OMG its been ages..:)

Hey,

I know its been wayyyyy overdue but here it is..
10 days of college left and its been such an eventful year is all that I can think about...So much had happened so fast that I fear what awaits me in the future...
All in all I have to say TAPMI was great...made great friends, screwed up a lot, learnt a lot(:P) etc etc etc..:D. I did expect to meet a few more inspiring people but maybe some people I know will turn out to be them in the organizations they join. As for me I've been led on to the fast-track as they call it and I will be joining infosys as soon as they will have me. Ive been given the post of an associate consultant so I will be waiting to find out what my job is gonna be. Im 25 years old now and it is an important time in my life...I do realize that people my age have done a lot and its time I should focus my efforts to do the same. Ive been doing research on start ups and how self motivated people really shine in such industries, its been a secret dream of mine to do something of my own and its about time I take steps towards my goals. I've been following the crowd for way too long and am now fell as if im at the end of the rope, holding on to my casual life, yet accepting the need to be a more responsible person who wishes to be looked upon as someone inspiring.( ofcourse IT industry is where most of us so called cream land up at which is kind of sad)
I do however most likely have 2 months left before my job starts which makes me wonder what I am to do with this free time, I've decided to learn RoR and hopefully understand enough to develop an app of my own someday.
As for my present, I got exams going on( one tomorrow and another one the day after that), not that it bothers me much anymore as you can see that Im using my time updating my blog at this most unconventional hour...:P
hmmm...I guess im done with the update but I feel that Ive not said enough to put a smile on your face...so a joke must follow..:)

The police arrested my two kids the other day for drinking battery acid and eating 
fireworks. One of them was charged and the other they let off. 

TAPMI and MANIPAL- 2 months

Hey,

Its been a while since ive added a post to my blog so I guess its about time that I did...:)

I did make my choice of choosing TAPMI as my college. Still not sure if it was the right decision but I have to say its a lot better than work. Ive been in college for a little over 2 months now and I have to say that Manipal is a great place to be(if only TAPMI would give us some time to enjoy it it would have been a lot more fun). Hmmm....I have a lot that I want to mention but dont know where to start...:P..so ill try breaking it up..

Manipal

It rains a lot here and its a very clean place, crowd too is great in manipal as it is full of colleges(eg:MIT,KMC(has some hot chicks)). Hang out places too seem great, food places are kool, alcohol places even better...:D, the climate is kinda similar to Goa so it didnt take me a long time to get used to it here. Oh, It has beaches too..

Also its about 5 hrs travel time to Goa so home isnt far
away...:)

TAPMI

Life is hectic here, I taught i was a person who liked to keep myself busy, but I was wrong...:(

Many a day we have to make sacrifices and choices due to work burdens beyond our limits.Today paid a fine in class for yawning( wasnt aware of this rule prior to getting caught). Cllge is knows for its rigour, though it may be decently ranked in the India rankings it seems to be one of the toughest in terms of conduct. 2 students already fined from our batch for smsing in class..due to which all of us are banned from bringing mobile phones to class.

On the plus side, the campus is decent, homely, collegue are gud, but some more english speaking ones would have been better( most ppl speak hindi here)

Im adding a pic of the view I get from my window at 7 in the morning..:),...apart from pics of manipal, Tapmi and route from goa to manipal.

Well its 6:34 am so Id better get to sleep, have classs at 9:15, on a Sunday, I know its kinda sad, but since its a residential program we guys have nothin better to do...:)

Pleasant Confusion IMT VS TAPMI

Hi,

I have to admit the past few days have been real exciting, after being waitlisted for both TAPMI and IMT in the 1st round both have selected me in the 2nd round of the waitlist. TAPMI has shortlisted me for their main PGDM programme while IMT has as of now shortlisted me for their PGDM-IT course. I have had real difficulty in deciding between the 2 over the past few days, I have heard some bad news of both colleges the factors which I did consider while making my choice were.

IMT FOR:

1)Gaziabad campus has a tennis court and campus seems really nice(smaller though @ 14 acres)

2)Gaziabad is ranked 17 by Pagalguy while TAPMI stands at 28( still before GIM @ 31)

3)Has good political contacts with Kamal Nath being its president(minister of roads and railways)

4)Close to Delhi might help placements.

5) Only those above 96%ile in CAT can get in.

