A year old professional

Yes! It has been a year since I started working! I almost forgot, if not for the surge of new hires yesterday. I had always assumed this to be such a scary endeavor that it feels extra good to have held on to it for a year. What else could I have done after graduating, you wonder! Well.. PhD was an option, while away another 5 years in school and then become a Prof, not that that was not working, anyways or may be do what every 3rd Tam girl seems to do, lets not even get me started on that. So, I made my choices and here I'm one year later, happy that I did what I did.

I still remember the first day of work when I was supposed to make it in by 8.45 and I had the option of taking the connection to here at 8.40 or 7.50. I choose 7.50, given the 15min ride and ended up reaching the station by 7.10! I could have been early by an hour and a half. That is what I am I guess. Get apprehensive, obsess over trivial issues, over-analyze, freak out, bug everyone else, anger, finally go wth and yet end up giving it 3 different excessive buffers.(Ok, not as bad as that sounds, but I'm a little too cautious yes)

Anyways, I made it to work well and good on the first day and its been great since then. A nurturing environment, a very intelligent - hard working team, awesome neighbors, young and fun colleagues, stimulating discussions, exciting work, some not-so-exciting stuff, a few 16hr days, a few 7hr ones, work-from-home, 3hr lunches, lunches at 4, meetings at 6am, meetings at 9pm, Christmas and Halloween parties, summer carnivals, re-orgs, roadshows, recruiting, some bad days, some great days, a lot of peaceful ones.. One amazing year and hopefully a precursor to many more.

Tuesday blues and grad schools

Tuesdays! Yes, I've those in addition to the all too well known Monday blues and Sunday evenings. It all started about 3 months back. As always, to go on with the prologue.. you know what is a bummer when you live in the Western hemisphere, you get to start your days much later than your counterparts. If your counterparts live not only in Europe but also in Australia, you start everything after they have put it to rest for the day. And, when anyone decides they need to talk something out with you, everyone is all too happy to pull you out of bed at an ungodly hour! Yes, you end up having meetings at 7am. Not only do you have to attend a 7am they decide to have you put something together for the meeting and also have a 8am, that you loose the option of dialing in from home unless you want to be the last person getting in to work. Put it all together and you get me waking up at 4, every Tuesday. Yes, every Tuesday. No matter how much I try, I just can never get into the routine. Now, that justifies having blues right.

Today was one of those Tuesdays. Add to it the Monday that was yesterday when I could get off only after 8pm, I should be seeing all colors today. Given you are reading this, you sure are swearing at me for making such a huge issue about working till 8. I totally get it. When I talk to some of my friends and classmates back home, I hear all sorts of stories when people had to work odd hours. You have 16 hr work days, 18 hr days, you leave work at 4am and start again at 8, your routine schedule is 3pm to 12am, you have to accommodate calls at 3 in the night, you have gone without weekends for 3 weeks at a stretch, you have crashed at office, I've heard it all. But, I don't work is such environments. I work in this country and I'm not an I-banker or 4-days-in-flight consultant. I work at a nice, awesome, sane, peaceful place. So, no it is not normal for me to have 14hr workdays and start again at 4am. I totally have to mention this here. When I first started doing this schedule, my VP made it a point to call and let me know that it is totally fine if I feel I can't make it to meeting some day and even if I did make it I should not extend my day too long into the evening. So, you get the kind of place I work at right. Okay, now I have digressed too much that I've totally lost track.

Yep, got it. So, it was one of those Tuesdays and at 3 in the afternoon I was all maxed out when I came across this, from a mention somewhere else. To say I was appalled is an understatement. I kind of agree that no deliveries is overkill but.. do they actually get their rooms cleaned by someone, seriously!!! I just could not believe it. And the students actually protesting, you must be kidding me! Not that I'm against them or anything. I've quite a few friends there, extremely smart people and doing great in life. But this did seem ridiculous. I know for a fact about all the stuff they do. I still remember my CAT prep days when one of the mentors who is an alumnus, told us that his best takeaway was learning to work under pressure and manage time effectively. Yes, they have to study loads and loads, cases, assignments, exams, clubs, events. I get it. I also know that there are freshers parties, club parties, section parties, after event parties and more. Yes, they do have time to do it. Oops, thats networking!! But the supposedly créme de la créme of our country can't even clean their own messy rooms.

