Another Term is Gone

Finally one more term is done and I am a 1/3rd MBA now (hopefully :P). Yea you can just be hopeful after having such exams. But at the end of day 'who cares' because all are in the same boat. Well, the good news is that I have a one week off but the flip side to that is that I am not going to home this time.

So, with nothing else to do, I can look back at how did this term go. It was much different from the first term. Not only in terms of subjects, but also other activities that happened and the way we approached this term. Being a JPR, the burden of placements work grew by leaps and bound this time. Had a week of night outs. Twice I went to the class without having any sleep. Slept on my desk in placeroom once while working and by the time I got up, I realised that I have missed another operations class and thus another interesting case discussion. But still it was fun as usual.

I got to see a lot of ups and downs in this term and learnt a lot too. Starting from the buzz of the Placement season itself I knew this term will be far more exciting and important. I got to see two sides of the picture: both as a JPR and as a candidate in the process. Starting from the company PPTs to the shortlists coming out everyday was adding to the thrill of the entire drama. It was a high activity time: people working hard for each and every bullet point on their CV, putting endless efforts in cracking cases and understanding the downfall of Wall street; studying numerous reports of various companies/industries to become expert of one in such a short time. Stage was set and we finally went to the much awaited process: Summer Placement Process. Some people say that its one of the most complex process that we can be part of in our life. The complexity and pseudapa was much more than we had expected and I am glad that two months down the line, I will be running this process.

It was really a well organised event and hats off to our PRs who managed to place the largest ever batch of IIMB even in such tough market conditions. The best part was how the entire batch came together to help each other and do as much they could in their own capacity. Nobody celebrated his/her achievement till the time entire batch was placed. There was a lot to take away for all: even if you got a day 0 job or not; even if you got your dream job or not; if you got the highest salaries or not. It was a great learning experience and the winner is obviously the one who comes out of these up and downs with a even stronger spirit. Ultimately, IIMB batch 2008-10 was victorious and we celebrated it in true B style with a great L^2 party which I missed because I slept early after so many sleepless nights.

Oh did I miss the mid terms in this whole explanation which just happened a week before the placements. Its not like that they are no more important to us but the only thing is that once you go through all this in the first term, you get used to it and this time I had relaxed mid terms with just 3 of them. Hopefully next term would be even more chill atleast in this aspect. And yea as usual there were a lot of submissions, assignments, quizzes. And its tough to remember which one I cracked and very easy to forget the ones which screwed me. After all who cares for a .1 or .2 here and there.

Finally, the term is over and its time for another one and more exciting one. Dont know how much I will get to study in this term but I am happy that I would be doing something which I enjoy doing!!

One Term is gone like a zoooom!!

It was June 22 when I stepped into the revered walls of IIMB with loads of dreams and aspirations in my eyes and I am happy to see that all of them are still alive and the passion is still firing with all guns to achieve them. The rigour academic pressure had tried to put many dents in the firm will but it finally ended in just testifying the strength of the same. Zillions of assignments, surprise quizzes, tests, and presentations have just helped in sharpening my jaws which are hungry to bite more of learning everyday.

First of all I am sorry to all my readers to whom I have promised that I will keep them updated about my life @IIMB as I had done during my work at Google. Well, when I entered IIMB, I knew that’s its going to be tough but I never knew that its going to be so hectic. At the same time, I never knew that its going to be filled up with so much fun. More I worked harder, more I had reasons to enjoy and live every single moment to the fullest. Be it the BHASAD of our sec A guys on nay random topics or be it the fruitful project and assignment discussions, it was always good to see be surrounded with such bright minds of the country. Everybody here is GOD in some way or the other and has a lot to offer to learn from: Be it through the CP(Class participation) or be it through their enlightening presentations or be it any arbit chat on any random topic. Godly profs giving awesome gyan to sleepy chaps with full CP enthu was a scene of almost every class. The system is so strong that it forces you to question yourself and your abilities and in the process prepares for the bigger challenges of the future. But yea sometimes in this strong system and hectic schedule, you tend to ask yourself: are you at the right place? Are you doing a right thing? Are you still focussed? But then suddenly you realise that you are nearing another sacrosanct deadline which you cant afford to miss and you postpone the answer to these questions by one more day.

After every L^2, we used to think that we wont waste time on the next one and would try to do some mugging, but the sound of the rocking DJ and frequent pings on Bracket(internal messenger) used to pull me out to forget all the tensions with a beer and some leg shaking.

