Story of an engineer's life in 20 simple steps

Stolen from 31wpm who stole it from Amie's multiply. I hope you can forgive me Amie, but I just couldn't control myself. This is beyond brilliant!

Reminds me of a post I had written a long time back. It was pretty funny, so I was told. If you feel like reading it, click here. I tried to do it with words but it's not possible to put it in a better way than this.

EVERY NEW SEMESTER

AFTER THE FIRST WEEK

AFTER THE SECOND WEEK

BEFORE MIDTERMS

DURING MIDTERMS

AFTER MIDTERMS

BEFORE FINALS

AFTER KNOWING THE SCHEDULE OF THE FINAL EXAMS

7 DAYS BEFORE FINALS

6 DAYS BEFORE FINALS

5 DAYS…

4 DAYS…

3…

2…

1…

NIGHT BEFORE THE FINALS

1 HOUR BEFORE THE EXAM

DURING THE FINAL EXAM

AFTER WALKING OUT OF THE CLASSROOM

AFTER THE FINAL EXAMS (HOLIDAY)

Points: 1 million points to Amie for cheering me up. Thank you.

I don't give out points on request but because this really cheered me up, ummm 1 bonus point to Kritika and another to Nandita (who actually found the link).

Please visit 31wpm & Amie's multiply for the original post(s).

P.S. - Bonus points are just for show. They don't matter.

That Horrible Feeling

I was sitting infront of my computer, going through my mail, feeling very tired and sleepy. It had been a long day. In the morning I had gone to the passport office to apply for a new one and miraculously my application was accepted in the first try! It took another hour and a half after verification to complete the process though. I got out just in time, the crowd was getting restless and some senior citizen started shouting at the lady behind the counter and eveerybody joined in and I left(hehehe). I didn't go to college then because didn't have any classes, and had more important plans. My best friend Gaurav's long overdue birthday treat. We went to CP, where Nishtha joined us. Gaurav had also brought his 4 year old nephew, Harsh, along. He didn't speak much of english or hindi because he lives in Netherlands and was here for Gaurav's sister's(his aunt) wedding. The wedding whcih I could not attend because I had broke my leg two days prior to it(I didn't mean to, it's the universe I tell you! aaaaaaarghhh). Anyways, so Gaurav showed us all the pics of the wedding, we had lunch and then took a walk outside central park with Harsh on my shoulders. That was fun.

It's evening now and I'm back to I was sitting infront of the computer. My phone rang, I picked it up lazily, it was Kritz, and the first words she said were "Result aa gaya". She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone like it's no big deal. But my insides had already sunk and my heartbeat had skyrocketed. Those three words are enough to bring a dead engineer back to life, I was just sleepy. I didn't quite hear what else she had to say, but I got the words "I passed" and "yippie!" before I hung up. I logged on to the website and first couldn't get through because of all the traffic. I punched the refresh key for a few hundred thousand times and was praying to whoever is out there for passing without a BACK. The page finally opened, I punched in my roll number and those 2 seconds before the page appeared could give anyone a heart attack, anyone except an engineer. I closed my eyes and prayed one last time and opened them to see it on the screen. My eyes scrolled to the most important column on the page, no not the marks, it's this:

My hands shot up in ecstacy and I let out a loud "YESS!!!" and did a small dance to rejoice. This column here signifies that I cleared all the subjects, i.e. got 30 or more. Then I go to the second most important(not important actually as long as the first one is fine) column just below it. It's out of a thousand and it's my best ever odd semester result so far! Thank you once again........my luck, for sticking with me. And congrats to everyone who experienced this same special horrible wonderful moment like me.

P.S. - Sorry for everyone who couldn't.

4/5 going on to 7/8

Ahhh. Four down, one to go. The last exam will be over on the 18th. Then I'll be 7/8th of an engineer. Whoopi!! Just one more sem, 4 more papers and one project away from being a full-fledged Electrical Engineer(purely in the designational sense of the word, I'll be damned if I could distinguish between a motor and a generator!).

So 4 exams in 7 days, how does it feel? Tired to the bone marrow. Late nights, fighting away sleep, hanging out with books, talking on phone about studies, squeezing time for Indo-Pak test(not really, it was the other way round), even skipped dinner a few times because I forgot!! That's the gravity of the situation.

So anyways, the entire exam itinerary went as follows.

