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Library in Chalmers

2010-10-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

I have recently written an e-mail to one of the library personnel in DA-IICT upon his request to tell him how the library at Chalmers is and thought I can share it here :) . It may be grammatically not so correct as I wrote it very fast and didn't do proof reading also. Add suggestions in comments or e-mail me :)

"I like our library better than this one. May be because I am habituated to that library and also we have all books in our book shelves so that we can go and pick up any book we want. Here, there are books which students can see in book shelves but some books are in stack which we are not permitted to go. So, we have to search it in website first and then put a 'Request' to that book and they will place that book near the reception desk of Library.

Inside Chalmers Library.

Some good things which I found it in Chalmers Library are:

Issue and return of the books can be done via a computer. We need to first select 'Borrow' or 'Return' feature through a touch screen computer. Then place our Library card in a slot provided. Then place the book which we want to have transaction for. While returning, if that book is requested by some one else, we have to keep that in a 'reservation trolley' which is connected to one of these transaction computers. I think this can be implemented in DA-IICT as well. Some students can take up as a project and work it out.
We will get an e-mail telling that our book which we have ordered is ready for pick-up. We also get e-mail saying that the loan for book which I have borrowed is expiring and 2 other e-mails subsequently which says it's overdue. After few days (they are not telling me the number of days ..just they say as soon as possible) of not returning the book will be fined.
Two other nice things which I have found it in Sweden library system are: 1)We can issue library cards from other libraries here (Municipal library and also Gothenburg University library) free of charge and can take books from those libraries also. 2) This is one of the most interesting thing which I have found: In http://chans.lib.chalmers.se/search/, there is a 'Other Catalogues' option, where you can search books from all libraries in Sweden. If a book is not in Chalmers library but is present in any other library, we can just order that book through 'Inter Library Loan' request and they will bring that book to us. (I think DA-IICT library is also doing this since once I got a book from IISC when it was not available in DA-IICT library when I was doing BTech project under Prof Vijay Kumar)
There are silent study rooms inside library. It is not restricted to talk in whole library. Only in these 'silent rooms', it is restricted to talk. There is a small restaurant at the entrance of the library. There is also facility of kitchen in library in ground floor where there are microwave ovens to hear food.

I think these are few differences which I observed.

Energy

2010-07-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

I recently came through the following, which I found interesting to share with.

As we all know every one has twenty four hours. It's not the time that counts but energy. And of that wonderful quality we all have very different amounts, from the persons who wake up tired, no matter how much sleep they've had, to lucky, well-adjusted mortals who hardly ever need to sleep.

Energy comes from a healthy body; it also comes from a psychological balance, a lack of conflicts and insecurities.

Some people apparently have boundless, unlimited energy-they're on the go from morning to night, and often far into the night, working hard, playing hard, never tiring-and getting as much done as any three other human beings. They can be called indefatigable people.

Using Technology

2010-07-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

Now-a-days in this globalized world, everone has to try out their hand on the technology. My parents who were once layman with computer are now using them comfortably. I'm doing my Masters in Sweden. My Parents are in Thrissur, Kerala, India. My sister is in Coimbatore and one of my cousins is in US and other in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, India. But because of this so called 'flat world', we are able to ommunicate all at once. The tool which we use to talk to each other is through Skype Conference call.

My sister doesn't have access to computer. So, once my cousins, my parents and I get connected to skype conference call, my parents will call my sister on mobile with loud speaker enabled on mobile. So, Whatever my sister speaks, every one can listen and what we speak, she can listen.

It's nice to use the technology and make us feel at home since we all talk to each other for very long hours. But for sure, there is little homework to be done before this: As you might have guessed, we should first plan ahead when we should talk because i´n all the above places, the time is not the same-I mean to say that there is difference in time.

Anyways, it gives great pleasure to have audio chat in skype even though video chat (with more than two groups) is not possible free of cost.

See you.´!!!

Some important things after getting acceptance

2010-05-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

As I’m not getting sufficient time these days, I asked my friend to write this post and he, as always, accepted my request. He will be sharing some of his experiences and information which will be useful for you!! If you’ve some more questions to ask, please write it in comments section so that after we answer, everyone can see them.

Hi guys, Congrats :) and hearty welcome to Sweden :)

Well, I am back here to share some of my experiences and views that may help you. Since the visa process is the immediate step after admission I will start with that….!

Firstly, I would like to give a small advice before I move further. Please don’t delay to take an appointment for visa interview. Even though you are in dilemma whether to choose Sweden as an option, there is nothing wrong to take one date for visa. Since visa approval will take about 6 weeks to 9 weeks it is always better to have early dates.

Now let’s see the check list which you need for visa interview. (You can e-mail the embassies to get this information.)

All the following docs should be carried with minimum of 3 copies each, excluding Original.

1. Passport – You should take photocopies of both front and back pages including any previous visa stampings if any.

2. Admission Notification Printout – Just three copies are sufficient here.

3. Filled out Residency Permit form – You can fill the form by writing if it is legible (readable by any one) otherwise it’s better to fill using you keyboard ;) for safer side carry some blank forms that may use in emergency.

4. Bank Certificate – should carry all in original (of course not mandatory) and keep copies for your reference.

5. Degree Certificate – Still if you have not got one even provisional is accepted. Even it is better if you can get a letter from your principal stating the date of issuing your Degree Certificate.

