blah...blah....

Struggling to stave it Off.....

Anna Kunukeste.....Mass; Anna nidarothe ....Mass

Thank You, Sir.

Dear Sir,

Thank you, for all that you have done for us.

Perhaps, no words can ever do justice in describing the effort you have put in to mould us and make us realize what engineering, especially electrical engineering, was about.

Sir, I can say that, while we were never wise enough to learn it all, we did learn something - a little from you, a little from what you shared with us and a little from what you taught us. And now, sitting back and reflecting, we are realizing the value of even that little. And we also realized we can never thank you enough.

Yours obediently,
Srikanth Manda,
650651092,
Batch of 2008.

P.S.: The picture is my own work and a small token of our gratitude, Sir.

Back Again!

Back again. Cleared all exams once again. Well, almost!

Except the last one, I'm certain to clear almost all of the rest.

I can't help wondering why we are made to endure this arcane ritual of examinations every semester. I call it arcane because I'm still in dark as to what purpose they serve. We any how don't bother about acads till the exams are on us. During the xms we set every thing aside and try to mug up as much stuff as we can. We just spit it out there on the paper. If we fail to clear them, we can still work out by shelling out a few thousand bucks. So why write in the first place?

I wish someone cuts out this crap.

I am happy to say that all four of our friends who were wounded in Monday's accident are now out of danger.

Let's keep praying that they find enough strength & courage to overcome both the physical and mental hardships and let's stand with them in the face of the challenges ahead of them.
Let's also pray that the families of Preethi and Pravallika too find the same strength & courage to overcome their grief.

Let's Pray.

A really sad day for all of us, students of SRKR Engineering College.

Early in the morning a group of eight of our friends who set out from here, Bhimavaram to a birthday party in Rajuamundry met with an accident en route. One of them, Preethi died instantly on spot while Pravallika died while being taken to the hospital. Four of them, Vindhya Vimala, Chandra Lekha, Rajasekhar and Eswar received major injuries. All four of them are now in hospital receiving treatment. Details of their conditions are yet to come out. The other two, Balaji and Das Kiran were lucky in that they did not receive any major injuries. All of them except Vimala, who is from final year EEE, are from final year Mechanical engg.

Whenever I read the maxim 'Speed thrills but Kills', I used to make light of it. But now the impact of the truth in that maxim has come down as too big a shock upon all our friends and college mates, to bear. Most of us all still too shocked to even think of what happened. Most are yet to digest the truth of what has happened to our friends, some of whom we met as recently as yesterday night. The college is still reeling under the deadly impact.

The whole college is saddened by this and the worst part is that this incident has brought back all the bad and shocking experiences to mind. All of us are still so gloomy and some are so depressed.

I don't even know what prompted me to post this. I've had some nightmarish experiences as shocking as these earlier. But still the pall of gloom that has descended upon us has knocked the hope even out of me. I'm feeling really helpless. As some friend pointed out a few moments back, Gods must be crazy to play this little game of life and death with us. I'm no atheist; nor am I so religious. I don't know if they are crazy. But I only pray to all of them to get those still in the hospital out of that living hell and help us overcome this grief and let live with a little happiness and hope.

And I request every soul on this earth to pray for whoever Gods they trust for the same.

Right now I'm a bit disoriented and am not exactly aware of what am I writing here. I just spit out whatever came to my mind to find catharsis.

Lets Pray.

Placement Predicaments

A prominent MNC has recently recruited nearly one hundred and seventy students in our college even before we completed completed our third year. The recruitment drive has then (i.e., nearly two months back) disrupted our academic schedule. And as the recruitment was conducted just a couple of months before our exams, it affected our semester end scores.All the same, we weren't really concerned as we already got placed. But a few days back, i.e., a month or so, we were told by our Placement and Training cell that all our placements are cancelled. And this was confirmed by the company through mail. To say that this shocked us would be an under statement. We broke down completely. The Company told that since some irregularities and unethical practices were found to be followed in the recruitment drive, they need to re-assess us. And they sent us an e-mail stating the same. And a couple of days back, they sent another mail giving us details of where and when the next drive is being held, to which we are expected to attend.