• Started preparing on the 31st because had prjoect and internal exams till 30th.
• Actually started on the 1st, you know how it is.
• Kept shuffling through the syllabus, deciding which one to do first.
• Left the most difficult subject for later(wow that's a surprise!!).
• Didn't actually do anything at home, not my faut though, India were playing so well.
• Went to friend's place to group-study without anyone studying the same subject as me. The trick was that if everyone around me were studying, so would I. Hahaha, well tried(not really).
• Went again the following day because had to do an easy subject. Ended up arranging a birthday party. Did cover 1/5th of the subject.
• One day before the exam. Studied actually. Lost interest just before the last few chapters. To hell with it, I'll pass anyways.
• Exam time. New Centre super-far away. Wrote crap for three hours non-stop. One down, 4 to go.

And now here we are, 4 down 1 to go. The next three were...well....on the same lines mostly. The "big one" was second and as always there's an element of doubt about passing that one. Third one was comparitively easy and the paper went well too. Yesterday, the paper was a bomb but I managed to scrape through. For High Voltage(2nd) and Power Systems(4th) I literally studied for only one day during the entire semester!! Entrepreurship(1st) and Switchgear(3rd) come in second at two days each, one earlier during the sem(yes you read it correctly, don't go back) and one before the exam.

Pretty good, that's like 1x2+2x2+1x3(for last exam)=9 days! Add a couple more for internals and project work etc. That brings the grand total to.......let's say 12....nah 14. Yeah 14 sounds good. So two weeks of studying in one semester. Hmmm...that's a lot isn't it? :p

The Horror Returns

It is that time of the year again when everything is secondary to a single purpose in life : to pass in the end semester exams. This unfortunate event occurs two times in a year and if all goes well, this would be the penultimate time I'm faced with this monstrosity. By the looks of things, that might be a distant possibility.

The date sheet has been devised in such a way that we can only "revise" in the time between successive papers. Earlier, the exams used to start somewhere in the mid of December so we used to get around 10-12 days to prepare all the subjects. But this time, Satan's little helpers down at the University decided to cut that time short by a week. Now, I have 5 days to prepare 3 subjects completely. The fourth subject being non-electrical and mostly theoretical will have to be covered 2 days before the exam. For the fifth, I have 3 days because it is the only exam with a break that long, it is also the last exam.

So 5 days and three subjects is my immediate problem. Simple calculation puts it at 3 units a day, every subjct comprising of 5 units of 20 marks weightage each. Today was the first of these 5 days and I've covered....ummm...1 unit I think. And the day is over! So I already have a backlog of around 2 units on my first day. Well done!!

The three subjects I'm "working on" right now are driving me against the wall. Power System is totally alien to me, Switchgear looks menacing and manageable at the same time and High Voltage(HV) makes me clench my teeth every time I hear the name. Those bloody idiots in my class opted for this instead of DBMS!! How dumb can you get?!!

Anyway, can't change anything now so will have to fight it out. Immediate change of strategy tells me that if I work on only 3 units per subject right now, it should be close to good enough to pass and then I can work on the rest of the syllabus when I get the time. Sounds good to me.

How I stick to Hope!

By the way: I didn't bell the CAT, it belled my ass. I did ok in Quant and DI, getting 57 by combining both of them. When I add my English score to this total I end up with 54! You do the math now. Still can't believe it though. English!! Of all the subjects ENGLISH!!!!

The CAT and mouse game ends

Finally gave the CAT exam today. I'm more relieved than anything else. CAT 2007 kinda sprang a surprise by sticking to the same paper format as last year: 75 Qs, +4 -1. I'm very comfortable with this format because you can give more time to each question. The paper was on the tougher side but not too tough. I could only manage 13 Qs in English which is ok by most standards but not mine. It wasn't that tough but it was tough to concentrate with many fellow examinees whining in the middle of the exam that they had to go to the loo!! We were told that we will not be allowed to leave the classroom once the paper starts. But these idiots just won't stop whining. In the end they had to hold it, didn't they! But they had to waste our precious time whining and crying and arguing. Fools!

Anyways, now I can concentrate on my semester exams(right!) and finalise the magazine which is in really bad shape because the new people we recruited just haven't made the cut yet.

My internet is permanently shutdown and this is just a lucky break I got. Will try and keep in touch as much as possible.

Siddu Pass Hogaya!!!

Due to unavoidable circumstances, I haven't been able to update as often as I do. Part of the reason is that I'm not at home and the other part is that I don't have the time to sit infront of the computer for long durations.

My result finally arrived. I PASSED!! All the subjects, even Machine Design. Yahooooooooo! And I also got my best result till date - 64.5%. The pleasure you can derive from even the simplest of things!!