What totally threw me off and forced me to write about it was the few reader comments that followed the article. I probably read like 10-15 of them. I just could not go further. I have no idea why the comments went wayward, but people had to bring in grad students here, compare both and pass judgments. How can I stay put now! If you choose to compare the "best" b school, lets go to some place really good if not the best. Actually, I personally had friends who took in a workload of 20 credits a semester(the normal being 12 max), worked 15 hours a week, prepared for other certifications, searched for a job during a recessionary period(Yes, here you "search" for jobs), lived off campus, cooked their own food, did groceries, cleaned their rooms and still managed to get great cgpa and land awesome jobs. How do people even come up with such comparisons!! Anyways..

Reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my friends (who is a part of the best, in their sense of the term) which ended with me going all "My school gave me the attitude that I can do anything, if I want" and him with "And mine that I deserve everything".

Home away from home..

Saturday evening 7.30.. and here I'm, sitting at home with blogger open and some Tam song in the background. Blame it all on the Friday night I had. Not that I was up all night pub hopping. (Yes, my vocabulary now contains words like pub hop, crawl, high, Vegas, sloshed,beer pong, karaoke and more) No, I don't do that, not even remotely close. In that sense, its the same old me. Yesterday night, I was just out for dinner, with lot of chatting and bit of shopping(No, I am not the 'shopping' kind yet either, but my company was and also, I needed a pair of sneakers, which I have n't bought yet anyway). So, I was out eating, walking and talking, right from early evening and if you know New England at all, you will realize it is that time of the year and that time of the day loaded with pollen. Add to it my Starbucks run this morning, you get the cold ridden-sneezing every 20sec-red,watery eyed me. I had no option but to be medicated and sedated. I slept through the whole afternoon and since then been just lazing around. Not that I need a reason for it but that its a Saturday afternoon yet I might have been at the least out eating good food if not for this.

Coming back to my passing mention of the Tam song in the background. Its the opening song from the movie Shivaji. If you are this Tam,Tam-lyrics-understanding(Yes, it is a subset) person you would have already guessed why I'm here. Yes, that song is so full of nostalgia and wanna-be-in-India that I could not have done anything but be here. Things that I might have passed off without a second look, or second 'hear' rather, seems to haunt me. So, if you do not know what this song is about, here I go. It is all about this guy coming back to India from the US with a cause and listing out all the things he missed (and so you ought to) by being away from home. I should say it is a job very well done. Starting with national geographic, food network and going to entertainment and people weekly, it chokes with memories. Now, I am all I-need-to-list-something-out. To be fair..

I had to start out with why it is great being here. Any time I think of it, the first thing that comes to mind is people. I always say, if not for the people my undergrad college(Yes, you caught me, I did say school and changed to college when I re-read the whole thing and added this note too, the influences huh!!) would not be what it is and it is even more true here. My life is full of the most awesome people you could meet. Where else could I have been friends with Princeton Math majors, Harvard Econ majors, MIT MechEs, CMU CS undergrads, Ga Tech IEs, Cal Tech Physicists, Ecole toppers, Tshinghua Engineers, Harvard and Wharton and MIT and Booth MBAs (Man!! I'm so star-struck!) and much more, not to mention the Cornell OR grads :) :). This without even talking about the families and backgrounds. It is sheer awesome-ness. Where else could I have had lunch conversations on Robotics, video game programming, Korean politics, economic depression, Presidential election, independent films, Chinese population explosion, Egyptian history,Black-Scholes model, Indian and Ecole systems, XKCD comics, zip lining, corruption, digital printing, market psychology, FB grids and what not. There is never a dearth for sensible conversations. I would never otherwise have learnt to give so much importance to being polite, friendly, pleasant, amiable. Starting with use of pleases and thank yous to writing emails to CEOs, you get to learn it all. The professional life here, as I hear comparisons, is amazing. You get the freedom, independence and respect very early and you are always challenged. And to think of all the varied multi-faceted opportunities you get, not in another 100 years can it be matched. This supportive, nurturing, learning, challenging environment is unparalleled. Talking of freedom, it is evident in every walk of your life. You can do anything you want(within legal bounds of course but there it ends), any way you want with no repercussions and obligations. I can go on and on about all that I learnt and love about this place and I still would not be doing enough justice. So, you get the idea right..

