The Bond of Threads, Processes and Other Strengtheners

Overdrawn. Yes.
Delayed. Yes.
Intensity of feelings faded? No.
Distance related issues? No frigging way!

Again, this ain't about some guy. This is for you Shweta Nadkarni, a.k.a Tweta!

This one was long overdue for you Shweta. I miss you. Hell, yes.

Something about the pic : This was taken during the last days of engineering. Fun week. The day we all dressed as kids.
This one's an excerpt from a super PPT Tweta had created for me on Friendship Day. The best gift I ever received.

Friends make the journey worthwhile. Noted. Celebrated. Awesomeness!

Engineering: What Next?

Four years of vanished nostalgia, four years of ultimate and unexplained bliss; is what we call engineering. Maybe you’ve already made it big or yet to pull the trigger, at some point you’d know you’d be standing at the edge of a cliff which spells the end of engineering and wonder: What Next?

 And that’s exactly when the numerous options will start falling in place.

Many of us would start working; take up a campus placement job. But frankly, as Mr Narayan Murthy had quoted in early July 2010, the IT industry has taken away many engineers away from the core stream.

Choosing what decision to make after engineering depends a lot on how you see yourself in the subsequent ten years post engineering.

If it’s a stable job along with steady growth that you’re looking for, campus placements, which would mostly place you with the IT Cos., would be just fine. But if you’re more ambitious, and by ambitious I mean specific non-IT, a host of careers await you; careers which could be core engineering or completely of the alternative genre like writing, music, entrepreneurship etc.

The figures speak for themselves: Almost 70% of Indian bloggers today are engineers; if you were to dig deep into an Indian metal band, there is a strong affirmative tendency of all or some of the band members being engineers!

Today, alternative careers have become a trend after engineering, since engineering as a process has become a 360 degree learning program, in evidently based on real and practical life.

The second option would be further flexing your learning curve; a la higher education.

Here too, we’d either remain faithful to engineering and pursue a masters in engineering or technology or divert from it, in such a way where in the best of engineering could be used to develop a host of other skills like management.

If you had a particular affinity to your core subjects in engineering, a masters in the same is a natural choice. In India, the options to the same can be achieved by answering exams like GATE. If studying abroad is your preferred option, you have to prepare for the GRE, which could be a general one or a specialised subject of your choice. This has to be backed with English eligibility exams like TOEFL or IELTS.

Another popular choice is the MBA. Ideally, to pursue a masters in management, one would require work experience, but today, a fresher’s mind and attitude is what institutes look out for perfect moulding. In India, to pursue a degree in management, there are innumerable colleges, but the smart decision is knowing and choosing the right one. The IIMs, IITs and other elite colleges like MDI and XLRI feature in the best of the lot; which open their gates to aspirants on the basis of exams like CAT, XAT, MAT etc. But the actual test is getting past through the Group Discussion and Personal Interview that the institutes conduct. Hence, it so boils down that along with academic eligibility, it is very much necessary for an aspirant to have a strong all round profile which reflects extra-curricular activities and the passion to succeed.

Specially, if one is interested studying abroad for the same, it is absolutely necessary to have a competitive edge over the numerous applicants that apply. This can be only achieved by steady profile building; by following one’s passion and constructing a concrete plan for the same.

To sum it up, I’d say an engineer has a lot to choose from, given the diverse set of skills he possesses. All that is ever going to steer his way is his passion!

LINKED!

Maybe the days of regular blogging are in. I knew I had to catch up with it anyways. Passions don’t die, just improve with time… Aah! (That was from the ThinkPad! :P)

Days are going on real awesome. College has started.

BTW, the SE Comp class’s got promotion! That’s from the Ground Floor to the Second Floor! Whoa! Great achievement, isn’t it? :P

We’ve got a whole new range of subjects. Guys, we actually have a subject called SAD (System Analysis and Design). Now, now, now, that’s one self admitting statement, oh yeah, engineering does get sad, real SAD at times!

Well, somehow, college’s kinda refreshing, new subjects, better Profs, well I find it so, cause of probably the freshness. Will definitely get redundant with time! Aye Aye!

The other day, a couple of friends, we were discussing our profile pics on Orkut.