I would like to thank........UPTU for finally declaring the result and UPTU again for having mercy on this poor soul and letting him move forward and upwards(?) on the ladder of engineering. I would also like to thank my friends(Rohan and Prachi mostly) for helping me through this ordeal like always and also congratulate them on their wonderful performances.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my luck which has been with me for the whole of this semester and hope it continues to remain by my side. Finally I can call myself lucky! Thanks.....

Step 13 commences

Yes!! It is finally over. Relief washed over me as soon as the final siren blared(yeah it's not a bell but a wierd factory siren), literally! As I stepped out of the exam hall, I was greeted by the cool sweet drops of what can only be described as drops of heaven. The weather matched my mood - GREAT!!! It really doesn't matter how the exam was today. Not now!! I'm freeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! No more books for atleast another week. I'm going to chill out and do all the things on my list of 'things-to-do-after-exams'.

<---I can't believe it's finally over.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of relief.........

For the record, I might not flunk after all. "Might" is the keyword here. I'll start worrying about step 12 when the rumours about the result coming out start flying around. Until then its complete focus on step 13.

The Last Looooong Mile

4 down, just one horrible incomprehensible son-of-a-bitch subject to go viz. Machine Design more popularly(fearfully) known as CAD(computer aided design). I'm on step 8 of the design ladder.

Today's exam(Power Station Practice) went better than I had expected. By my standards it was a good paper to give. For the uninitiated my standards are very low. I usually just pass in 2-3 subjects. So a good paper is one in which I pass comfortably and then score a few extra marks that help in improving my otherwise dismal percentage. Now my goal is to maintain a percentage above 60.75%. The exact figure because that is what it looked like when I got placed in Infosys. So to maintain my placement status to 2 placements(the other one being HCL) rather than 1, that figure has to be maintained or overshot(yeeeaaaah right!!).

About Power Station Practice, the chosen subject of testing for today's exam, I would say that I prepared well but not that well because after giving 3 exams, there is this natural tendency to ease up a little(in my case a little more) on the preparations for the remaining 2. The subject was not tough, but the only problem I encountered while studying it was being flooded with a number of ideas for alternate sources of producing energy which ate up most of my time. They just wouldn't budge! There is this particular idea which is still hovering and I plan to do something about it seriously. Who knows it just might work! Hoping for a Google Story would be foolish and way way over-ambitious, but I'm just hoping to be able to figure out all its details and maybe, MAYBE develop a practical working model for my final year project. Ahhhh HOPE. What a wonderful illusion.

Anyways, coming back to the harsh reality, dreams will have to wait till the day after tomorrow. That is when I get rid of this demon called CAD.

May the force be with me.

Conventional And Computer Aided Design Of Flunking

The following is the step-by-step procedure for the design of flunking in your end semester exams(all the expressions have their usual meanings) :

1. At the start of the semester, find out the toughest subject which is a part of your syllabus.
2. Tell yourself that you will work really hard on this subject.
3. Tell yourself that first you will take care of rest of the subjects and then devote maximum time to this subject.
4. Study all the other subjects only as much as required to pass in the examinations so that you save extra time to devote to this subject which you will otherwise fail.
5. Don't study this subject when you have ample amount of time because it is too damn tough and it is easier to score in other subjects(or that's what you think).
6. Panic as the exams draw closer and finally take up the subject with the determination to conquer it by any means possible.
7. Realize the vastness and the endlessness of the course.
8. Try to do the important topics that might save your ass.
9. If list of important topics too large, give up. Else do the needful.
10. Donot revise what you have done and try to gobble up as much of the course as possible just before the exam.
11. Forget everything during the exam.
12. Hope and pray that you manage to scrape through with whatever information you have provided in your otherwise blank paper.
13. Enjoy as much of the holidays as possible before the result comes.
14. On finding out the obvious after the declaration of the result, regret your actions and sulk and be miserable.
15. Resolve to not let this mishap repeat ever again and to study harder from then on.
16. Start of new semester.
17. Goto step 1.

As clearly mentioned above, it is a non-terminating repeating process which can only be stopped by the application of extremely "Lucky" conditions and the only way to achieve these conditions is to be brave according to the Law of Luck & Bravery which states that "We wait for the luck to smile, it smiles on those who are brave. But those who are brave, never wait for their luck to smile on them."

I'm not brave. I'm an Engineer for god's sake!!

OOPS!!

Finally I had the opportunity to give a paper in which my fingers ached after writing so much. Yesssss! I had so many hopes from this paper so definitely I'm a little disappointed at how it went. It could've been a lot better. But I console myself by comparing it to the other exams and
it feels much better.

