March has been good to me... Giving me those things that other men mostly dream about during daytime, but never get close enough! ;-) But wait, dont think otherwise; by double whammy , I only mean favourable VTU results and a mind blowing job interview where I am taking charge !!
1st of March, 2008
It was a pleasant Saturday, and the day of our Reckoning, the day the 5th sem VTU results were out. It was evening when I accessed my results page. This time I got marks close to what I had predicted. A distinction, close to 72%. BUT, the scores predicted for each of the subjects, were not as predicted. There was the Operating Systems paper for which I was expecting 70, but got 36 and there was the Advanced Microprocessor paper which I was only hoping to clear decently, and I got a 63 in that !! Amazing VTU evaluation! My projected score was 665, and my actual score was 645. The disparity was only 20 this time despite getting an unexpected 36 in OS.
I felt good and I felt relieved. I have good faith in the VTU re-val system. I got 20m last time.. those bastards cant correct papers sanely the first time, they do so only when students like me pay 400 bucks per subject for re-val.
Right from the beginning of this semester, we were always told that the placements would be after 6th sem exams. This kept me off my guard for all these days till the 4th of March, when it was announced that Tukali Consultancy Services( lets call this TuCS now on! ) would be coming on 17th March!! But I was still in a jolly mood, brimming with confidence, knowing I could depend on my wits in any situation... Me and my classmates decided not to attend classes till 19th.. internals were kept on 10,11,12th. As I had not touched my textbooks till now I decided to make the most of this situation by turning it into a 'mini vacation'...
... By bunking the 1st set of internals : ) [ really evil plan, eh? ]
And wow, what a great time I had... I had something like 14 days all for myself, without having to go to that same old college, see the same old faces of those dumb people paid to engage us for 6 long hours and ruin our days; I revisited all the things I couldn't do enough in the 'regular' vacations. I watched 1 movie per day, doing nothing else except playing IGI-2 Covert strike.. I also read True Believer by Nicholas Sparks, and Quite Honestly by Sir John Mortimer. And these were the movies I caught up with - Mithya , Awarapan, Halla bol, the patriot, Braveheart, Crouching tiger hidden dragon, Donnie brasco, Scary movie-4, Mystic river, American gangster, V for vendetta.........
As they say, good times fly... and soon, days flew by and it was 14th march. 3days left for the TuCS placements. I literally jumped out of my dream. I had a remote feeling of remorse, for not having prepared, but I still had not given up. I knew I could come out of anything... I had a plan. and I was going to do just that.
I first started building my resume.. After 3hrs, I had a power-packed resume in my hand... It was a format widely adapted in the United States, unlike the average local student resume which began with a huge underlined heading, RESUME, having things like carrier( career ) objectives, dairy ( diary ) writing hobbies, pubic relations [ public, actually ! ], a huge box filled up with their percentages, and finally, a declaration of the veracity of their CV! Really funny resumes.. I could write a whole post on them...
Then, I Visualized the interview scenario, and how I would answer the likely questions. I mentally prepared myself for any likely case by 'play'ing each one in my mind.. As for the Quant questions in aptitude, I knew what their standard was, and was wondering why others were fretting so much over nothing.. the verbal part, I felt needed no special preparation as my vocab was good and I could figure out things by my own.. the critical reasoning was one area I needed to learn. It was serious CAT standard. You needed fundaas for that, without which, you couldnt go ahead by even an inch.
It was late afternoon on 16th when I actually started a sample TuCS paper.. that was the only paper I solved.. then, I quickly revised whatever C++ I had learnt 2yrs ago. That took time. We would be asked what our favourite subject was, and questions would be concentrated on that..
17th of march, Monday
After making us wait for 2hrs in the audi, the HR person of TuCS, a great fellow by name Chakravarti arrived on stage and gave an excellent presentation about his company, extolling all its successes and inadvertantly overshadowing all other IT and telecom companies, and creating an impression in our innocent minds that TuCS was the world leader! [ which is true! ] This guy actually used the phrase "blah blah blah" wherever a normal person would use the latin word "etc" !
The online aptitude tests followed shortly. An online test is different from a paper test, here there is a time-out set for each of the 3 sections of the paper unlike the paper tests, where we can answer any question we want and spend whatever duration in any individual section, not exceeding the total time...
The verbal section was challenging; serious GRE level questions. The quantitative section was a cakewalk for a CAT Aspirant like me. Critical reasoning was where I faltered. I had some 5min to spare before the test would time out. Suddenly after timeout, I got a pop-up saying, "You have not qualified in this test, Thank u for taking this Test."
