Four Unexplainable Years

Published on Thursday, July 05 2018 • 2 minutes read

It all started four years ago, in August, 2014. After months of prep work, I joined University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, situated at the heart of Bangalore, near KR Circle. I visited the college with my father and had neutral thoughts about it. As I wanted to get into Computer Science branch no matter the college, I was allotted a seat at UVCE and got the admission done with some difficulties to say the least.

As the classes begun for the first semester, I made new friends. Nikhil and Ravi were among the few first people I'd noticed and talked to, and now they've become a part of my life. In the second year, I joined Kiran sir and Vignesh P sir for a research project on Tor, which helped me in ways I thought weren't possible. To list a few, it has helped me in my programming ability, technical knowledge and understanding open source technologies. This is what gave me exposure to the open source world of Linux in the first place, and saying that I'd be in a completely different place without it wouldn't be an understatement.

The third year was a blur and it passed by very quickly with prep work for placements. Another aspect of Bangalore University that's great is the fact that we had mini projects for labs. This was a great opportunity for us to implement with what we'd learnt and give us basic understanding how software works in the real world. Incase this is read by professors at my college. here's a note: Please use digital copies to check the lab reports. We talk about "judicious use of paper", but printing out draft copies just for the sake of correction is a huge step backwards.

The final year was all about the #OneLastTime. We tried spending time with our friends and went on an outing we had been planning for the first three years (you know what I'm talking about Nikhil, Ravi and Usman). Some of us also went for internships and learnt a great deal there. I was and still am working as an Intern at Digital McKinsey. I would love to talk about the experience here in detail, the gist of it being that I became more outspoken, my English has improved, and I have the confidence to get my thoughts across the board.

It is always difficult to answer the question, "How is this college? Is this a good college for my daughter/son?" because to put all the things I have talked about here into a couple of sentences is just impossible.

This is going to be the first post without any fixes. This is a draft, one which will never be printed or checked. Because experiences are never right or wrong, they are meant to be just experienced at the moment and relished for a lifetime. In these four years, things have changed greatly, but some  things never changed. Those late night binge watching Good Mythical Morning, talking to friends, playing Call of Duty when you know you have reach college early for a lecture. These things will be missed but never forgotten. I might have done things that are great, stupid, but those are the things that define me. I don't know what life will bring in these upcoming years, but whatever it may be, I'll be ready for it.

Sahu, S