AGAINST IMT:

1)Heard of some backdoor entries

2)Standard going down

3)Far from GOA..:P

4)Hindi might be a problem.

5)Dangerous out of campus(not a big concern for me)

6)Placements and even summer internships not good for 2008-09-10 batches.

7)PGDM IT seems to have disadvantage in placement and also for INTERNSHIPS.

FOR TAPMI:

1)Close to Goa

2)might get A/C room.

3)In manipal which has many universities and colleges in the vacinity.

4)42 acre campus.

5) Higher placement in the recent yrs.

6)Better faculty( not too sure but very good faculty)

7)Got core PGDM there which must be better(might have advantage for placements)-personal point

AGAINST TAPMI:

1)Lower ranking and a bit less well knows than IMT

2)Placement report not on site!

3)Seems better placement-not by great margin.

4)Fees are a bit less.

Anyways...I was still confused but am now more towards TAPMI as I have got core there and chances are that the additional seats might be at a great disadvantage as their course might not be approved by AICTE and approved by Manipal university, also smaller batch size might help, plus I would like to major in Marketing (atleast that is what is currently on my mind)..:P

But its always great to have a call, I also requested refund of fees from XIME which they promised will be sent to me by post( I had earlier converted XIME and would join there if TAPMI/IMT had not offered me a seat)

I still do feel pleased as it looks like I am on the right path and might make my life a bit more comfortable in the future...:)

Cheers,

Nev

The difficulty one faces in quitting a job at IBM

Hi all,

If you are a reader of my blog you would have heard that I am to join an MBA college soon and I have also given some notice to my present company(IBM) to inform them of my plans, infact I have filled in info on the tool that is used for separation from IBM and requested may 3rd as my date of resignation. Little did I know at 1st that this would be a big issue as I had made it quite evident that I was seeking a change and after my good grade in the entrance test, I did feel that most people around me did know this as well. My Peoples manager(PM) too, whom I did think was ok with my leaving{ as he had helped me out with some guidance and a lot of knowledge about IBM and Wellpoint (our customer)}has not yet approved my request as according to him, the DM(delivery manager) is the one that must give him a go ahead before he can approve my request. I have also spoken to the account head, who said that it would have to be my duty to be more proactive in persuading my DM to take some measures inorder to find a replacement for me.

That’s the one good thing I did feel after being a part of IBM for over 19 months now: with regards to job security it might be considered one of the best ( as they require 3 months of prior notice period which employees are expected to give before resignation-works the same way when IBM iniates ur resignation ie:3 months-hehe) . In my personal opinion I do feel that this 3 months period is inexplicable as no company would wait for an employee for a period of 3 months, also as in my case I do have my joining date in 2 months which might be a problem,( cllge starts on 21st June for XIME).

Sometimes I do find it har to decide which of the 2 is more easier here- getting a job or quitting a job. Im sure a lot of factors do effect this and thimin is essential.

Speaking more on this- our country seems to be doing well and seems to have recovered from the recessiondue to which jobs were hard to come by last year(2009), and there are plenty of companies that are hiring at full scale, IBM too has increased its strength as it has been doing over the past years in INDIA which it seeks to exploit for its enourmous base of skilled and cost effective resources.