The same happened with nearly one thousand students who were also recruited by the same team. (The figure is approximate, but not too wide off the actual figure.) It is rumoured that the Recruitment team took bribes. Some rumours were that the HR team was bribed. While the two statements apportion the guilt between the two guilty parties viz. the college managements and the Recruitment team, in a different manner, they had the same effect on us. They just meant that all our efforts went down the drain. For one thing, the swiftness with which the company has reacted after knowing the truth and the way our college training & placement cell has pulled all stops to ensure that the effect is mitigated are commendable. But still the fact remains that affected students are still heart broken and a some are still depressed. We have lost precious chance of being recruited into two companies which visited our campus after the first company but before the news broke out. It means so much to us.

Luckily, I'm one of the very few students who were able to make it to another company recently. But there still are about 150 students who haven't been so lucky. And this brings me back to the question which I have raised in my previous posts"The season has begun....." and "To hell with this lab work......". Indeed, the whole affair has answered my question partly. The question is:
Should the campus recruitment drives begin in pre-final year itself?
My answer is : NO.

Here is why: To begin with, the whole drive has disrupted our schedule in the pre-final year, a very crucial one in one's academic life. And the result of such drive, either being placed or being rejected distract students from studies. They effect our performances so much as proved in our case.

Is there any solution? I think so. I think colleges should frame a placement policy just as they frame their quality policies. In this, they should consider all possibilities and should ensure that students aren't affected by the whole recruitment drives. Best of all, the placements should not commence till the end of first semester of the final year. And colleges, instead of messing up everything in the end regarding the students' communication skills and language skills, should chart out a program right from their first year to ensure that they are employable by the time they graduate. And companies should also join hands with the academia to ensure the same.

And last but not least, the academia should go beyond the IT field regarding placements. It needs to make sure that the students are knowledgeable and employable in core fields too. While I'm not particular about this, I have friends who long to work in REAL JOBS as they consider It jobs as too unreal. I don't share their views but I wish they get what they want. Next I would like to blog on my placement.

Placement Predicaments - 2

Well, as if we haven't had enough trouble, recently, some of our friends, from EEE and a couple of other branches, who went to attend an off campus recruitment drive for IT jobs were told there, after getting registered and even attending the Preplacement talk, that they aren't needed and need not sit for the test. They were given back the registration fee and were shown the door, not so politely.

But I wonder who pays the rest of the expenses incurred by my friends in the form of travel and accomodation charges. And who is going to teach them the lessons they missed here.

GOD, save us!

To hell with this lab work.....

As I wrote in the last post, the Campus recruitment drive broke loose all hell in our college. Right from the next day we had to work night outs to get all our assignments and records completed. And finally we did it.

But all the while I worked on my record, I couldn't help wondering what purpose, completing the record serves. That we didn't exactly follow the experiment is one thing and that we didn't even take down the right observations is another. But both these things rendered every thing useless. What's more? Even writing down the theory of the experiment is useless because we didn't write it by our self. We were first given all the material related to the exp. and were asked to copy it down twice- once in observation book and once in Lab record. Does this copying down serve any purpose?

The importance of lab work i.e., experimentation can't be over emphasized, especially for us in technical education. Thankfully not all labs are like that. I mean, at least some of the lab work
is done properly. But saying so can we afford to be so, even if its related to only a few subjects? I don't think so.

In India, especially at this conjecture, when cream of the students community from every branch is being sucked into IT & ITES, we need to get things like labs right. Lab work is supposed to rekindle the students' interest in relatively dry and boring theory subjects. But as long as the labs are as they are now, I don't think this objective is going to be realised.

And no, growth of Computers is not a bane. Indeed they granted us a boon in the form of Simulation Software related to various subjects like CAD, CAM, SPICE, HDL etc. All these need to be incorporated if we are to produce better Engineers.

And same as ever all I can do is only write about this....and hope some one who can do some thing reads this....

The season has begun......

It has been very long since I posted last. Any how I'm back. And this time I have some thing interesting. Well, interesting to me n my fellow Engineering students in India, anyhow.

Yes, the season has begun. But this time it has begun a bit early. No idea what I am talking about? Well, its the season when even big MNCs come hunting for young talent even in the interior regions of India that are other wise never given much thought about. Yes its the season of Campus Recruitment.

What's surprising is the eagerness of the companies to out-do each other in attracting fresh and young talent. But this time around some companies have actually come here to recruit students even before the end of our 3rd year, 2nd semester. Strange. Last year the companies began coming at some time around June or July. But now, we are not even half way through March.

