Thursday, December 22, 2011

Internship Hunt - Act I Scene II [HUL : Restraint]

Previously : Act I Scene I [HUL : Incitement]

The GD was scheduled to start at 8.
We had half an hour to eat something as the entire process spans overnight.
First Group Discussions followed by Personal Interviews.
Preparation plays an important role. We have sessions on how to 'crack' the GD where seniors who bagged internship last year come and give their fundas on body posture, way of talking, even teach you the appropriate way to smile.
But this knowledge was quite contrary to my nature. I like smiling all the time. My voice is a bit louder than the normal. I like to make direct eye contact with the person I speak to. And so I had to restrain all these characteristics of mine.
Another part of the preparation is mugging up Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics. One of my winges spent an entire week mugging up these courses. Honestly, I had not spent even a millisecond on that as according to my calculation my chances were 1/80 which was quite demoralizing.
I thought the much better way to spend that time was by investing it in FOSSDEV(Free and Open Source Software Development) competition which was my brainchild, an initiative to set up the culture of software development in our campus. It was a 10 day event and its judging had to be done during our inter hall techfest - Takneek. After all I had made a promise to the people who entrusted me with this responsibility that I won't let them down. Driven by my passion, am I a mad-man? After all who messes up with his chances of making a good career.
By the time I reached my hostel, 15 minutes had already passed. The rest of the time was spent just walking towards the Student Placement Office where my GD was scheduled.
The selected candidates occupied the conference room which was not so capacious to accommodate all 60 selected candidates. Now the probability of bagging this intern was 1/30, increased by a factor more than twice.
My GD group comprised Amol, Hunaid, Amarjeet, Rahul, Saxena, Sharique, Kashif and me. The topic was laid in form of a case study with the following keywords- "Two machines .. industry .. chose one .. pollution ... environment .. purchase cost .. maintenance .. labour .. etc".
It kick started. Amol presented his views, followed by Abhishek, followed by Sharique shouting out his points out loud. It was chaos. I freaked out. Restraining myself. It was over within 20 minutes. I realized that I over-controlled myself and ended up uttering just a single line on picking up the eco-friendly machine, that too in a fumbled tone. Results were announced. My 1st GD ended miserably. I was disappointed. I realized those fundas were good for nothing, resolving to be natural next time.I reached my room and finished coding the problem statement for FOSSDEV. I was not ready for this corporate world I guess !

Up Next    : Act II Scene I [ITC : Cigarettes]

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