Some unforgettable events: Well so much has happened in the three months but still some few hand picked events that will remain much closer are :

1. First week – full of fun and thrill and the best welcome that we could have expected.

2. The first L^2

3. The first placu party…Hail PRs

4. First movie at the theatre with secA guys

5. Bhasads with VBLs

6. Daily JPR meetings

7. Hooshings at bday parties

8. Submitting the Finacc project 2 minutes before the deadline

9. Night out before two exams on next day and then running for my flight back to home and thus not sleeping continuously for 40 hours and just 6 hours in the last 3 days

It was really nice to have a vacation where I slept for more than 60% of time and now its another term, another round of screwing but with fun :)

P.S: The words in italics come from IIMB lingo and I am sorry if you are not able to decipher the same

Change in admission procedure of NITs

I just came to know recently that the HRD has abolished the state quotas in all NITs. Well the 50% of the seats still remain reserved for the state where the NIT is located, but for the rest of the 50% seats, there is no state quotas and it will be open for all states. So, for new applicants, only AIR rank of AIEEE will matter if they are seeking admission in NIT outside their state and I guess they will have more number of options to choose from.

Its good on one side as the intake quality would be better but the diverse culture of NITs would be hit and it will interesting to see what happens when the culture of these established institutes changes

Sweet memories@Google

Last week my team gave me and Akshay a farewell party as we are heading to IIM B. It was a very sweet gesture on their part and I thank one and all for that evening. During the dinner, some of them asked me to share some of my sweet memories at Google. Initially I thought it to be a very simple question to answer but when I started answering, it got very tough. Its not like I do not have many sweet memories there, but I had so many that it took a long time in scanning all of them and shortlisting only a few for sharing at that moment. It was then, that I thought of writing a blog for the same. So, here it goes:

As I go into the flashback, I can still clearly remember the first day. The feeling of going to “the best company to work for” (Fortune) was great. My cab came a little late to pick me up and when I reached Google, the induction had already started. The receptionist told me that its going on in Mumbai. For a moment, I was shocked, how will I get to Mumbai now. Then I learnt that its just the conference room name. The naming conventions of rooms and printers (based on city names, lakes, cartoons, movies and stars) is really cool and something which I would always remember. And believe what, the induction wasn't so boring as in other companies and was over in just a few hours. I got a laptop too, my first one and a goodie bag which had a T-shirt and a cool noogler cap with a fan on its top. I also got two 24" monitors which were looking so huge and I felt like watching movies on them instead of coding. The way other engineers were coming and greeting me, I was already feeling at home. They helped me in adjusting at Google soon enough by providing assistance whenever required. The manager gave me an overview of all the work that we were doing in Hyderabad(though he could have just told me about my project). I loved this openness and trust amongst the Googlers

Having the first popcorn on the bean bag, making maggi, enjoying coffee day express, munching all kind of snacks and chocolates for the entire day, help in foosball from other pro players were some of the things which attached me to Google and Googlers. And how can I forget the most important part: free meals which were wonderful. They had everything in lunch: North/south indian, chinese, italian, subway, salad bar, fruits, soups, deserts, blah-2. That was simply amazing and soon I gained a few pounds which was like a dream come true (you should see my college pics to understand this :P)

Then was the chance to see the dreamland: Google MTV(Mountain View) office. The feeling of stepping out of India for the first time was great. Got to see the beautiful Singapore on my way. Got a wonderful team and learned the pair programming art in MTV. I got a chance to pair with one of the smartest brains of the world: a guy who was world champion in rubix and had been coding since the year I was born. Others were also great and it was a tremendous learning experience( can write a complete blog on this itself). And yea I even had the much heard about Google onsite massage. It was so soothing that I was able to work till 2 am in night on that day without any complaints of head/back ache.

Then one day I went to the main buildings of Google; saw Larry and Sergey's cabin. I was also thrilled and excited to see the cabins of Orkut and some of the great Googlers(Google fellows). I could feel something different in the air and felt like working there for my entire life. Also, did I tell you that I got a chance to talk to Sergey face to face(though for just a minute) and also saw our CEO and Larry many times over. It was really a wonderful feeling to hear the company updates along with Sergey's PJs and some beer in TGIF. I loved the trust shown by the senior management on each and every Googler. The greatest learning in one year from Google was not any technology or language but the organizational behavior.

I also had a blast outside the office, went to so many beaches, mountains, valleys, Los Angeles that my picasa album was full of them. I loved driving there, had some beautiful scenic drives and went upto 80 mph on some freeways. I loved the Indian food there and of course Starbucks was the best. The trip also gave me some wonderful friends for life time. I must say it was a nice team building exercise :). To summarize, it was a wonderful lifetime experience and got to learn a lot from the US people: to be organised and patient(was evident in their driving itself).

