A collection of thought provoking articles

Yes. I have begun another collection, one which I hope will be regularly updated. This is a collection of the best of the articles I have ever read. I have already forgotten a lot of them. But from here on I am going to save them here:

1. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?234562-0#
2. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279557 
3. http://dsanghi.blogspot.in/2012/06/jee-2013-open-letter.html

Probably the most important piece I will ever post

When I explained my philosophy to people,

• My close friends took it as my strange sense of humour and laughed
• My not so close friends took it as satire and laughed
• My "non-friend" acquaintances pitied me and laughed
• My parents became over-concerned and tried to convince me their ways
• My teachers thought I was crazy and tried to counsel me

Nevertheless I lived my philosophy. I succeeded in

• failing for the first time
• failing repeatedly
• procrastinating the so called "most important work" to the point everybody became exasperated with me (Actually I never finished it till date)
• I enjoyed obscenely. I still do.
• I screwed up
• I was hated
• People envied me
• People said I am just another attention seeker

And so I LIVED. I STILL LIVE.

Now I see that people are mailing each other this piece of speech:
http://halfhalf.posterous.com/dont-work-be-hated-love-someone

People say that it resonates with them. Still they forget it after forwarding the mail to someone else.
I am not as articulate as the litigator here. May be I failed to explain to the people. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I have definitely crossed the barrier of "AVERAGE". And this is one thing I am never going to be apologetic or humble about.

I have not loved yet. That is the only thing in their left to be achieved by me. JEE ended my life. I have lived after death. YES I HAVE!

No amount of money will I trade that with...........

RIP IITJEE......But what next?

Everyone I meet, (by everyone I mean IITians of course) are mourning. They are mourning the end of their precious IITJEE. They mourned when the pattern was changed from subjective to objective. They mourned when the standard of the objective examination fell below that of AIEEE. Now they are mourning the end of that very thing altogether. Yes, unsurprisingly I am one of them. But this post is not another nostalgic bout about those JEE days, nor it is how the politicians erred in scrapping JEE. This post is about what to do next, now that the ultimate sieve which selected the best and the brightest, pushed them to such intellectual limits has been done away with.

Is it going to be any good now that students who excel in their board examinations through sheer hard work and rote learning, will come to join these premier Institutes of India. Let us analyze that first. Some of the people think the hard earned reputation of the IIT alumni that ropes in hundreds of companies during the first few weeks of placement will take a hit. The placements will take a hit because the companies won't want these "substandard" student. This argument has no merit whatsoever because firstly, there are hardly any job these companies offer that require above average intellect. Anybody who has passed higher secondary can be trained to do these jobs. In fact all IITians who join these companies regularly complain about how mundane the jobs are, how anybody can do them and how bored they wanted to have more challenging jobs. So if anybody can do them they why not the future batch of students. One thing, I think everybody agrees on is that whoever comes out of the new system will possess one particular attribute. He/She will be hardworking. And that is all you need to be successful in the company you join. Secondly, most of the IITians leave their first job after four-five years for greener pasture. Because, if you are good enough, and IITians in general are, then there will always be another company willing to hire you for a better salary. But if the new batch students aren't that good, then they won't have another company waiting for them. So they will stick to their old jobs, which the companies recruiting from IITs will actually prefer. They don't want their training to go down the drain when the employee leaves them for a better package. They want to suck every last bit the employee can offer. Therefore the placements won't suffer. In fact these days companies who are suddenly preferring M.Techs to B.Techs at IITs because undergraduates simply don't stay put, will be back hiring the undergraduates by hordes.
The other issue that concerns the IIT alumni is that the quality of research will fall. By research they mean post graduate research. Ans since all of the IITians who are inclined towards research leave India for foreign Universities, even if the quality of research suffers, it would not affect India. Obviously the charm that the IIT degree exudes to the foreign universities will fade with time if the quality of students coming out of IIT falls, but ideally that should not affect the students individually. If you are good enough you can do it from an ordinary Indian Institution. You don't need the push that the IIT Degree gives you. To be established among the best and the brightest one needs to pass through a rigorous examination, If it is not JEE then it will be the one after your graduation when these elite foreign universities will examine all aspects of your life- your projects, your grades, your GRE score, etc because the weightage given to the IIT degree would not be given any more.

Overall I think the system will self-heal. Those who are concerned that the students who are actually skilled in analysis and problem solving won't get into IITs can be rest assured. They will find a way to get in. You ask how can I be sure? I can be sure of it because most of my fellow IIT students that I have met have been school toppers. And personally, I have the confidence of clearing any exam in the world given six months of solid hard work. So I believe the deserving students will find a way to clear the board examinations with distinctions. I won't be surprised if the top marks in the various board examinations climbs a few notch or two because of the competition it is attracting.

