The Black and White World, The Black & White Us

So, what’s the deal today? Today, we’re gonna learn about the reality of life, reality of the world. Ready for some absurd & weird concepts? But before that, just like all other mathematical concepts and proofs, let’s assume something. Let’s assume that love no longer flows freely in its natural state naturally within people, who are not a part of a family. Read it once again. Feel it. Get it. Cool, let’s rock!

World.  A place of lies, a place of hypocrites. Yes, the last word of the last sentence is very important! Keep it in mind! It’s addressed in the last part of the blog. The world is not a fairy tale. It can never be. Never will the poverty end, never will corruption end, and never will the crimes and vices be abolished from the society. And it’s stupid of us to expect so. Why? Because right in our school days itself, in a very insignificant maths lecture, one of the most significant truths of our life was spoken – Nothing can be 100% precise. It translates to some imperfections still being there no matter how much we try. Imperfections will exist everywhere. And the models, to which this statement is applicable, are everywhere. Hence, the rich will be rich, the poor will be poor. And there will always be this space. Simply because the rich can’t constitute the entire 100%. The poor can’t constitute the entire 100%. And on top of that, no one can be rich if no one is poor, and no one can be poor if no one is rich. It’s all relative, baby! And it’s all about the Arbitrary Balance which the entire universe tries to achieve every single moment, right from the time of its inception. That’s the law! Corruption will be there and it has to be there, Scarcity has to be there, vices will be there. Even in elections, no candidate or party will be cent percent fair and honest to the people. It’s a mistake to expect what will never happen. And it will never happen because the balance has to be there! And who would balance the entire weight of negativity? Everyone out there who feels for the poor, who is angry against corruption or is against any damn crime, is the answer.

But there’s one more twist to the theory, honey. What do you think,  these sets of the unlawful and the lawful are constant? People who now are good and those who are bad, will be like this till eternity? NO!!  Nothing in this fucking world is constant, and these two categories too keep shifting within the same set of people. Why? It’s because people themselves are a part of that stupid balance as well. They can’t be just white or black. They all are just changing proportions of the noir. Complete Grey doesn’t exist (balanced life doesn’t exist). One who says is stable or is leading a balanced life, is either ignorant towards the truth, (i.e. he’s lying anyway) or dead. Cent percent Grey is the balance. It can never be achieved. Death is grey. Till life exists, the black and the white will always keep fighting within themselves. 

Now, a sub topic of this theory would consist of fine tuning our heart and mind. And that is – Stop wasting your time sympathizing for the subjugated. Just accept the reality, and get on with it. No matter how much you feel, you give your bit, give your everything, they will still remain. Maybe not in the same location or in front of you, but elsewhere, it will still exist. That’s how the system is designed. I know it’s easier said than done, but this is it! These feelings will be useful only to those MBA in Marketing people who earn lakhs per month but frequently run out of advertisement ideas, and time and again promote products by tickling this sympathizing nerve of Indian psychology and showcasing that their products are somehow related to addressing those issues. And this trick clicks, every time. No wonder India’s literacy rate is so low. Save your time. Move on.

Talking about Black and White, either of the two can be called the imperfection of a model. Imperfections are everywhere. They’re very small, but they are there. They’re dark and sometimes forbidden. But as Mark Twain said, “There’s something about the forbidden which makes it even more irresistible”. The huge category of things which we club under the word ‘fun’ in our own lives consists of a number of such imperfections, the irresistible ones, which ought to be resisted. “But why resisted? And for whom? Why would anyone stop having fun?” we ask. And the simple answer is, many a times what we feel good in doing, feeling or saying, isn’t just good, it’s a slow death. On that particular moment, we never realize how much instability it will bring into our world in the future. But years down the line, realizations dawn upon us. And that’s probably what we call as ‘Experience’.  We are responsible for everything around us. No one else. We are the society, its being created by our thoughts, our actions and our attitude, each of which is controlled by our very own brain! So why not rein our mind. How? By imbibing the values which, in an age of materialism and westernization have been long lost. Who would read a Gita in an age of Fifty Shades… Dark feels irresistible. Complete resistance isn’t possible. But the push is what’s needed. We must learn to control our rage and impulses, and not to mention, the never ending lust of feeling high every single second of life!

Hypocrite and Hypocrisy are wrong feelings. I mentioned about the shift of the black and white within the same set of people. One person can never be just white or black. If anyone observes this person for a time long enough for this change to take place, that anyone (read the world around the person) will call him hypocrite. It’s just a human phenomenon. It’s you. It’s me. It’s everyone around us. If this entire matter has been too big for you to digest, just look into your brain, and be honest to yourself.