6. BE transcripts – Consolidated and 8 individual mark sheets should be carried.

7. Bank pass book copy – It is okay if you can just carry a pass book with you. But take copies of front and back along with inside transactions from the date you started transaction for visa processing for some emergency purpose.

8. 10th and 12th mark sheets.

9. Passport size photographs: You need to carry 4 photos with you. There will be some specific dimensions for them as I mentioned below. They will say it should be taken in light back ground, but its better you take in white back ground.

The photos must be in color and of the standard passport photo size, which is 3.5cms X 4.5cms. The face should occupy about 70% of the photo and you must be looking directly at the camera so that both sides of your face are visible. The background should be light colored and should contain no shadows or objects. It is important that your expression be neutral which means that you should not have a big smile on your face and your teeth should not be visible. While regularly worn spectacles should be worn in the photo, there should be no reflection that limits the visibility of the eyes in the photo. Head gear of any kind and dark or heavily tinted glasses are not allowed. The photos must be submitted in duplicate with the applicants name clearly printed on the back of the photos in pencil.

http://www.epassportphoto.com/Blog/post/2008/11/Sweden----Passport-and-Visa-Photos.aspx

All the documents (photocopies) mentioned above should be attested by a notary public (or equivalent). I guess these are the important things to make as a check list.

Now I like to introduce about the Bank Transfers:

Most of the guys might be confused about bank transfers and bank details.

To be frank, if you collected sufficient funds then either open a new account with your name and transfer 168000 SEK (or equivalent) or do the same with the existing account. No one cares about your previous balance. Just they are expecting during the time of visa process they will check whether you can withstand with your personal funding during the period of study over here. Keep in mind that they won’t allow any fixed deposits or any kind of documents that can show you have sufficient amount of funds. You need to show the amount in cash in a savings bank account. After getting visa approval you can withdraw the money. There is also an alternative; if you are making a joint account with your parents (only parents are accepted – at least to my knowledge) then you should get a certificate from a lawyer (I am not sure about the letter content) and also you should submit last year’s tax office statements.

In many blogs I came up with a common question stating I opened my account just after my admission confirmation and I managed to arrange the entire sufficient amount just three days before the visa date. So can I show this as my transaction? Will consulate officers accept my document? The answer is yes. Though the rule is to show the last six months transactions, without knowing about the admission no one (at least no student) will have such a huge amount in their savings bank account. So it is quite accepted by the consulate members with the nominal transactions of your amount in your account.

For now this information is sufficient I guess. Since I got so many other works I am not able to write all the info at a time. I will come up with more details like how to apply for an apartment, cheap air tickets, important things to purchase, and few others in the next post later this month…!

Congratulations once again…!
Ajay

We'll come up with more posts after May 28th if you need to know some more info. I've tried to share some of my experiences in previous posts..if you've time and curiousity, just go ahead and read them and last but not least don't FORGET to leave your comments.. :)

"Masters in Sweden" Posts are done :)

2010-01-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

Hi,

As promised, I have completed all the posts. :). Now I want a small but very important help from you. Please provide me feedback through comments so that I can improve on the posts. Since my classes are going to start again from next Monday, I will not be able to post as frequently as I posted during these holidays. However, I'll try to write whatever new things I've discovered and will also share my experiences and my opinions about the same.

Bye...
Have A Nice Day :)

Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 Experiences

2010-01-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

International exposure: In every project we did, the team comprised of students from different countries. During the first quarter, my project was with one Turkish guy, Iranian girl and two Chinese students. During second quarter, there were 2 subjects in which we did almost 5 projects. In one team, there was one Chinese girl and one Indian guy. In other project, I was teamed up with one Pakistanian and one French guy. It was a good experience working with people from different countries because we used to know about each other's culture also apart from the academic stuff.

Industry exposure: After our first project in 'Introduction to Communication engineering', all the teams went to Ericsson Company (for wrap-up workshop) and shared our experiences with them. They gave a feedback and also told how the real time projects are done. It was a nice experience talking with them. During the course of the project, there was an external faculty from the industry who guided us throughout the project and told us about project planning and also non-technical things which have to take care during the project. I attended 2 other seminars one in Volvo, other in Ericsson again. It was a very good industrial exposure.

No-extracurricular: Because of the hectic schedule during the course duration, I didn't get time to do any extra-curricular which I'm very sad of. But during these holidays, I planned to write blog and I'm happy that I've done that. I've joined Red Cross organization and it is also very good experience.

Google helped a lot J

Google translate: One Persian and some Poland people shared the house which we are currently living. Unfortunately, they didn't know either English or Swedish and we didn't know their language. Since we are living in the same house, we just use to say "Hi", "Hello" and "Bye". I didn't like this much and I wanted to interact with them. After my exams, I sat with them along with my lappy; opened Google translate and chatted with them using "Google Translate". It was an entire new experience talking with the people using this new way. But it would be good if there is a method where the two people (who can't understand each other's language) can talk to each other not through this Google translate but I wish there is a gadget where there will be real time conversation and translation.