So relax guys. Let our juniors enjoy a better college life because one thing is sure to happen. The abysmal sex ratio at IITs is going to change overnight. And after all is said and done, life is supposed to be fun. Its sure going to be more fun for the juniors in this aspect. If they don't discuss the fine nuances of chaos, fractals and relativistic mechanics, so what? As long as the company remains uniform, (uniformly dull or uniformly bright) it is not going to matter.

The Campus Placement story

Imagine the plight of a child (say its a boy) in India, born to a middle-class family. Now I hate this fucking middle class mentality but that story is oft told and let us put it away for the moment. Now the child is told stories about heroes and achievers of the world. Nope Vivekanandas, Gandhis and the Kalams aren't the heroes in those stories. The heroes are the second cousins twice removed who made it big after they obtained a "highly coveted" engineering degree from a "reputed" institute. And by making it big, I mean, either he works at Goldman Sachs or at TCS depending upon which end of the spectra his family belongs to. Or he might have passed out of an IIT and become some never to be heard of professor at a US University. So the child starts to dream big. "Dude, I am going to crack JEE, get a 50 lpa job at an MNC (or win the noble prize in the case of the class prodigy), marry the most beautiful girl, spend money on anything and everything ( like ride an Audi A8 W12, wear Breguet watches and saville row suits, live in a farmhouse), in short enjoy the life......" or some variant of this dialogue. Somebody (the media, the second cousins, the parents, the all-knowing neighbours and teachers) puts it in their brains that the "khul ja sim sim" to this treasure trove is IIT. Therefore JEE......... Now how to crack jee? Why? They have all the answers "Practice makes a man perfect" "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" So the youth (no longer a child) practices, perspires until he has solved some 20,000 different problems from various books to get into the treasure trove called IIT. Now what happens next?

"Dude, before I came in here I thought everybody got 70 lpa jobs in companies like facebook. At the end of 4 years I can hardly find a company willing to part with 6 lpa without a 3-year bond. On top of that, some 4 lpa company comes in conducts 3 levels of tests, then GDs and then 2 levels of interviews to select students. Seriously WTF is going on?.................And its been 15 days. I am still not placed yet." So the sympathetic (actually apathetic) friend says "What the hell are you talking about? So many companies with the most lucrative packages have come and gone. Why can't you get a job?"

Why the hell can't I get a job then?

1. Because my department isn't Computer Science. Select few get the chance to study computer science in IIT. But most companies with the lucrative packages come for CS guys. So why the fuck would the authority keep increasing the mechanical engineering seats and not computer science seats?

2. Because after wasting the whole of my youth in this treasure trove locked behind the doors of freedom, I wanted out so desperately I thought just give me a job and I will leave this place, never look back. Never did it occur to me to go for higher studies. Therefore I thought why the hell practice for CAT, GRE, CFA, etc when I am not going to do it?

Then comes our companies:

Day 1: All finance companies with the 10 lpa jobs..........question: What are options?

Me: Beg your pardon..

Q: options??? never heard of it?

Me: (what I should have said) Motherfucker, have you heard of the term herringbone gear or Bell-Coleman Cycle? What the hell do you think I was doing these 4 years in here? If you don't even know which subject I did my majors in, why the hell come in here to recruit people like us? And If you think we are talented enough that a training program at your company will make horses out of us donkeys, then why the hell ask this question even before recruitment?

And the show goes on.........

Day 7: The time of the consulting companies........

Its the written test... I am finding the aptitude questions easy enough. Any high school student should be able to solve them. The point however isn't if you are able to solve them. Its whether you can do it in time. Now who does that? Only those guys who have practiced rigorously for CAT, GRE, etc. Now, what does it tell you about their intentions? That they are never going to join the companies even if they are selected or even if they join they are going to leave as soon as they find greener pastures.

So can the genius recruiters say why the fuck people like me who are going to remain faithful to the job can't clear the test?

And the show goes on.........

Day 15: The time of the IT Companies.........

Me: "Dude, Seriously? After all the hard work in high school to get into IIT, then all the boring work of hammering and filing through the mechanical engineering classes, I am going to join a 6 lpa software firm, that too after I have already forgotten the syntax of the scanf statement?"

Nevertheless I sit for the test which comprises of mostly botany questions like how many leaves in a tree, which I can make neither head or tail of. However I do solve the puzzles part. Lo and Behold! I get shortlisted for interviews. The first interview is HR interview......

Interviewer: Take me through your CV

Me: blah blah blah....

Interviewer: What is your aim in life?

