A message for TE students

[Shagufta]

Hi everyone. So this is just an informal message for all TE students , I will try to tell u some things which I feel you should know at this point, and which I wish someone had told me when I was in third year. First of all, first of all, first of all, BE is definitely not a cakewalk. You must have heard, BE waale always maze karte hain.. Always free rehte hain.. Absolutely not true. At least not the first semester. There are so many things all at the same time. Especially for those who are planning for further studies and intend to give the GRE, I suggest you to start studying RIGHT NOW, and give the GRE by the end of your third year. In BE you will have insems, Purdue selections, project, placements, all at the same time. And that will not be easy. Maths is easy, but for people like me with average English, the english words are horrible... Do as many words as possible everyday. Download some app like Magoosh to track progress, you can take Barrons or Manhattan from the library, that would be perfect. Manhattan is the closest to the actual level of GRE questions fyi. We have the new versions of those books in the library but very few copies. So u can download pdfs, I have a set of downloaded books if someone needs. No need for tutions, trust me.

Coming to the PROJECT, you all will be told to choose groups by the end of TE, don't fight among friends and all, almost all groups get split up in the end because of the tests by the companies unless you are planning to do a faculty sponsored project or a project on your own. So if you want your friends to be in your group, tell them to study well for the aptitude tests . Also, don't go with the crowd and just sit for every damn company that visits. Just try to find out if the project they are giving interests you. Talking from experience. I sat for the companies as they came and got selected in a company and was excited but turned out they had not-so-interesting projects and Muchrikar sir didn't let me back out. Wait for good companies, in the end the good companies come, like IBM and they have interesting projects. Also, it isn't really necessary to get a sponsored project. That is just the company's way of getting their boring work done for free. Lol. You can think of a problem statement on your own and have a very interesting project. If you can't think of it, go for a faculty sponsored project. After the companies' procedures, the teachers give out a set of their own project statements which are really very exciting and worth doing. Like Sunita ma'am and neeta maam had super interesting data mining projects this time! So the point is, you don't have to sit for every other company that comes.
Another thing, the project is going to trouble you the most in BE, especially the first sem. The documentation is supposed to be done in the first sem, and the coding in the second. And trust me when I say this, but software engineering feels like the worst subject in TE second sem but is the most important for all the project work u do in BE. And probably even in the future in the companies u work at. Seriously! We had to refer the SE book so many times, the uml diagrams, the srs , etc etc. The documentation part is THE WORST THING EVER . And you have to deal with it the entire sem. It is just sooooo repelling and disgusting. God i just hate it. Anyway, i tend to get lost in topics, the point is, the SE subject is important.

A little side note, our library has a very interesting set of books and a really exhaustive collection it is indeed. Make full use of it! Not only academic related, but extra things which interest you, like I keep taking books on data science since that interests me. And I see awesome books every other day and I feel so attracted to them <3 such an interesting collection you really should make the full use of it, I can't emphasize it enough!

Also, I would suggest you all to master any ONE thing perfectly. Be it a language, technology, anything. So when someone asks you what r u good at, u can proudly and confidently say, Yes! This is what I am an expert at! Ask me any goddamn question on this topic!! Like C++ . If u like it, just read lots and lots of books on it, data structures, templates, stl, just try to know all about it and nothing can stop u from getting a job. This is for the interview, but in general also it is awesome if u are confident about one thing and just know all about it if anyone asks anything. I know the education system of the PU sucks. We have breadth of knowledge not depth. So in the end we just get an overview of everything rather than detailed knowledge. That's y u should keep visiting the library to study in depth about stuff you like, be it out of the academic syllabus.

And just by the way, it would be really great if you participate in some paper presentation competitions, even if they r in our college, even better if you win them. But paper presentation is the only thing which has a value just with participation , not necessarily winning. Other things like coding , tech games, and other garbage that techfests have, have a value only if you win them. But writing a paper is a very big deal since in our college not many people do it. (ofcourse I have heard a lot about people in TE this time who have papers, patents etc, (this time's TE batch is really very active and genius just fyi!) but just saying in general) . Like I had a paper on big data for businesses and the it always gave me an edge over the others. Again, Not really necessary, but just saying that it would be great if u do have some paper(s) or patent(s).

In general, I would suggest to definitely keep your percentage as high as possible if you want to avoid any troubles in the future regarding the criteria for different companies. Also, to an extent extra curriculars and co curriculars do matter, so keep your resume good-looking, shouldn't look absolutely empty. Personally, I never liked the format others used , the one which Rohini maam gave for the resumes, those 7 pages with tables, so not out of the box, like literally. I used a format of my own. Bhushan Kelkar sir will also help you with that. So in short you need to have good time management skills now. Also, an internship if you can get, with the help of some contacts, wont hurt. A genuine one isn't really allowed for us, since it is longer than one month generally, but people do manage to get them through contacts which is good, for your experience in the industry as well as your resume. I didn't get one through contacts and didn't do an internship in the third year, but I did a virtual internship with IIT Bombay in the second year, was related to python coding and was fun. Not really necessary, but an internship looks good on the resume.

Okay so i can't remember anything else right now, will keep you all updated on stuff, Thanks for reading all this with so much patience!
-Shagufta.