Google Calendar: During the first quarter, it was very difficult to remember the time tables since we have different slots for different courses. Thanks to Google calendar. We came to know about this in quarter 2 from one of my friends Hashim. We downloaded our time table for the quarter in "ical" format and then loaded in Google calendar. There is a nice "Mobile notification" feature available in Google calendar and it was a natural choice to use that. Now, after enabling that feature, I'm getting a sms (free of cost) about any event in that calendar. Thanks to Google and my friend Hashim who conveyed this information.

Some facts which I’ve known + my experiences - part 1

2010-01-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

I want to share my views about a country which is determined to hand over to the next generation a society where the most crucial environmental problems have been solved. It is a land of many international brands like Volvo, Ericsson etc. and has given the world scientists like ‘Nobel’ and ‘Celsius’. It is among a few countries which offer free education not just to their Nationals but for international students also; a country where the voting turnout was never less than 80% and is yet to become the space exploration launching site from 2012. Can you guess which this country is? Welcome to Sweden!

Right now I am doing my Masters in Chalmers University, in Gothenburg and this place fascinated me in many ways during my stay. I’ll try to share some of my experiences/observations and these are put forth categorically.

Geographically: Let me give you some stats to start with. Sweden is a long country: 1,574 km (about 980 miles) stretching from north to south; about the same distance as Mumbai-Calcutta (1,665 km). Population is nearly 9.2 million living in 450,000 square km; roughly 22 inhabitants per square km. This can be compared to the population density in China (134/sq km), Hong Kong (6,688/sq km), and India (318/sq km).

Climate: A warm and light summer is followed by a colorful fall; a long, dark winter and a bright and longed-for spring. The average daytime temperature in the summer ranges from around +12 deg C in the north (Kiruna) to +18 deg. C in the south (Malmö). The average daytime temperature in the winter ranges from around -15 deg. C in the north to +1 deg. C in the south. This year, in Gothenburg(South-West part of Sweden) recorded a minimum of -18 deg. C as of now. I thought that the very low temperature always leads to snowfall which I realised is not true. Snow combined with wind is a very bad situation during winter. Sometimes the situation become worse when its cold and is accompanied by rain and strong wind and I faced this during my first few days in Gothenburg.

The summers in Sweden are known to be light. On the lightest day of the year in mid-June, there is on average 20 hours of sunlight throughout the country, the sun never setting in Kiruna, north of the Arctic Circle (this is known as the midnight sun). In contrast, on the darkest day of the year (mid-December), the average sun time in Sweden is about 6 hours, the sun in Kiruna not reaching above the horizon at all. So, we can’t rely or conclude from the sun to estimate the time as was the case in India in earlier days. In summers people like to go to beaches to take sun bath and enjoy the sun. In winters, though the sun’s intensity is high, the warmth of sun is not enough to combat the cold.

Food: Pizza, kebabs, falafel, hamburgers, and Chinese cuisine are some of the culinary choices. Apart from these, some Indian restaurants can be seen, though expensive but highly relished by Swedish people. Because of their association with the agricultural past, certain items are identified as particularly Swedish. A basic diet of potatoes, meat or fish, and a hearty sauce is often referred as Husmanskost, or homely fare. A less agrarian dinner alternative is the smörgåsbord. This buffet meal of cold and hot hors d'oeuvres often includes various forms of herring, meats, cheeses, and vegetables.

Breakfast typically includes bread with butter or cheese; musli or cornflakes with filmjölk, a yogurt like milk product; and coffee. Relatively light hot or cold lunches at midday customarily are followed by early-evening suppers. Bread, pasta, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, peas, herring, salmon, and meat are common components of these two meals. Immigration has enriched the range of restaurants, and restaurant patronage is rising.

Swedes are fond of coffee. Sweden is the second largest consumer of coffee in the world; with an average of 3.4 cups/person/day (only the Finnish drinks more). They also consume vast amounts of cake and candies. In an effort to limit children’s candy eating to just one day a week, parents observe the tradition of lördagsgodis, or Saturday candy.

Despite all of this, due to its multicultural society, there are also food items which we eat in India. You can find rotis (known as tortillas), rice, vegetables and almost everything which we eat in India.

Transportation:The main modes of public transportation are buses, trams and trains. These are clean and well planned. Public can buy their monthly/yearly pass or can buy their ticket via an SMS or they can just put the money in a machine and can take the ticket themselves. For the pass, they just need to swipe the card in the card reader available and hence there is no (ticket) conductor but usually there will be checking squad. Whether young or old, people follow rules and help the Government in providing those services fruitfully.

In most parts of Sweden, you can search a journey planner for any stop or address online and receive several detailed travel alternatives, including changeovers, with minute-by-minute precision. Even at stops there are boards displaying the time for the next bus. It’s because of these consistent timetables that many people are able to use public transport and still keep their daily schedules. For achieving this, there is dynamic traffic control where the driver updates the central office about the delay in his bus time, if any, and this information is conveyed and updated in all the stops along its route. Throughout the city, there are free parking displays and automatic parking facilities with ticketing machines, making it easy for the drivers to use these services by themselves.

