Thursday 19 July 2012

Beginning of the Beginning

It was a fine rainy day when the results of the final iteration came out and lo and behold I was granted admission at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, Pilani campus. Was a pretty memorable moment and in what seemed like no time at all, I set off with my family for the sleepy village of Pilani near the Haryana-Rajasthan border. It was a 6 hour ride and we were tired on reaching the but the grandeur in the air was clearly palpable as we stepped out of the car into the hallowed campus of one of the finest colleges in the country. The fact that the campus was pretty much as old as our country was evident fro  m the archaic architecture what with the domes and everything.
Well the first day passed quickly with the registration and everything and my parents left for home in the evening in what was a sentimental farewell because well I had never been away from for any length of time let alone 5 long years. Of course there would be breaks in between but you don't think that way at that time.
If any of you are wondering, it was a 5 year integrated course as I would be getting two degrees - one in Engineering obviously and the other in Biological Sciences (pretty cool, huh ?... well it probably wasn't or anyways I didn't think so at that moment)
So after the poignant farewell I went to my allotted room- Krishna 403. I had  a roommate whom I  had met earlier in the day while unpacking my stuff- let's call him Plaash (another anagram). He was short,squat, fat and was a pretty decent fellow mostly so I had no qualms about sharing a room with him for 1 year. So the net few weeks were spent in getting to know the wing-mates and getting familiar with the rigorous curriculum though the first few days were quite hard for everyone due to the harsh heat, academic pressure, new people and of course the LGMF (little green motherf&($%#, the tiny green insects which sting pretty hard and one of the many words in the BITS lexicon) who didn't let us sleep at night.
BTW since I had an integrated 5 year course I was not allotted an Engineering branch just yet and had to wait an year for the same and obviously because of the cut throat competition had to get a decent CGPA to get the branch of my choice- CS.
Well I won't bore you with the details and dwell on the smaller details of first year at BITS because even a book is too short for that but it passed fairly quickly what with the huge number of surprise quizzes, tests and other evaluation components. I made quite a lot of friends even though I preferred solitude to company, had my share of fights and well after slogging pretty hard for a year managed a respectable CGPA of just above 8 which got me the engineering branch of my choice.
So now fast forward to the end of 2 year (yeah I skipped a whole year- not much it was more relaxed as I at least had an assured engineering branch allotted to me........ and it was more of the same- huge academic pressure coupled with loads of social activities with friends which makes up the dizzying cocktail one can only have at the top 6-7 engineering colleges in the country )
2 year had mixed feelings in store for me as 2-1 was a pretty good semester while 2-2 wasn't that good so it kind of balanced out and I hoping to again be on the right side of 8 as I will get my CGPA after 10 days as my holidays end and the ante penultimate year at BITS starts. But I am beginning to sound like a nerd now so I better stop and let's wait and see when I can post next.
Ciao for now
WTPA
PS- If you like what you read- let me know, that's what will inspire me for more.
If you didn't, tell me what you hated.