Another death in BIT. Foul play suspected!

The title says it all. And since I am not at BIT I can only give you second hand information.
http://news.google.com/news?q=Drowned+BIT+student&hl=en&lr=&rlz=1B2GGGL_enIN176IN176&pwst=1&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title
The news is in national newspapers too. I was able to read the news here in Hyderabad.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/love-twist-in-bit-student-death-case/28165-3.html
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061211/asp/jamshedpur/story_7124494.asp
After the dope cases, another round of free publicity for BIT?

Mess ka "mess"!!!!

One of the biggest reasons for the almost hysterical joy of a BITIAN when he enters the final year is the allotment of the 'inner' hostels.Now these are a set of 'elite' hostels meant for final year BE students.Salient features include single occupancy rooms, and the bathrooms actually having a clean tiled floor....believe me these are a quantum leap from the 'outer' hostel where the pigeon hole principal does not aply....since each room is a pigeon hole and there are two pigeons in each...coming back to the point...we were extremely ecstatic when we made our annual nomadic journey from one hostel to another...and apart from the salient features mentioned above, we looked forward to the best part of it all....THE FOOD!!!....oh the food has always been so excellent and for the first few weeks we were actually gaining weight for the first time in our BITIAN days!....

Did ya note the past tense?...yeah thats because its no longer excellent...i wonder whether it is food at all any longer....what transpired within two weeks?...how could there be such a drastic change overnight?....well someone in the administration suddenly realized that "whoa!!...i need to change the system of 'extra's'...the mess has become a restaurant"....the system of extra's was simple...there will be a basic meal on top of which everyone can order dishes of his choice and each person will be charged individually for that...now the system is like there will only be the basic meals and everyone will have to have that stuff no matter what...no choice...no extra dishes...now you would think that we will be paying less huh?...nope!...dont think so...here are a few points i want to make...(i hope someone out there in the administration reads this...and his heart melts)

1) In the morning we can have either of 2 eggs or an apple or a glass of milk...what is that all about?...how do these things equate?...doesnt make any sense to me....if anyone wants to have 2 apples he doesnt get them even if the apples get wasted in the end...

2) We can have our eggs only boiled not and omlette...huh?...whats that all about?

3) If i dont mind paying extra money for better food then why should someone else have a problem with that?...

4) Why should i pay for a meal that i didn't have?

5) The reason for scrapping the extra system was that the mess workers used to put stuff on the students account and pocket a few bucks on the sly....dude...i would rather have those poor guys enjoy a good meal once in a while than someone else higher up the hierarchy.

There are many more things that annoy me about the changes in our mess...but i realize there is no use....i hope some official on the administration reads this and does something...why do people always change things that were going along smoothly in the first place?...there's some food for thought...(sorry for the cliche)...

p.s. Recent Developments :
The mess workers recently placed an order for 14 kgs of chicken for about 28 people....believe me i ate the chicken and the amount served was no where near to the 1/2 kg per person mark......Now the student mess committee....(which is constituted to bring to light such discrepancies)....reported the matter to the Dean-Students "Welfare" (note the inverted commas)....not surprisingly no action was taken against the mess workers....the entire committee resigned after this humiliation...


Thanx 2 http://saurabhsays.blogspot.com/

About Time

Well
just heard this from some junior.
BIT is finally showing the answer sheets of the mid-term papers to the students.
Not something to be glad of for all of us, but a giant step forward from wondering about the laws governing mark distribution in the papers.

now this has only been done for 2k6, so atleast the rest of still live in doubt / hope / mystery.
Along with the new colour laminated ID cards they have been issued, the new syllabus structure
( 5 marks for attendance and 10 for project , out of the total 100), there are definitely a lot of positive changes coming around at BIT Mesra.
Let's just hope we get LAN and internet access from the comfort of our rooms in the next semester too.

gotta go study now.
ciao

BIT Mesra related sites.