Now, I did say all that, but there is something missing still. It is not on the life changing front, but.. It still is not home and all that it comes with, dad, mom, family, friends, food. There are all these small things that you miss. I still remember my Kenna intern days, when we head out from work on a Saturday afternoon, watch an Indian movie, roam around the malls, have some non-Indian cuisine dinner and (here comes the best part) someone drops you home because its late in the night. No, you just can't get it here. There is something about going to Odyssey that Barnes and Noble, fine Amazon, can not give you. There is the taste of the supposedly Mexican and Chinese(even the McDs and KFCs) which the authenticity can not offer. There sure is something great about dosa for breakfast, which of course the cold cereal and pancakes can not match. There is something about the Hindu and its additions, that is somehow missing in WSJ and NYTimes. The mirth that comes about switching on the car radio to a Tam song is so totally lost on country rock. The pleasures of morning-traffic people-watching can never be realized with IPod listeners and Kindle readers. There will always be a difference between po-da and man-you-suck. There is something about the tea and Parley-g breaks that chocolate frosted donuts and caramel lattes don't parallel. The grilled chicken sandwiches and default risk discussions don't even come close to the rice-rotis and scandals and scams. The what-plans-for the-weekends can never replace the exhausted TGIF. There is the laughter and joy of switching on the tv and watching re-runs of Friends in Star World which the ABCs and NBCs don't provide. There is something about sending sms that texting can never suit. Driving a scooty in dust and traffic is any day distant from the snow protected air conditioned Mercs. There is something about dropping by a friend's house unannounced and being invited in for dinner that 2 emails, phone confirmation and apologies for any disturbance never will do. The Skype conversations and hangouts can never replicate the comfort of being sprawled on the floor talking to the person in the couch. There will always be something indescribably great about being home that no country ever can come anywhere remotely near..

P.S. I did say so much and more, but seriously considering.. the cost-benefit so absolutely pathetically fails.. So here I am and will be, for the foreseeable future..

Two years is not too long..

or so I want to think. I started with the title with the numerals in there, as that seemed more informal and blog-gy(???), but then is n't that too ironic. Anyways, yes, its been a little more than 2 years now since I was in this space last. I was wondering if I should talk about why I was not here so long or why I am here now, out of the blue and finally decided to do both. After all, it is my blog.. just for me right..

The last time I was here I was just about to go to grad school. Now, I'm done. I've a Master's!! Its a huge deal right, what with all the cribbing and crying I did before that. Honestly it turned to to be one of the awesome-est (Ahh language.. I sure need more degrees of freedom!) experiences ever. I'm glad I did it and not settle for something else. That was one year of my life, almost, and of course I could not have been blogging then. Well.. I could not have even been eating or sleeping then (Did you not notice, nah.. I'm not explaining what you did not notice) . So, that accounts for half my absence. And after that.. I started working. Yeah, not only did I finish my Master's, I started working too (Its alright, even I am all exclamations) Work sure did not engulf all my time but then I had been out of here for so long that I thought I had lost it. And so it went on.. till now..

Now to the why now part.. in short, I needed a vent out. Given that, I live in this foreign country, in a foreign city(what else would you call the city where you moved to, with all you friends from school moving to a different, and mostly same city), have many (not really) do s and don't s, with all my best friends going back to school - b-school rather(yeah, I have to have the "b") or busy with work in a country with extremely opposite time zones, and above all life changing so fast and me having all these thoughts, I had to have a way out. A place that was not very personal (would n't that make me feel no one is listening) or too public(come on.. of course not FB updates). So here I am!

Actually, that is not all and that definitely is not it. THE reason that drove me here, today, right now is.. I miss being home, not like house-home home but more like the motherland home. Now.. now.. I sure do sense all the question marks and sighs and exclamations and rolling of eyes. Yes, its the very same me and yes I miss being in India. So, I really had to talk about it. (Yeah, here! as, when I talk about it most other places, all I seem to get is cold stares which says why would you want that when I wish to switch places with you) Also, I have been reading all these blogs by Indians (Is that not what you do when you are "reporting" for a week or so and have half of it left to go before you can move on to something else) which makes me go all what-if and how-nice and more. To add to it all, I read this article yesterday, a very long one at that, on India Today about all these entrepreneurs coming back home with the hopes of creating a change and succeeding at that too. No, I'm not this social-responsibility-personified kind (Ok, don't rule that option out yet. If I'm this right now, in so short a time, I may be that in the long run) but I do think it might be better to be home, now (don't you get it? I add this "now" and that essentially adds a disclaimer that I'm allowed to contradict it anytime I want and add yet another now there :P ). Now, that explains it right!