It would've been better if 15 minutes weren't wasted in finding out that the question paper we had recieved was indeed meant for us. Because the same paper had come two days ago for our juniors! It even said "Fourth Semester Examination"!! Those bloody fools at the university sent a notice saying the paper was correct, it was a printing mistake. Printing mistake my ass! There wasn't even a single question from the last unit of the syllabus for which we had to go through a complete seperate book!! And(sob sob) to top it all up(sob sob) not one mark worth of programming.

Ah well, after a good paper like that, who's complaining? :P

P.S. For all the people from the CS and IT branches - I'm really sorry for writing such things after witnessing what you people went through today. I hope all of you pass.

May the Farce be with you

Another exam(power system analysis), another 3 hours of life wasted away in pleasing some old, fat, oily-haired, tobacco chewing, good for nothing teacher somewhere in the remote areas of UP, with the answers written on my answer sheet, hoping against hope that he will find it in his heart to give me atleast 30 measly marks out of a 100. It was an easy paper only if I had remembered all the stuff I had read and thought that it was committed to memory. It turns out that I assume too much.

At one point of time, having nothing to write, I was tempted to write about the amazing light-saber duel between Darth Vader and his son Luke Skywalker, or about how Frodo was burdened with the responsibility of carrying The One Ring. It just might have worked because we've been told that an examiner checks about 50 papers in an hour maybe. Thats like just a minute per paper! So he looks at the handwriting, the way the answer has been written, how long it is and if there are any figures accompanying the answers. The more of these criterions an answer fulfills, the more marks it gets.

So writing about those epic movies would certainly have helped the length of my answers. But I don't think the examiner would have appreciated a figure of Darth Vaders helmet or lightsaber instead of the impedance diagran representing a single line-to-ground fault in a three phase ac system. So I decided to make do with whatever was left in my depleted memory.

I just hope it was enough.

Fault Protection

I hope God is out to prove that he exists because I seriously need him to do it. I gave the exam today. It went ummmmm, you know..... it just went.

Now I will engage in a battle with Newton and Gauss and two of their other colleagues who designed such ruthless algorithms for finding out errrr something which I don't give a rat's ass about.

I'm waiting, you listening up there? If you're there, that is.

Rectify!!

Its 1.30 am. I just emerged out of my books. I have studied a lot by my standards. But I don't think it's going to be enough. I'll have to revise everything tomorrow and also cover the bits I've left(which is a lot) for later. Studies are a pain in the butt, especially when you have to figure out stuff like the output voltage and current waveforms of a three phase to single phase cycloconverter along with a lot of other stuff. Whew!! It would have been a lot easier if the circuit diagrams of the cycloconverters were somewhat different from those of the phase controlled rectifiers or the ac voltage controllers. But nooooooooooooooooo, they all have to have minor modifications like having a freewheeling diode in one circuit but not in the other because it helps in smoothening the final output. Or something like that. I have no clue about anything.

I don't even think what I've just written makes any sense. Well I hope the examiner doesn't read my answers as closely otherwise I'll be studying this shit again next year too. If there is a God, He will prove his existence by having me pass this subject comfortably enough to avoid any chances of a phase inversion which leads to the rectification of the date of passing on my degree.

Does that make me crazy?

I know what's good for me, well most of the times I do. But sometimes even when I know that something is good for me, I go the opposite way and do something else. For eg., right this very moment I should be immersed deeply inside 'A Course in Electrical Machine Design' by A K Sawhney but I'm right here surfing the net and writing posts for my blog. Tsk tsk tsk...but not really.

The end-semester exams start in 4 days and this is a subject for which I'm sure I'll be lucky if I even pass. And that is because I have not given it the due importance it deserves. And that is because it is so damn tough!! Anyways, I wasted the whole day today thinking about studying it. In the morning, I switched on the TV to look at the score of the India - Bangladesh match. As soon as I switched on, the player who had just completed his century was clean bowled. So obviuosly I switched the channel. Then I started watching some movie on another channel. I told myself that I'll watch it till 12 noon and then switch it off. But it got interesting. Dammit! Then I whiled away my time here and there giving myself stupid excuses to not start studying. Then came lunch, talked a while on the phone and when I finally sat down with the book, I fell asleep! I didn't sleep for very long though, but when I woke up I found something else to occupy my time and it went on and on like that.

And now there is no time left to study it because other subjects also have to be given time. I know that if I had studied today it would've done me a world of good. I also know for sure that I'm going to regret this later, and that something could still have been done. But instead, I chose to write this down. So I know that this is not going to do me any good, but still here I am. I must be crazy or is that just another stupid excuse?