I was shocked. All the colour drained out from my face.
I was perplexed as to how I could not get through the lower cutoff after doing so well. There were not many people who could have outdone me. And TuCS were going to take in lots of people... something was wrong. And only a handful of ppl had got that message. I seriously felt bad.. The list would be put up in the evening, but there was no point waiting in college till then. I went home, and just slept the whole afternoon away. Then I decided to go to the college and check out, late in the evening... and to my surprise my name was right at the TOP ! I had crossed the Upper cutoff, that was why the stupid machine had displayed that msg !! I'l explain, the companies usually keep two cutoff's. 1 lower- which you all know, and another called Upper cutoff. To filter away those students who maxed the test [ I cant understand why.. ! ] the others who had got that pop-up dint have their names in the list.
I was overjoyed ! My fame spread everywhere :) Cant explain how happy I felt !
Monday, the 18th
I wore a light blue cotton shirt, a dark bluish silk tie, and black corduroy trousers. These had cost me a bomb, 2800 bucks apart from the expensive Italian shoes! And I looked like a thoroughly professional executive, more impressive than the HR fellow interviewing me! I was among the first to get interviewed. The bloke who called me for the technical round was mild looking and good natured.
He asked me questions that ranged from virtual memory, page faults, heap memory, CDMA & GSM networks, to dangling pointers, circular linked list etc. Then he asked me to explain the logic to build a software for a casino owner who wants to know the odds of his customers' winning in a Roulette game having two dices. He also asked me the data structure needed to implement that. He was impressed by my answer and its approach.. He asked if I had any questions.. I asked him about the work culture in TCS, and how close they actually were in achieving their 2010 goal of global dominance in IT.. He smiled and said that they were much ahead and that they would reach that in 2009 itself !! My interview lasted for 15 min, and I questioned him for a good 10 min ! From what I heard, other students just left the room when they were asked if they had anything to ask ! !
I knew I had floored him :) and here comes the exciting part, my MR- management resource round... The transcript :-
him( ha ha ): So Ashok....
me: Sir, my name is Anish... [ :-) ] Ashok is my dad's name
him: then why have you written it in ur middle name?
me: Sir, wen you study in Bombay, they re-format your name as SURNAME / FATHER'S NAME / FIRST NAME
and thats how I got my new name !
him [amused] : Anish,, so u r a maharashtrian?
me: No sir, I only lived there 5yrs,, i'm a Konkani actually.
him: so tel me abt yourself
me: sir, I'm a smart worker. I like to work smart. than working long hrs and doing very less work.
I like to motivate myself and those around me.
apart from my success, I also like to see my friends succeed.
him: brief me as to what you did to motivate others
me: as I was waiting outside I saw many guys fretting and getting tensed for the interview..
I relieved them , gave a pep-up talk
him[ amused ] : wat did you do, dance in front of' 'em ?
me: No sir ! as I said, it was only vocal support :)
him[ a big amile on his face ]: so anish, u r good at quiz?
me[ grinning ] : yes sir!
him: who was india's 1st president?
me: Dr. rajendra prasad
him: who came next?
me: dr. s radhakrishnan
him: are you sure its not the other way round?
me: positive.
him: wat does "S" stand for?
me: Sarvepalli.
him: is he a Kannadiga?
me: no sir, Tamilian I believe
him: you are just guessing , aren't you?
me: sarvepalli is near tiruchirapalli. in TN
him: Are you sure?
me: sure...
him[ convinced ]: i'l check it out later !
and who came next after him?
me: neelam sanjiva reddy
zakir hussain
gyani zail singh.....
him: okay okay ! stop.. !
me: ... and I also went to IIT madras fest where I won a quiz held by GE...
him[ with his mouth wide open ]: oh.. so what where the questions there like?
me: some of the good questions were...
1> NASA built a new space launch vehicle running on nuclear power.. but it was banned by the IAEA after its test launch.. Sir, can u guess how it worked, would you answer that?
him: i... ahem..... o.... lemme see... huh....
okay I give up
me: its not like it carries a nuclear plant, converts water to steam, etc
all it does is bust a Nuke under the rocket which has a channeling mechanism to direct the energy... this propels the rocket !!