Dynamic traffic control: I came to know that bus and tram drivers are given the power to change the traffic signals so that time is not wasted when there is no traffic. There are some sensors near the bus stops, so that the traffic lights switch to green when a bus leaves the bus stop. Pedestrians are given the top most priority contradictory to what we see in India. Almost near every zebra crossing, pedestrians can signal using a button that they need to cross the road. In some road crossings where there is no provision for button, whenever a vehicle driver sees a pedestrian he slows down and allows the pedestrian to cross. Coming from India, it was very irritating at the beginning, because we used to stop for the vehicles to pass and here they are stopping for the pedestrians.

During my stay for last 4 months in Gothenburg, very few accidents occurred that too due to the snow on the roads. I am very happy and astonished to say that I didn’t hear any vehicle “horn” unlike India. Sometimes, when the driver sees a pedestrian crossing road (other than in zebra crossing), he horns (a small ‘beep’ sound horn) and hence there is no sound pollution.

Some facts which I’ve known + my experiences - part 2

2010-01-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Sweden and Swedes: People are calm going and often try to avoid open conflicts. Swedes are very punctual on time. I’m happy that I’m learning punctuality from them. Since it is a multicultural country, with almost one fifth of its population having roots in other countries, most people speak English even though Swedish being their national language. This is the first country which introduced ‘tagging’ for people: assigning a unique id (personal number) to each person. Many international brands have their roots in Sweden, among them are: Ericsson, Volvo, ABB, IKEA, AstraZeneca, Electrolux, SAAB, Absolut Vodka, SKF (for ball bearings) and H&M. Skype and Spotify were also founded in Sweden. When I talked with some Swedes, I came to know that they are very happy with the taxes they pay to the Govt even though the tax being paid by the Swedes is highest among the Europe. However, after the retirement, the Swedish government gives very high pension which is enough to live independently without relying on their children for money. The money collected in the form of taxes is used to improve the living standard of the people and this is the reason that Swedes praise a lot about the infrastructure like roads, free education system and health care etc. When you go to a bank to open an account or to tax office to pay the tax, your work will be done in few minutes (unless there is a long queue of people waiting before you). From Friday evening till Sunday, they go to pubs and party heavily. They don’t smoke cigarette in public places. If they need to smoke, they’ll go out of the crowd then come back. Swedes are avid music consumers.

Government: Sweden is a parliamentary democracy in which the king is head of state. However, the king has no political power and is only representative and a ceremonial monarch. Sweden has a one-chamber parliament, the Riksdag, with 349 members elected from all parts of the country. The Swedish parliament is one of the worlds most gender-equal. Almost 50 percent of its members have been women during the past years.

A tradition of public access to official documents dates back to the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. Any individual has a right to see almost any document in national or local government files. There are exceptions to protect the privacy of individuals, but the state's power to classify documents as national-security secrets is strictly limited.

Some quick facts:

Compulsory Schooling: 9 years compulsory education. More than 97% of all pupils attend municipal compulsory schools. Very few private schools and colleges are also available. Instruction, teaching material, school lunches and school transport are free of charge
Strong sense of Equality: Swedish people try to treat everyone equally, regardless of job titles or social status. If there is a problem in a restaurant, a guest will tell the waitress, rather than asking for her manager. The expectation is that things will get done because everyone feels equally responsible. As a result of this equality, leadership decisions are to a large degree consensus-based — because everyone’s opinion is considered worthwhile. According to the latest Global Gender Gap Report from 2008, Sweden is ranked as one of the best countries in the world for equality. Equality was measured in four areas: economics, politics, education and health.
Financial Security: All Swedish citizens are entitled to basic financial security. The basis for this is a tax-financed welfare system. This means that the state is responsible for all or most of the costs related to education, healthcare, child and elderly care, and pensions. There is also compensation for those who have lost their income due to illness, age, unemployment or a child becoming ill and needing care.
Sustainability: One third of all energy consumed in Sweden comes from renewable sources (mainly biofuels and hydropower). A majority of the Swedes sort their household waste. I came to know that about 85 percent of all used PET bottles and aluminium cans are returned. Glass cans and bottles, tin cans, paper packaging and rigid plastics are also returned. Statistics from 2008 show that a total of 96 percent of the household waste is recycled, either as material or as energy.
Working in Sweden: Swedish companies tend to be less hierarchical than companies in many other countries when it comes to internal organization. This means that a managing director of a firm is more openly available to his or her employees, erasing some of the chain-of-command arrangements that exist in other countries. In general, it’s possible for employees to take their comments, questions or concerns directly to the boss. The Swedish working week stretches from Monday to Friday and is by law regulated to be 40 hours. Parents have the right to work part-time (75 percent) until the youngest child is 8 years old. If you work full time, you have a minimum of 5 weeks’ paid vacation. Unemployment in Sweden during the last decade has been ranging from roughly 4 to 6 percent, which is slightly below the average EU level. Retirement age in Sweden is 65 years. Considering that the average lifetime is 83 years for women and 78 years for men, this means that Swedes usually have a long retirement.
Spare time: During vacations and weekends Swedes tend to spend a lot of time outdoors. Walking through forests (basic principle being “don’t disturb, don’t destroy”) and fields is more popular than any of the leisure-time activities the Swedish local authorities invest in (swimming pools, indoor skating rinks, playgrounds etc.) During their vacations Swedes are frequent travelers. Almost 50 percent of Swedish families travel abroad every year.
Centuries of relative ethnic, religious, and linguistic homogeneity were followed by substantial immigration during the last sixty years, creating a multicultural society. Half is blanketed by forests, while just under a tenth is farmed. There are nearly 100,000 lakes, and a long, rocky coastline on the Baltic Sea. Foreigners enjoy full access to the welfare system, can vote in local elections, and can become citizens in five years.

