The fourth semester was the first of the three busiest semesters in JU. It was a almost a paradigm shift from the slow and tranquil life of the previous three semesters. It started in february 2006, but ended in april, and there were exams in may. This left only 3 months for classes, 12 classtests and lab assignments all packed together. To add to this, was the project guide selection, which turned out to be a huge drama.
One of the earliest memories of this semester was that of one morning, when I, along with debarshi, anirban and haimasree went towards the Arts and Science section of the university. Debarshi needed to collect a form regarding some french class he was attending. He went to the Arts department building, while I sat near the building gate with anirban and haimasree. Whenever some girl walked past, haimasree would ask me whether i liked her or not. Earlier in the first semester, when dripto frequently asked me these questions, i got highly uncomfortable and tried to move away. But on this day, when haimasree did the same, i thoroughly enjoyed it, and became aware of the change which 1.5 years of college life had brought about in me.
Sayan, i have mentioned in earlier posts, was highly focussed about Ph.D. in USA. But in this semester, he also started preparing heavily for GATE, even though that was still two years away, and we had hardly studied much Computer-Science related subjects. But he selected Automata Theory and Discrete Maths, and started studying them and practising problems. Souri had got a collection of previous years' question papers of GATE, and Sayan started solving them. I particularly remember one day, when I found myself with the geeks of the class-namely sayan,swagato,arpan, souri and shibasis, engrossed over those questions. Sayan started singling out the questions related to graph theory, discrete maths and automata theory, and solved them before I could understand the questions. I was shocked to see what was going on, since my own plan was to appear in GATE after two years. I panicked and started studying automata from that semester. Although i did not particularly like the subject, by the end of the semester had picked up a reasonable understanding of it.
Students are required to do a project in their final year, but many students start working in the third year itself. In this semester, we were taught digital logic by Prof PK Das, who taught particularly well. He ran the Center of Mobile Computing and Communication (CMCC) of JU, where some of our seniors worked. Some of us, including myself, had a fascination for working with PKD sir on this topic. Now PKD selected students on the basis of an interview and CGPA, and there was a heavy demand for him. 12-14 students approached him, including some of my close friends- arpan, souri, haimasree, debarshi and arijit. He asked us to organize ourselves in groups of 3-4 students each, so that he could interview in groups rather than individually. He asked us to study the fundamantals of Java and Linux for the interview. Some seniors had warned us to prepare well. I had no experience in either of the two, but picked up books and read the introductory chapters. My group members were arpan and arijit. On the D-Day, around 4:30 in the afternoon, all the 14 students huddled into the CMCC- a small but air-conditioned, brightly-lit, neat and tidy room on top of the administrative building. After a long and anxious wait, PKD started calling the groups one by one. Our group was second to go in. PKD asked some questions about java and linux, we answered whatever we had understood by our one-chapter reading. I don't remember any of his questions or our answers, but the latter ones must have been very weird. We were very tense after the interview, but after a couple of days he put out a notice stating that all 12 of us were selected except for Pramit and Ankit, who had interviewed with him but voluntarily opted out as they wanted database-related projects.
The above two incidents added to the tension of the anyway overloaded semester. To relieve myself of this tension, i often used to wander about the building during the free periods. It was a huge building consisting of two wings, connected at the second floors by a narrow hanging passage. The main building was 8-storeyed, and housed the Computer Science, Electronics, Civil and Architecture departments. The annexe building belonged almost entirely to the Computer Science dapartment. Both the buildings were dark, old, damp, dusty and even filthy at certain places. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my solo strolls to every nook and corner of the buildings, every passage and staircase, familiarizing myself with the names of the faculty, the different labs, reading the paper abstracts and posters displayed at different places on the walls. I am sure I knew the buildings better than anyone else in the class. It was fascinating, and for me, the best part of the semester.
It is in this semester that most of us, including myself, opened our Orkut accounts. Very soon, Orkut was the main talking point in the whole class, along with the book Five Point Someone. Everyone took great care to fill up his own profile, and often read others' profiles in great details. Very soon, orkut had become an important mode of communication among us-as important as the telephone. In fact, in later semesters it became still more important, and it could be claimed that for many (or most) of us, the Orkut existence had become as important as the real-life existence!
Though the semester was hectic, the summer holidays in june were particularly refreshing. It was the best vacation I ever had in my entire student life. The days were magical at home- the hot, sunny afternoons, the beautiful "Chand Sifaarish" or "Tu hi meri" playing on Red FM or my favourite Radio Mirchi, and the world cup football! After reading Five Point Someone I had become inspired to think beyond books and exercise problems and try something innovative- and I started to design various digital electronic circuits and implement them on a simulator. I had developed a deep passion for this, and also for networking, which was related to both PKD's project and our project in IIMC. Sometimes i would go to JU during the holidays, and met friends. Unlike students of other departments who hung out in canteens, the playground and the "lakeside" (a venue for lovebirds and smokers/weeders), the favourite hangout of some of my classmates was the Computer Architecture Lab where they surfed the web, and particularly Orkut. I went to this lab sometimes for some coding related to the IIM project, and had a great time mixing work with fun as many friends were around. I dare say, this was the best time for me in JU.