Me: (what I should have said) Dammit! The aim right now is to get out of this hellhole and yes it includes this particular room

Interviewer: where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

Me: (what everyone should say) Listen asshole! Today I am giving an interview for a job at a software firm. This morning I was sitting for a test in a core company Yesterday I appeared for a GD in a consulting firm. A few days back I was updating my knowledge in derivatives which no longer seem to involve my beloved greek letters, because the finance guy was offering 15 lpa behind the interview table. Nobody knows where I am going to get a job or what kind of job I am going to do? I don't even know what will happen tomorrow. So how the fuck would I know where I would be 5 years from now?

Interviewer: So tell me about your strengths.....

Me: (If I was desperate I should have said this) You tell me what kind of characteristics you are looking for in the candidate who is essentially going to write and correct codes all day in front of a desktop inside a cubicle. Name them and I guarantee that you will find them in me.

And the show goes on......

Day n (I forget the count now......) Some core company comes to recruit.

They say that they are the foremost manufacturing company in India and they are looking for talented, knowledgeable people for their R & D.

By now you must be wondering what the hell is wrong this time? Surely I, who have been complaining about lack of preparation in finance or aptitude will ace the tests based on core subject.

Except the greatest manufacturing company suddenly doesn't allow the manufacturing science specialization of mechanical engg. They say that they are only looking for thermal science specialization students. One of our guys who happened to do his industrial intern at the very same company approaches the recruiters with his CV to explain how he has studied all the subjects in thermal science and how his projects are totally related to the work they are doing (as explained in their pre-placement talk). But what do they say?

"Sorry, but its against company policy"

What we should have said:

"Alright jokers! just explain this: Do you want the degree or the guy? Who is going to do your job? The piece of paper or the brains of the guy you are going to recruit? And as you said that you are recruiting us because you want the best quality brains so that you can grow in the international market as well, then why hide behind something like "policy"? Just get the best person for the job!"

And why on earth after such a heavy buttering of "you people are the cream of the crop, etc etc" would you recruit all 2 yr M. Techs? (No offence to the M.Tech students but we did beat you fair and square during JEE, exceptions not withstanding)

I will tell you why? Because the best undergrad students in thermal science and engineering who actually have good knowledge of the core subjects have already been placed in banks and trading firms within the first few days. yeah! The irony of it all!

Not to mention that even the core companies conduct only aptitude tests in first rounds.........Somebody should ask them why.

And the no show goes on............

So there you go.............

If you have a dream like the one mentioned right at the beginning of this post, either crush it now or try to do it without the JEE part. Or if you want to do the JEE part specifically please ensure that you have some higher aim, so that you work constantly towards that and not get satisfied that you belong to the top 0.5% of the population in intellectual acumen.

NOTE: No I am not suicidal. I have got a job. How I got it is another funny story. Maybe I will tell you sometime. However to clarify things I am NOT suicidal not because I have got a job finally. Its because I have already been through it all...........This post has come much much later. I was already enlightened by my 3rd year.

And if you are laughing after reading this post because you think the IITians are losers, thinkagain.......because you see as Tyler Durden would have said, everybody is a loser. The only difference between you and me is that I am smart enough to know that, while you need to be told that.

Here is a Tutorial on how to take notes in class

This piece is for those hapless students for who are unable to take decent notes during lectures. Since I am a self-acclaimed master in taking notes (people have been borrowing, photo copying, and taking photos of my notes and sharing them online for years) I decided to share my special ability with you. Here are the things you need to do to be able to take good notes:

• First, develop a decent, readable handwriting. It doesn't need to be artistic or beautiful. It just needs to be readable so that people can read it easily and don't confuse between things like "alpha" and "infinity" notations.
• Next, try to sit as near to the lecturer as possible so as to catch every word spoken
• Concentrate hard to catch every word being spoken. Unless you are able to write and discern or understand whatever is being told simultaneously, avoid trying to understand and just concentrate on picking up the words only. So don't mind if people comment on why you have written down a poor joke told by the speaker while lecturing. And if you do have the mental capacity to filter out the crap and write down whatever is being spoken in a concise form, then congratulations- you have the natural talent for taking notes. 
•  Since catching every word is necessary, don't be late to a lecture.
• Be sincere enough to never miss a lecture, or else you will have a gap in your notes
• No need to use various coloured pens or pencils to emphasize certain points in your notes. Just develop your own set of notations for that. (I box important formulae and use arrow heads for points)
• Avoid sitting with gossiping friends because their gossip is bound to distract you. (The news of which guy is going out with which girl ca wait till the end of the lecture)

I understand its very difficult to be so sincere as to attend every lecture on time, but I have seen a lot of people who do attend every lecture but are still not able to take good notes. I hope this tutorial is going to help them.

NOTE: Taking good notes does not assure you good grades. For good grades either you have to be extremely hard working, or extremely talented or do something else (to learn about these thing you have to approach someone else because I don't have much experience in these mundane things)