Class 10 to BTech has been an amazing journey: Venkatesh Voonna

Aditya Institute of Technology and Management

I have just completed my Engineering and have a lot of things to share. It’s been an amazing journey of 6 years after completion of my class 10. It was a bit tricky to choose what to study after class 10. Many thoughts came to my mind like a flash and I could not stick to one. My parents have a strong belief in astrology and according to that they asked me to take up Medical as a field. When you are young, you cannot defy parents so even though I was not interested in Medical I said yes to it. Luckily, in those days, we could not afford to pay for Medical studies. So I took up Science stream and joined a local college where my brother was already studying and I was his junior.

While studying there, I wondered why I joined that college and got the feeling that I should have gone far away to study. Everyone in the class was active and attentive to the lecturers, but I used to be in my own thoughts thoughts. Gradually, I started gathering interest in the class as I had no other option. We needed to prepare for both IPE (Intermediate Public Examinations) and EAMCET (Engineering and Medical Common Entrance Test). Days passed and I appeared for IPE with a good preparation and surprisingly, I got 460 out of 470! You would know that shocking feeling if you were an MPC student in 2013. Adding to that, I appeared for my betterment examinations too but that went in vain. In the meanwhile, I made some friends. Some were old friends from school and there were some new ones from the college. I loved their company and it was refreshing many times. The second year started and things were going super-quick for both IPE and EAMCET. I think it was January 19, 2014 when I met an accident in which I could have even lost my life. We friends went to the beach for fun and it eventually ended in the death of one of my dear friends. We were playing in the water and all of a sudden, we both got stuck in the water. We tried very hard to escape and somehow I managed to come out of it but my friend could not. I lost him. That was a big blow, both physically and mentally. I could not concentrate on studies and my mind was filled with thoughts of unknown things. I attempted IPE and EAMCET and got not-so-good results in them. Nevertheless, I attended EAMCET counselling and got a seat in a college in my own district.

EAMCET preparation plan

We had a coaching in our college for EAMCET and I didn’t need to go anywhere to get coaching classes for the preparation. We had many study hours with the faculty assisting in studies, clearing the doubts, and revising the important topics for the objective section. We need to prepare the IPE syllabus first and then go for the objective part of each and every topic in IPE. Reading and practicing more number of problems make us good in the particular concept. I took the previous years’ question papers of EAMCET and practiced them (about 10 years of papers). It really helped me in analysing the pattern of the exam and the way the paper was being prepared. I also appeared for JEE exams to get into IITs. But I could not qualify for them. I got 90 marks out of 360 and the qualifying marks for my category were 110 in that particular examination.

I suggest anyone who is appearing for EAMCET to practice more for reducing the time to solve the problems and to increase the accuracy of problem-solving. Time management is the most important thing in any kind of exam. If we become a master in it, it will be very easy to crack the exam we want.

I didn’t like Chemistry in my Intermediate and I did not want to study it in future. I was good in the remaining subjects. I took Mechanical Engineering stream in my BTech. Most of the things in this world involve Engineering and I can call my department as the heart of it. I don’t need to give an introduction to my department. Actually, I thought of leaving my home town to study Engineering but fate had other plans. I got 20223 rank in my EAMCET and I belong to OC category. I almost made my mind to study in the college where my brother was already studying Engineering.

Memorable three years of college

The first thing when you enter the college as a junior is ragging. Surprisingly, my seniors in my department were mostly my brother’s friends and I had known them in my intermediate. So I did not worry about ragging there. Ragging in my college was not that serious. It was just a funny interaction between seniors and juniors. Most of the subjects in the first year were the basics from theIntermediate and it was a good feeling reading them again. But Chemistry came again in the second semester. This time, it was not that difficult to clear it. I was regular to classes and practicals. Also, I was a little reserved. But that was because of the seniors in the bus. We entered the second year and third semester of the course. Then, we were the seniors of the college. I cleared all subjects. Actually, I nailed them. The feeling was high when we entered the second year of the course. A new batch joined the college. They were afraid of us. I didn’t want to rag any junior. I know the feelings and situations. In the meantime, we had a blast in our class. Sometimes, we also did stupid things for fun. In the second year, we had a college annual fest which had both technical and cultural events. Four of us participated in the mechanical core event called Contraption. We worked hard for it. We collected waste material and made links out of it. 5 teams participated in the event and we won. That was one of the memorable events I had in my BTech life. I loved that day. We got Rs. 2000 prize money and I had a share of Rs. 500 in it. We enjoyed the victory.

The other memorable thing which we did in college that was make a short film. In the second year itself, my friends and I discussed it many times and planned of starting it. Many obstacles came our way. For instance, the lead actor was changed about 3 times due to various reasons. For second instance, my grandmother got a heart-stroke and the shooting got postponed. I had written many scenes for the story. We shot some of them but they were not good enough. The next time, the team decided to make me the lead actor of the film. I had to accept it. I had a changeover for it. I changed my hairstyle and reduced my weight. But truly speaking, I wanted these things for myself and I did them. After the second year, we had a summer vacation and we worked on the movie in them. One good day, we released the movie. The response was good. We all were new to film-making. Our first attempt went well.

We were a part of NSS too. We did many social activities under the NSS committee. We made a short film for it too. We always studied together for exams and did well. We really came to know that if we work as team, anything can be done. Team-work makes all things happen. All the 11 members of a cricket team should play well in order to win the match. All the body parts should function together for the whole body to move or to make things work. Anywhere we go, we need to work as a team. And in my college too, I had a batch or team of 4 to 5 people. We did all the things together. We bunked classes together, we played together, we studied together, we partied together, we did everything together and we succeeded together.  During the 3^rd year, I was the coordinator for my department for the annual fest. I found it hard to manage and lead things in an event alone. I did it with my friends’ help. They were always there with me in every situation. And eventually, the event was successful.

It was a different game in the last year. We needed to leave all the things aside in that year. We would miss everything we were used to. But we needed to move on. Then, placements came our way. We stuck to the basics, as a part of preparation for appearing for the interview. On the day of interview, everything was new. All students came in formals. None of us had been in formals ever before. Everyone carried resumes and was very tense as no one knew anything. We were interviewed on our basics about our department. We answered well. And the last thing was- we were selected. Then all things went really fast. Engineering got completed soon. Now, I am waiting to join the industry.

My advice: There’s no need to panic for anything. Just answer what you know with no hesitation. The important thing is to be genuine.

About the Author

Venkatesh Voonna. I’ve done B.Tech from Aditya Institute of Technology and Management. I’m interested in playing cricket and badminton, like to write short stories and do short-film direction.