A Big Decision at a Critical Situation: Ahad Zafar

I was in class 12^th when I decided to fill the form for graduation. Since I was a Science student, I had the choices of being an engineer or a teacher, or simply attaining a bachelor’s degree.

As I was always interested in computers and other electronic devices, I decided to opt for maths and computers for my intermediate course.

Being a convent school student, I had been studying computers since 5^th class, so I was good at typing and was familiar with coding and programming.

Coding had always been my field of interest and that’s why I was able to score 88 marks in Computers in the intermediate exams.

Computer Science was the best choice that helped me sharpen my skills. Galgotias University (my college) is well known for Computer Science and Engineering and is situated in Greater Noida, which is known as the new cyber hub.

My focus was to get a satisfactory placement in a well-known company so that I could sharpen my technical skills, and a good engineering college was the right and easiest path to it.

So just after passing my 12^th with 79%, I gave the entrance for Galgotias University and was able to score 261 rank among 5000 students who had appeared for that entrance exam.

The Path to a New Journey

After giving the 12^th Board exams in the month of March, it was time to give the entrance exams of different states. I gave entrances like JEE Main, UPSEE and GEEE.

After completing 12^th, we mostly have a month or two before giving the entrance exams. At that time, we have a good knowledge of 12^th class syllabus but that is not enough for engineering entrance exams. All the entrance exams mostly follow the same pattern, which is very different from our academics.

All entrance exams are based on MCQ (multiple choice questions) with negative marking. Unlike single theory papers, entrance exams have 100 questions of all three subjects i.e. Maths, Physics, and Chemistry combined. All the questions have 4 options among which only one is correct.

So, according to me, the best way to prepare for entrance exams is to go through all the topics from both 11^th and 12^th class. Solving the last 10 years’ papers is also a healthy practice for the entrance exams. One should not rely only on the partial syllabus of 12^th class. Taking a crash course is also a good option because there, we learn many short tricks for the time-consuming questions.

Time management is an important aspect for cracking any entrance exam. One should be good in Maths and should have a sharp knowledge of all the formulas. Subjects like Chemistry can be a scoring part since there are not many calculations in that. Most of the entrance exams have negative marking, so one should not attempt the questions which one is not sure of.

Subjects like Maths and Physics have a lot of calculations, so the students should know quick calculation techniques and should be familiar with short tricks in order to save time, as both of these subjects consume a lot of time.

There are many things that should be kept in my mind but time management is the key to cracking the entrance exams.

A Life Where You Learn to Become a Professional

College life is quite different from school life. You enter a new phase of life when you come to a college.

Being a fresher, you are unknown to most of the things. You learn things from your seniors and through different experiences. Apart from the college life, students enjoy hostel life too. As a college student, you are mostly away from your home, so you learn how to live and survive independently. Most of the colleges follow casual dress code, so it is a form of joy for the students as they get to get familiar with the fashion trends.

In college life, students get lots of opportunities to present their skills and talents, apart from academics. Many students show their singing, dancing, and sports skills.

Like school, college also has exams in form of sessional and end term exams, which are not as easy as students think.

Students take help from YouTube these days. According to me, it is a good practice as students in college get a bit careless and do not attend all the lectures. So they take help online where many experienced lecturers and teachers give short and quick lectures in a language as per your choice.

Semesters pass quickly and then the time comes to decide the field in which you want to go ahead. Every engineering branch has different fields, so it’s our choice to decide the best for ourselves. In Computer Science and Engineering, there are many fields like networking, programming, security, e-commerce, marketing and many more.

Internships and training are also a part of engineering where you get training for the field you have decided to choose. Internship is a platform where you can apply all the knowledge that you have gained from the college. It helps you realize what you are good at and what your flaws are. So, you get a chance to improve your flaws and try better things.

Let me take my example. I was good in coding but after the fourth semester, I decided to go for networking. But after some time, I realized that I was going on a wrong path. So I dropped that idea and came back to my favourite field, that is, programming.

There are a lot of things that you learn from college life. You are given a lot of opportunities like coding competitions, talent hunt, etc.

There are many companies that visit your college to select the students. There are many phases of company recruitment process which have to be cleared by the students in order to get appointed by the particular company.

Students also get a chance to do jobs in foreign countries. They apply for multinational companies as they provide a good salary.

Students have to be good in communication skills in order to clear the interview and general discussion rounds. Aptitude and logical reasoning questions are mostly asked in the qualifying round of most of the companies.

Eventually, students get mature enough to decide what is right for them, so they chose the correct field for themselves. Getting placed in a good company becomes the basic aim for most of the college students. For that, they give their 100% and that is necessary to reach the goal they wish to achieve.

About the Author:

My name is Ahad Zafar and I am pursuing BTech CSE (3^rd year) from Galgotias University situated in Greater Noida. I have completed my 10^th and 12^th with 75% and 79% marks respectively from St. Mary’s School, Najibabad. My hobbies include writing poems and to watch documentaries.