Well, its all pleasing to be offered a job a in reputed company with a fat pay check. Its a great feeling to have a job offer in hand without even having our degrees (B.E. in my case). But still the timing of this recruitment drive has caused a little trouble with our academics. This is especially because of the imminent semester exams preceded by our mid sem exams. More over his is the time we will be busy getting our lab work records finished.

But it looks like there are some others who are not so pleased about the prospect of recruitment in 3rd year. Well, they have their own fears and those fears are not totally unfounded. And they are our Professors. They are thinking that we may take every thing else easy once we secure a job. And this has been proved to be true in case of our seniors. Last year, our college enjoyed a huge success regarding placements. And this, in turn has shown some effect on our seniors' studies and seriousness. Everyone, who were preparing for CAT or GATE or GRE suddenly relaxed and lowered their level of preparation. It was as if they never thought of appearing for such exams. There is nothing wrong in getting job while in college but getting one in our 3rd year tself is, I think, a bit too early. More so because most of us don't have a clear idea of what we want to do in our future, even in 3rd year of our graduation. One more aspect is that, in Engineering, having a backlog during the course is so common. And most of the companies put a restriction that those aspiring for a job should not have a backlog. While that is understandable, what needs to be understood is that many of us still don't take our studies as seriously as we are supposed to be. The reason for this is that we don't find our courses and colleges as interesting as we expect them to be regarding facilities like laboratories and libraries after bieng emanicipated from the drudgery of our Intermediate studies. So for the first 3 years, or so, of our Enginnering course, we dont take anything quite seriously. So naturally the talented among us have some backlogs. Anyhow by the time we enter our final year, we do take every thing quite seriously and clear up all the backlogs. So I think final year 2nd semester is the ideal time for Campus recriutment.

Well, this is what I think. And I invite your comments and suggestions regarding this matter. Just post in your comments below.

Education Blues......

For the past few months, we have been hearing a lot in the debate on reservations for OBCs in institutions for higher education. And also a lot on inclusion, or rather, exclusion of creamy layer.

Many people, leaders and experts have voiced their opinions on these issues. But one issue has largely escaped our notice. The issue is the quality of so called higher education in other institutions all over the country. Regarding the fore mentioned issue of reservation every one, except a very few, have argued and discussed on how much of the cake a particular section of the population is entitled to. But very few have thought of how to increase the size of the cake. No, increasing the size of the cake, here, doesn't mean just increasing the number of seats in those institutions, it also means increasing the quality of education in other institutions.


Almost every one agrees that even after more than fifty years of policy of reservation, much hasn't changed regarding the social and economical status of those concerned. But then, nor has the quality of higher education in general. If anything, with increase in demand, the quality has actually fallen over years. True the economic status of India has improved. But perhaps, that is because of the effective utilisation of our resources and not because of any tremendous change in the quality of education.

Even today, education means marks. True, marks serve as a very good bench mark to gauge the performance of students and to some extent, that of teachers. But, they aren't what the whole of education is. Unfortunately, many institutions haven't realised this. By and large, the greater purpose of education, which I feel is "to help an individual know about himself, the world around him; to make one realise his own strengths and weaknesses and to strive to better his strength and lessen his weaknesses" is being ignored. Luckily for me, my school education has helped me know about myself and my world. It also helped me discover my strengths and weaknesses. But my professional education (Engineering) hasn't really helped me work on my strengths and weaknesses.
No stress is being laid on Imagination, Innovation & Invention and self discovery.

Even more appalling thing is that, a few sections or branches of education are being are totally ignored. Take for instance science. These days science seems to have been forgotten all together in many regions along with humanities. No one taking the sciences in +1 and +2 are any more interested in doing M.Sc. and B.Sc. All they want is to become an Engineer or a Doctor. The necessity of basic life sciences and research is being ignored. All attention seems to be on Tech and MBA. Of late, interesting things are happening in technical education too. Earlier key stress used to be on practical knowledge with sound basics. But with mushrooming of tech institutes,(yes mushrooming) even basic infra structure like labs and libraries are not being provided.. We do need more institutions. But they shouldn't be allowed to come up in a hap hazard way without proper control. Because of this students are lacking proper practical knowledge of things that they are expected to do later in their profession. For example, even though I am a third year student in Electrical Engineering, I still don't exactly know how a motor works. Another reason for this is severe shortage of staff equipped with proper knowledge tools to teach us (but then, again, I'm lucky to be studying in a college with staff. But not every one is as lucky). And with the advent and success of IT, even the theoretical knowledge is being lost. Every one talks of Soft Skills and Personality development, which should have been an integral part of education in the first place. And here, in AP, every student is expected to be more proficient at C and C++ than their core subjects. Any how core jobs are exotic. Today IT & ITES maybe our forte. But don't we need o stress on other areas too? Especially when we dream of being a developed nation as soon as possible! Don't we need to set all this right.