ODP, or Open Directory project is a human edited directory. More information about it can be had at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmoz. Now I was just trying to build a repository of sites about our college there. It can be found here . However it is pretty hard finding all quality sites as a google search for BIT Mesra gets you all sort of crap.
So if you guys are aware of interesting sites which can be listed there, can you leave a comment and let me know. Or better still just submit that at ODP?

Here is the current placement scenario as on July 27, 2006
TCS - Written - 250 Shortlisted
Google - 5 Shortlisted
Microsoft - 3 Offers
Tata Motors - 23 Offers
Maruti Udyog Limited - 11 Offers

Sattelite map of Bit

If you guys have not checked wikimapia head right there. Here is the map of our college http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=23412325&x=85439923&z=17&l=0&m=a . Awsome, won't you agree?

Stats for this blog

Wanna know how many people are reading Bit Mesra Times.
http://my.statcounter.com/project/standard/stats.php?project_id=1003572&guest=1

I have been tracking the stastics of BIT Mesra times a long time, but I was not aware that you counld make the stats public. So here you go now.

Hello there....

So ppl..
I'm here too...
to torment your senses with horrible sounding words and crude language.. but then that's the way life's s'posed to be fun in a college.. ain't it?

First things first.. thanks shabda... for inviting me to this blog...
Geting down to brass tracks.. the campus is damn boring right now... Nikhil might be having a ball of a time working out in the evenings (under the tutelage of Hercules himself) or trampling all over the campus, but still... the campus is very boring, food is scarce.. and Gupta's stock of chips is staler than ever. The canteen's open, but it ain't going to matter much i guess... The insects are flying thick and fast.. golf ball sized god-knows-what s are flying into rooms that have been inadvertently left open...

Placements-wise: Microsoft has put a pretty steep requirement - a cut-off CGPA of 6.9... WOW!!!
Mechanical guys have had a bit of a raw deal this time.. most of the core companies have been given a star (*) status, which means once placed in that company, you CAN'T sit for another one... not even the Dream company. And with strong indications that Caterpillar and ABB would be visiting campus sometime later this year, it certainly is distressing news... But still.. the TnP cell has been known to be benevolent to the studens, So, there must be some strategy behind all this.. I for my part , am keeping my fingers crossed.

I've just come to know that this blog has been visited by Pant sir, and I just wish to clear up ONE thing for my readers... This essentially reamins an unofficial blog.. It's what the students have got to say about stuff... it's their own opinion... I mean, I certainly wouldn't like to get onto the wrong side of the administration... For more colorful and entertaining details, you can visit the other blog I write for... our very own http://bitrip.blogspot.com..

So long...
Will see ya all guys later...
(hopefully, with a job)
-ONE
Every war has it's casualities...
Every victory it's price

Microsoft On Campus

According to mail from the TPO, Microsoft is slated to visit the campus on 25th of July. Apart from MSFT and GOOG. The list of 12 companies include TATA MOTORS, TVS MOTORS, MARUTI UDYOG, L & T, Cummins, JUSCO, TATA STEEL and the IT biggies (ORACLE, TCS, INFY, CTS, Accenture and WIPRO).

Students(Girls included) have spent the entire summer vacations in the campus preparing for the placements. Post dinner discussions have drifted from the usual banter to dynamic memory allocation, optimum algorithms to how would you move mount Fuji to designing Bill Gates bathroom. Bill Gates Bathroom Wow!!(wonder how will it look..full of windows :)..I guess)

It rained today. The campus is looking very beautiful. WiFi completely rocks.. specially in the night.

This is my first post. I am Aditya. Take care. Happy surfing.

Change

Hello people.
Shabda has moved on to greener pastures, to life beyond college. So, being the good responsible people that we are, we'll try to keep alive what he started.

Keeping you posted on whats happening @ BIT Mesra.

Firstly, for the first time, the management has decided to publish the Semester results in totality, complete with subjectwise grades. I guess we can actually look forward to checking our results on the web sometime in the near future now.Previously, we just had a list put up stating whether we had passed or flunked in a given subject. Now, there's GPA and subjectwise grades.

What Else? The 2k2 Batch has been trickling down to the campus for a day or two to get their Provisional Certificates and then onto Office Life. College Life has ended for most of them. For now atleast. We will of course be seeing them all at the convocation sometime around February 2007 now.

