Days Go By...

It seems like yesterday, when I first stepped into this college, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology. Though it doesn’t cover much land of the Noida Electronic City, but its infrastructure is appreciable. Aryabhatta Bhawan, Academic Block, Learning Resource Centre… all very well planned. I was actually surprised to see that this small building has 3 big lecture theatres, so many classrooms and labs, library, faculty rooms and it is not at all congested.

Ok… Enough about the college.

I was actually scared as I entered the academic block. I had joined this college as a lateral entrant and I was the only new student in second year CS/IT. God!! So many people… I knew nobody. Following the college map, which I got during registration, I reached LT-2 (Lecture Theatre -2). Everyone was standing outside the hall as the previous lecture was still on. Everyone looked at me as if an alien had just came out of nowhere. Well, I was actually an alien to them. A cute girl came to me and asked “Haven’t seen you around. Are you a new student?” I nervously replied,” Yes, I just joined. I came through the lateral entry exams. Can you help me? My batch is B-9 and I know no one around here.” She then said, “Oh… You are in my batch then. Hiiiiiiii… I am Sprih.”  Ohkkk… “Spree!!! As in… that’s it or is it a nick name???” I made a bad start with my batch mate. But she was sweet enough to take it lightly. “No.. hehe.. That’s it, Sprih Harsh.” I gladly shook her hand, “Hi, I am Disha”, I said. I must tell the readers why I emphasized the ‘Hiiiiiiiiii’. Well, this is the signature entry of Sprih. No matter how much one tries to imitate this, it’s best done by her only. Well, it was a nice start as far as the acquaintances are concerned. Next , I met the two dudes of my batch. Sushant, with a goatee and Ankur Thaploo with a wrist band. Lolz… Sushant greeted with a decent friendly smile and said “Welcome to the college.”, whereas Ankur gave a smug look (Which has now become a typical of him… Lolz) and asked, “New Student?”. I just nodded a yes. Then he gave an o-h-k-k nod back to me. All this seemed nice but didn’t allay my nervousness. Then as we moved into the lecture theatre and I met Varsha, Shruti, Chhavi, Kanupriya, Himanshu, Manoj, Shailesh, Utkarsh… (well there were 30 people so m sorry I can’t mention the whole list… But it was a pleasure meeting all of them). Then I met Angad. It may sound funny, but this was the first time in my life that I met a Geek!!! He wore his typical no-smile serious expression and I think he said “Hi…”, Lolz. He was a damn quite guy. I came to know through Shruti that he is a phodu(brilliant) programmer. Cool!!! Then I saw Pulkit. He, greeting me with a quite smile, sat in the row just ahead of me. It was a relief to see Charu in my class as I knew her from school. Though we never had a conversation in school but I wasn’t formal with her at all. She further helped me settle into the batch. Then as the First Lecture wrapped-up and we all started moving out… Someone from our batch shouted, “Chugh Saab!!!”. I turned to see who is this Chugh Saab. This was Tarush, a jolly guy and a total philanderer. Lolz.. Everyone gave me a very warm welcome in the batch. All my anxiety faded away. As time passed I made new friends who were not from my batch. Veni, Nilay, Deepika… I real good bunch of people.  With time my bond grew stronger with some of them. Varsha became Lambu, Deepika became Mullu, Pulkit became Uncle P, Sushant was now just Kaura and Thaploo was for Ankur. Angad became Dangar, Himanshu became Bau, Veni became VT and Nilay became the google guy!!! Sprih, Charu and Tarush also joined my indelible group of special people. I have learnt a lot from all of them and special some really special moments with all of them. Some of them can be seen in these pictures.

How I wish all this didn’t end so abruptly and we could have some more of it. But this is our destiny. In a few days, we all will be walking our different paths, towards new destination, to a new life, but these priceless moments will stay in our hearts forever. I get so scared when I think that one day I’ll wake up and I’ll be alone. None of my friends will be around and I’ll be left reminiscing…

Love you all and wish you all the best for the life ahead.

