps I mostly stick to.
HOWEVER, if you are a student as you've stated, I would recommend staying away from any beta period if you're using your Mac to take notes or do anything else during class. You need to be sure that Evernote, or whatever you're using, isn't going to crash during that time. I'm a student as well, but am on summer break right now, so that's why I'm being a bit adventurous.