Apart from my experiences and my interactions with some of the Swedes, some of the above information was referred from the following:
References:

http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Sweden.html

http://www.sverigeturism.se/

https://www.sweden.se/

· http://www.sweden.gov.se/ http://nastaunik.info/files/f/10_facts_about_sweden_new.ppt
http://www.sweden.se/upload/Sweden_se/english/Multimedia/introducing_sweden.ppt

Q & A's

2010-01-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Just before the application and the decision period, I've asked my queries regarding studies to some students (Ex-Masters, current PhD students of Chalmers) who are associated with Sweden. I was planning to do Communication Engineering so my questions and also answers are aimed at that course and also from people involved in that area. But I'm posting here so that it may be of some use to at least some of you. Also, I want to remind you one more thing: since my next step is to do PhD, some questions may be of that sort.

1) How are the studies at Chalmers for Communication engineering? How is the faculty? How is the research?

We have a very nice group working together in different projects. We have so many publications every year in different IEEE journals and conferences. Moreover, we have good connections with Ericsson Company and some other societies in Europe.

2) What are the options one has after completing Masters (MS)?

It depends on your master thesis. There are two different kinds of master thesis here. The first one takes 6 months and it is defined in industry, for us (implying Communication engineering), particularly in Ericsson. After that we have good chance of getting job in companies. The second one is the one-year projects which are defined in the department. There is no guarantee but as I have seen, there is high chance of acceptance for PhD after graduation with this kind of thesis.

3) Can I get Phd after MS in one of the good universities say EPFl or HUT etc?

Of course. Chalmers is a famous university and has good connections with other universities but it also depends on your performance and GPA.

4) What about job/placements after MS?

Here there is no placement system. You have to put yourself to the industry and your professors may help you in reaching the industries with their contacts. Alternatively, there are some job fairs conducted where you can meet people from diff companies and submit your resume, or get their contact. Students attend this for finding a company for doing their thesis work. {Go through question 2 which may be useful.} Just to add that as you know in 2009 and 2010 it will be hard to find job but still there are good opportunities.

5) What is the diversity at campus? in Communication Engg?

We have students from different nationalities from Europe and particularly Asia. Many people are form India, Iran, Pakistan, China, Sweden, countries in EU (European Union), Africa, few are from US.

6) Can we get part time jobs in Goteborg near our campus?

Here the part time jobs are like morning paper delivery at 3am, Sunday paper, week end paper and cleaning jobs in restaurant and pubs. The other part time jobs like sitting in the cash counters and something like those will be given to Swedish students and to students who have fluency in Swedish language. But there is lot of competition for these jobs and it's not very easy to get as there will usually be a large queue before you.

7) Who are the publishers of the research papers? Under Graduates or Masters or Phd students or the faculty? or let me put the question in a different way, do Masters students publish papers?

All of them. Particularly for MS students, they also publish papers. Actually, it is essential for one-year project to have publications.

8) How much will it cost to study in Sweden (As we don't have any tuition fees).. What are the chances for getting scholarship for living expenses?

It will cost min - 15000 to max - 25000 INR per month depending upon the place you stay. It includes housing and food expenses.

9) Can we do part time rite from beginning? And approx how much can we get for that part time? (Actually I can't afford money like 12L myself ...so I'm looking for scholarships/part time money etc)...What is the eligibility of getting TA/RA ship- and how much can we get? So if u can help me in this issue, it would be of great help for me.

It will cost at a maximum of 5L for the entire two years for your living expenses. If you do the part times you cannot concentrate on studies. The scholarships are awarded to few universities and few courses within them. Check this link http://www.studyinsweden.se whether the university and the course you enrolled has the scholarship or not. My personal experience is that getting TA/RA is very very difficult here for Masters Students as there are many PhD’s already who can do that job. From the university side, there is no restriction , so you can start doing part time from the beginning of your studies. Regarding part time jobs: see question 6.

I want to remind you that this is not official data and it is just my opinion and also some student’s opinion. So, take others opinion also while taking a decision for yourself.

Education system in Sweden for Masters

2009-12-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

I’ll try to describe observations of my academic experience and also the education system in Sweden in particular Masters in Chalmers(and in more particular Communication engineering). (Some points described here may vary for university to university within Sweden.)

In Sweden, even though the national language is Swedish, generally most people talk in English. So when we ask something, they'll respond in English. They welcome foreigners. In Sweden, the education is free (no tuition fees) not just for Swedish people but also for the international students. (But they are planning to introduce the fees from next or from 2011. For more details visit: http://www.studyinsweden.se/Home/News-archive/Possible-tuition-fees-for-non-EUEES-students-from-2011/. ) {Till High school education is compulsory and afterwards, it depends on the interest of the students.}

Coming to my University: Chalmers, first of all I like the vision "Chalmers - for a sustainable future". It's just not in the vision, everyone who works and studies here have this vision inbuilt and works towards achieving that vision. Both faculty and students are involved in many projects of which majority of them are achieving this vision. For example: energy consumption in less amount and in environment friendly way etc.

