Easy vs Right

It was a long night, last night. Me and a close friend were trying to get a lab report done. We were up till 3 figuring out things and putting all the stresses and strains together.

Civil labs are usually self-explanatory. They list down provisions and expectations quite explicitly. You just have to get the experiment right and make sure your data makes sense. While THIS had always been a tough job, we faced something more rigorous with last night's report. The provisions were insufficient. The expectations were sky high. It required a more engaging performance from us. We had to look up information and collect equations to formulate the results. And that obviously took more time and effort.

Anyway, getting back to the night. We went to bed at 3 but ended up having one of those deep conversations about life. I dont even know when we dozed off.

...

The alarm from both our phones went crazy at 8 am. We both had early classes. My body cringed for more sleep and I was reluctantly trying to open my dead eyes. It was decision time. Should I bunk my class? It was graded. Sure. But I had gone to ALL my classes every week till today. It should be okay to bunk one day right? I would get to sleep. I needed that badly. On the other hand, I would break off my chain. I would miss a percent or two for bunking that class. Did it matter though? You know, in the grand scheme of things. I am sure it dint.

But then I remembered something 'you always have to choose between whats easy and whats right..'. Easy, is simply easy and right is almost always hard. I bit my lips and sat up. I knew what I had to do. I rushed to get ready and ran off to class.

All was well. The class was interesting. The report was submitted on time. The right decision always turns out to be .. well, 'right'! Of course and the fruits of benefits are amazing.

Also, I am going to bed early.

Night!

Resume writing!

Its the half year mark of third year at uni. Time to stop fooling around and get serious about life after uni. People keep popping the 'What are you going to do when you graduate?' question. To add on to the fire, almost all my close friends are going to be interning next semester.


All this made really nervous about what I should do next! So, I decided to take the first step of the journey. Make a clean resume!


I knew I could count on one person for that! He is a close friend who triples up as a mentor and family. I sent him my resume & CV and asked him to review it for me. That was the beginning of a wonderful learning experience! Every time I sent him a version he'd send it back to me with improvements. The fact that it was scanned and remarked on with a pencil somehow hammered the suggestions deep into my head. We went through a week of 10-12 cycles of review and in the end came out my resume. Something I am immensely proud of now! I also took the help of some other friends who helped me get different points of view. The effort and thought processing we put in made oodles of difference to the document.


In all it was a really interesting ride, with a lot of awing about the importance of having a clean resume.


Some learnings to remember -

1) Patience - I learnt the importance of waiting for things to shape-up. I am a very distracted person. It takes great love for work and motivation to keep myself at it. I always hurry thing up in the end. This time though, I waited for it. I learnt to go along with it and realize the wonderful journey/outcome. Also, from my friend. He was extremely patient with me that one week! With all the corporate relationships he is used to, I thought it was really encouraging when he waited for me to learn. Very grateful for that!

2) While 'too many cooks spoil the broth',  the master cook can always handle the broth taking all the suggestions of the other cooks - I have always been better at working by myself, doing my thing. This time though I worked with three other people! Initially I took every bit of advice and blindly changed things on the document. As the reviews increased though I learnt to negotiate. To decide which I wanted to change, which I dint. If I had done this all by myself, I know that it would have remained Dhanya_Resume_v1.pdf. This is actually my biggest learning I would say. I learnt the importance of discussion and team work, in a way. 

3) To each his own - Just like every person has a unique fingerprint, every person has a unique view/opinion on things. I could see how each one of us noticed various aspects of the document. How we saw the words. What the words meant to us. This was a very deep learning. Having such varied opinion on things, I wonder how we even manage to run things in the world this way. I guess thats where compromise comes in. 

4) Sweat on details - Every space, every comma, every dot, matters. An achievement may not seem big to me in relativity, while on the contrary it might be something big to someone else'e eyes. It is essential to analyze a detail from the hirer's point of view and to try judging their understanding.

5) Easy on the eye, faster to the head - Formatting anything and making it cohesive makes life so much better. Personally, I like to keep things ordered and clean. I realized its important to extend it to every inch of life! 

Now I am all set for the next step. 'Looking' phase. Fingers crossed on this one to make it to where I want to go!

Can you be THE happiest person in the world?

I took my project module, without thinking one iota about it. Its a technical Elective. Which in layman's terms means, a civil subject that we chose to study out of interest, not compulsory. And on the first day of the module, the professors talked about how they expect so much out of us, I even contemplated quitting. But 4 of my close friends were doing that module, so I just decided to stick along.

We had our first presentation. We were really creative, but we missed out on content. So even-though the profs commended our performance he said he was disappointed with the bad part. We were sad. I was especially sad. When you work hard and dont get results, its disheartening.

It was time for the second presentation. We had slogged for the past two three weeks, and more so for the past few days. Day of second presentation came. Today. We suited up and left for the venue. The group before ourselves were fretting out and making us anxious. We got nervous and started freaking out a bit. But as we were waiting we gained the confidence that this time we actually hit it. We got our content and creativity on the plate. Spot on. We had nothing to worry about. We cheered ourselves up and smiled. We encouraged each other and we entered the room.

It went smooth. They loved us! All the hard work paid. Our passion showed. They were amused and content. We could just see it on their face :) And God was I glad. We all were. I was so thrilled that you actually dint need grades for this kind of a thing. This was nearer to the real world situation. A place were we need to sell ourselves and show that we have the passion and the energy to do something. What made it very special was that, today I felt like I actually belonged in NUS. For the first time in two and a half years. That means something. I never thought i'll experience that. I really never did.

We made it!

Shaniya and Priyansha! We might not be particularly thrilled about Civil most times. But we know we'll make it girls!
Sid and TzyyFung! You guys can do studies and stuff like this with passion and I am so glad I met you!

I learnt so many things from today. Just to list down:
- Give it your best shot, it'll pay someway or other!
- You work best with people you get along. If you already dont know them, get to know them. In our case, we were a bunch always so it clicked just the right way!
- Marks dont matter so much. Relax and enjoy studying. Maybe you'll actually endup liking it!
- Hardwork with passion! Always.
- First impression is the best impression. Maybe not always. But make sure you hit it the first time anyway!

To many days like this. Filled with positive energy :)