First of all, I would like to thank all those people who met me and told how much they like reading what I write in my own words, even though it’s detailed. This is exactly the kind of inspiration that one needs to push beyond what has been achieved till date. This post now brings to the forefront the next phase in my life as I battle it out in the war fields of Bachelor of Engineering from Mumbai University for a long, drawn period of 4 years. There’s a reason for terming this period of my life as a warfront as you would notice it as I go along taking you on this journey with me in this post.
After completing HSC from Ruia College and that too, with a vocational subject like Computer Science, I was prepared both physically and mentally for the gruesome admission procedure for getting into Engineering stream. I’d heard stories of long, tiring queues of wanna-be engineers, their parents at VJTI College which was the centralized admission venue in those days for all Engineering colleges in Mumbai. I’d heard of how tough the competition was in getting into an Engineering college in Mumbai and that too for the specialization you chose. Many students had to give up hopes of getting into a college inside the city and had to instead travel miles outside the city for graduate education. PCM marks was the most important criteria which decided if you would make it like those few fortunate people who’d get into a nice, reputed city-based Engineering college or like those many, many more students who either ended up getting into far-flung colleges or dropped the idea of going for Engineering altogether.
I had 3-4 colleges in my mind which I was keeping as options for getting into. Obviously, my first choice of specialization had to be Computer Engineering (as I credit this to my love affair with Computers). Getting a good score in PCM and overall 92.50% in HSC helped me in slogging it out for not more than 2 rounds of the admission process. However, I made the first important choice in my education at this juncture – Electronics Engineering at VJTI, Matunga versus Computer Engineering at VESIT, Chembur.
Throughout my life until now, my education was 14 years in Matunga itself and VJTI seemed to be a natural extension if I wished to complete my education from Kindergarten to being a Graduate within the boundaries of Matunga itself. But, I wanted the stream of Computer Engineering and VESIT seemed more promising in terms of increasing reputation, a good passing percentage of its students and my parents also had heard somewhat of its strict discipline that was maintained by the college. Not that I was indisciplined, but I chose VESIT for Computer Engineering and also to get out of Matunga for the first time as a part of my education.
Let me first give you a short background of the way Mumbai University has designed the BE Courses. The degree duration is 4 years consisting of 8 semesters. Diploma students can join the course in the third semester. The first and the fourth year exams are held by the Mumbai University, while the rest are held by the college. Students have to work on a group project in the final year which is treated on par with the other subjects. Final year students have to choose 1 elective subject per semester. All subjects are common and compulsory for the first year students. Placements happen in the college around the sixth semester. ATKT system is present in Mumbai University for those who struggle with the pace of the academics and score less than what is required – passing mark being 40% in each paper.
The first semester started in August 2001 – with me meeting lots of new friends, teachers and admin staff, etc. The college was like jail when it came to discipline – very strict in all aspects. You cannot enter late, you cannot leave early, you have to do this and that in the prescribed manner, you have to maintain discipline at all times and so on and on and on. I can go on and on and on telling so many things that the Code of Conduct itself will require a separate post.
For me, I would say that the first year in Engineering is like being drugged and then you are given a Formula 1 car to drive without any prior training. Life runs so fast and you are feeling hazy, dizzy and don’t know what’s going on around you. You try to pick up your senses, try to get into the groove of things and keep your mind in the right place – all at the same time. It’s like stupor.
Some of the subjects that made students tremble with anxiety were Mechanics, BEE and Engineering Drawing (although not as deadly as the first 2).
I was making friends and discovering them as and when we all spent time together – this was important for me to know these people well since I would be spending my next 4 years with them in college and I wouldn’t want to misjudge someone.
The first semester sped through so fast that by the time I was back to my senses, the second semester was already more than halfway over. By the end of the first year, we found out how grueling and tough the next few years would be.
Extra-curricular activities and sports were present but there wasn’t any time to get involved in them in the first year. The first year was more about discovering the entire environment around me.
The second year was the one when we became seniors and that’s when life started shining a bit. We were prepared better for the onslaught of the coming academic year and we knew how to go about it.
For me, it was also a learning experience and out of the first year, I had grown more strong and resilient to the tough academic schedule.
Now, comes into play the so-called romantic angle which always started with a friendship. There were few diploma students who joined our Computer Engineering batch. Our group welcomed these few students and soon we made friends with each one of them. There was this girl who stayed very close from where I lived. She was one of those Diploma students who joined our batch. Soon, we became friends from being just acquaintances earlier.
I used to travel by train from Matunga to Kurla and then took a bus or rickshaw from Kurla station to my college. This was my routine in the entire first year.
Afterwards, in the second year, I started travelling using another route in addition to this one – direct bus from the Highway from Matunga to Chembur. Normally, I used to travel alone by train. Now, by this second route of a direct bus, I had this girl as company from the bus stop in Matunga until college.
Many of my friends saw this change in my travel mode and found it as a good fodder for them to feed on and cook up a story of how Rohan has changed for her. Then came the leg pulling as was expected.
From what was started as a friendship, these friends’ leg pulling actually turned out positive in the sense that it brought me closer to this girl. I had some feelings for her but I never could confess it to anyone. I just thought of her as a close friend and never told her about what I felt. My close friends understood that something was bound to happen between the both of us. They started making situations which brought me and her close. Gradually, things turned out the way they wanted as we started enjoying each other’s company – be it a normal day, college festivals, sports day, college canteen, college computer lab practicals, etc. Everywhere, we used to sit together and people started giving us our private space. We were together as a couple even when at picnics and long trips with all our college friends – be it Lonavala, Khandala, Goa, etc.