Quarter based as opposed to semester system: It is basically a quarter based system, which is very common in Europe. Quarter-based implies that (normally) two courses will run for 8 weeks: 7 weeks of classes, labs, tutorials, projects, assignments, exercise sessions and last week is for examinations. We only have one final examination; there can be quizzes depending on the faculty interest. Then after 8 weeks next quarter begins immediately, which again lasts for 8 weeks. Then we’ll have 1 month break in December (after autumn semester, from September-December: meaning 2 quarters). Again after 1 semester from January-May (2 quarters), we’ve 3 months summer break. There will be approximately 14 lectures per course (on an average 2 lectures per week * 7 weeks = 14 lecture hours), with each lecture hour being 1 hour 45 minutes (45 min lecture + 15 min break + 45 min lecture). It takes two years to complete the Masters program in Chalmers. So, we'll have 4 quarters per year and 8 quarters for the whole Masters program.

Good international and industry exposure: There are many international students in Masters Program (and also in PhD). There is a good collaboration with the industry. There are many projects which are closely collaborated with the industry, which are offered to Masters and PhD students. So, this way we’ll have a practical exposure to live projects. So, this way, we’ve both international and also industrial exposure at Masters Level. One of the good things I observed here is that there are many PhD students in the department. This is a good sign as there is an active research that is going on in many areas. One thing which I didn’t like in this education system is that there is no TA/RA for Master students. Since there are lot of PhD students, as said earlier, they only do this Teaching Assistant (TA) job. During the quarter, students are always very busy doing the course projects (Generally there are many projects in each course); assignments; attending lectures etc. During the weekends the whole scenario changes: they do a lot of partying. In other words, they have a strong work-life balance.

Seminars: During the first quarter, I attended some seminars of companies like Ericson; Volvo etc. {Seminar timings and place will be posted in the main website; whoever wants to go can just e-mail the concerned person and attend the seminar}. Many people from the companies also attend the seminar apart from small student community. Company CEO is also one of the audiences. {Boss is one of the workers here and not like someone who is much different than others as in India.} This was a different feeling. For the first time, I saw a place where students can also attend corporate seminars. This tells us how much industrial exposure is inbuilt in the education system.

Library: All university libraries are open for generic public also. We can take membership in any library in Sweden and can issue books from those libraries also everything free of cost. We can also take membership from general (city) libraries.

Live projects: Students and faculty are involved in making real working prototypes which can be used in the public arena. For example, the bus card reader used by main transport company (Vasttrafik) in Gothenburg is made by Chalmers students. So, there is a lot of acceptance in the society for the products developed within the university, which is a very good sign as a token of encouragement.

(Re)Exams: First I should tell you that it is absolute grading system. During my Bachelors at DA-IICT (www.daiict.ac.in), there was relative grading system. In relative grading your grade depends on how well others are performing in the examination. So it'll be quite competitive as you want to score better than your friend score. In absolute grading system, you have to peers scores doesn't influence your grades. In Chalmers, we have 3, 4, 5 and fail with 5 being the highest credit/grade. So if you want to get a 5, you've get 80% that is >=80/100. An exam is conducted at least twice (mostly thrice) in an year. So, if you fail or get an unsatisfactory grade, you can appear in the forthcoming exam. There is no restriction on how many times, you can write/rewrite the exam. The best score will be published in the final transcript. If you failed in an exam and give re-exam then your next passing mark will appear in the final transcript with no special "* or #"mark. Every course has a course website for the current year and also the archives of the course. So, we can generally access all the previous years materials (like exam papers, lectures etc.)

Student representatives: Every course has approx 2 student representative. They meet the teacher responsible for the course three times (at least) to discuss contents, study climate and possible problems related to the course after collecting the opinions from the fellow students. An amount of 200 SEK is given for being the representative of the course. I was lucky enough to be student representative for one of our courses "Digital Communications". :)

Course Evaluation: A web-based questionnaire is distributed (via e-mail) to all the students, to be answered anonymously. The results are collected and discussed along with the student representatives in the final meeting with the teacher and then published on the course website accessible to all the students. So it is a very open system where the students are involved to give a feedback about the course.

What I observed during my visit to some companies like Ericsson is many companies like Ericsson, Volvo, Saab etc absorb the students and who eventually get a big position there. Volvo CEO is Chalmerist. So, this way they serve their country which gave them a place to study and live.

I’ve listened many-a-times that Education has no age limit. Here I saw this practically. Many people who are married and also more than 40 years (not so uncommon in PhD) are common in Masters Programme also. It’s nice to see and talk with these people and share their experiences.

Communication engineering:

Apart from lectures, exercise sessions, assignments, each course has many projects, which are designed to give an idea about the important topics in the course and also give practical exposure of the problems involved in the course. Each group consists of 2-4 members, but on an average 3 members per group. Here they try to see to it that there are students from different countries in each group. So, when I worked with them, apart from knowledge sharing, I emphasized on culture sharing also during/after the meeting. Here is where international exposure really comes in.