I did read up a site on IIT millionaires recently wherin I did get info about the greats like Narayanan Murty and Nandan Nilkani( INFOSIS), and also Vinod Khosla(Sun Micro) who seems to be one of the first Indians who ventured into the IT field when he co-founded Sun Micro. Today abouit 10% of the companies in Silicon Valley(considered as the the leading high-tech hub in USA) where many enthusiastic youngsters often dream to be. But I also did read about how these leaders after being trained in the prestegeous IIT( which offer subsidised rates by the gove and fees are about $200 for the 2 years of college- greatest ROI in the world..I think-)look at the course as just a means to make money by going abroad and offering their services and sound training and minds just to be exploited by being underpaid by the west- to make it worse these people have exploited theie country by outsourcing jobs to INDIA by offering salaries which are far from comparable to the salaries offered to the much less hardworking citizenzs of the west, I do feel that they are anxious to leave partly because they hope to live a normal life in the US where there might be a decent proportion of females to males in their daily life…lol. Unfortunately many social sites do get a lot of responces which clearly state their dislike for indians, I would think the reason for this is 1) Jealousy- as they are losing jobs to people who are not from their own country. 2) Racism- though the world has grown a long way there always will remain some discrimination between the white and brown race, 3)Lack of proper social life in India-Most of the Indians (to my knowledge) look up to USA and other European countries and see the open culture- for years they have been living in a culture where emphasis is given to respect for elders and their work is of great significance, for eg: in Bangalore by law all restaurants,shops and pubs must close by 11:30, No smoking in Public places as well as in restaurants. In spite of such buisnesses losing out on massive business due to these laws the owners do not have much say in the policies. The younger generation too look at foreign countries as a way out of this and to a normal life, where hand in hand walks and small public displays of affection are common. In India there are Parties like the Ram Sena, Shiv Sena which are considered very much pro-hindu and pro-marati, to such an extent that their members roam around in a gang on days like valentines day for instance where they announced that they would forcibly marry any couple which was found roaming together on that day!(they roamed around with priests to implement the same). Infact I have heard of a story where they mistakenly took a brother and sister and forced them to marry without listening to reason in Pune year 2009. The effect that these negative closed minded executions has brought about a generation which does not easily mingle wioth the opposite sex, where virginity has a value in some minds, and where the people are afraid of being themselves and having fun like they want to , primarily out of fear from family and society. Where arrange marriages are still common in the 21st century and cases of dowry and female foeticide are in abundance.

I think I have written enough for the day and perhaps it would be better to spend some time to reflect and come to your own conclusions and possible solutions to these problems india is facing

One last interesting fact, courtesy Wikipedia
Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary at $144,800.
The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing center in the United States

My GD/PI Experiences after CAT

Hi All,

Sorry for the delan in updating my blog, a lot has happened since the last time I did update it and I was wondering where to start. I guess ill start with the highlights, hehe.

I got my CAT 09 result about a month back and was really happy with my score of 96.34..yeah baby...:). However as I was dreaming during the time when I should have been applying to colleges and only managed to apply to IMT-Gaziabad,TAPMI,XIME,BIM-Trichy and welingkar(WE-School)(apart from TAPMI all application dates were after the CAT result..Lucky me..:)). For about a month now I feel as though my life has taken a turn in the more serious direction as I have been keeping myself updated with current affairs and reading the paper regurlarly, for a person who had to make up for a lifetime of ignorance this was a leviathan's task, and I have to admit that a lot more work remains to be done, and a lot more knowledge to be gained.

As of now I have converted the call which I got from XIME, I did find this a bit surprising as my GD/PI experience didnt go particularly well, I spoke only once during tthe GD(group discussion), and my interview too didnt go well. A member of my panel was an IBMer and I later found out that he(Mr Anil Philip) was the VP of the ITS(integrated tecnology services) division of IBM, perhaps one reason why he might have had a soft spot for me.

During the interview I do remember being unable to answer several q's like "who is th ceo of NOKIA?"

The interview started off on a bad note I would say as I did say that I was an IBMer but when asked who the MD of IBM was I was unable to give an answer, after some help from Mr Anil I did manage to utter his sir name (annaswamy) correctly.( I was 1st hinted the starting letter of his 1st name ie S and then I requested the starting lettetr of his last name...lol...which was A).

The next question was on the advertisements of IBM which were aired on public TV, this was something big happening as IBM's smarter planet initiatives have been, I firstly mentioned green planet and then said that I did not have much info of these initiatives. (I might write more about these later as I do have knowledge of this now)

Once I was asked about myself though I did get a little more comfortable and did tell him about my 2 years in gaming, I also remember telling him that in the 45 mins during a game, we had to be impulsive and needed qualities like teamwork,leadership and co-ordiniation inorder to succeed, also mentioned that we did take part in WCG(world cyber games) for 2 consequetive years and travelled as a team to bangalore during the tournament times.I did forget to mention about my robotics project which I did feel was one of my main plus points, as I did attend a course in robotics before my final year to gove me an insight into robotics.

After that a few questions on NOKIA- CEO, competitors( I said sony,samsung..but I think they were looking mainly for the iPhone as it's market has been expanding rapidly, with its easy to install apps.)

