A Mindtree Mind!

The moment arrived...The moment which every undergraduate dreams about.. The moment which every final year student waits for.. The placement season..The time when you can see the sweat on your forehead... The time when everyone is clueless of what is in store ahead...

The pre-placement preparations seemed quite hectic. Right from preparing a CV exactly in the format that the training and placement officer had asked us to and getting our CVs proofread by friends to arranging for passport size photos in formals were something we were doing for the first time in life. Putting the certificates received right from school to college in order was an even tougher ask. That kept me on my feet till midnight.

The 19th of September.. MindTree visited Sir MVIT
All of us tried to look our best in formals. We all assembled near the auditorium waiting to welcome the visiting team. There was chatter all around. Discussions of formulas, sharing of ideas, releasing stress by having some fun were the activities happening all around. The visiting team gave us a presentation on 'Life at MindTree' and Activies in Mindtree.

Successful Customers,Happy People and Innovative Solutions are its mission and the values being Caring,Learning,Achieving, Sharing and Social Responsibility. The powerpoint shown and the talk by an MVIT alumni from MindTree was interesting. The reason behind the MindTree Logo was my favourite section of the talk. Imagination, Action and Joy were beautifully described with a few strokes of blue,red and yellow. After the interactive session, we were asked to write the aptitude test.

The test was of pretty high standard with a few questions being very tough and a few being a delight to solve. Our aptitude,technical skills,email-writing skills and programming skills were tested.The test ended after one and a half hour and we were asked to wait for 2-3 hours to declare the results. After patient waiting, it felt good to be one of the 180 selected. The day of my interview was fortunately the next day. The thought of having a few hours to relax at home and an opportunity to find out from friends having their interview on the same day seemed to release some stress.

The next day was a day to Do-or-Die. The day began with hours of wait to hear my name bing called for the HR interview. After waiting for over 3 hours, my name was finally called. With some excitement and some nervousness, i entered the room. I was interviewed by Mr Jayant who game me a warm welcome with a small puzzle. I was pretty excited about it but could not solve it because of my nervousness inside. I was also asked about my background, goals and why I would join MindTree. A few technical questions were also thrown at me. A few that I answered and a couple I did not. The interview was over with the last words of the interviewer being "Hope to see you in Mindtree". I was hoping to be there too.

The interview was a long process which went on till 7 in the evening. After hours and hours of wait, the results were compiled,offer letters signed and waiting to be announced. It was around 8 by then. Patience was being tested. A few of us were even thinking about how tough it would be if we were not selected. Hours of waiting all in vain. A few silent prayers went on too.. The HR from the MindTree team called the name sof selected candidates and handed over our offer letters. A sigh of relief to hear my name being called... Yeah..I was finally a MindTree mind!!

The day was being ended on a high with smiles all around. Congratualtons and best wishes kept pouring in.The MindTree minds also had a few photos being clicked with the interview panel. There were around 120 candidates who were given the offer letters that day. The reason MindTree is personally so special even before I was a prospective mind is that MindTee was the platform for me to start blogging. The very reason why I can today share my thoughts with the world.

The next visiting company was D E Shaw, everyone has a dream to get in there. We all geared up to write the aptitude. Alas, the aptitude test, the technical test, the programming test - they all went above our head.The results were declared after a couple of hours shortlisitng only 15 out of the many who wrote the test that day.

Amazon followed with a high standard of online testing. The questions were solvable but with high level of difficulty. The results may take time to be announced by I do not see much light at the end of the tunnel. After two high difficulty-level tests, it seems quite normal to be disappointed. I warned myself to prepare well for the next company since there is more than a week to prepare.

With disappointments all around, I saw a ray of hope with talking to my mentor, my guru, the co-founder of Moolya Software Testing Pvt Ltd. I realised,co-incidently, we played a role in promoting each other. The motivation to have a higher dream, higher credibility and to have the best skills gave me a push and a goal for the future. I am looking to work on them now.

After a hectic week of placements, it's probably some time to relax at college. With Kalanjali on cards and friends urging me to bunk, I got to hunt for great anchors in college tomorrow in about an hour. Waiting for this exciting talent hunt...

Busy bee...

The week that followed the festive season was filled with completion of assignments,updating myself with the lectures that happened in the course of time when I had missed classes and catching up on some fun with friends that I was craving for quite sometime. I also got to meet some of my school friends who surprised me by visiting my locality to have the Ganesha Darshan.

In the professional circuit, the week saw more teachers giving out the important questions for internals, a few mass bunks and some exam fright. One month of VII sem just flew by. Alas! It was internals time again. The preparation for internals after being detached from books for sometime by now, seemed a tough ask. Nevertheless, I had to overcome this obstacle and I am pretty pleased with my effort. A few papers were a breeze whereas a few just rattled our brains. The transition from every-Monday internals to six exams in three days were a little stressful but we somehow managed writing them. I was extra convinced on the benefits of group studies prior to exams.

The end of exam season did not get much relief because we all knew that the hill was just getting steeper. The placement season is to follow. We had our second and probably the final placement and training session where we were told about writing a winning CV. I worked on my CV for a few hours before I finally got it printed for the placement officer's approval.

