Hilary - Hellary

I heard of some one saying Hilary term as "Hellary". With so many assignments to do, so much of job hunt to do, so many guest lectures to attend and so many.....The list can go on and on...we have entrepreneurial project on top of all these to complete....and we are now so close to complete the term......Every one is on job hunt now and the most happening companies in the tech community are BT, Google and Tech Mahindra. BT has invited few people for 2nd round and I am glad to be one of them. They are doing 2nd round for most of the chaps at school in March 2nd week, but I opted out of it as I thought of taking more time and do it after exams.

Google is hiring for many roles and I got a call from Google India for Tech Account Manager role. They have sent me a questionairre to fill on my tech skills, which I was wondering on how this data helps. Tech M is suppose to do campus hiring this week. A Bunch of deadlines were over last week and there were a bunch this week as well such as Standard Chartered. From Science and Tech OBN, we are meeting people in the Industry to get a first hand feel of what kind of roles these people perform. As a part of this we met Stephen Moss, Managing Consultant of Logica CMG last week. The meet went really well and he explored us to various opportunities for us at Logica. This week is more happening for me as I am moving to Loreal tomorrow to celebrate our success in eStrat competition and I invited Anjan Lahiri, Exec VP and Head of Europe at Mindtree to speak at school this wednesday. And with few more assignments to submit, its all more work - no play for few more weeks.

Impression about Cambridge

I have been to Ox-Cam fair yesterday at Judge Business School, Cambridge. As I have read earlier Cambridge is a village and I feel better when I was back at Oxford. The business school literally doesn't look like a business school at all. Some one told me that it was an hospital earlier and they are still operating there. But with 15 years of background for the business school, its hard to imagine that they are still running that kind of place. Anyways, that was not my core focus yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed talking people from various companies. Especially I spent more time with Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, Accenture, Deloitte and Cap Gemini as I am impressed with what they were offering. A bunch of deadlines are today. Google, Bain , Tech Mahindra's deadlines are today. But, Tech M moved it to next week to let people more time to apply.

And I completed 2 years of blogging now. I celebrated my bday and marriage day this year with our entrepreneurial project mates sunil, gaurav, ruzbeh and rahul last sunday. Its hard to take out some time with Hectic schedule of Hilary. Looking back on what I posted in these 2 years, I posted hell lot of things, which some people might have thought what the crap am I posting. But, it all boils down to the fact that I don't know the definition of Blogging. Be it good or bad, I wanted to write my own diary which can help me in future to look back and learn how matured or immatured I am at all stages of my life.

Professor Jaswant Singh

Professor Jaswant Singh was there in Oxford yesterday giving a talk on India's current affairs and what he foresees as potential challenges. If you are wondering who he is, he is none other than India's ex-Defense Minister, ex-Finance Minister and ex-Foreign affairs minister. He is currently a visiting professor at Oxford and it was good to listen to his experiences when he was sitting at the office. He certainly dont want to be called as Prof. and wanted to be called as an ex-Army guy. There were questions ranging from "why their party have not won elections" to "India-China relations" and he answered them very patiently. One good thing I extracted from the whole thing is him mentioning about how powerful an idea can make a person. He mentioned that a good idea is more powerful than someone sitting in the PM office. And he was very honest to mention that "When I was 28, I resigned from Army (meaning I wont get even pension now) in an illusion that I have all the answers for all problems facing India". This is certainly true and I see a lot of resemblances in the thinking pattern of youth now as well.

On other hand, we had Citigroup and Roland Berger presentations in last couple of days. Citigroup sounds very ambitious of their plans to ramp up EMEA operations and it sounds very promising. I have come in contact with Mark who is one of the Oxford alumni and in one of the prominent positions in the IT industry. He sounds very intellectual in advising me on my career front. Good to see things happening in a positive way. Next week will all be busy with Ox-Cam fair in Cambridge. Looking forward to explore Cambridge a bit and see the difference what it makes from Oxford!!

First Term Results Out!!!!

Michaelmas results are out yesterday and I did well in exams compared to group assignments in 5 out of 6 subjects. My percentage puts me in race for a distinction, but I need to get 6 individual 70s, which I have not started yet. This reminded me of my engineering where I got 69.98%, just 1 mark short of distinction. After 4 years of gruelling course, I lost distinction by just 1 mark. That way, I now least bother about losing distinction by couple of marks in couple of subjects this term. First Class was there for me anyway if not distinction!!!

Good news is that we reached Semi Finals of Loreal eStrat. We stood 3rd in our Zone and need to beat the other 2 in this round to reach the finals, which will be played at Paris in Loreal HQ. Cesar and Diego, my other partners are very enthu to go and beat the others to reach the finals.
We had Spectrum and Booz Allen presentations in last couple of days. Spectrum had a lot of focus on TMT and looks like they were looking for people specialized in TMT. Booz Allen is quite impressive and I need to prepare a strong case for them.

Mean while our Entrepreneurial project is becoming more and more interesting with interesting discussions. Our team myself, Ruzbeh, Sunil, Rahul and Gaurav is looking to grab the SBS venture fund of 50000 GBP by throwing in our idea. With a lot of things happening around, the term is becoming more and more intensive. But, thats how life that I have chosen is!!!