Alas, I am into Corporate. . .

I could feel the same pressure how a batsman would feel when he needs to put the ball outside the stands during the last ball of an innings to win a match. Yes, it’s the season of placements in our college. Cognizant was the buzz word round the campus from the mid week of November and the process was scheduled on 17th and 18th of December. The expectations from my relatives and friends were high on me. Instant thoughts about our cool captain Dhoni kept me cool at times. I geared up with my certificate files and laptop on the eve of the placement day. I got a clear idea about the pattern of aptitude questions from my friends and I did not do any specific preparations for Cognizant. One of my friends said that everyone in our college were preparing like mental. This alarmed me but I knew it’s weird to get alarmed at the last minute. I got into a route bus to Gandhipuram bus stand where I boarded a bus to Sathyamangalam and took a seat in the last row of the bus. The climate was pleasing and the cold breeze made me fall asleep for some time. Around five in the evening, I got into the town bus at Sathy where my classmates Rengarajan(Ambi) and Gowrishankar joined me. After our dinner, we had plans to solve some aptitude questions on syllogisms. As we planned, we solved it for an hour and started to gossip till 1am. It was time to bed and I need to get up early in the morning as the registration was at 8:00am at Vedanayagam Auditorium.

On hearing the tune of Airtel music from my mobile, I woke up and disabled the alarm which I had set for 6:15am. I had a small nap for next five minutes. I knew it was getting later, but still it was a pleasure feeling to sleep under blankets in a cold morning. After my bath, I had confusion in selecting the pair of dress to wear on the first day. After a long time I finally decided to wear the lucky blue shirt for the first day. I wore it and my mobile screamed the airtel music again and this time it was a call from Ambi. He asked me to get down the stairs for our breakfast at the hostel mess. I took my certificate files, locked my room and joined Ambi and Gowri. After our breakfast, we moved towards the auditorium. At the registration desk, I signed the attendance list and found my name to be in the thirteenth place in my class based on percentage of marks. On seeing the number thirteen, my thoughts switched towards analysing the unlucky number for a while. When we entered the auditorium, we saw that there was no isolation based on gender in the arrangement of seats. We decided to go to front row and we occupied the fourth row. Some instrumental music was being played. In a short span of time, the dignitaries from Cognizant arrived and the presentation started. There was a break soon after the presentation. Along with my friends TamilArasu and Sundaram, I had a walk near the library. We had a cup of coffee and I was in need of that to keep my brain active. I knew that the next couple of hours will decide my fate. So, some plans started passing like clouds in my mind to crack the test. The strategies of Vishnu from IMS, a guy who trained us on aptitude question for a month last year, strike my mind when I was crossing the Department of ECE. The strategy was about to pick the easy questions at first and finding the answer from the choices given. Since I had written my MAT exams in the month of September, I was a bit confident regarding the management of time. I got back to the auditorium and they distributed an answer sheet in which we were asked to fill up our personal details, marks and skill sets etc. I was aware of the content to be filled in it and felt easy to fill it. First, they gave a question paper containing 25 aptitude questions and the time allocated was 30 minutes. I started picking easier questions and started working out and to my surprise I solved it in about 25 minutes. The great thing which I did was I didn’t hang up in a particular question when I was not able to solve it. When 30 minutes passed, they got back the question paper and I received another question paper on verbal. There were 25 questions to be answered in duration of 20 minutes. I had tough time with it. The moment I answered 10 questions I was in search of time. I shaded the rest of the unanswered questions with alternate options randomly. The final set of question paper contained questions related to attention to details. It was quite easy to solve these kinds of problems. We had our lunch and relaxed for some time and got back to the auditorium. The results were announced around 4pm and my name fell into 5th panel and it was announced that the next round will be a technical and HR round. I was happy that I crossed half of the stream. Ambi, Gowri and I went to cafeteria and refreshed ourselves with some snacks and got back to hostel. Gowri and I touched upon the basics of C and C++ as it is impossible to look up the entire language over a night. We touched upon some fundamentals of database and OOPs concepts. I moved to bed around 1 am. The night was too cold as it was winter and I managed to cover myself under the blanket and kept myself warm.

Once again, I started the day with the tune of Aitrel music and I got ready in a leisure manner as we need to be present in the auditorium by 8:30 am. With my certificate files ready, I wore the light brown striped shirts and dark brown trousers. I had a dilemma of wearing a tie and had it in mind for quite some time. I came to the auditorium and my friends wished me best of luck for the process and I was the last person in my panel. I was sure that I would be interviewed only in the noon. Some were busy wearing the tie and again the dilemma of wearing a tie was creeping in my mind. Alas, I decided not to go for a tie. I was in fifth panel and our panel moved like a tortoise. I had a glimpse on my mark sheet and I was not interested in it. As time passed, we were asked to move to the ECE seminar hall and the student friends who completed the process got back to the seminar hall and they were narrating the questions they faced and Deepak of my class was at his best in clearing doubts in database. The time was around 1pm and I started feeling hungry and still I was not called upon. Around 1:15pm we were asked to move to placement cell and I waited around ten minutes. Four students including me were yet to be interviewed. The entire process of waiting was similar to a scenario at Tirupathi temple where people used to wait in cabin for the worship of deity. I had a sip of water and my watch displayed 1:38pm. I had an eye on my watch every minute and alas I was called at 1:58pm. I wished my interviewer a good noon and after his response he signalled me to take my seat. He got my certificate files and started off with the fundamental question “Tell me about yourself?” When I was describing about me, he had a glance at the various certificates and I was happy that my efforts are being noticed. He started off with fundamental questions in Java and C++. It was quite easy and he asked me to proceed with my project. I started explaining it in detail and he got impressed on my explanation. He staring enquiring about my knowledge in database and I frankly said that I have a basic knowledge of database and nothing more than that. At the end he asked me whether I have any question for him. I asked his experience with Cognizant and how he got into it. He narrated his experiences and finally asked whether I have any choice of preference in work location. I replied him that I would prefer Coimbatore followed by Bengaluru and Chennai. He bid me thank u and so I. I was confident that I would certainly be selected as I knew that I performed well. I had my lunch with my juniors and I got back to my room and started hearing songs from the tamil movie “Paiya”. Around 4pm I entered into the auditorium and when I entered my favourite song from movie Paiya was playing. Then came the awaiting results and M.Sc(Software Engineering) was the last branch to be announced. Many names started flowing and I was delighted on hearing my name. Alas, I felt that we had a full stop for the nonstop lament we had for the past three years about our future.