Saturday, January 28, 2012

When DCE turns DTU:- I get the Chance of my life



The 2 best years of my life



I was preparing for giving the prestigious CAT exam next year ,when I get a call from my friend regarding D.C.E. starting a new M.B.A. course just for engineers and I thought to give it a try.

And so here I am, giving the GD and interview for a college, which is there from 100 years, but the programme I was joining has just started and I would be one laying the foundation stone of this programme (only if I get selected). When I with 59 other students joined D.S.M. we had lot of anticipation, lot of dilemma and lot of anxiety regarding where we are going.

Two great friends of mine who joined D.S.M. with me, left the college on its 1st day only as they found out that there are no proper structures in place, but I stayed as I have ever believed that ‘You should complete the task on which you have put your foot forth’ also I believe a lot in ‘Connecting the Dots’ and imagine everything happening for a Good cause.




The initial months at D.S.M. -D.T.U. were not very great as it took time to settle ,to know new people(in reality I still don’t know much about them) and to realize that we are becoming managers from engineers or as our V.C. says ‘Techno manager’.

There were lots of stupid discussions about the future, which I avoided most of the time as they were not fruitful but I realized that D.T.U. in particular has a lot to give and I can really interact with engineering students who are really doing some amazing work.

So, I started looking at the notice board and start finding lots of interesting things (From starting of my college days I always used to look at the notice board as it would always provide me lot’s of valuable information).

But, to many of my class mates I came as a hard, no nonsense guy who loves to live in his own world and act as someone who is working on the next big thing (also I was intermingling more with the D.C.E. kids i.e. Playing basketballs, solving CAT questions together and knowing about the latest event.) 

So they thought to play a prank with me and they gave a call to a beautiful girl in my batch by my name (& the news spread like haywire) but turned ugly when one of her friend without knowing me, told me about it in a language which I still think she shouldn’t have used with me?

I broke loose and hell of a scene it was…I was all over the place and it became official that somehow I was a guy with whom a girl in her senses shouldn’t interact (but it made me popular.. ‘There’s always a silver lining in everything’)

Ya, I liked her as she was really beautiful and sincere but I am not a person who fears his own action. I would have taken the complete responsibility if I had done it. Also, it was good as I talked with a girl whom I really liked (This time I also learned that never tell ur friends if you like someone …they may turn it nasty)

My reputation in class was also going from bad to worse and I was coming along as a very  ‘peculiar’ kind of person. I really liked the term(as it means a strange or different) just hoped it was a bit +ve(In reality it was a term given to me by my marketing professor in the absence of me in his class. I really shared a very nice bonding with that professor….ha ..ha..ha)

But then came the Gala time and everyone wanted to have fun time and do something and this is the time when I was introduced to E-Summit(A platform for budding entrepreneurs) , I liked the idea & thought to join it’s team(irrespective of the everyone in my batch who thought they were above engineering students as they are doing a management course).

I met some  amazing people and made lot of friends there and also I came to know about some secrets of D.T.U which really helped me later (So, keep yourself surrounded by the right brains).

So, I thought to submerge myself in the field of Entrepreneurship and blogging and I would say that they did become my greatest strength. It wasn’t a smooth ride from starting …I really wrote some shit posts and also got some really awesome reviews (but I kept going) some of my friends still hold the same opinion of my posts and I kept thinking about the B-plans till the time I made one and thought to present it in D.C.E. –Fest and luckily I won it and It was on the topic of ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ –which would later become my destiny.

And so to it:- I applied for Tata Jagriti Yatra(If you haven’t heard of it ,it’s an amazing journey of 18 days…Highly recommended) and organized a donation camp in collaboration with Goonj . In the meantime I somehow was able to convince some professors to help me get a FICCI and CII membership (I used to attend more of these and less of my classes, as I always preferred the former over latter and was able to meet some of the India’s best minds)

My M.B.A. was going smooth till I got a call from a friend who asked ‘whether I would be interested in organizing a TED conference’ & it become more smoother .Wow! I always used to watch them and now I would be organizing it. I joined the bandwagon and we really pulled every string to make it successful (I do admit I learned a lot and did made some really silly mistakes while organizing it) but somehow it was a success and I was thankful that I was again able to meet some great students.

My love life, that was one issue that I really missed while in D.T.U. and I still think I should have concentrated a bit more on that (but you can’t have everything)…so I will leave this section incomplete while I will admit that I do liked two girls in my class(one for her beauty and  sincerity)  and one for completely different reasons which I still thinks happens most of the time with me.(that if I logically put in words I would never like to date her)..I still wish to meet both of them.

I opted for IT and HR as my specialization, I really didn’t had any inclination towards any of them, it was just that …I was going with the flow and I was knowing somehow that I would still be spending most of my time bunking the classes.

My 3rd semester went smooth, made lot of new friends, went to various places and somehow made a very strong bond with my room-mates(which I do know would remain intact till my last breath).

The Real excitement started in 4th semester, D.S.M. was buzzing with placements and I was in desperate lookout for one. But most of the companies were somehow not for H.R. or I was not fulfilling their criteria.

But, somehow I made through one company and I was the only H.R. student to make through and I thought that’s it..Life is going to get smooth…Ha…Ha…Ha

I came to know about a Stanford program called A.S.E.S.(Asia Pacific Social Entrepreneurship Summit) and applied to it. I was rejected but who the hell are they to reject me and I again used D.C.E. in flamboyant manner sending them my recommendation and giving them all the reasons why I should be there….and here I am ‘Prashant Agarwal Selected’ .

I planned, arranged for funds and everything in less than a week, it was really a hell of a week and on returning I came to know that the company in which I got selected has already conducted the interviews and I was put on hold.

But, somehow Teach For India Came and as I have also previously taught and respected this organization a lot, So I thought to give it a try and I got selected.

Meanwhile, people in D.S.M. started liking me and I thought to give a try to the girl whom I liked for completely different reasons, so I tried but I couldn’t see it working…but I do tried till the end of my D.S.M. days and may be I will still try sometime in future (Just hoping that she don’t get married).

Our 2 years were getting over and I was bit sad and I hoped for a farewell, but came to know that our juniors has no plans as we didn’t gave them fresher’s party(and I think that’s completely valid). But, I have to do something, else how would I be able to end this post …so here I am organizing my own farewell keeping it secret from others.

I started planning with 3 friends with a corpus of Rs 800, which somehow grew to Rs 10,000 with the support of D.S.M. faculties and which with the help of D.C.E. grew to Rs 80,000 and it was a gala night and thanks to the contribution of my friends we were really able to give a memorable time to everyone in D.S.M.


So, for me D.S.M. has been an amazing place where you can pull off as much as you want, just you have to have the right conviction and the right attitude


Just Few Tips(Of course you can ignore them):-

1.     Keep yourself surrounded by the right Guys…It helps you in long run
2.     Do form a strong bond with your room mates
3.     Always lookout for various notices on the notice board…else where the hell do you think you can view an opportunity.
4.     Just be close to D.T.U. Administrative building, there’s a lot going around here.

P.S.:- I just love D.T.U. and the two years I spend there in.


Prashant

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