Life at Hyderabad office was also fun. We loved the transition to the Google building. It's beautiful. To add to the colors, we had the cube decoration competition which was complete fun. Decorating the cubes as jungles, islands, villages, bars etc and showing all our engineering creativity was a good change.

Coming to offsites and parties. The offsite to Goa and Dandeli was too good and deserves another blog itself. Loved the first time rafting, trekking and water sports. We still tease Rahul for the wonderful dramas he did during all of this. The picnic party and rock night with Atif rocked!!

When I think of all this, I really feel nostalgic. I am sure I am gonna miss the fun of pair programming and the close foosball games. I am gonna miss the humorous Hindi phrases from Krishna and Sachin. I am gonna miss the leg pullings and the bumps for any and every reason. I am gonna miss my daily papaya servings and numerous dish choices in all the three meals. I am gonna miss the excitement that I used to get on learning about the latest Google inventions before the rest of the world. I am gonna miss the learnings from my peers and managers. I am gonna miss this lavish work environment and working with the smartest people of the world who have perfected the art of not being Evil.

I just wish that I continue being Googley!!

Trip to the beautiful Monterey

Sep 22-23 was another fun filled weekend at US. We went to see the beautiful Monterey city. For your knowledge this place is also famous for its wineries , but unfortunately we didnt get the time to taste that at its famous tasteries

Well according to our plans we started at 8:00 in morning with Asharam and Krishna on driver seats of our two splendid cars and Vijay and me navigating them respectively. Our car had a GPS system but still we took the Google maps along with us. Obviously Google is more reliable than anybody else. On our way to Monterey we had planned to visit a Mystery Spot.This was a mysterious place (obviously the name says that). The amazing thing about the spot was probably something related to magnetism fundaes. The guide kept a ball in the middle of an inclined piece of wood. Now on a normal place the ball must have rolled down but since it was a mystery spot the ball climbed up without any force. That was absolutely amazing. But we geeky engineers though the ball had some trick in it. We tried that with our water bottle but even that behaved in the same way. This convinced us fully that there is something more mysterious than the women on this earth :D. After that we went to the special mystery cabin where again our Engineering knowledge was put to the test. There was a pendulum hanging from the ceiling. Now according to our physics study the pendulum swings the same distance to and fro on both sides. But here again the pendulum covered more distance on one side than other. The cabin itself was mysterious. We were standing straight in the cabin but still we were tending to fall on one side (and one person left the railing and he really fell down to be the laughing stock of the group). Also though we were standing straight on the ground, it felt as if we are standing inclined at some angle.

After playing with mysteries, we left for Monterey. The drive to this place was awesome. We went through some hilly areas which had some sharp curves and some steep slopes. Also the sceneries on our side after that were awesome. Saw the beautiful US farms and country side homes and tried to capture most of them in our cams. Finally we reached the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was a busy area and thronged by people and we realised that soon when it took us 30 minutes to park our car. Finally we went in to explore the wonderful sea creatures which included my first experience with the sea otters. They swam so well and so cutely and their back stroke was awesome. Four of them were playing a kind of hide n seek game which the crowd enjoyed a lot. After that I went to spend some time with the jelly fish. I had seen a few of them in Sentosa, Singapore but the number and variety here was huge. Before this I never imagined that we have so many kinds of jelly fish on this planet and I am sure we were still missing many more. More, I saw the different fishes, sharks, octopus, crabs etc-etc-etc, more I realised how vast and beautiful our nature is.
And after this was the time for the best shot. Yes, it was time for the 17 mile drive which had the beautiful 21 spots including some golf courses, wonderful beaches, awesome view points, a ghost tree and the best country side houses on the way. Well, due to the shopping spree of my dear fellas we weren't able to cover all of them but we did mange to stop at some of them and got ourselves clicked with the beautiful sceneries behind us. As it was getting dark we had to rush back to our place as we had to drive another 80 miles. But some of us were quite hungry and it took us 3 hours to satisfy their hunger(actually half of the time to look for the Indian restaurant.
we love Indian food..dont we:P)Finally, the restaurant was a good find where we even managed to have a hukka for the first time. And we ended the dinner, by bursting away that hukka. Now, dont ask me how we did that. After all we are engineers man and dont we know that if we blow with force in a closed surface it will burst out of pressure, especially when it is made up of glass!! But anyways we got rid of it and even managed to get an apology from the owner.
So, it was time to say good bye to the beautiful Monterey and the safe driving placed us in our apartments in one piece at 1:30 in night. To summarize, it was a memorable trip and the pics would now do the rest of talking