Fee in IITs and our colleges are about same. We may not be entitled to have the kind staff and facilities they have. Nor can we even dream of their job offers and fat pay checks. But don't we require basic amenities like labs and Internet. There are still colleges which forbid their students from using email in college. All these issues should be addressed very soon , along with the rest of the issues concerning education. I still don't have an idea about who is responsible for this situation. Who ever it is, I only hope that they realise the situation set things right as soon as possible.

"We institutions of higher education which help us realise our full potential. We need those institutions that give us a chance to be ourselves. We need institution where gets to experiment on new things, where one gets enough time to explore some new avenues of life, where we get a chance to Imagine, Innovate & Invent!"

1 star and 52 dreams (Vol 2)

Ok! This is the 2nd volume of an earlier post on the dreams of my friends. If you haven't read that one yet, go read it now. It's just below this post.

And I thought that I can never finish this series if I am to post every dream individually.
So I decided to generalize and categorize all the remaining dreams (about 50 more) and publish them in abridged form.

Let's continue where we left earlier.

The one to say his dream after Scorpion is Nandamuri muddu bidda Subrahmanyam. His dream is to establish a small scale industry and provide employment to a few others. I love this one. And similar to this is our dear Venki, Venkata Krishna's dream. He doesn't want to work under any one. He just wants to be his own boss.

Here comes our best Batsman Sriman 's dream. It's similar to that of Srikanth 's dream. They both dream of establishing topclass educational institutions.

This one is a really noble one. And interesting, it is a dream of many. Roddu Narendra, Smart Raghu dream of following in the footsteps of Mother Theresa and Vivekananda. I didn't really get what they wanted to do, but could gather from the way they said it that they are pretty serious about it.

Sureedu Surya, Mass Prasanth, Sridevi, Anusha, Sravanthi, Lavanya, Swapna, Jyothirmayi, Sowjanya and Bala Krishna , all these guys have something in common. Their motto is Service. Some of these guys want to serve orphans, some child labourers, few other old people in their own ways i.e., some by charity and some by empowering them. Swapna wants to serve the blind.

Calci Lakshmi, Deepthi, Ravi Mithra, Bharani and Swetha wants to grow into good individuals and wants to get settled in good professions, with a good family. Even Sandhya dreams of the same life but for that she wants to settle in US. Ambitious, isn't she?

Riyaz and Rajesh stand out among us, boys, in the aspect that they are the only guys who dream of being good family men, I mean that just want to see that their families are comfortable. But then, Riyaz has one more dream, one that's really cool. He wants to meet his idol Jackie Chan, atleast once, in his life. He is really crazy about him.

RV Srikanth and Vindhya Vimala just want to become famous, get rich. Simple wishes, aren't they? Ok, I don't mean anything bad, really. I believe that there's nothing wrong in being ambitious in life.

Udaya Bhaskar, Prabhakar and Uma Bala - these guys are really down to earth. They just want to complete their degree and become good engineers. Uday wants to get into IRES(Railways) and Prabakhar and Uma wants to get into IES.

And so is the case with our Mowgli, Siva Rama Krishna. He just wants to secure a job in NTPC and serve all he can.

Here come the adventurers, Ravindranath, Varma and Ravindra. Ravindra wants to serve in the army and Varma and Ravindra want to become pilots. They want the 'high' life.

Srikanth dreamt of becoming a singer. He realised his dream recently, when he sang in a feature film.

Our Amithab Sekhar Manoj, Anusha P, and I Narayana Mahesh, want to become good teachers as they believe that teaching is a noble profession.

Naresh, the Nars, has no goal or dream as of now, just like me.

Krish Rama Krishna doesn't want reveal his dream. Simple as that.

Peddanna Venkateswara Rao, Yesu Ratnam and Ramesh wants to get beside their names, the letters IAS.