D

 

The Shez n Hez of An Engineering College

Disclaimer
This article is based mainly on the experiences of students of CS/IT department. Any resemblance to life in any other department is purely coincidental but empathically understandable. It bears no offence to the top rankers and concedes to the notion that engineering is an equally enriching and rewarding career option as any other field.

Moving On…
Who is an Engineering Student??? Well, to put it in simple words… An engineering student is student who is supposed to be technical, is born natural but made to do supernatural tasks at the cost of four most wonderful and could-have-been-eventful years of his or her life.
Other than the definition, there is nothing to oppose the non-existing parallelism in the two categories of and Engineering Student… the She-eng and the He-eng.
No, I am not taking you to a Chinese Engineering scenario. The She-eng is a girl student of an engineering college whereas the He-eng is the boy student of the same. This is no gender discrimination but just a schism on the observed variance in the behavior of two students of the same institute.
Prior to joining the institute, we all are exhilarated with imaginations of a new life… the college life. The guys may dream of having cool gangs, night-outs, suttas and late night boozing. While girls may recollect the beatific scenes from bollywood flicks like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , RDB n DCH ( well the last two can be counted for guys too) and may have retroactively vitalized their wardrobes. But reality hits them within two days of commencement of the first semester. The joy of cracking the entrance and joining an engineering institute, which obviously elevates your social status, slowly renders away and you are left gleaning the we-will-atleast-have-BTech-degree type feelings. Though, one later realizes that a bigger aim of getting placements is waiting ahead. And as soon as they get their first set of assignments or quizzes, they morph into the main leads of this article, the he-engs and the she-engs.

The She-eng:
• Give them assignments, you’ll have them done on time.
• Exams… not problem boss. Course almost (ALMOST) done till midnight.
• Maximum number of 9 pointers are known to belong to this species.
• Heavy circulation of movies, especially romantic and non-porno, is on till the network connection is alive.
• Gossips: Well, the content is relationship-centric. Who’s-with-who types. It may sometimes divert to the racking nature of the college system or unworkable solutions to lab assignments.
• Seldom get credit for any contribution to their project codes or such technical stuff. Well, this cant bring an argument as only a few She-engs are actually interested in coding and stuff. Most of them just do it for the sake of grades.
• No. of students pursuing engineering out of choice is much lesser than the no. of students pursuing the same due to parental or peer pressure.
• The victims of a “MYTHS”, “its easy for them coz they are girls”, “The whole system is feminist”, “they are here for a degree to get married off nicely, why do they need to slog??”, “blah..blah..blah..”. Give them a break!!!
• Hardly anyone of them plans for Masters in Technical stuff, they are not game to trip up again. Or even if anyone of them plans for MS, they can be found frisking for institutes providing less technical or non-technical courses.

The He-eng:
• Give them an assignment, then, give them the solution too.
• Exams!!!! No problem boss!!!! They’ll somehow manage to know the course till midnight.
• Technically superior species.
• Always accusing the 9 and 10 pointer girls for getting marks because of being-a-girl… and simultaneously busy in playing LAN games even when they have exams on the calendar.
• Heavy circulation of movies, especially pornos, is on till the network connection is alive.
• Always wonder what are girls doing in a technical institute but at the same time die for their presence.
• Always busy showing off their Technical Know-How’s and What’s-in’s, especially when they know that the receiving station is a dumb terminal.
• Using their technical skills in fetching proxies for “blocked” sites, which may lie in any category.
• Gossips: They may be chit-chatting about gadgets and stuff (to show who’s a bigger geek) but the content is girl-centric. Think of cheapest talks and you can have it from them. Though some sensible stuff can still be expected.
• Most of them planning for Masters in Technical stuff only.
• No. of students pursuing engineering out of choice is much greater than the no. of students pursuing the same due to parental or peer pressure.
• Generally, its hard for them to take it when a she-eng scores higher in a technical subject. So they just blame… “Oh.. she’s a mugger.. I can’t blindly mug things you see”.

Well, it go on like this. But I’ll stop here as its just about divaricating among engineering students. If you think that I am being a feminist, then, gimme points for the He-engs or if you think I missed out some points on the she-side, again feedback is most welcomed. You points will also be added. Hehe… enjoy.