As such it was banned . its like making a nuclear test every time you want to launch something !
him [ eyes wide open ]: oh.. never thought it that way !
me: 2nd Q
2> incandescent bulbs are filled with a rare gas- Argon. why ?
could u answer that Sir?
him: err.... is it for heat retention?
me: NO sir ! actually tungsten [ the filament ] has a low melting point.. it can emit light only below the melting point.. and 230V of electricity is enough to melt it down... so a rare gas is added inside to reduce the temperature inside, to avoid meltdown and actually make the bulb emit continuous light !!
him [ bowled over !! ] : oh.. those were pretty good Q's !
me [ grinning ]: IITians are a class apart.. it was a very challenging quiz...
him [ :-) ] : how would you rate your communication skills?
me: sir, i think it would be best if u throw some light on that !
him [ amazed ] : now come on, give it a shot.. is it 5 , or 6, or 7.....? ? ?
me : i would rate myself a conservative 8/10
him: that will be all anish, do u have anything to ask?
me : of course !
I liked Mr. chakravarti's PPT yest... it was wonderful.. i'm impressed by your company; he has succeeded in creating a favourable impression in our minds...
[ i asked him abt the work culture in TCS and abt their goal of global dominance, which he happily answered.. ]
[after 15min]
him[ tired, but still ] : anything else you wanna ask , anish?
me : that will be all Sir :) [ big smile on my face ! ]
have a good day...
Next came the HR round... It was same as the MR with similar questions asked, but by a different person.. from wat i understand, our way of speaking and confidence level is monitored. After the usual do u have anything to ask, I asked the Fat HR guy [ Naveen benedict ] the same questions I had asked others...
But I went 1 step further ......
I had noticed that the HR guy was very young, not more than 25-26. this surprised me. HR guys are the ones with loads of experience.. out of curiosity, I asked him just that.
He said what i had guessed was right ! He was just 2yrs out of college ! He said, in TCS our qualities and talents are noticed well and we are placed in those areas where we can excel on the account of our natural ability, and not just made to work as a programmer for eternity. There is unlimited potential for our growth ! And he was a living example !
He felt so happy , he promised me an introduction with the Chief HR of his company later in the evening ! !
the list was put up at 10pm in the audi, and needless to say, I made it there :) It was surreal... I couldn't have asked for more !!
I felt I could scale to any heights I wished to. The future held unlimited bounties and opportunities.. I had seen others crib about how bad their interviews were.
I R E A L I S E D M Y T R U E W O R T H...
1st of March, 2008
It was a pleasant Saturday, and the day of our Reckoning, the day the 5th sem VTU results were out. It was evening when I accessed my results page. This time I got marks close to what I had predicted. A distinction, close to 72%. BUT, the scores predicted for each of the subjects, were not as predicted. There was the Operating Systems paper for which I was expecting 70, but got 36 and there was the Advanced Microprocessor paper which I was only hoping to clear decently, and I got a 63 in that !! Amazing VTU evaluation! My projected score was 665, and my actual score was 645. The disparity was only 20 this time despite getting an unexpected 36 in OS.
I felt good and I felt relieved. I have good faith in the VTU re-val system. I got 20m last time.. those bastards cant correct papers sanely the first time, they do so only when students like me pay 400 bucks per subject for re-val.
Right from the beginning of this semester, we were always told that the placements would be after 6th sem exams. This kept me off my guard for all these days till the 4th of March, when it was announced that Tukali Consultancy Services( lets call this TuCS now on! ) would be coming on 17th March!! But I was still in a jolly mood, brimming with confidence, knowing I could depend on my wits in any situation... Me and my classmates decided not to attend classes till 19th.. internals were kept on 10,11,12th. As I had not touched my textbooks till now I decided to make the most of this situation by turning it into a 'mini vacation'...
... By bunking the 1st set of internals : ) [ really evil plan, eh? ]
And wow, what a great time I had... I had something like 14 days all for myself, without having to go to that same old college, see the same old faces of those dumb people paid to engage us for 6 long hours and ruin our days; I revisited all the things I couldn't do enough in the 'regular' vacations. I watched 1 movie per day, doing nothing else except playing IGI-2 Covert strike.. I also read True Believer by Nicholas Sparks, and Quite Honestly by Sir John Mortimer. And these were the movies I caught up with - Mithya , Awarapan, Halla bol, the patriot, Braveheart, Crouching tiger hidden dragon, Donnie brasco, Scary movie-4, Mystic river, American gangster, V for vendetta.........