We've mandatory courses namely 1) Introduction to Communication Engineering 2) Random process and applications in the first quarter and 3) Digital communications 4) Applied Signal processing in the second quarter. Then from the third and fourth quarters, we need to pick 2 of 4 semi-mandatory courses and then chose the rest of the courses based on the specialization which you want to do. For details of the specializations, you can look at: http://www.chalmers.se/en/sections/education/masterprogrammes/programme-descriptions/communication. We can choose our Master thesis as 6 months (30 credits) or 1 year thesis (60 credits). In total, we need to do 180 credits (ECTS) for getting Masters Degree. Since one of the good companies for communication engineering: Ericsson is Swedish based, there are many people who go for companies like that for doing their 6 month thesis. Also, as there are many projects within the department (Communication engineering comes under signals and systems department), some students do their 6 months or 1 year thesis in those projects within department itself.

If somebody would ask me to describe about the course Masters in communication engineering in Chalmers in 3 words, I would say: Mathematics, MATLAB simulations and some fancy communication stuff which you might think. Here right from the quarter 1, we have emphasis on mathematics, the first course offered in this tract being Random processes and applications followed by Digital communications etc. In every project, as I said earlier, we need to do MATLAB simulations. One good thing which I liked about the communication engineering curriculum is the following: blocks in the Shannon model are dealt completely in the first year namely channel codes (in digital communications course), source coding, channel (Digital communications course speaks about AWGN and just touches dispersive channel; Wireless communications speaks totally about the dispersive channel), general synchronization problems dealt in almost all courses. So, in general we have an overall and in depth view of each block of Shannon model once we complete the first year. One course namely Data Communications deals with other layers of the OSI model.

Open lab: We have an open lab system meaning there will not be pre-defined lab sessions as I had in my Bachelors. In many course projects, we had a setup in the lab (for example: acoustic channel for studying channel equalization and also for noise cancellation in ‘Applied signal processing’ course). There will be some pre-defined slots in the lab which every team needs to sign up and go to the lab and perform the experiment (complete the project) on that time slot. If we’re struck in between, we can go to the professor’s or TA or whoever is the concerned person and can clear our doubts or ask him to visit the lab.

During my Bachelors, I learnt that signals are everywhere and stuff like that in basics of signals and systems course. I thought that is a cliché and didn’t emphasize much on it. But, when I learnt Laplace transform, I came to know the relation between electrical and Communication engineering and agreed that indeed signals are everywhere. When I came here for masters, a course on ‘signals, systems and transforms’ is offered to other dept, which I never imagined like mechanical etc. So, when we have people from different department taking same course sitting in the same room: learning and interacting with them is an all together different experience. We share a lot of things which are uncommon in two departments. How they perceive the topics will be somewhat different from how we perceive and I feel that it opens up our mind, seeing the same topic in a different perspective and it’s we can know its various uses. Taking a course (like Applied Signal Processing) gave me a very different perspective. Sitting with students from different department was a very good experience. I used to interact with students from control systems and came to know how this field is applied in their subject.

I hope I’ve covered almost everything I observed here. If I missed out something I’ll add them subsequently. E-mail or comment if you want to know some other info.

Posts ahead

2009-12-29T07:34:00.000-08:00

I'll be posting

1) Education system in Sweden for Masters-- by tomorrow (Wednesday)

2) 1st quarter experiences

3) 2nd Quarter experiences (May be I will combine 2 and 3 if matter is very less)

4) General experiences in Sweden --by next Sunday

I'll also try to include: climate, agriculture, public transport, people, hospatality, food, policies, rules, restrictions, laws, governance, leaders, etc. (as suggested by Vasu in his comments).

I'll try to write 'em all by next week. I hope you're not bored and please give me feedback by the end of the next week so that I can write something based on your feedback.

Have A Nice Day :)

Some pics

2009-12-29T02:02:00.001-08:00

Here are some pics when we came to Sweden. Will be posting some more now and then.

Journey Continues

2009-12-28T04:04:00.001-08:00

We landed in Frankfurt after maybe 8 hours. This was the first time I landed in a foreign country and it was all together different experience: people talking in languages which sound very different than the Indian languages. Shanmukh also joined us in FRA. One of the good things about the journey was I handed my luggage in Kochi and then directly collected it in Gothenburg. Once I showed the baggage slip in FRA, they transferred it to next flight.

I like this journey from FRA to GOT (Gothenburg) very much because of following experience: It was morning, so I was actually able to experience a lot. First we went into the clouds and then after sometime, we were above the clouds and the scenery from that view point was awesome. It was a memorable experience. Then after sometime, as we might expect and I’ve heard many-a-times, it appeared that all people and the buildings on the ground appeared as small living creatures. The flight attendants (FA) offered us a snack: a solid item and a coke. When we (Suresh was sitting beside me in this part of the journey) asked FA what that solid item was, he said something which we didn’t understand. Suresh tried that and he didn’t like it. I said I can eat anything and started to eat but was not able to take the first bite also. I completed that bite by drinking one full coke bottle and then left away the remaining food offeredL. We realized later that it was uncooked meat. (Now, you see, you came to know why I said Thank God. It’s vegetarian during BOM-FRA flight journey in the last post). Then during last few minutes of the journey, we saw Baltic Sea, one more memorable experience. Then we saw Gothenburg in Sweden, which was very good to see in top view: Many many trees and few houses.