To my dearest juniors….

Hello friends, hope you are doing great. Even if you’re not, don’t worry. It’s just a phase of life and will pass away. Just keep up your ‘smart’ (more important than hard) work consistently. It has almost been a year since I completed my graduation. However, there hasn’t been a single day when I didn’t miss my college days, especially the hostel days. Recently declared GATE results and the emotions following it brought back many memories of my four years of graduation. From targeting the seniors and friends who scored high for unending parties in college canteens, to accompanying those who found their inner peace in smoking joints at Thapri rather than looking at their results, this is one exam which one may feel to be the make or break for his/her engineering career. This was the case in our college at least, but I guess it might be similar in other engineering colleges as well. I used to feel sad seeing the aspirations and hopes of my friends come dashing onto the grounds of reality, and what followed the result was even more saddening. Cursing the college, its management, its placement team with simultaneous increase in the intake of nicotine and alcohol to lessen the pain of failure never worked, dear friends. The point is, things aren’t that bad after all! If one can survived the gruelling four years of engineering, I am sure that he/she can face and eventually overcome any damn challenge life throws at them. It’s just that one needs to work out the things using a different route and while doing so, learn few lessons which will come handy later on.

Like everyone, I have learnt a lot from my college life. It has given me everything which one can ask for. However, the journey was not always a merry one, and it was during my tough times that I learnt my life’s lessons and laid the foundations of my future success on them.  This is the main motive behind this blog. Call it an advice from a person who has already traversed the path you are travelling, or anything; here are the certain points which will always help you in your graduation life, and some alternate career paths available apart from the most commonly known ones.

Let’s start with the lesson points.

1. Always have at least 2 back up plans: The point of paramount importance, whatever you do, always have back ups. Uncertainty of future has its own adventure, but without proper planning, it might land you on a tricky situation. The reason why I started my blog with the example of the GATE exam is that students usually don’t plan beyond GATE (and campus interviews). Evaluating the conditions in and around our college, it’s not easy to crack the coveted exam. Since there’s a factor of uncertainty, I believe one should definitely have air bags activated to save their career in case it crashes with harsh reality. The latter half of the blog deals with it.
2. Keep building your resume : From your second year itself, start building your resume. It has two sides – the academic side, and the co-curricular + extra-curricular side. Make the utmost use of the free wi-fi provided to you, not only by downloading movies, but also by completing online courses from reputed institutions like MIT’s Open Course Ware  http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm , NPTEL courses http://nptel.ac.in/noc/  and edX online certification courses https://www.edx.org/  to strengthen your resume’s academic facet. They are abundant on the net and it takes only 1-2 hrs/day. When you will be facing the interview panel ,these certifications will give you a definite upper edge. To strengthen your co-curricular + extra-curricular side, make sure to get involved either as a participant or as an organizer in as many events occurring in your campus as possible. The exposure which they provide hones your soft skills to the levels required in the corporate sector. Without soft skills, no organization will select a candidate even if he/she has good technical knowledge.
3. Stop blaming and complaining: Will taking part in blame games and non-stop complaining about the ‘factors’ which should have helped, or worked in your favour, going to get you a job? Is it going to get you better grades? Is it going to help you improve your exam score after the results are out? The answer is a simple NO. This is the biggest mistake which we do. The bitter truth of the world is only you are responsible for your present state. No one owes the responsibility of your career, apart from you! Get this thing clear. The more you complain the more time and energy you waste. So, no matter how much it tempts and excites you to get indulged, stop spreading negativity around your career.

3. Never let out your plans if they haven’t materialized: One should avoid boasting about one’s future plans or even casually sharing it with people. You never know who’s keeping you in their mind. Achieve what you’re planning, and then announce. This is an important point. Remember it.
4. Don’t expect to mint money immediately after you leave the college: Minting money is something which shouldn’t be our main objective simply because most of us won’t be able to. We aren’t graduating from IITs / reputed NITs / IIMs that companies will offer us lakhs & lakhs of rupees as our starting salary. If that would have been our wish, we ought to have worked hard in our 11^th & 12^th Since we didn’t, it’s better to keep the expectations real.

 Now, let’s take a look what all options are actually open for an engineering student after graduation. Keep in mind that these are the back up plans about which we read in the first point, and all of them need considerable planning and analysis before being considered as options.

