It’s a bit difficult to forget what we have done in college. For four years, we have been playing around with our life and now the time has come to get serious. College benches are about to get replaced by desks and cubicle. Pocket money becomes salary, or maybe it’s the other way round. No more bunking. No more fun. From now on, it’s just plain routine. I would have loved routine unless it’s forcefully implemented in my life by someone else.
If I remember my college days properly, the routine which I used to love so much was repeatedly broken. One of my friends would think that we should play cricket and Counter Strike rather than going home or to do some useful work; and his wish will be willfully granted. There goes our routine down the gutter. How many times we all promised ourselves that we will go home early today; and yet will find ourselves glued to college campus?
Other college students might feel the same but there’s something different about this college. Of course apart from the poor infrastructure and excellent non-teaching staff, there’s something more. From very first day this college fascinated me. I went for admission and saw the society guy blasting one of my fellow classmates. The poor thing’s only mistake was to repeat his request for the Magenta folder which was for future electronics engineers. It was apparent to me from that point that I need to be more patient to survive here. First lesson for life taught on the very first day. By the end of afternoon that day, I was admitted to UVCE and my four years of engineering life was destined to be as colorful as the Magenta folder I got. The fun part started on our official first day at college, September 08th Morning 10 AM. We came at 9:30 to see senior students arranging chairs at Quadrangle and staffs were nowhere to be seen. Around 10:30 function started and that was a historic day as no other function or event in our college started before 11AM. I heard our Principal talk and probably that was the last time I paid attention. It was Rakesh sitting next to me who stays at Nandini Layout near Kanthirava studio. Lunch was organized and after filling our stomach we went in search of our ID card only to find a huge crowd near the office. Once I got my ID card, I felt as though I won one Standard Age of Empires game. Actual process took the same amount of time by the way.
Once I copied the time table, I went home, came back next morning at 8:15 to Engineering Mechanics class. I started to doubt what I heard about UVCE when I saw that the class had full strength and there was a lecturer writing something on board. I asked permission to enter and there was no reply. I peaked inside at the friendlier section on the class and found Rakesh waving at me. I directly went in and sat next to him. It was then I was introduced to legendary Ajith K S. We talked and talked while lecturer continued to scribble his prepared notes on board. I was relieved when no one engaged the next class and thought I made the right decision. We were sitting staring at each other talking only to the person next to us when our final year seniors entered the class and that was when the fun stuff began. There was a wonderful “Intro” with some hilarious inputs from seniors. After the 4th year intro there was 3rd year intro and then there was 2nd year intro. By that time we mastered what we’re supposed to say when asked to introduce ourselves. I also made a couple of friends by the end of the week.
It was Ramana who came up with the idea of Air crash to spend our free time but we settled to a more exciting game called Truth or Dare. I would not like to go into detail about what happened but by the end of the day everyone knew me pretty well. Another exciting event was Freshers’ party after which most of us knew our classmates pretty well. There was Ramana who hated fun, there was Tejus and Gayatri, Mr and Ms fresher respectively (also our placement coordinators), there was Vidya and Rassalna and there was Ashutosh (who failed all our attempts to shut his mouth).
I don’t remember when we started to go to Srinidhi but it was the place for us in our first and second year. At first, it was just me, Harsha and Naresh. Soon people started to join us. They came and went but Ashutosh and Ruchit stayed. Karan never stepped inside though and he was a friend to all. There was the CR election, where I counted the votes and Harsha and Prateeksha became CRs. There was class fund which was my responsibility and it was spent on various things like broomsticks, dustbin, notice board, cricket balls, sugarcane juice and there’s unused 90/- bucks.(Don’t ask me about that now!) I remember BKV who taught us C programming whose class was boring; we stopped attending his class pretty soon. But one day, I found the Square root without sqrt program on board and my respect for BKV sir increased thousand fold (before it was just like noise signal). I was attentive in his class after that and solved almost all the programs like fountain and pyramids he talked about. Exams came; we prepared seriously and got good marks.
The second semester was the most interesting one. If I were asked to mark the beginning of me and Harsha’s friendship, I would say it was during ‘Karan broke his leg incident’. I was at home messaging Harsha that I’m about to sleep. It was around two on a fine Sunday afternoon when I received a message saying Karan broke his leg and admitted to St Martha’s. I rushed from home, went to Karan’s room at Avenue road (Sorry! Chikpet!). There they were. Karan, Harsha and Chikka (Srikanth) laughing like crazy. After a session of laughter, we went to Bennedose, hogged properly messaging Rushil and Prateeksha who cared to listen to our lies about Karan’s leg. Rushil asked his parents to drop him near Avenue road and was surprised to see Karan meet him there, still standing on 2 legs!
Soon me, Karan and Harsha were best friends. It was around this time the episode of Bhavya at Srisagar happened J. Lol! There was another episode where we were caught playing bluff as if we were in Casino. It was funny though because, MLS sir just asked us to go to library after that, God knows for what. I still remember carrying Rushil to St. Martha’s after he dislocated his shoulder. It was me, Harsha, Karan, Ruchit and Rushil playing badminton at Yavanika. Rushil dislocated his sholder which we assumed was some terrific performance to deceive for some time and when he started to wince, we took him to Martha’s. I still remember his expression when he was asked to remove his pant for an injection. I think Karan still has our photo at St. Martha’s somewhere. There are many more adventures but I would like to mention them somewhere else where there’s some privacy.