As they say, good times fly... and soon, days flew by and it was 14th march. 3days left for the TuCS placements. I literally jumped out of my dream. I had a remote feeling of remorse, for not having prepared, but I still had not given up. I knew I could come out of anything... I had a plan. and I was going to do just that.
I first started building my resume.. After 3hrs, I had a power-packed resume in my hand... It was a format widely adapted in the United States, unlike the average local student resume which began with a huge underlined heading, RESUME, having things like carrier( career ) objectives, dairy ( diary ) writing hobbies, pubic relations [ public, actually ! ], a huge box filled up with their percentages, and finally, a declaration of the veracity of their CV! Really funny resumes.. I could write a whole post on them...
Then, I Visualized the interview scenario, and how I would answer the likely questions. I mentally prepared myself for any likely case by 'play'ing each one in my mind.. As for the Quant questions in aptitude, I knew what their standard was, and was wondering why others were fretting so much over nothing.. the verbal part, I felt needed no special preparation as my vocab was good and I could figure out things by my own.. the critical reasoning was one area I needed to learn. It was serious CAT standard. You needed fundaas for that, without which, you couldnt go ahead by even an inch.
It was late afternoon on 16th when I actually started a sample TuCS paper.. that was the only paper I solved.. then, I quickly revised whatever C++ I had learnt 2yrs ago. That took time. We would be asked what our favourite subject was, and questions would be concentrated on that..
17th of march, Monday
After making us wait for 2hrs in the audi, the HR person of TuCS, a great fellow by name Chakravarti arrived on stage and gave an excellent presentation about his company, extolling all its successes and inadvertantly overshadowing all other IT and telecom companies, and creating an impression in our innocent minds that TuCS was the world leader! [ which is true! ] This guy actually used the phrase "blah blah blah" wherever a normal person would use the latin word "etc" !
The online aptitude tests followed shortly. An online test is different from a paper test, here there is a time-out set for each of the 3 sections of the paper unlike the paper tests, where we can answer any question we want and spend whatever duration in any individual section, not exceeding the total time...
The verbal section was challenging; serious GRE level questions. The quantitative section was a cakewalk for a CAT Aspirant like me. Critical reasoning was where I faltered. I had some 5min to spare before the test would time out. Suddenly after timeout, I got a pop-up saying, "You have not qualified in this test, Thank u for taking this Test."
I was shocked. All the colour drained out from my face.
I was perplexed as to how I could not get through the lower cutoff after doing so well. There were not many people who could have outdone me. And TuCS were going to take in lots of people... something was wrong. And only a handful of ppl had got that message. I seriously felt bad.. The list would be put up in the evening, but there was no point waiting in college till then. I went home, and just slept the whole afternoon away. Then I decided to go to the college and check out, late in the evening... and to my surprise my name was right at the TOP ! I had crossed the Upper cutoff, that was why the stupid machine had displayed that msg !! I'l explain, the companies usually keep two cutoff's. 1 lower- which you all know, and another called Upper cutoff. To filter away those students who maxed the test [ I cant understand why.. ! ] the others who had got that pop-up dint have their names in the list.
I was overjoyed ! My fame spread everywhere :) Cant explain how happy I felt !
Monday, the 18th
I wore a light blue cotton shirt, a dark bluish silk tie, and black corduroy trousers. These had cost me a bomb, 2800 bucks apart from the expensive Italian shoes! And I looked like a thoroughly professional executive, more impressive than the HR fellow interviewing me! I was among the first to get interviewed. The bloke who called me for the technical round was mild looking and good natured.
He asked me questions that ranged from virtual memory, page faults, heap memory, CDMA & GSM networks, to dangling pointers, circular linked list etc. Then he asked me to explain the logic to build a software for a casino owner who wants to know the odds of his customers' winning in a Roulette game having two dices. He also asked me the data structure needed to implement that. He was impressed by my answer and its approach.. He asked if I had any questions.. I asked him about the work culture in TCS, and how close they actually were in achieving their 2010 goal of global dominance in IT.. He smiled and said that they were much ahead and that they would reach that in 2009 itself !! My interview lasted for 15 min, and I questioned him for a good 10 min ! From what I heard, other students just left the room when they were asked if they had anything to ask ! !
I knew I had floored him :) and here comes the exciting part, my MR- management resource round... The transcript :-
him( ha ha ): So Ashok....
me: Sir, my name is Anish... [ :-) ] Ashok is my dad's name
him: then why have you written it in ur middle name?
me: Sir, wen you study in Bombay, they re-format your name as SURNAME / FATHER'S NAME / FIRST NAME
and thats how I got my new name !
him [amused] : Anish,, so u r a maharashtrian?
me: No sir, I only lived there 5yrs,, i'm a Konkani actually.
him: so tel me abt yourself
me: sir, I'm a smart worker. I like to work smart. than working long hrs and doing very less work.
