Tag Archives: MVGR College of Engineering

On Financial Education

Posted on by

1

I invested in the share market.

It is a kind of courageous statement for someone who had a painful answer to a rather curious question: how can I be rich? The lessons from my stock market investments have been too costly for me to venture getting the complete answer. But over time, I have learnt that investing is not necessarily the best way to learn the trade. There are other sources too! And frankly, in the kind of financial complexity that we live in, I think one needs to be aware of various investment opportunities and how they might fare well before putting in their money. Thanks to the recent developments I went through; my boss, the head of the department has recently been trained by SEBI, India to deliver such awareness sessions, and he had done one of his first few sessions in our college itself. I would not call it a complete guide to financial investing, however, it at least sets up a platform from where I can plan further.

Recalling, there were times I said, I will never again invest in stock market. Perhaps it is time for me to revisit that line and see if it is worth sticking in my head. At the moment, I just wish as I am about to experiment again, that the financial systems offered to its consumers, a way out of complexity through straight talk.

______

Here is one website I have recently stumbled on, Loans.net. On the face of it, it was hard for me to identify what this was all about. But soon figured out that this was one system that integrates financial instruments for various organisations and offers the one that best fits the customers’ need. It also has lots of content that talks about different kinds of loans. Perhaps, this is one kind of place where I want to begin–draw money, and then invest. ;)

Freshers Day @ SMS, MVGRCE

Posted on by

1

Today, 1st October, 2011 would live long in my memory. And so would it be with the senior students who have organized a fabulous welcome party to their juniors who rocked the day on every opportunity presented. I don’t recall seeing such exhibition of energy and stamina in some time. Wow! That was a great day! Oh, Yes. It was Freshers Day for the incoming students at School of Management Studies, MVGR College of Engineering.

The day started at around 10:00 AM with the Correspondent, Principal, and In-Charge Head of the Department sharing a few words with the students. Performances from students shook the stage and music flew all the time. Dance, Songs, Skits, Contest to identify the best freshers…everything was crafted into the script beautifully by the seniors. Juniors have cooperated the way seniors expected them–breaking through hell with their noise. That sound is still ringing my ears. Couple of exciting things were to happen to me: one, bounce on my feet after a long time, and two, get a few roses from students (I had to be shy writing this, but then it is the effect of the day that I find new freedom!).

I am so happy to have all your love, friends.

All that aside, I promised to click a few pictures. I could do it partly, and could not do it for the significant second-half of the show. But I hope that is fine, we had many other cameras covering the event. I would have loved to cover it all, but had to save my energy to be with you all (believe me, my camera was heavy!). Of those I covered too, I am not greatly satisfied because I missed a few great moments, and on other moments I had technical glitches. Some were high action scenes where photos were spoiled, and some time it was poor lighting. Some scenes were repeatedly shot in burst modes. All in all, however, I could gun my camera about 250 times or so. I have uploaded all those pictures here using picasa web albums. I wish you find some of them good! Also, some videos I shot during the event are now uploaded on YouTube. You can watch all of them here.

I need to make a request too. Just to have all the pictures of the event accessible to every student who took part, I ask everyone who took a few snaps to upload them on their picasa web albums, make them publicly available for viewing, and share the link in your comments to this post. If you need instructions on how you can do it, go here.

Some pictures which I thought were good to go a news paper are here:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Unusual but…

Posted on by

1

Over the last few days, since I joined MVGR College of Engineering, I am seeing a significant change in the way I lead my life, I set my priorities, and I speak with people around me. Perhaps, it is too short a time to comment on their consistency, but the change was definitely unexpected yet pleasant. For example, my last two posts were in Telugu–which I think is my new preference, though I am trying to figure out if it is really so.