Surprisingly, Summer @ BIT is as bad this year as it usually is. I am referring to the weather.
it was actually like monsoons had arrived a month early in the first week of June. Bearable weather now. No more rains anymore, but not too hot either. The only major thing going on in the campus right now would be the NCC summer camp and some sorta work in Hostel 6.

Really keeping my fingers crossed this time. Let's see if we all get LAN when the regular semester kicks off in mid July.

That's about it.

Best of Luck to 2k2 for their new lives at their jobs or further studies.
And to 2k3 who are preparing for their Placements.

Later.

Uncle Sam wants you, well almost.

No, you donot need to go to the US or need to apply for the American Army. No, Uncle Sam Does not need you. I do.
I am passing out of BIT this year. Just in a month. So it will not be possible for me to write on this blog. My statistics tell me that I get 50 readers a day, so just saying goodbye to them and closing this post doesnot seem to be a good idea as well.


If you are of 2003 or 2004 batch, would you like to post here? If you wanna post here let me know and I will give you write access to this blog.

How Bitians get 50% marks and claim it to be 75% marks!

You must be aware of the way marking scheme of BIT, Mesra works. In case you have forgotten let me remind you.
Mid Sems: The question is worth 36 marks and you can attempt all. You can get a maximum of 30 marks.
End Sems: You get questions for 94 marks and you can attempt questions for 70 marks.
The sum of both is taken and then the grades are given. 50-59 marks get you a B which means a 6 on scale of 10, 60-69 marks mean B+ which mean 7 on grade of 10. If that is not enough you have to add 6% to quote your percentage when you convert to percentages.

Say you get 18 in your mid sems(50% of total) then you need just 42 in the end sems to claim 75 percentage. But 42 is not half of 70, I hear you say. Well, but then you get two extra questions, worth 28 marks to leave. And I will claim that if you are getting 42 then you donot know at least one of those two questions. So you get 42 of 84( again half), your sum is 60, which means a B or 7/10 grade, which means 76%.

And then you say that Bit management hates you!

Ankit "ethical hacking" Fadia!

Finally, Ankit Fadiya delivered a letcure. Only one way to describe it, huge, huge success. The cat was overflowing. His course costing 6000 RS was sold out in like 15 minutes. But most importantly he delivered a great lecture, witty, engaging and yet fun. Heck he even attempted a live hacking attempt and succeded.
Fadia's Website http://www.hackingmobilephones.com/

Who is responsible for stress in BIT?

Today, BIT had a stress management seminar, with the emphasis on reducing drug abuse. With the slew of suicides, BIT had to wake up to the drug abuse problem. But thats not the story for today.
Since BIT management considered this seminar to be pretty important, all classes were put off,to enable the students to attend the seminar. However Proff. D. Paul(ECE), insisted that everyone registered to his classes, attend classes. Finally, and Ill guess on instructions from heigher ups, he asked the students to attend the seminar but not before he had said,(almost verbatim),
"All said and done, I have lost my classes, and all due to one guy. Amit Lal. If he had to commit suicide, let him do it outside the collage".
Ok, without going into why Amit commited suicide, Ill say that
"All said and done, he has lost his life, and if he is no more he deserves more respect than that."

BIT Wifi network was named Sexy!

Scoop
In the evening of 11th March, the wifi network which is generally named R and D was renamed to sexy. It was soon changed back to R and D, but seeing it named sexy just made my day.

Bitotsava 06

Bitotsava 06(yes that was its official name, unlike other years) is over. It was celeberated with all its share of glory, pomp, festivity and most importantly scandals, fight and every other assorted thing which is a part of Bitotsava celeberation.
For those of you who forgot, Bitotsava 05 was called Tatva, 04 was Ragazzo and 04 was Mardi Gras. This time it was decided to take a break from tradition and no specific name was given to it.


Unlike the last two years, no rock band came this year. That was one of the major disappointments of this year. Last year it was Aryans and before that Euphoria.
As always the nights are better than days. The days are fun, with all the festivities but its the night that rocks. Music night, Dance night, Core night.

