To stay or not to stay

This is the last blog of mine on this chronicle of sessions organized in the Careerz '05 (the first time ever Career Fest in the history of IIT Kharagpur). It is really a commendable start-up, so to speak. The last session was on the 'Research Oppotunities in India'. Mr. Manu Kuchhal, Software professional from IBM Software Group and Prof. Soumitro Bannerjee (faculty in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT-KGP, who was honoured with Shantiswarup Bhatnagar Award in 2003) chaired the session. The former talked about the "SOA(Service Oriented Architecture)". That was highly technical and audience was supposedky from Computer Science background. The other one was on 'IT career opportunities in IBM'. He mainly talked about the scopes of a software professional in the Indian silicon arena. Be it hardware or software. It was good indeed to listen to him...but under the belt there was feeling of uneasiness. May be because of the technical jargons which we normally like to keep off from.

In the following interactive discussion with Prof. Bannerjee, he talked about the pros and cons of going to abroad, and his personal experiences in top universities in USA. He made it a point that IITs are far better than most of the US universities except a few, may be except top rung consisting of 25 univs. Yes that is true, as per as senior feedback and usnews go. But he also mentioned that we lack the 'research-group' culture here and we have other monetary constraints. However, research is much more enjoyable and fulfilling in India as there is ample freedom in IITs compared to US prof.s who are more busy in collecting their funds themselves there. Prof. Bannerjee talked about involving undergraduates in the research programs currently practised by univs in abroad.(cited example of UROP-Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, in MIT) In the end he clarified the role of a good research supervisor and how can he help in aligning his student searching for a solution of a feasible problem, in the desired track.

Overall, it was a good experience to listen to multi-faceted people from different walks of life. I think this workshop will definitely help us in broadenning our views and understanding our career goals and aspirations with more clarity. My personal vote of thanks to Arindam, Sisir and all other organizers who untiringly worked for this workshop and made it a grand success!

The World is Flat

Who said that the world is round. I think Copernicus, Galileo and all the band of scientists need to re-think on their theories of terrestial theories. It's the realization that dawned upon me after the attending the series of sessions in Careerz '05. Just now I returned from the session on Advertising by Mr. Partha Sengupta ('87, Mech, '88 IIMA).

He took us through a journey into the ad-world and how actually things are made inside. He talked about people who love to live life and want to make people feel and laugh at ourselves. "Advertising is all about making things relevant to what people do"-this was the simple definition of Advertising according to Mr. Sengupta. An ad-maker needs to understand the culture of the people and what actually connects our mind and soul. He showed us with examples how ads (churned out from our sub-conscious activities e.g. bunking classes, whistlling at girls etc.) turned into either myths or into cliches. The best example in this regard was the one from Coca Cola that was marketted (possibly) during World Cup '96. It showed us how young people live upto cricket in India, with 'mirchi's and stuffs laid beside the Ganges for drying, and people playing beside the banks of Yamuna in Agra, with Taj Mahal in the backdrop. That was indeed a good ad but it flopped. On the other hand, "Thanda matlab Coca Cola" had immense success because that was an insider's viewpoint about India and hence we felt closer to it. The same car was advertised in different manner when it comes to US or India. Car, stands for smoothness to Americans while it is the icon of status and linear-hierarchy in India, and hence campaigning assumes a different color complying with cultures.

But ad-making is not very exciting all the time. A person in the advertising world needs to work very hard.(In fact he presented an ad on that issue too) The bottomline in this industry is to remain open-minded to the society and its changes, to live life fully and observe keenly.....that is the secret in this profession. Mr. Sengupta was mobbed with galore of questions in the interactive sessions as he ommitted the e-advertisement part. Also, in the conclusion he mentioned the paramount importance of children in the Indian mind-set of family, and how recently the ad-agencies are exploiting those nascent opportunities.

Towards the end I had a gut feeling of what I mentioned in the beginning. The world is surely flatenning down. As on Friday we met Mr. Agnimitra Biswas followed by Mr. Prasad and then Mr Sengupta, I found a common aspect in them. It's although very simple and nothing new. In order to be successful u need to live ur passions and do not give away to myths.(definitely with some amount of planning beforehand) It's the linear hierarchy (which we are so well accustomed in India) which is dissolving or have started to dissolve, it's the economies which have started to mingle, and it's the culture that have started to blend so well across borders, that they clearly signal that there is indeed a global change and we need to think on choosing our careers prudently. Ultimately it's not the brand but the individual ambitions to make it big in any direction they want it to be. Yes, being an IITian helps a lot, in terms of associations and initial penetration towards that chosen direction. Kudos to Arindam Mukhaerjee, our Vice-President, Technology Students' Gymkhana, for arranging these wonderful series of sessions!

The Big Leap

It is really a second's dillema until u take a deep breath and jump down the cliff. After that it is no looking back (no equation-solving business) but plunging into uncertainty. That was the picture in the foremost slide of Mr. Prasad, who graduated out of this institute in 1988, with the dream of attaching the tag of "Director" besides his name. With this ambition, he left the secured job of HMT and returned to Kharagpur with almost zero capital to manufacture antennas. He was clearly real excited talking back of those thrilling days with Prof. G. S. Sanyal. That was the biggest leap in his life. Rest is history. It's a kind of moment's desire to boss his own business. Looking back he retrospects on the positive as well as negative aspects that came up his way to success. He shared the roller-coaster drive that he experienced in the corporate world. It is the good friends and the ambition, according to him took him this far. In the conclusion he also pointed out the changing social and market scenarios in India.

It is same idea which I found common between today and yesterday. Follow ur passions if u want to have long-term happiness. Success is bound to follow if somebody honestly strives to reach his dream, may be not today but someday in the future!