1. Walk-in Interviews / Open Campus Interviews : Probably the most common way of getting yourself placed, apart from your institute’s campus interviews are the open campus drives and the walk-in interviews. In your third year, observe which all colleges are mainly conducting such drives. Target them, start developing connections and networks with the students of those colleges to get the latest placements news. Also, mobile apps such as Indeed, naukri.com, Employment news, shine.com, monster jobs etc. keep you aware of the recruitment opportunities going on nearby.
2. Start-up Companies are the new cool! : Believe me, they are! You start your career directly from the mangerial level, and get paid more! Just Google the top 50 start-ups in India, start applying. If you have decent communication skills, you are bound to get a call from a number of them. Check the following links: http://www.startupranking.com/top/india , http://sutrahr.com/top-startups-india-2016-best-list/ , http://www.businesstoday.in/cooleststartups/2015/ . Or if you are really heck bent on getting a job, start applying in the popular apps which you use or just tune in a business channel like CNBC, note down all the companies which you like from the stock exchange, and keep on applying!
3. Online Placements: What if your placement team wasn’t able to get you placed at all? What will you do? Will you keep brooding over that fact or will you act fast to get a good job? Second sounds a better option right? Like I said, only you are responsible for your career. Don’t expect from others. Expectations hurt. If you get selected in campus placement, great! Nothing like it! But if not, why will you depend on others for the same. Here are two most popular sites which conduct exams and offer you jobs directly on the basis of your performance in the test. AMCAT https://www.myamcat.com/  and E-LITMUS https://www.elitmus.com/ . Check out the others here http://apuzz.com/top-5-national-employability-aptitude-test-freshers/
4. The CAT family: This point deals with the plan of preparing for the MBA degree. If you ask anyone how to get admitted into a domestic MBA program, most of the people will say it’s only via CAT. But there are a number of other exams as well, such as  XAT, SNAP, CMAT, MAT, etc. Just check this link: http://www.time4education.com/cat-mba/Beyond-CAT.aspx , http://www.tcyonline.com/mba/exams.php . All these exams are very competitive and have their own pattern with varying levels of difficulty, but they can be cracked easily. These exams need 2 years of proper preparation. Arun Sharma books are of decent levels. This option helps you inch forward towards your high-paying job. Prepare well. Don’t make the same mistake which you did in Class 12^th
5. Foreign Calling! : Perhaps the most lucrative option amongst all would be fulfilling your childhood dream to live in a foreign country! That too on your own academic merit! How cool is that! Yes anyone can pursue his/her Masters from abroad. If you’re interested for pursuing Masters in a technical line, GRE is the exam. It’s conducted by ETS and is accepted world wide. Here’s the link to its official site http://www.ets.org/gre/ . Visit it, check out the colleges offering the course of your choice (Mind you, there’s an ocean of programs which they offer. Research meticulously to find out which program suits you the best and the college rankings of that particular program). It would be an MS degree. However, also keep in mind that one can pursue the foreign Masters after gaining 2-3 years of work experience, but it’s not essential. One can pursue MS right after graduation. Here are some other interesting links: http://www.masterstudies.com/Masters-Degree/Programs/  , http://www.bestmastersdegrees.com/masters-degrees-that-pay-the-most  . Now, if someone wishes to pursue Management from abroad, it’s GMAT for them. International MBAs require at least 3 years of work experience. Hence, the course equivalent to the one being taught in IIMs is MIM or Masters in Management, whose criteria is work experience of 0-2 years. It’s conducted by GMAC. The official site link is http://www.mba.com/india . However, the only downside of this option is the high examination fee of 15,000 INR, and the high program cost. If you have excellent CGPA, and a GMAT score of above 650, scholarships will lessen your financial burden significantly. And as of the exam fee, saving 1000 rupees every month from your canteen and Thapri expense for a year and a half will give you its ticket (Believe me, it’s worth the save)
6. Fellowships: The latest kid on the block is Fellowship! Some of them are even more valuable than an equivalent corporate work experience. Check out the best fellowships in our country here http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2014/03/7-fellowship-programs-india-must-miss/ This is a valuable option which isn’t well known by people Hence, do consider it!

 Each and every one of our college’s student deserves a chance to shape his/her own bright future. This is a small attempt in that direction. Hope you had an informative read. If you have any queries regarding the post, feel free to contact me. Wishing you all the best for your future, and don’t forget to enjoy responsibly your college life. They are the 4 magical years of your life! Relish them to their best! Good Luck!