One of the earliest memories of this semester was that of one morning, when I, along with debarshi, anirban and haimasree went towards the Arts and Science section of the university. Debarshi needed to collect a form regarding some french class he was attending. He went to the Arts department building, while I sat near the building gate with anirban and haimasree. Whenever some girl walked past, haimasree would ask me whether i liked her or not. Earlier in the first semester, when dripto frequently asked me these questions, i got highly uncomfortable and tried to move away. But on this day, when haimasree did the same, i thoroughly enjoyed it, and became aware of the change which 1.5 years of college life had brought about in me.
Sayan, i have mentioned in earlier posts, was highly focussed about Ph.D. in USA. But in this semester, he also started preparing heavily for GATE, even though that was still two years away, and we had hardly studied much Computer-Science related subjects. But he selected Automata Theory and Discrete Maths, and started studying them and practising problems. Souri had got a collection of previous years' question papers of GATE, and Sayan started solving them. I particularly remember one day, when I found myself with the geeks of the class-namely sayan,swagato,arpan, souri and shibasis, engrossed over those questions. Sayan started singling out the questions related to graph theory, discrete maths and automata theory, and solved them before I could understand the questions. I was shocked to see what was going on, since my own plan was to appear in GATE after two years. I panicked and started studying automata from that semester. Although i did not particularly like the subject, by the end of the semester had picked up a reasonable understanding of it.
Students are required to do a project in their final year, but many students start working in the third year itself. In this semester, we were taught digital logic by Prof PK Das, who taught particularly well. He ran the Center of Mobile Computing and Communication (CMCC) of JU, where some of our seniors worked. Some of us, including myself, had a fascination for working with PKD sir on this topic. Now PKD selected students on the basis of an interview and CGPA, and there was a heavy demand for him. 12-14 students approached him, including some of my close friends- arpan, souri, haimasree, debarshi and arijit. He asked us to organize ourselves in groups of 3-4 students each, so that he could interview in groups rather than individually. He asked us to study the fundamantals of Java and Linux for the interview. Some seniors had warned us to prepare well. I had no experience in either of the two, but picked up books and read the introductory chapters. My group members were arpan and arijit. On the D-Day, around 4:30 in the afternoon, all the 14 students huddled into the CMCC- a small but air-conditioned, brightly-lit, neat and tidy room on top of the administrative building. After a long and anxious wait, PKD started calling the groups one by one. Our group was second to go in. PKD asked some questions about java and linux, we answered whatever we had understood by our one-chapter reading. I don't remember any of his questions or our answers, but the latter ones must have been very weird. We were very tense after the interview, but after a couple of days he put out a notice stating that all 12 of us were selected except for Pramit and Ankit, who had interviewed with him but voluntarily opted out as they wanted database-related projects.
The above two incidents added to the tension of the anyway overloaded semester. To relieve myself of this tension, i often used to wander about the building during the free periods. It was a huge building consisting of two wings, connected at the second floors by a narrow hanging passage. The main building was 8-storeyed, and housed the Computer Science, Electronics, Civil and Architecture departments. The annexe building belonged almost entirely to the Computer Science dapartment. Both the buildings were dark, old, damp, dusty and even filthy at certain places. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my solo strolls to every nook and corner of the buildings, every passage and staircase, familiarizing myself with the names of the faculty, the different labs, reading the paper abstracts and posters displayed at different places on the walls. I am sure I knew the buildings better than anyone else in the class. It was fascinating, and for me, the best part of the semester.
It is in this semester that most of us, including myself, opened our Orkut accounts. Very soon, Orkut was the main talking point in the whole class, along with the book Five Point Someone. Everyone took great care to fill up his own profile, and often read others' profiles in great details. Very soon, orkut had become an important mode of communication among us-as important as the telephone. In fact, in later semesters it became still more important, and it could be claimed that for many (or most) of us, the Orkut existence had become as important as the real-life existence!
Though the semester was hectic, the summer holidays in june were particularly refreshing. It was the best vacation I ever had in my entire student life. The days were magical at home- the hot, sunny afternoons, the beautiful "Chand Sifaarish" or "Tu hi meri" playing on Red FM or my favourite Radio Mirchi, and the world cup football! After reading Five Point Someone I had become inspired to think beyond books and exercise problems and try something innovative- and I started to design various digital electronic circuits and implement them on a simulator. I had developed a deep passion for this, and also for networking, which was related to both PKD's project and our project in IIMC. Sometimes i would go to JU during the holidays, and met friends. Unlike students of other departments who hung out in canteens, the playground and the "lakeside" (a venue for lovebirds and smokers/weeders), the favourite hangout of some of my classmates was the Computer Architecture Lab where they surfed the web, and particularly Orkut. I went to this lab sometimes for some coding related to the IIM project, and had a great time mixing work with fun as many friends were around. I dare say, this was the best time for me in JU.
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ReplyDeleteOn the day when we met PKD, you looked totally sick, as if suffering from some disease or at least headache, with red eyes.... what exactly happened, may i know?
ReplyDeletepossibly out of tension :-P
ReplyDelete