Mine’s the Linkin Park symbol, I so love it… I mean there are other things in life which I love more than the depiction, but they definitely can’t be ‘pictorised’!

Back to the LP symbol, thinking about it got me into listening to their songs, how much I adore each one of them!

That’s when I thought I could write ‘something’ for LP. No, don’t consider me crazy like the million fans LP have. This is just a fair attempt at improving my writing skills. Talk about enveloping!

So, finally, have a look… it’s an arbit composition. I have no idea what I could label it as: a poem, a story, a prose or whatever.

Better, I’d call it a dedication.

Enjoy it! (You will, if you adore LP, that is! J)

It’s VALENTINE”S DAY and MR. HAUN gets up with the NUMB feeling of something CRAWLIN’ on his skin. He knew he wanted NO MORE SORROW cause he wanted to end up in BREAKING THE HABIT. His FAINT attitude feels the HIGH VOLTAGE but he also know NOBODY’S LISTENING.

He asks himself “WHAT I’VE DONE”, he wants to RUNAWAY but he finds no way, no answer, as he whines “SOMEWHERE I BELONG”.

He moves ONE STEP CLOSER thinking he’ll LEAVE OUT ALL THE REST but all he got was LYING FROM YOU. He seriously wishes to cry out loud PUSHES ME AWAY. All he sees is PAPERCUT paranoia.

Finally, he cries out, showing his anguished veins, it’s MY DECEMBER and he finds his POINTS OF AUTHORITY for he says with an accomplished feeling, “I’ve found a PLACE FOR MY HEAD.”

And now, IN THE END, he feels victory as involuntarily as he finds himself with his HANDS HELD HIGH!

The Engineering ‘Un’advantage!

Nurturing a dream is one thing and getting nurtured (unnurtured in this case! ) is another.

Engineering was/is one such nurture.

Much of my thoughts, like of many others wistfully sublimed when shot with what next after school.

Hardly a made up matter, but it WAS and HAD to be engineering!

And there were definitely many reasons to it, not one being redundant

Finally, I am in an engineering college to air the reasons.

The Fresher Year was fun. All we had to do was get ragged by seniors, awe at the marvelous campus and the pen-ultimate would be to find the answers to many a questions that we actually sung… like Somewhere I Belong by Linkin’ Park, but yeah hardly study. It’s like a reward for the extreme ‘tortures’ that we faced in answering all those coveted (Yeah right!) engineering entrance exams. Not to forget the difficult times to choose which college would be our den for the next four years.

Later in our post-junior year, the scene:

Academics (Here, it is personified, mind you!) as if in frustration gives you back all that you ‘possibly’ deserve…

Like deadlines for completion of journals, no notes and material to study from, attendance issues, sad outdated frustration-invoking subjects, sadder classmates who’d be nine pointers cause they’ve got the awesome, flattering ability to rataa-marofy every single line in the text book and so on…

Output: Utter frustration, fed-up feeling and an attempt to unbelong to engineering.

But hello, all these feelings are invoked internally, like in program compiling.

But, you possibly wouldn’t succumb to all those. At the most, all you could do as a consequence of the invoking would be crib to like-minded studs (other frustu engicos! :P), give up for a few days… (Engineering ultimately sucks you in!) and in my case would be writing a yayaver blog! (LOL!)

But hey Mr. Engg ain’t that bad. The infinite techie terms which engineering teaches us find their way recursively in blogging rather than my sem-end answer booklets!

One example:

Me and a group of friends were treating ourselves for dessert at Baskin Robin’s.

The infinite flavors available always put us in a fix.

Me- “Hey, I think I’d satisfy myself with World Class Choc” (It’s a flavor!)

A friend- “Hot choc over pineapple for me.”

Me- (Getting tempted by the hot choc topping…) “Hot choc topping for me too!”

A friend- “Err… Shradha, ain’t hot choc over World Class Choc a bit redundant?”

And that left me thinking about the word REDUNDANCY rather than the redundancy itself!

Boy, now that’s the story of how our ice-cream got a bit ‘techie’ised!

There are many more of these… I’d probably have a ‘blogfull’ of these!

Two more years of bliss with vengeance and I know I WOULD and HAVE to make it!

HAIL-O-ENGINEERING!

Duh! :P