Google was expected to come to the campus for recruitment on Sept 15 but fortunately, the date got postponed. I got an opportunity to attend the Google's DevFest 2011 for which I had registered quite sometime back. The learning experience was great.
We had speakers from different parts of the world coming to talk to us about Android Development,Google Apps, Maps,Chrome, APIs and Cloud. The sessions were informative but unfortunately, my friends and me got a little saturated towards the end of this event. The Google goodies, the ambience, the company, the exposure were all major positives from the event.

The next day at college did not witness many teachers taking classes. Loads of talks about placement and writing CV's was in the air.

One of my favorite events in college every year followed, Verve 2011. Participating in Verve gives me a lot of joy, especially after a very very memorable Verve 2010, probably one of the my best Verves. I chose to elocute on Martin Luther's "I have a dream". The experience and the performance was personally very satisfying. The thought of not attending another Verve is not very pleasant. Nevertheless, the placements are the biggest priority right now.

Mindtree,DeShaw,Amazon and Emphasis are on cards this month end... More preparations, more tests, more bunking classes and above all more stress... But all I'm trying now is to keep it simple!!

Exams to write minus 1...

After so much drama happening earlier this month, life took a turn towards serenity. I completely isolated myself from college and friends to an extent during the course of my GRE preparation.As I always say, I have no plans of going abroad as of now, nevertheless,I thought it will be nice giving it a shot and am glad with my decision.

The last 10 days have been quite banal with a very few exceptions. Waking up late in the morning after a study session at night was the routine. I,without my own knowledge, was getting accustomed to the U.S timings with no motives to go there..Or perhaps, I was just getting a little nocturnal.

My sole reason for writing the GRE is future planning and my parents' desire of me writing all the exams possible. They cultivated this habit when I was really small and I guess by now it has got into my blood too. So with parents' expectations and some peer pressure being my motivation, I decided to write the exam. I booked my test dates even before I got my passport hoping that the passport will arrive on time. I am glad, it did. I also timed my exam in such a way that it will not come in the way of my placements,internals or any other activity.

I got my first surge of inspiration for the preparation while I was having a look at the Workout Manual for GRE from Princeton. With friends quizzing each other on words, the wheels of my preparation started rolling. I must admit it is one of the best way to learn words.With around a week for the D-day, I realised I had a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, I had not done much.

That was the time,I did something I've never done in my life. Truly said, "Zindagi mein bahut kuch pehli baar hota hai". I decided to bunk college till my GRE exams got over. I used to utilize some time very constructively. Not surprisingly, there were times which I simply wasted. But I guess that was needed to maintain a balance.
I started taking atleast one practice test per section, learning new words,googling through various sites for assistance(which was not very successful) and whiling away some time.I also went through various books from friends whether it was Barons, ETS, Princeton or Kaplan.

Despite the pair studies once in a while and these routine activities, I was nervous.Nervous, about the what the future had for me.Nervous, about how I am going to tell my score to everyone if it is not good Loads of negative thoughts cropped in too, but I tried my best to keep myself optimistic.

I have always seen people using Word Power Made Easy while preparing for GRE. But the thickness of the book always scared me,especially since I am a tyro at reading. Three days before my exam I decided to have a look at it.After reading the first 50 pages of the book in half an hour, I fell in love with the book. I parallely decided to take down notes about the root words and their origins and finished skimming throught the book with appropriate notes in about 5 hours.I was myslef shocked on achieving that feat. The mini-dictionary was the last section which I went through the next day. With around 2 days for the test, the nervousness only increased.

Giving a friend a surprise on his birthday, buying the Ganesha idol, rides on the HH Pleasure and a series of serials on TV were a few de-stressers that time. A couple of days before the exam, I used to just follow the routine and worrying about the results.On the eve of the exam, I just managed to read for the analytical section which I had almost neglected and revise already known concepts. I decided to not take any practice tests that day for the fear of being de-motivated.

The D-day finally arrived. It was 31st of August. When the world was relaxing at home, my friend and I were getting ready to leave for the all-important exam. Reaching well before time, we had some time share a chuckle and clam oursleves down. 45 mins before the scheduled time, we were called in for the confindentiality agreement and security checks. On its successful completion, we were alloted cubicles in which we were to spend the next 4hours sweating it out in an air-conditioned room for the GRE.

I would certainly not be able to exactly put that 4-hour feeling here, but loads of thoughts were flowing in and I tried to keep myself as calm as possible. The first section was the analytical writing section where I had to write an issue essay on "Learning being a matter of personal discipline; schools and colleges alone are not sufficient" and another argument issue on "Mandatory driver's education for teenagers of Centerville school". The AWA was followed by a quants session and a verbal section. The 10-min break helped me to calm down after a not-so-good verbal section. I was happy that half my test was over. The next 3 sections were quants,verbal and quants.I was praying that my experimental section would be verbal since I had a terrible first section of Verbal but I was happy solving the Quants qs.
After a hect 3 hour 45 mins, my test was finally over and my scores was displayed. i was happy with my quants range of 750-800 and I had mixed feelings about my verbal range of 410-510. After choosing my 4 universities, I walked out of the room relieved that the test is over.

I was not very happy with my score but I knew that it was an OK-performance. The day followed with preparations for Ganesh Chaturthi,which was on the next day.After a long period was holidays, I was craving to go to college which was supposed to be a mass bunk. But fortunately nearly half the class turned up.

After college adding some colour to my life, life is going to be followed with more
exams and the placement season.