Bachelor of Engineering – Introduction

Hi,

Long time since my last post. Thought this time I would write something about my college life. Nothing great. Just another engineering life story. Plain, simple, fun-filled, most memorable 4 years of my life. Thats it. I will be blogging it in parts.

First, How did I end up in engineering college? I thought of it for long time in recent days and traced back and found the answer.

Pre-Engineering Glance
Actually it all began after my 10th class when everyone of my family, relatives(especially), implanted in my brain that taking science in pre-univresity would boost your options for graduate studies, career and job opportunities. So I took science (A combo of Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Statistics). Some even asked me to take biology instead of statistics. Grrrr, I hated it to the core of my heart, so dropped it. That’s first best decision I took in my life. The next two years of my life was a perfect teenage boy’s life, where he does all sorts of wrong things and mistakes to get the beatings and scoldings from parents, relatives(ignored), lecturers(never cared). That resulted in a first class pass in final exams and a 5 digit rank in C.E.T. (Common Entrance Test) – a exam to get a seat in engineering college.

Oh!! missed one character in between. Before writing the C.E.T. exam I had attended a crash course where I met a guy named Srikanth. This fellow always used to be on fags and never cared about his future, with a careless attitude. Thats it about him for now.

And now with that extra large digit rank number I was sure of not getting any proper college with proper subject. Still with huge support and encouragement from my Dad, we both went to first round of C.E.T. counseling only to take a payment seat in Chemistry discipline in S.D.M college Dharwad. God I hated chemistry. Now I started thinking whether I made a right decision on choosing science over commerce. Dad convinced me that if I study properly in the first year, there’s a chance for me to change the subject of my interest in the second year. I didn’t have any option but to agree my Dad. Then me and dad went to Tirupati, climbed the hills – 9 kms trek consisting of 3500 steps – got the LORD’s darshan and returned home back. Here the Lord brings some twist to my collapsed, disgusted, no-hopes life.

The Twist
Immediately after coming back from C.E.T. counseling, we got the news that Canara Engineering College has got the sanction of 60 more konkani quota seats. And we are requested to come to Mangalore for seat selection process. So, me and my dad reached the college. And what do we see, the college is located on a cliff surrounded by dense forest and the college campus floating in the fog was looking like a perfect hill resort. I was feeling like I was in heaven. For one second I felt that the Lord showed me my path to destination. Still can visualize the first glance of the college. We reached the college office. After some registration and document verification process I was just 2 candidates away from selecting my seat.

Now the confusion began – There were just 2 management seats in Electronics, some 10 payment seats in Computer Science and 9 merit seats in Information Science. I made one thing for sure that I am not going to waste my dad’s hard earned money on management and payment seats. So only option left was merit seat in Information science discipline. Now again whether to take it or leave it, was the question. Then just removed a coin from my wallet flipped it, heads – gonna take the seat, tails – go back empty handed. And guess what, it was tails. Oh God!!! Help me!!! Dad asked me what are you doing? I said – “Deciding !@$#%?”. Finally my turn – the counsellor asked “which branch?”. I decided I am not gonna study chemistry for 4 years and then, if I complete my engineering, I am not gonna spend rest of my life in some research lab. I took the Lord’s name and said “Information Science, merit seat”.

After a month dad and me went to second round of C.E.T. counseling and took back our cheque we gave for chemistry payment seat. I was now relaxed.

Stepping into Heaven
After getting long advises about how to study hard and switching to Electronics discipline, I finally geared up to join engineering college and more over the HOSTEL. I was totally excited.

Two days before the joining day hostel rooms were to be selected. Roommate was decided earlier – Ashwin Acharya – he was the son of my uncle’s one the associates. My bro, Ramu-anna, took me to the college registered a room and then returned back.

Next day, Sunday evening, at about 7pm I reached the college campus. It was full of freshers with their parents. It was just like a market place. I was all alone with my bags. Just glanced once only to see all the students were excited and full of energy stepping in to a new innings of life. That made me more happy and I too got boosted. Went to my room, met my roommate.

Old classmate, Re-entry
Me and my just became friends decided to have food and going in group was a must to avoid ragging. Our college didn’t had any previous records of ragging as we were the only second batch in the college. That means we were the very first juniors who were about to be ragged. As we were walking downstairs, I saw one familiar face coming in opposite direction. He called me with some weird name, which I hated. He was Srikanth – the C.E.T. crash course classmate I mentioned. Then I just exchanged a few words with him and went for dinner. He looked very decent, nice, down to earth kinda person. For a couple of minutes vainly pondered over his attitude makeover only to find the answer a few months later. He later on, in the coming years, became my closest and best friend.

And that is all about how i got into engineering and the very few moments of introducing myself to engineering life.