Tag: Lectures

Learning and unlearning!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

EntSo is the definition of the New Age success mantra, according to career guidance experts and professionals from the field. You learn things, aka the academia, and then you join the company and unlearn all that you learnt. From the Company’s point of view, it may so happen that everything that you have acquired as ‘seamless’ ken, may seem outdated and statistically irrelevant to your hirer! Now, that’s the twist in the story. Your ‘x’ number of years of ‘intense’ and ‘dedicated’ education unfold as a pile of futile acquisition of multitudes of ‘knowledge’! And this is when the key roles enter the drama. The trainers, come boosting you up, cheering you up, and finally ‘groom’ you into what the companies always wanted of the ‘Human Resources’! You now turn into ‘resources’, that can yield a huge market share of profit and fortune for the company.

At what stage should you approach the companies for being trained? Now that’s more like asking, “When can I sign up for my life screwing up program?” Well, technically, I am incorrect. After all, the end goal of every aspirant student is only to succumb to some fancy job offers and secure the future!(Or so presumed!) Out of the box thinking and innovations are all welcome, at every other phase of your life, but in your career choices! No matter what you learn, what you are exceptional at, by the end of the course, grab the offer letter and gloat about it. Or else, you are making a terrible mistake in your life. How are you gonna answer, ‘Ningade collegil placementin aarum vannille?’ (Nobody came to you college for placements?), ‘Ella paperum kittkyilla alle?’ (Didn’t clear your back papers yet eh!) The concerns and queries are never ending. Forget the annoyance they may cause, but the discouragement is irredeemable. If you aren’t placed by the end of your course, you are by default, deemed something well below an average potential person. Your lack of interest totally doesn’t count, as long as the fact remains that you weren’t offered big ‘corporate jobs’!
Brush up your skills and groom yourself, and there you are, right opposite your HR interviewer, the offer letter filling the space between you two! All IT giants have climbed all the way down the ladder to help groom and uplift each one of us, to escalate the overall ‘productivity’ in us!
My college had a session scheduled. Conducted by an IT giant, venturing into New Age domains of business. And the people who came down, aka the trainers, interacted with a group of 150 IT career aspirants, or so assumed. The session was an unbearable branding of the company, its achievements, pointing out why might we prefer this company over some other company and on and on. The people who came down, gloated about their unusual activity patterns and achievement scales. At the end of the session, we were asked to fill in a feedback form. Rating the experience with the trainers, the whole impression about the session etc. That was one glad moment for me, where I could break the shell, and express my detest. I spoke my mind into the paper, ticked the most negative responses for half the questions and then casually looked around. Alas! Am I the only one again? The person next to me had polar opposite answers. It so seemed that the sheerfutilityrendered by those few hours of life wererecognizableonly to me.
What I found totally unacceptable and pointless is the way they sell the company. The promotion techniques, the strategic planning etc. are all well plotted and custom designed. Their progress has been entertained and enjoyed by us, but that just wouldn’t stop them, not even for a moment of pause. The struggle continues. To be trained under the best. To be training the best. Placing the best, and finally, being the best of all. There were never any compromises. And there’s never enough room to think beyond! And may be, that could be why there exists polar opposite attitude and perceptions amongst us!

Talking to my mom casually, I mentioned how nice it’d be to have my/our own idea of a company brewing up! And guess what she has offered to say! Well, its the same that all mothers ever would have said! Go secure my career with some company, and then ‘consider’ innovations! As if!

College – an insight

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

Have never talked enough about my college. More correctly, I haven’t even thought enough about this place that I go everyday. I dont curse myself as I turn the alarm off and get up every morning to rush to college. Going to college is an enthusiastic idea to me every morning. Nobody is waiting for me there. I’m not expecting to see anyone there either. But yet, its motivating enough to pull the covers off me. My class is boring. So are the people. So is what I assume, atleast. The teachers make me yawn more often than making me think intriguing. But yet. But yet I love my college.

The welcoming entrance, the parking space and the bikes aligned, the parapet with gentle backrests, the curve of the stairs that lets me take giant leaps, the pathway that gets flooded in the rain. I’m amused by everything about my college. The ‘group-ism’ in class, the boring useless lectures, the ridiculous bunch of dumbheads. Seems like I’d live through all of them or even worse, coz so much is my liking for the place. Unusually, I feel all comfortable and cosy at a place, despite it being so rough and insensitive to me. But its not the place that’s insensitive. Instances and happenings are rough. Not the place. For it have been always good to me. Walking around the campus, I’ve cried silent, laughed aloud and cursed bad. It has been just two years here, and somehow I turn more nostalgic about my college than my school where I spent years of my life. But the reason is obvious.