Here.. guess I've said it all. That was long enough for the first time after two years. I've have mused enough though not so erratic enough. Anyways, here is to more of musing, rambling, pondering, brooding, ruminating and what not..

F09

F09!!! Thats what we are called.. Its more than a month away and God knows how bad this is going to get in the mean time. I am so damn scared, very very apprehensive and too worried about how this is going to work out. I don't know if I can cope with all the new subjects, the pressure, the new place and what not!! I don't know what is expected of me. I don't know how I'm going to manage it all. And.. So many times it makes me wonder if I fit in at all. The awesome university and a great field at that, the kind of people who get in.. All that leaves me wondering.. Why am I even there. But somewhere down I realize, or atleast I'm told to realize, that I won't be where I am going to be if I was not really worth it. I must be. There must be something that does make me a part of the league. But what is it.. I'm yet to find.

So many times, getting to think about it, I feel.. may be, it would have been better to have taken up the job. Almost always when I get to discuss jobs with friends, it always leave me feeling bad. It still hurts. When everyone is working, here I am.. going to Grad School.. It does not make it any better saying it out. Well.. It is bad to be thinking about it too. The kind of life people have, because they are earning, leaves you feeling low beyond limits. Not having got to study like crazy everyday, no worrying about tests, assignments and gpa. It is so good. There is this best part, you get to earn!! You can spend it the way you want. Go to a movie, hang out with friends, or atleast get to buy a book for 100 bucks without having to think "OMG 100!!" Even if not that, you don't really have to keep tabs of every penny you spend, you don't have to live on 2 meals a day, you don't have to worry if eating one proper meal out will leave you out of your cash for cereals that week, you don't plan a month before on living in noodles and bread, you don't have to cut down on your travel expenses so that it might help you with a laptop, you don't have to plan on buying laptops which might cost a 50 bucks less, you don't have to worry for 6 months if your house and utilities would cost 20 bucks more than you thought it would, you don't have to worry if talking over the phone to your parents will get you broke.. Oh my God.. I really don't want to do this. For any one who earns, everything seems so trivial. But here I am, yet to point out trivial stuff that might bother me. If you just can't remotely imagine what the trivial stuff might be, then I'm sure you must be having a job.Damn!! Makes me regret why I dint take up the job. Damn!! I should have. I must have been crazy!! Really Really Crazy!!!!

Hmmm.. Well.. Hope I survive!!!!

What keeps me ticking..

Hols again!! And.. I don't know what to do at home. Its been quite sometime since I was at home and that too this jobless. Even last hols was better as I had a lot of apping work to do. But now.. Okay.. Not that I don't have anything to do. Those of you who managed to decipher my last post completely will know that I have opted for some university and more appropriately some field that is not what me as a prodie might have obviously pursued. But as it stands, I have decided to go for it and all that that comes with it. The very different course work, work schedules, slogging and the whole lot of risk involved. Not to mention is the fact is that I would be out of home. Fine.. I am not cribbing again. Getting back to it.. I have decided to do this and I really need to work on it. Actually I have to work loads and loads and loads and some more.

Being the nice girl that I am, I even bothered to get some books to study from. Well.. That was a long time ago. Its been a good 20 days since I got off with my project final review and since then I should have studied. I should have. But somehow it so happens that I don't even know the names of the books that I got, leave alone whats inside them. Not that I never made the effort to. Okay fine.. I can see you smiling.. You!! Actually, I did think so many times that I need to study. I even got one book out. To actually know how it goes like.. This evening I was so hell bent on studying. I was all this " its been so long and I have not studied at all. Today is the 1st of the month, I am starting today!!" So I did take my book out. It was sometime around 5:30, but my granny had other plans. She wanted me do some errands and when I got off with it, it was 6. "Okay, 6.. nice time to start, I am going to study till 8!!" I started. Time went by.. Not so fast anyway. 6:23.. I know it was 6.23.. I saw my mobile. I just could not concentrate, thought would check if my results are out. It would after all be some 5min job. So switched on the comp and when I got off it was 7:30!!! So.. I again started "I should study.. I should concentrate.. I need to." I thought I would.. after talking to my best friend. So.. there went the next 10min. Then I did study. Atleast I thought so.. Till my grand mother woke me up at 8:02 to ask me if I would like to have dinner and then sleep!!! Damn!!!! So.. here I am.. online.. blogging.. No.. actually.. I am trying to get myself awake so that I can study.. :)