Let me go through a few things that have caught my attention in the first week of work at the new place. First of them all, I have a male superior for the first time in my career so far. Second, I am now a part of an organization that defines its structure and functions with clarity and precision. Third, I am in an organization that encourages community style of living and working. Above all, to my pleasant surprise, the institution encourages research and incentivises every individual’s research output (most institutions in our country, each of which claims to be number one, actually fail to do this!). For a difference, I recall some of my past colleagues, now friends, telling me that quality of university students is much better compared to students from an affiliated college such as MVGR. There were few who denied buying that point. I see now that those few were accurate in their observation. Quality of students I see in this college is surely a notch superior compared to students I found in some other reputed institutions, both in academics and professionalism.

I just recall, I have done this exercise of trying to figure out the number of differences between my some of the earlier institutions I worked with and my current institution. When I put up on Facebook that I might be able to write a hundred reasons for joining this institution, I may not have been this serious. But now, I guess I am. I spent five minutes to jot down the differences which come to my mind, and have ended up with a list of more than thirty differences ranging from pre-joining arrangements made to the kind of welcome given to the kind of clarity in job role and freedom given for pursuing what I like.

Let me come back to why I titled the post ‘Unusual but…’. Over the last one week, blogging is not finding itself on my priority list–may be that is how much I fell in love with work here. That is unusual. Contributing to scholarly community and earning rich qualifications is one of my goals for sure, forever; but all of a sudden I find myself with better goals–to be a humble and lovable being. That is not so unusual, but can I be it? Can I change myself? I do not know. I am trying, because for once I am convinced about changing my direction of experimentation in life–to try why right things are right. Now, that is so unusual! But I think I like what I am going through… or am I just like that always! :)

What cultural difference means

Posted on by

0

Being in the academic stream of business administration, studying organizational behavior and development is almost my full-time job. Jargon floats on the tip of our tongue, behold the curse part of my being in the position I am. Looking at the first two sentences I have put down for this post, I know what kind of language we slip into using; that often makes it difficult for people to understand what we meant to say. It is not by will that we talk Jargon, but more out of necessity in the profession we took; so much that it becomes a habit. Thanks to my friends, I am learning to keep myself a tad closer to simple conversations.

One of the difficulties I had over the last year was to clearly specify how organizations in Vizag and Hyderabad are different. Put in my academic terms, I had to define the cultural differences. But that is already getting too technical. Fortunately, all wise(wo)men have language that conveys meaning convincingly. I met one of them a couple of days back. She is a colleague to Kalyani. Over a cup of tea, we found that she too was from Hyderabad, and soon we found ourselves discussing how Vizag is different from Hyderabad. Time for a few drops of wisdom was around, perhaps!

In her words, these are the differences she found, most of which I believe are true:

  • Employees give too much importance to their superiors, almost to a level where an open communication with superior is perceived as being arrogant.
  • Superiors maintain their position in a very inaccessible manner, perhaps only to give an impression that they are big.
  • Privacy is not properly understood. Priorities are not rightly calibrated. Others’ interest is more in knowing what you are doing.
  • Gossiping is almost essential for survival in organizations.
  • ‘I know my job – you should know yours‘ instead of ‘Let’s work together‘
  • The difference between being emotional and being professional is not appreciated or embraced appropriately.

I think that sums it up beautifully. It reminds me one of my old posts, where I suggested certain things about the suggestion box in my college. Symbolically too, I am amazed that, that is how the behavior has been in the organizations.

What is good about the wise is that they do not leave the job half-done. The discussion too was not concluded before she suggested the ways she found of living through this locked up labyrinth.

Ridden beyond Vizianagaram

Posted on by

0

Going out on long drive, more for a purpose, has become close to a routine now. I have ridden more than 150 kilometers today too. Towards Vizianagaram was I going before this, and today I went beyond Vizianagaram. I captured most of the scenic locations in some of my earlier rides (Ride 1, Ride 2, Ride 3). This ride, I focused on life and action. I must say I missed a lot of opportunities for good captures, but while riding I guess I did my best.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.