In school, there were people in life. They had an impact on me off campus or on campus, the place being so irrelevant. But now in college, people stop to exist. Its just incidents or accidents if you cross another person in the daily routine. Life has changed and is all about places, things and instances. People hardly hold any worth or role in life. Doesn’t that vaguely sound like I’ve turned into a materialistic jerk? Or may be it doesn’t. It just says how life has changed my notions about it and gifted me a new sense of perception.

There’s so much to write. The lovers’ point, the bunk area, the hideout, the common joint, the budding romances, student politics, management talks, teachers’ strike and a hell lot more. I need to break it up and talk. There really is so much to say. Wait for more of them.

The Economy class!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Makes you think of the flight class? Well, its not. The single time travel in an aeroplane leaves me with less or no voice to write about ‘Economy class’ travel! I was kid stupefied by the luxury of the inside of a flight. It gave me no room to think of different ‘classes’ of luxury, back then. May be someday, I might actually write on it though! 😛

For now, its about my “economics” lectures at college. More about the lecturer than the lecture itself! One word. Awesome! That’s what she is. But if you ask the college, no one would agree to me. Or may be some crazy streaks like me would agree! She’s not an excellent teacher. She doesn’t teach you a thing, to be frank. She comes. She talks. Rather advises. And somewhere between all the ramblings, there’d be something you’d like to note down as lecture note to push some actual ‘economics’ into your head! Trust me its damn difficult to distinguish them from her ramblings! Her biggest theory, (actually suggested by some Economist I didnt bother to take notice), is something like this. “If one is better, the other is worse.” The theory as such sounds economically normal, doesn’t it? The abnormality strikes when you listen to her switch topics, like you switch browser tabs. No conversation or lecture is ever completed. She talks about the indiscipline in class. And then she says, how one is worse when the other is better! Still confused as in about what’s actually worse!

The other day, a guy walked in by the end of the hour, planning to attend the next hour. And oh my god! This lady invites him and advises him how important attendance is. Eventually, the guy got attendance for that hour and all the previous absences coz of his ‘illness’! (With other teachers, ten min delay => no attendance until you lick her foot! :P)

She knows a lot of things. About Economics, Accountancy, current affairs, University procedures and a lot more. But she still doesn’t know enough! Who would be surprised in a college that teacher is addressed by name? Lol. She will be. Annoyingly surprised and terribly shocked!

With her mannerisms and looks that resemble my much cherished aunt, she makes me glued to her every word and movement. With awe! Her miserable ‘playboy’ mishap, mutually opposing view points, her eccentric poetic recitals, and the brimming genuinness! I’d call her awesome. Miserably awesome! More as a person, than as a teacher.

The inside story

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

Was down with a fever and cough for a week. And that was such a wonderful timing that I missed five of my internal exams. Frankly, I was glad I’ve more time to study. But yeah, nothing of that sort happened and I screwed them up as usual. No big deal. The retests were postponed and dragged, long enough that I was itched to face them and get over them. But then, it’s the teachers’ mercy playing. And that’s such a rare commodity! Well, whatever. Glad that I’m finally done with it today. Almost. Yeah. Just almost. One more to go.

Well. This aint about my retests or academic crap. I was actually talking about the inside story. The plot and the dialogues inside a staff room. That was funny. Rather surprising. Teachers are
unpredictable beings outside the classroom, or more precisely, inside the staffroom. They talk. Gossip. Prick. Laugh. Confess. Seek help. Seeking help is the most common actually. 🙂

Okay. Everybody does that. So can teachers. They are also common people like you and I. But that’s not the point at all. They do all the very common things in a peculiar way. ‘Appo eli kadichittalle elippani pakarunnathathu??’ I laughed at that question. Laughed really hard. Not thinking about the scientific aspect of it. But seeing my ‘Digital System Design’ teacher stare so stupid and blank, I just couldn’t stop! (The subject name says how bright she should be!) And adding to my surprise, all the teachers in the staffroom fell silent as I broke into laughter. They looked at eachother and I could sense me screwing up. But to my shock, they started laughing with me. They find me mocking at a teacher so hilarious! Seriously! Lol. And another teacher. She says how she’d scare them, coming back as ghost if they dont get her a wreath of rose if she dies of elippani!

I loved the irony. The teacher next to me was shit scared and tensed. I was rotflmao (in my mind) when I learnt the reason for her worry. She was worried of screwing up coz the Inspector from the university had caught her using mobile phone during class hours! I still cant stop laughing. Rotfl.

The never ending complaints about how under paid they are. How the evaluation camp exhausts them. What are the procedures for applying for a Phd. When on earth will they finally get a change in
designation!

It was fun. And revealing. (cant be relieving when the teacher stares at your answer sheet!) What they actually thought about students is what actually we think about ourselves. That was mews to me! I’d love to write more of retests! If only they wouldn’t postpone it. 🙂