The first night was Kavi sammelan. The guys who came were really pathetic. Most of the kavis were probably not heard outside their houses.
Next night was dance night. Reasonably good arrangement and the groups had prepared well. However the poor sound quality, and acoustic problems in the refurbished OAT, were dampeners. The music night held next night had however better sound.




The final night is always the Core night, where is a team event. Top seven teams from the bitsava reach this night. Pauwa, the best/worst thing about BIT, the omnipresent thing in BIT. In the core, it is almost impossible to stay unbiased. The judges have a decision before the core starts, the team which they support. However this time the best team(IMHO) also had the best pauwa. And DADA team emerged vistoriuous. It was also a first in that a team from extension centre came in top three.

Does every club in BIT need to do a technical fest? Every club, worth(or not) its salt is doing some fest or other. In the next month, we have Zeitgeist, Dristant, Bitotsava. Will not it be better if there were lesser events but of better quality?
But Dristant promises to be real huge. Ankit "Ethical Hacking" Fadia is coming for guest lectures. So are many other lumanaries.
Recently Prof. Pant, head of Placement cell, told me that he has visited this blog. And I was wow.

How to get placed witout studying.

How to get placed without studying?( well almost without studying).
Short answer: There is no way. If you want to get a good placement, a high paying job, how can you even expect to do so without putting in your best effort.
That said there are some places where your efforts are best put to use. To get a great job you have to work hard as well as work smart.

How am I equipped to answer this question?
Um, this might sound like self congratulation, but I daresay I got the best job in my college, Bit Mesra. And I did work hard, but there were people who worked harder, but did not get as good a job. I don’t claim to be more intelligent than the next guy. So only thing I can attribute my success to can be working smart. Still, take everything here with a pinch of salt. I am no authority on this subject, and just speak with experience (or lack thereof).

On to strategy……
No matter what company you are preparing for, there will be at least three things you will have to face. Aptitude test, technical test and a personal interview. You need to be good in all three of them to excel. Remember, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But you need not be, nor can you hope to be, exceptionally well in all three.

The Aptitude test.
The aptitude test will gauge your logical thinking ability. Most of the questions you will face will be of numerical ability, though puzzles are not uncommon. If you did prepare for engineering entrance exams and clear them, numerical ability problems should be easy for you. Still it is necessary to get practice, identify your problem areas and work on them. The book I used and found extremely useful was “Quantitative Aptitude for CAT” by Arun Sharma, TMH. Any other standard book of quantitative aptitude should be good enough as well. If you have the time a good book of puzzles can be useful. However you must be careful that you do not end up wasting too much time in this.

The Technical test.
If you are preparing for the software companies, most of the questions will be from general CS papers like C, C++, operating systems, data stuructures. Don’t expect questions from neural networks, compiler design and the like. Some companies may test you on DBMS and Java but this is quite uncommon. In C/C++ pointers is a common topic and file handling is what most people fumble in. You can expect questions from I/o streams and precedence table.

Personal Interview.
If you clear technical and aptitude rounds, you will have to face personal interview(s). Here the panel is more interested in knowing how you present your self, and less in what you know. To excel in this you need to have good communication skill. It does not mean you must have very good English, but rather that you must be able to get across your ideas.
Nothing beats group discussion when it comes to improving your communication skills is a really short time. So even if you are sure that a group discussion will not be a part of selection process, participate in some GDs. Form a group of 8 to 10 like minded people and get started. Finally undergo as many mock interviews as you can. You can ask your friends to form a panel, and they can take your interview, while you can take theirs. Quid pro quo.

Final notes.

1. Whatever happens, don’t panic.


2. Remember the company needs you as much as you need them. Do your best, and you can clear any selection process.


3. Even if have very poor GPA, poor English, bad mathematics don’t despair. With six months of hard work, you can get just any job. I did.


4. Don’t be afraid of hard selling yourself. If asked about your strengths don’t be apologetic. The selection team wants to know the best of you.