Things could have gone ahead with her but did not go, as some traditions and customs came in the way. She was a Jain and I was a true foodie when it came to non-veg food. Also, her family wouldn’t accept me due to this as well as due to the fact that I’m not from the same caste as her. Plus, they wanted her to get married within 1 or 2 years after Engineering.
We realized that things would not work out between us and we mutually decided to separate. We remained friends of course after that but the closeness was lost.
The entire episode with her was running in the background of the entire second year and the fifth semester. During the sixth semester, I was again so-called single. Now came the most important time in my Engineering education – Campus Placements were going to start. Thank God that I was now focused at the right time.
The Placement procedure is similar to how all of us pretty much know by now. Once you get selected by a company, you are out of the placement procedure. So, in a way, it’s a gamble that you have to take when you decide to appear for a company for placement.
The first company that came for campus placement at VESIT was Syntel, an IT company. At that time, I had heard that this company was black listed in India. God knows what that meant, but I didn’t care much about this fact and I decided to sit for the placement procedure.
The first round was an aptitude test in which only 18 students go through of the roughly 110 students who appeared for it. The final round was personal interviews, in which 11 students got selected and hence got an offer in Syntel. I was one of them. The interview lasted for 5 minutes in my case in which I was asked about my computer acads, my project idea for final year, how would I go about doing it, my clarity of thoughts, etc. Overall, it was a nice experience and I immediately called up my parents and told them about the good news.
After the placement, I was tension-free and focused back on my studies, co-curricular activities, extra-curricular activities, etc. Before the placements, in the second year of my Engineering, I wrote a technical paper and presented it too in college (along with a couple of my friends – who were absolutely brilliant in studies; now they work in Google and Microsoft, respectively after having topped in college and then done post-graduation from IIT, Mumbai). Our technical paper on “Steganography and Digital Watermarking” won many awards. It was an enriching and a very much exhilarating experience for me to have done something like this for the first time in my life.
Now came the second romantic angle in Engineering – which started at the end of the sixth semester and lasted until completion of the final year. This girl was there from the first year itself and we knew each other as friends, although we never were closer before. But, my early placement and the preceding fame from other activities like acads, the paper presentation, the victories in sports, etc. made me more popular among students of our batch as well as the other batches. She started talking to me more often and I was looking forward to meeting her often too. Gradually, we started getting closer through the common friends that we had. Then followed outings like movies, parties, discos, treks, etc. She was lively and always had some event planned where I was already made a part in her scheme of things. In her case, I also had the chance to visit her home, meet her family and interact with them, which could not happen in the case of my former flame. This girl with whom I was hanging around now-a-days was much active and we enjoyed each other’s company so much that we were quite inseparable. My close friends didn’t like the fact that I was going around steady with her in the presence of my former flame who still hadn’t got over me. But I was too engrossed in all the things – ranging from studies, other curricular activities, family commitments back at home and now my current girlfriend. It’s not like I completely ignored my earlier girlfriend but I was not getting enough time for even being with her as a friend.
Things progressed nicely with my current girlfriend – with both of us pretty happy in having plenty of time spent together – be it in college, out of college or even at her home. The final year started and now came the time for doing the project. We chose CRM as the theme for the final year project and started with the idea of developing a CRM software in Java for a firm which manufactured mobile phones. We believed in the huge business potential that CRM as a concept had, at that time in 2005 and we supported our opinion of the mobile phone market growing exponentially in size every year in India.
The mentor-cum-faculty guide was helpful in developing the ideas and in understanding how CRM would work. She was one of the few really good faculties that were up-to-date with the latest business trends in the corporate world.
The electives in the final year made life heaven as well as hell – but I won’t elaborate more on this aspect in this post. It needs a separate post in order to give it justice. It’s a really funny episode and it would promptly bring out the mismanagement within the ranks of Mumbai University, at least in those days.
Overall, I would say that the 4 years in Engineering were tiring, yet exciting. The things I learnt from all the academic aspects as well as in managing my time, relationships with faculty, friends and extra activities will help in future certainly. The discipline in the initial two years or so instilled in us worked wonders as it helped me in coping up the gruesome schedule.
Cupid struck twice in these 4 years and I would still say that these 4 years were quite wonderful. Both of the girls were pretty, loving, caring and nice human beings too and I thoroughly enjoyed those wonderful, cosy, romantic moments with them. Still can remember certain situations and incidents vividly. Luckily for them, as of today, both of them are married and well settled in Mumbai. I have lost out contact with one of them (the Jain girlfriend) as it’s been some time since we last saw each other. The Parsi girlfriend does still meet me whenever I’m in Mumbai and I find it nice to meet her like a friend.
I’ll cut short the post now, as I’ve got the idea by now that this post has been really long. Of course, there are plenty of things that I’ve not mentioned here. But you cannot really condense your 4 years in 4-5 pages on a Word document in one go, right? I’ll bring about more, other aspects of this time period to the forefront in my later posts. Right now, I’ll bring you all upto the point in my life where I’ve just completed my Computer Engineering degree from the reputed Mumbai University and I now await a call for Syntel, asking me to join them at some location for working with them as a software trainee.
If you feel that I’ve missed out on anything pertaining to my engineering college life which I can cover in later posts, kindly provide your feedback and I’ll make sure I’ll write that too.
Signing off now. See ya, friends!