I like to motivate myself and those around me.
apart from my success, I also like to see my friends succeed.
him: brief me as to what you did to motivate others
me: as I was waiting outside I saw many guys fretting and getting tensed for the interview..
I relieved them , gave a pep-up talk
him[ amused ] : wat did you do, dance in front of' 'em ?
me: No sir ! as I said, it was only vocal support :)
him[ a big amile on his face ]: so anish, u r good at quiz?
me[ grinning ] : yes sir!
him: who was india's 1st president?
me: Dr. rajendra prasad
him: who came next?
me: dr. s radhakrishnan
him: are you sure its not the other way round?
me: positive.
him: wat does "S" stand for?
me: Sarvepalli.
him: is he a Kannadiga?
me: no sir, Tamilian I believe
him: you are just guessing , aren't you?
me: sarvepalli is near tiruchirapalli. in TN
him: Are you sure?
me: sure...
him[ convinced ]: i'l check it out later !
and who came next after him?
me: neelam sanjiva reddy
zakir hussain
gyani zail singh.....
him: okay okay ! stop.. !
me: ... and I also went to IIT madras fest where I won a quiz held by GE...
him[ with his mouth wide open ]: oh.. so what where the questions there like?
me: some of the good questions were...
1> NASA built a new space launch vehicle running on nuclear power.. but it was banned by the IAEA after its test launch.. Sir, can u guess how it worked, would you answer that?
him: i... ahem..... o.... lemme see... huh....
okay I give up
me: its not like it carries a nuclear plant, converts water to steam, etc
all it does is bust a Nuke under the rocket which has a channeling mechanism to direct the energy... this propels the rocket !!
As such it was banned . its like making a nuclear test every time you want to launch something !
him [ eyes wide open ]: oh.. never thought it that way !
me: 2nd Q
2> incandescent bulbs are filled with a rare gas- Argon. why ?
could u answer that Sir?
him: err.... is it for heat retention?
me: NO sir ! actually tungsten [ the filament ] has a low melting point.. it can emit light only below the melting point.. and 230V of electricity is enough to melt it down... so a rare gas is added inside to reduce the temperature inside, to avoid meltdown and actually make the bulb emit continuous light !!
him [ bowled over !! ] : oh.. those were pretty good Q's !
me [ grinning ]: IITians are a class apart.. it was a very challenging quiz...
him [ :-) ] : how would you rate your communication skills?
me: sir, i think it would be best if u throw some light on that !
him [ amazed ] : now come on, give it a shot.. is it 5 , or 6, or 7.....? ? ?
me : i would rate myself a conservative 8/10
him: that will be all anish, do u have anything to ask?
me : of course !
I liked Mr. chakravarti's PPT yest... it was wonderful.. i'm impressed by your company; he has succeeded in creating a favourable impression in our minds...
[ i asked him abt the work culture in TCS and abt their goal of global dominance, which he happily answered.. ]
[after 15min]
him[ tired, but still ] : anything else you wanna ask , anish?
me : that will be all Sir :) [ big smile on my face ! ]
have a good day...
Next came the HR round... It was same as the MR with similar questions asked, but by a different person.. from wat i understand, our way of speaking and confidence level is monitored. After the usual do u have anything to ask, I asked the Fat HR guy [ Naveen benedict ] the same questions I had asked others...
But I went 1 step further ......
I had noticed that the HR guy was very young, not more than 25-26. this surprised me. HR guys are the ones with loads of experience.. out of curiosity, I asked him just that.
He said what i had guessed was right ! He was just 2yrs out of college ! He said, in TCS our qualities and talents are noticed well and we are placed in those areas where we can excel on the account of our natural ability, and not just made to work as a programmer for eternity. There is unlimited potential for our growth ! And he was a living example !
He felt so happy , he promised me an introduction with the Chief HR of his company later in the evening ! !
the list was put up at 10pm in the audi, and needless to say, I made it there :) It was surreal... I couldn't have asked for more !!
I felt I could scale to any heights I wished to. The future held unlimited bounties and opportunities.. I had seen others crib about how bad their interviews were.
I R E A L I S E D M Y T R U E W O R T H...