Then a few questions on microsoft, competitors, thank god he didnt ask me the CEO as I bet ithat I would have said Bill gates at the time{ current CEO is Steve Ballmer- BIll gates has moved on to more of his philantropic works (probably for securing himself a place in heaven in his afterlife...no offence meant...but if I remember correctly it is said in the bible that" It is more difficult for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven, than it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle")}. I personally dont believe in this as I dont feel that the meaning of rich necessarily means money alone( Bill Gates was announced richest man in the world on more than one occasion!) ,other factors that make a man rich would be family, kids,work and freinds(in my world).

Anyways I think Ive mentioned enough about the XIME interview, but ofcourse I did feel that I did give satisfactory answers to questions like "why MBA?", " why grades going down down down?" ( I did forget to mention my robotics project through the whole interview and wasnt asked anythin on this). But for some reason I did have a good feeling in the end, the feeling which I did not have for my Interview with IMT-G which took place a week later.

My interview with IMT-G started of well according to me, 1stly being asked about my name I gave a suitable answer, the panel went on to ask me about my favorite sub in school, after I said maths they asked me how the distance between 2 points would be calculated, after giving them a decent explanation I was asked about the formula which I did give correctly, this led them to ask me how the distance between 2 stars is to be found?...hmmm..

I did give a suitable answer here as well and told them that using some sonar or radar wawes we would require to calculate the distance betbeen each of the stars and the surface of the earth, and we could also use the angle between the 2 stars at the point of observation to calculate the distance between them, was unable to give them a more detailed answer with trignometric ratios when asked about it,I did feel that with a diagram(or some drawing) I would be able to better explain this more efficiently, they then asked me what was cos hyperbolic to which I said that I dident remember the exact meaning or formual of hyperbolic functions.

"" Explanation of distance between stars""

I feel that I am now in a better postion to explanin how the sistnace between stars can be calculated today as I have had some time to reflect and such questions do intrest me.So I taught I'd take some time and draw a diagram using paint for any1 who might face such a question in the future and who is a reader of my blog...;)..

As said above our 1st step would be to calculate distances E-S1 and E-S2, using some SONAR, RADAR means wherin distance could be calculated as s(speed)= d/t(time), as speed is known to be the speed of light( dont remember the exact figure but i think it is about 3* 10 raised to 7).
looked it up "the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s."

The next step would be to measure the angle subtended between the 2 stars at the pointy of observation(Earth- E).

Now note that in the diagram we know values of angle E,distance a and b between S1,S2 and E.Also our final intention is to find X(dist betn the 2 stars) .With a small construction extending E-S2 to R, we can now calculate R-S1(knowing b is hypotanneuse of the bigger R-angle Triangle) which would be needed in calculating E-R, then simple subtraction would allow us to calculate R-S2 (by using a)and with this and the distance R-S1 we can calculate the value of X (hypotennuse) in the smaller right angle triangle...

Hurrae!!!

Any Engineer or a person with some intrest in math should have understood my explanation and one can contact me for clarification. If you are a reader, Im sure that u can contact me by some means.""

Now here the bad part comes, I was asked some simple questions like" what are the problems India was facing economically!"

I did say that energy was a concern and just recently there were some new provisions to the 123 deal( nuclear deal). I also do remember mentioning somehow that IBM cloud compution was mentioned in the papre( by this time I did go through a alot of info about smarter planed and wasted to express myself about the initiatives of IBM which I had failed to do in my last interview!). Apart feom that i mentioned water but was unable to elaborate, did not mention more.

Then IT got worse and I was asked who was the CM of karnataka( BS Yedurappa), who's name I could not recollect it at the time( but I did remember it on my own on my way out of the building). Also when I was asked about the problems that Blore was facing I could only mention traffic which was quite embarassing as I had been a resident here for 2 years, did mention water but was unable to elaborate once again, did also mention about the BBMP electons of the start and said about 45 % turnout...quite sad.

At this time the other panel member did see something written on my hand, when asked about it I said the 4 points written were gaming,robotics,Cricket team,violin. All points which I had covered at some point earlier, and was unable to explain that the reason for writting these was that I was expecting a more in depth interview with some topic that I was comfortable with and that if worst comes to worst I would atleast like to mention my personal plus points instead of forgetting something like robotics which I had done in the previous interview.

All in all I dont expect m,uch fromo the interview and am awaiting the results. I do feel that having found out that I have converted the XIME call does put me in a slightly more comfortable position to answer the interviews to come, namely TAPMI on the 20th and BIM- Trichy on the 21st(chennai).