Getting to think about it.. I realize having too much of time in hand and not much of work to do, gets me to a really lazy and horrible state. To be more honest, I really need a lot of deadlines. I still remember one of my friends saying he does not want his life to be full of deadlines, which would ruin his peace of mind. But I now realize, I need my life to be the exact opposite. If not for that, I am sure I just can't take life. I still remember the time around last hols when I was so very occupied. When I had 10 things to do and time for just 5. But.. believe me.. I did all the 10 and successfully at that. I can keep working all day long and more, but give me a whole day and just little work that too to be completed a month later, I am sure to flunk. Very hectic days, with work keeping one hooked up atleast 27 hours a day, with no time to get off, squeezing in every possible minute to something or the other, with deadlines to be long gone the next day, and me trying to do everything the best. Thats exactly what I want and that keeps me ticking..

Apping.. and all that..

Now that we are done with GRE and TOEFL, here comes this long process of apping. What exactly did I do after TOEFL.. Hmmm.. For one, I started preparing for CAT. Thanks to my best friend, I was forced to do it. But, believe me, its one of the best things that you could be doing. Being in 7th semester, with those tests done and moreover given the fact that when you app you do with your 6 semester grades you are just bound to give up absolutely but CAT keeps you going. If not anything else, it helps you spend your time without getting bored to death. So, I took it up and trust me its so much fun.

Okay, getting back to apping.. This is going be this phase where you are always running around the campus if not cities depending on your recos. I was a bit too lazy. When I started thinking about my sop, almost everyone in my class had applied for a minimum of 2 universities not to mention one who was done with 11!!!!!!! I really had to rush through them for my initial universities. What with apping deadlines, CAT and sem exams happening at almost the same time and me not ready with my sop even. But I did do a lot of editing after my exams for the rest of my universities. So, yeah.. your sop and recos go almost at the same time.

So.. its sop. Quite contrary to everyone else around me, I believe sop is some place where you are honest with what you want and actually tell them that. It was told to my best friend that sop is heights of hypocrisy. You write what you think the university wants to hear from you. You are absolutely interested in research. What research you have done in IIT and IISc has changed your life forever and you believe you can not live without it and unanimously everyone wants to be a professor, scientist and what not!! You go on and on and on about research that you did, that you are doing, that you want to do and some more. They say its a sure way to admits. I don't want to comment on that. But let me tell you what I did. I just wrote exactly what I desire. As you might know or have read in the previous post, I have had only one research project in IIT M and that's in a field so unrelated to what I am going to app for. CFD and Industrial Engineering. So, I can very well say my research expertise in the field in next to naught. Oops! I forgot. I was going to do my final year project in a related field. Well, that was to start in 8th semester and I was done with apping even before college reopened. Okay, so what did I do with my sop. I just wrote what I have done which is not anyway great according to so many.. no .. according to everyone else. But that's what I had done. So, I can not do anything to change it now. Believe me, nowhere did I mention I am interested in research and nothing related to being a Prof. After all, that's not what I wanted. I still remember one of my friends saying this after reading my sop, " If you want me to be honest, I have read quite a few sop so far and I am sorry to tell you that yours is below average. You have given history people don't want to hear. You should have projected your IIT M project to be the best thing that happened in your life. Where is anything about research??!!!!! ". That was not an isolated incident. There were many who said, if this was my sop I sure am not going to make even to a university on the higher side of top 20. Well.. Here again, thanks to my best friend, who stood by me. We decided we were going to be absolutely honest with what we want and that if I am going to give the univ what people think univ wants, in the next 2 years my conscience would kill me as I can never be sure if I was picked in because I was actually good. Its better to get rejects than live with that feeling forever. So, with that moral support, I went on. Till the end, my sop only said what I have done and what I want, true to my heart.