If we remember third semester it is mainly because of IEEE, 125th year celebration function, our skit on Jnana Jyothi stage which went terribly wrong, Karan’s Computer import and Airshow. If we do not like to remember third semester, then there’s only one reason – our results. During AGM of IEEE, out of the blues I was named as Joint Secretary of IEEE UVCE. It was after that I stayed with seniors for 125th year celebration preparations at Jnana Jyothi Auditorium till 7 PM. Next day was total fun as one of the guest asked us to enact one skit which would demonstrate some point of his speech. From morning we practiced, with Vijayeendra, Vijayalakshmi, Harsha and Avinash. During afternoon session we enacted our little skit and only those who watched it that day would have realized how hilarious a skit could become. It was sometime during 3rd Sem I was acquainted with Risi Vinayaka, Webmaster, IEEE UVCE. He started to teach Web Development to me and Harsha with Lynda tutors and amazing challenges to crack and that’s how IEEE office became “Room” and our place at college. We used to stay there till 7 PM, sometimes till 8 PM and another habit joined our existing ones. Counter Strike. With some really good players like Rakesh and Srikanth we practiced, learnt how to handle networks and learnt a lot about Computer. We also have our own hacking endeavor in between. By this time me and Harsha were inseparable. The best was Airshow for which we got tickets from Saif. Ruchit joined us there and the trip gave so much memories that we totally forgot about airplanes. We left the place around 2 PM and that was when our adventure began. It all started with a Masala soda which was stronger than any present day energy drink.
We literally destroyed Avati sir’s peace and KSB’s boredom in life. In our fourth, fifth and sixth year our atrocities reached the peak and turned down all models which proposed an upper bound for the same. (This is how engineers write exams and manage to score well!) Sky was the limit or us. With engineering life perfectly shaped, it was high time for us and infinity seemed like a small quantity for ECE 2008 – 2012. It is believed that environment decides our behavior but it was opposite with us. Our behavior changed the environment. And with that force we thought we can change UVCE. What we failed to understand at that time was not stochastic processes or Klystron operation but simple fact that UVCE has seen thousands of budding techs like us and still managed to maintain its composure.
Honestly I didn’t know how a transistor actually works till last year. But in last year my entire electronics knowledge decided to take a leap. I realized knowledge unquestionably gives you a certain amount of satisfaction, a satisfaction when you utter yourself that you know the answers to two basic questions – “How and why”. Not unlike other classes, we had our differences which saw the maxima in third year and the barriers we created between ourselves went down like dominos in final year. We made several friends from CSE, ISE, Electrical and Mech. Few became friends for life. Though new words found their permanent place in our dictionary, we learnt where and when to use them. I particularly remember a situation when we discovered our beloved lecturer was standing right behind us. Placements came and many nice companies came when we were not prepared for that level and we lost interest when we were presented with wonderful opportunities. In the end it makes you wonder whether the company makes any difference at all.
In UVCE we got a firsthand experience to debug circuits that would normally work. Usually it involved changing the probe or sometimes function generator itself (Though we are not proud to say about this experience). We learnt about IP addresses even before we studied CCN by repairing networks for Gaming events. This college taught us to repair computers (both hardware and software) in IEEE room. May be we never would have learnt these things if everything was perfect here. If we go with Darwin theory, one might say we learnt all the stuff because we wanted to survive. May be it was adapt to survive principle which in excruciating detail taught us to learn the working of any device before using. It brought out the best as we knew the best way to utilize available resources. In fact, we were shocked to know the real potential of certain theories, models, circuits and devices.
If there is anything that I hated more than exams through my engineering life, it was record writing. It was an utter useless act of making notes a day before internals. I still fail to see why we copied seniors’ record on the day of lab internals except for getting those ten marks. One might argue that is the whole purpose of records but that is the difference between UVCE and other colleges. We always look at our actions from a “marks free” perspective so we still ask the same question – what else we get from writing records or assignments.
My four years through engineering taught me a lot. With probability, Microprocessors, ITC and analog communications, I started to enjoy electronics more than I thought. One always thinks why we study engineering but may be only in UVCE you can find the answer. The stuff we learnt for exams (never learnt anything in classroom) and revised from time to time for unknown reasons made us realize how they can be applied to real life problems. Like Hamming code that can represent each state uniquely. It’s simple binary numbers but hides so many fascinating facts. Things like Microprocessors which ended the Stone Age we were living in. Subjects like Operation Research which can e applied to any problem in real life to find optimum solution. We are lucky to be in this great college as it trained us to become true engineers.
We had our ups and downs in four years. We experienced raw fear by preparing only for 20 marks a day before exams. We experienced a sense of achievement by finishing the entire syllabus in one night. We experienced sheer pressure when we fell short of deadlines. We experienced joy, over joy, sadness, depression, boredom and regret. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe what we have been through in these four years. But now that the college days are over we have only one word to describe what we feel – nostalgic.
– Tejas Jayasheel, Batch of ECE 2012
