College

by 2 comments on "Life beyond TCE"

It’s been a month since I left TCE, my college, and already I am missing a lot from that life like:

1. UNIX Lab at CSE Department. Sitting and working there forever for long duration on weekdays, weekends, nights and the amount of learning that I did at the lab made me what I am and the chill AC that always makes me want to stay there on and on.

2. Yeah my small friends’ circle. I do miss them too much to express in words.

3. Hostel life – the comfort in the shabby room, sleeping and waking up at odd hours, competing with Raju on who wakes up late, skipping food, eating the sub-standard food and complaining about it with friends, cursing the warden and hostel management about how they are swindling money and doing nothing for the students’ welfare.

4. Lying on my bed like a L and working on and on forever with my laptop on my lap.

5. Responsibility as student server admin.

6. Those long, too frequent phone calls with Keirthana, Venkatakrishnan and other friends with Airtel mobiles. 🙂

7. Hacking around with computers and downloading loads and loads of stuff through the college Internet. 😉

8. Troubling Bala anna on chat and pestering him for some help or ??????  ???.

9. Relishing the role of only person at TCE who sends emails to mailing lists regularly and follows up and a lot of times gets a lot of snub.

10. Sitting and talking with G.R. Karthik and Varadharajan, giving them advice, helping them and at times scolding them. 😉

11. My 105 machine and fighting with hostel wifi to get connected and access the internet and all the associated mischief .:-P

12. Not preparing for the exam on the night before the exam and sleeping early with the intention of waking up early and studying, but waking up late the next day and facing the exams after studying nothing.

and much more. I miss the life I had lived at TCE for the four years, but life has to move on and there is nothing that can be done about that. So just looking with guarded optimism at the life ahead.

by 0 comments on "The joy of helping friends"

A mass-recruiting top services company visited our campus for recruitment in the first week of December. There were about 500-600 students hoping to make it to the list of selected candidates and there were many friends of mine among them. Of course, since myself alongwith 10 other fellow students had already got a dream job, we weren’t allowed to attend the recruitment drive and we were to help organizing things during the 2 days of the recruitment drive. On the first day, multiple sessions of Aptitude test were scheduled and I volunteered as an invigilator in one of the halls. With so many nervous fellow students around, the tension was starting to get to me. Once the written test was over, the students were starting to be called for interview in groups in our Men’s Hostel where I reside. So I was there helping when my classmate friends were preparing and writing the tests. We, the volunteers had a hectic time with a lot of running to do and at the same time we had to assess the nature of each of the 18 interview panels and send students accordingly as it was a make or break situation for all of them. I had a lot of students requesting me to send them to ‘technical’,’non-technical’,’HR’,’puzzle’ panels and the interviews were getting completed too fast and we couldn’t do much choosing. I sent a lot of students to panels they would’ve wanted to avoid, hoping that they’d make it through and get selected. My legs were aching so much out of non-stop running and at one point the pain became so unbearable that it didn’t make any difference if I was standing, sitting or lying down. I learnt valuable things in handling such situations so new to me and I have to admit that it was the excitement that kept me going despite the physical pain.

I had to don other roles as well, helping students with their preparation and giving them confidence. There was one of my friend, who incidentally happened to be the placement representative and one of the better performers in the college, who was in some dazed unprepared state before the interview that I had to stay with her, give her confidence, help her in filling the employment application form and all the stuff when she was literally shivering. Once she was done with her interview, she was sporting an attractive smile that conveyed to all that she had done very well. She conveyed her happiness and gratitude to me, but I politely reminded her that she deserved it and I just helped her get her focus. I was so happy that I contributed invaluably to someone’s life. Moments like these make me feel happy and proud throughout my life. One other good thing that happened was that I, a normally quiet person who likes to keep a low profile, got to interact with a lot of wonderful guys who were my fellow volunteers. These were sufficient for me to cherish those couple of days. 2 days went in a whiff and when the results were announced at the K.S. Auditorium on the second day at about 8 PM, I drowned in a feeling of extreme happiness arising out of happiness for my friends and my peers who had secured their jobs. I even doubt if I had felt even some percentage of the same happiness when I got selected for a job in a dream company. Anyways congratulations and my best wishes for all those who performed well, got selected and made my day!