But here come my personal favourites:

Saiku Saikumar SVR dreams of ending, someday, Bill Gates' monopoly over the OS market by writing his own Operating System to replace Windows. All the best buddy.

Venakatesh er.. Venkatesh wants to someday go into space. But his problem is, he hasn't a clue about to do to reach there. May the Almighty send someone to help you reach your goal. Hey, I don't intend any pun at him, but when I herd his dream, I was really dumbstruck.

Rajesh, our Bava, dreams of visiting faroff and some exotic places and people and document their lives and cultures, doing his part in conserving the rich diversity of the world we live in.

MLA Sunil, wants to become one day, well, what else, an MLA! His wants to contest on a TDP ticket(well, that's what he says now. But then, we don't know who's friend of whom in politics any day. So don't complain if he chooses to contest on a congress party ticket some day).

But here's is the one that really inspired me.
Santosh wants to complete his MBA in IIM-A and then become a CEO of a world's best-30 MNC. It really inspired me. Really. Cool Isn't it!

Ok guys these are the dreams, which I truly wish come true. And lets wait and see. And all my friends and all you adventurous dreamers out there, ALL THE BEST.

And I end this with one of my favourite quotes ever:

"Dare to Dream and Care to Achieve."

1 star and 52 dreams ( Vol - 1)

A couple of days backs, when we were in the PDC class, we really got bored and the whole class became restive, all of a sudden. Our prof, Mr Naga Raju, immediately knew we are really bored. Being a cool headed prof, that he is, he suspended the class and started talking about other things not related to transistors, diodes, and stuff like that. And slowly the talk drifted towards dreams, aims and goals we all have. He emphasized that each of lives have a purpose but then its our responsibility to identify it or set it for ourselves. He started asking one-by-one what our dreams are? Initially everyone was so reluctant to speak out what their dreams are. He then emphasized the importance believing in what we dream and to never be afraid of speaking it out. Slowly, one-by-one started speaking out. First, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Those dreams are really inspiring. I never thought that my own classmates and friends, who individually look like 'just another guy', would have such truly inspiring and such great dreams. One reason, why I thought this way, is that , I thought that deep down, every one would be just as lousy as I am. But once they started speaking up, I immediately knew that I wasn't befriending any 'just another guy' .I thought that those dreams, aims and goals would help many others (unless, ofcourse, they are just like my own self) . So, I decided to write down in this blog and post them here.

The following are those dreams. And unfortunately, I missed taking down a few others, those said in the beginning. The first person to begin is Vallabha Rao. Actually, he was one of those whose dreams I missed jotting them. But asked him later what his dream is? And in the same way, I managed to get some of those missed ones. And I couldn't manage yet a few others. Read the following as, name - nick name or pet name or whatever I personally think of my friends - their dreams and finally what I think of the dream.

Vallabha Rao, a nice guy and a really good painter and very good poet. You'll see that to yourself if I succeed in getting them posted. They are all in Telugu, so I don't know how to get them posted.
His dream is to lend a helping hand to all those street children who have none to care for them. He said that he and some of his friends took a vow to make their dream come true. And that they are right on the track.

Swaroop, also affectionately called Bojo by us, dreams of playing in the Ranji Trophy. He would love to represent India internationally but, he said he wants to be realistic to some extent, atleast.


Wilson dreams of building a Hospital to do Charity. A noble dream, isn't it? Indeed, here is where I was truly moved and started taking them down on a paper.

Vinay, about whom I don't really know much, wants to start charitable trust to help those in need.

Venkateswara Naik, also called the Scorpion as he has a scorpion tattooed on his forearm, really stirred everyone's mind. He said that his dream is to make everyone from his native village a literate. He doesn't want his people to face the same troubles that he faced. Even Naga Raju garu was moved by his dream. And as for myself, I felt guilty as my own native village, which gave me and my family so much, wasn't on the list my top priorities.

Ok guys, there's lot more I want to post now. But because I'm running short of time, I can't post all that now. That's the reason I named this posting as Volume - 1 of all that I want to post. There are around 50 more dreams to come.

And yes, I know you are really puzzled who that one star is? Who is it?
Who else but our own, our dear Naga Raju garu?
He's our star because, he is the one who really spurred us to action. He made sure that we'll never never our dreams. That is why I call him a Star.

There's more to come. So watch this space.