Along with the sop, you simultaneously get done with your recos too. At least go and talk to profs and make sure if they are ready to give you recos, to as many universities as you are applying and to the field you are applying. Make sure they have your resume and they know everything else that you think would be relevant. Mine was not a very tough deal. My 3 recos goes as, one from my department, one from my math teacher and the other from my IIT M prof. I know there are cases when you have to write your recos and sometimes as much as all the three and its real difficult to differentiate them when you are going to write all the three. So, make sure you work on it properly. I was so lucky that I never had to do it. Its my staunch belief that your recos matter a lot and some more, belief that formed after I got my admits. I am very grateful to all my recommenders who made it work for me. They not just molded me to be the individual I am but also have helped me scale greater heights. I know if it was not for them I would not have the admits that I do now. So, make sure you have very good recommendations.

You already should have decided on the universities you want to apply to. This necessarily depends on your research interests or otherwise, your cgpa and scores, the profs that you like there and think could work with and the reputation of the university. At least thats what I believe matters when you are apping for masters. PhD I have no clue. I think it would be better, if you can have a word with your prof and also some seniors who had similar profile as yours before finalizing on the universities you want to apply to.

After all these, goes the actual apping. It is not a very difficult thing if you are sure of the above. You just go to the university website, get to application forms, most of them have a very user-friendly system, fill it up. They ask for general details. You personal details,name address etc. Then your profile, your college scores, GRE TOEFL, awards and all that. Being a international student, you might have to answer a few questions on that like your country of citizenship, your sponsors and stuff. I remember one univ asking me for a scanned copy of passport along with my app. I really have to mention this! Two of the univ that I applied to wanted my financial documents right at the time of applying. I have no clue how this affects your chances of admits but as it is mandatory you have to send them. The only difference being, if you get an admit without aid, the univ asks you to send the documents whereas here you send it before. So, the application then would ask you for your sop, which sometimes you upload or otherwise paste it in the box provided. I remember one univ that I applied to which never asked me for a sop. Instead they had some 7 or 8 questions that I had to answer in the box provided and that was more comprehensive than my sop. You will have to pay some application fee which might vary widely depending on the university. Also, make sure your GRE and TOEFL score reaches the university on time. It would be better if you can send the additional score reports as soon as you finalize on the university.

With all this done, you send your packets. I would suggest DHL as it is more reliable and you can track your packets till the end. As far as my memory goes, every packet of yours should have all these. A cover letter, transcript, resume, sop, gre and toefl scores, a printed copy of your application. Some other additions may be your financial documents, passport photostats, pre requisites form. OOPS!! I forgot again. Some universities do have pre requisites, courses that they expect you to have done in your under graduation and some additional knowledge. You have to give descriptions of the course, attach a syllabus copy and mention your grades in the paper. You see, they have your transcripts, so you just can not fool around. If it so happens that you have not done a course which they think is necessary why not be honest with them and tell them you have not done it but you will study before you join the university. Trust me, they wont hold it against you if you are good at other things. I know it for sure, because that is what I did. I told them I do not know certain things yet I got the admit, my best and with fellowship. So, at the end of the day, you have to absolutely honest.

With all this done, you have a really very long wait in store for you. You will have to keep checking the status of your applications and the documents. A lot of times your GRE and TOEFL scores are the issue. Some of my universities never found it. Its good that you have sent a copy of them in your packets. You might very well have to send a scanned copy of it to the admissions coordinator of your department. And, you have to track if your recos reached them too. As it is online almost always, you will have to keep reminding your profs to fill your recos and send them within the stipulated date. Here again, if it does not happen, just mail your coord telling what the prob is, and they are sure to give you an extension. I got, for recos, from 2 of my univs.

So, I think this covers almost all that I went through during my apping. At the end of it, getting admits!! its just great. But more on that later. So, at last to what I wanted to say, from my experience. First and foremost, be absolutely honest about everything all through your apping. This is all that that matters. Honest sop do fetch its own rewards. Have some real good recos. They matter loads and loads. Its really good to have a high cgpa. No matter what people may say contrary to this, a good cgpa sure does takes you places. Have a reasonably good GRE(preferably a 800 in quants) and TOEFL scores. But be assured, GRE scores is not what matters the most, there are a lot of other things. I think that's about it. Happy apping!!!