Trip To Santa Cruz

After a long journey of 36 hours including the 10 hr exciting transit at Singapore, Santosh, Krishna and me reached San Fransisco airport and from there straight to the Mountain View hotel. We hardly got 5 hrs to sleep as our fellow Googlers have already planned an exciting trip to Santa Cruz BroadWalk. Though we were little tired and suffering from jet lag but we couldnt say no for such a wondeful trip. And obiously, weekends are not the time to sleep but to enjoy. So early in the morning we left to see the beautiful beaches. But half of the excitement came down when we missed the bus and our fellow friends. The best part of the story was that we didnt had the cell phone and I dont know why the US phone booths were very stubborn and didnt let me make any call. But somehow we managed to get hold of each other and started for the trip by boarding the bus.
Now according to our fellow Googler Vijay's directions who was playing the role of guide, we had to change the bus and take another one which goes to Santa Cruz. But we found out that the bus he figured out doesnt go there. But the driver told us some other way out. So we have to come back to the point where we started. Then finally we got the right bus. It took around an hour and went through some slopes which had beautiful sceneries( acc to Namrata) but what I observed the most were the nice cars. They were too good. And the bikes which we saw were ultimate. I wish I could own one such.
And then we reached Santa Cruz BroadWalk. It was a lovely place. The beach was huge and had an amusement park on the shore. Since we guys were very hungry, we though of grabbing a pizza. Now here I wud like to mention that US is very strange sometimes in categorising its food products in veg/non-veg. There was a vegetable dish on the menu which contained egg :D and some dishes which contained the dairy products were categorised as non veg :P
After filling up our stomaches, we started with the the real fun; we went to the beach. The water was so chilled that for the moment it looked that I am frozen. But within a minute I got used to that and started enjoying. The huge waves were hitting me with a pressure and I was enjoying fighting with them. Facing the waves without moving form my place gave me a felling of being strong and I loved that. The fun part was when the waves receded back, it took the mud along with it and u would feel as if the earth below u is moving away :). Krishna knew swimming and he went faraway into the sea and counting on him that he would save me, even I dared to go ahead a little :P.
After this cool waterbath, we went for some breath stopping rides. We started with the double shot which shot up in a flash to a height of 25 ft and gave us a free fall from there. I was so hell scared. But the real scary and daring part was the Typhoon ride. It was like the pendulum ride of other parks. But instead of taking us only to the extreme ends, they made us to revolve in a full circle. And the moment we were on the highest point , we were completely upside down. For the moment I though that I would fall down and that would be the end of everything. But thank God, these americans have tied us down properly:). And here too they gave us a free fall from the highest point which took the hell out of me again.

After this fun filled and thrilling days it was time to say goood bye to Santa Cruz and to return to our hotel. But yeah it was a nice starting of the US stay:).

The pic album along with the captions can be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/bansal.vikas84/SantaCruz

First trip outside India.....Singapore!!!!!!

My first international visit was supposed to be US. But Singapore got the honor. Actually Singapore was a transit for my trip from Hyderabad to San Fransisco and it was 10 hrs long... thanks to the Singapore Airlines. So we(Krishna, Santosh and me) thought of taking an advantage of this and went to see the Sentosa Island. Its a beuatiful tourist spot with a beach and lot of other funs. We went for underground water park in which I moved in a tunnel with a huge variety of fishes and other sea animals on my either sides in glass. It was so damn exciting to see all this from so close. Some times I had the feeling as if I am moving in the sea and these animals would just touch me. Oh I forgot to tell you that there was a small pond in which we could even touch these fishes( but gently). I was so excited on this part but also a little afraid and wasnt able to touch any of the fishes as they were too fast :(. I even saw the crabs and the jelly fish for the first time.

After this, I went for the Dolphin show. This was a real fun to see the dolphins acting on the directions of the trainer. They were acting so smart and so cute. One of my frens Chetan(Singapore local) even got a chance to shake hands with dolphin. After these two exciting shows we went for the beach. It was a nice and clean beach with people enjoying in the kayaks and all. Sadly we didn't had much time to do that. So we just sat on the beach side for some time and started back to airport. On our way, we grabbed some food and also the downtown area of Singapore.....the commercial hub of the country with huge skyscrapers. Some buildings were too big and too good.

Overall, this country had a good impression on my mind but I also had a feeling that India is not far behind. We have a metro system similar to them, though we that hav the sytem of taking the tickets ourselves from the automated machines(which even accpeted notes and gave back the exact change...didnt see this even in US). Also the buses were too good and the streets were excellent with greenery and flowers all around. Yea I know there was a lot more another stuff to be explored but gosh we were running out of time. My flight was sceduled at 5:00 and i just boarded it at 4:50...I know a close call.

And finally I was on my way to San Fransisco...about which I would write more in my next blog. :)

See the pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/bansal.vikas84/Singapore