After having 2 hours of journey from FRA-GOT, we reached GOT at last on September 9^th 2009. Many said that the climate will be very very cold but contrary to my expectations, it was a very sunny day and also it was not too cool as expected. We collected our baggage and then I called up my parents about my safe arrival. Then took a ticket from the airport to the city centre (Central Stationen). {Cost was 80 SEK: I’ll try to write so that you’ll have some idea about the cost of living. This was the costliest ticket ever in Sweden we purchased for so much short distance. The general bus/tram/ship monthly pass is 300 SEK, which we purchase every month. It is unlimited travel.}

(Pic: Bus from Airport To GOT)

Then we came to the city without any accommodation. Although, Ajay had told that he can assure me a temporary accommodation, the rest of the people with me (Suresh, Hashim and Shanmukh) didn’t had any. So, I preferred to stay along with these people till they get an accommodation. We stayed in Nordstan till evening searching for a place to stay: contacted many people from contacts of Ajay, Harsha etc; Mother India restaurant people; Shanmukh’s relatives etc. At last we got a temporary accommodation for 3-4 days from one of Shanmukh’s relatives. Thanks to Guru Annayya and Gangadhar annayya (Chilli and chilli restaurant in Olkskroktorget) who helped us in the first few days of this tough time. After 3 days, we got an accommodation in Ostergardsvagen (The current house rent is 6000 SEK for two rooms in which 5 of us are staying. In other rooms of the house, there are polish guys and also Swedish women staying), the place where we are currently leaving. On September 11^th, went to Chalmers and registered for masters.

Entrance of my University: During Winter (you can see full of snow on the road)

Journey Begins

2009-12-28T03:48:00.000-08:00

The day of journey has at last come and I’m feeling somewhat better than the last 3 days. We (mother, father, sister and I) started in a taxi to Kochi, reached airport, handed my luggage in the check-in counter and went for immigration check. Then came trouble. My native is Guntur, AP; I took my passport from Gujarat, India and now I’m boarding flight in Kochi. This was their problem. They asked me why I am boarding at Kochi, which is not my place of birth nor is the place where I was issued my passport. I said that my mother got transferred to Trichur recently and since Kochi is the nearest airport, I preferred it. It seems he (immigration check officer) was not convinced. He asked me to meet circle inspector who is sitting in a corner. I went to her and explained her about the situation. She called one person and then she told him something in Malayalam which I didn’t understand. When he came to me, I really got angry and asked them what their problem is. I told with in a high voice that I was brought up in AP. I preferred DA-IICT for doing my under graduation and got passport there itself. Since my mother got transferred to Trichur, I came to Kochi. Then, we (circle inspector and I) went to my parents and they asked my parents to show some proof that we are staying in Trichur. After some time, I think they got convinced and gave me permission to leave for the flight. Since this was my first flight journey, I was little tensed as the time left was just 15 min. I went very fast to the gate to board the flight waving hands to my parents for the last time.

At last I got the flight from Kochi to Mumbai in Air India. I didn’t like this flight journey. {I’m a frequent flyer in trains and I like train journey very much. I can sleep on the allocated berth and I can see the nature. It looks very natural and very pleasant to go for a train journey.} Added to that, my flight was at night, so I was not able to see anything outside. Since this was my first flight journey, it was OK type of journey.

In Mumbai airport, Hashim and Suresh joined me for the rest of the journey. They were also coming to Sweden for doing masters in Chalmers. After waiting for 1 hour, I took my first international flight from Mumbai (BOM) to Frankfurt (FRA). Although I didn’t have any experiences that I had in train, this journey from BOM to FRA was different all together. (Our flight started at 12.45 am). Beside me, there was a German guy (along with his girl friend), we had a nice talk for about half an hour. There was also a customized TV for every passenger. Every passenger can select preloaded movies or songs which he likes and can watch for the whole journey, which was really cool. Then after say 1 hour, it seems it was breakfast time. Then around 4 am, they offered lunch: O. We ate all of that breakfast and lunch without brushing. I thought “Oh! My God!! What is this? No one is brushing and eating just like that. I remembered “when you’re in Rome, behave like a Roman” and then continued to eat the lunch as others were doing. Then I took the food which she offered. Thank God. It’s vegetarian (Although I am non-veg., I felt veg. is good in flights than non-veg. especially in international flights. I’ll explain my experience about this shortly).

Flight from Frankfurt to Gothenburg

How did it all happen: part-3: Practical difficulties

2009-12-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

This is the last post in that series..

(continuation of last 2 posts)

Even after getting selection notification from Chalmers, I was not sure whether to go and was busy in taking the decision of which option to choose. In this process, I didn’t apply for my visa interview early. They said to apply it 6-8 weeks before the date of departure. But when i called them somewhere in June 1^st week, they said that there is no free slot as of then and they gave me an appointment date of 27^th July in Chennai and 16^th July in Mumbai. However I called them up and got an interview date of 13^th July at last. Even this was too late. After so much of high tension for many days, I got my visa on September 6^th I suppose. Meanwhile I have contacted Chalmers officials for extension of my registration which is supposed to be on 31^st August. So, the lesson I’ve learnt is that you should apply as soon as you get your letter of confirmation from the university. Or more generally, follow the instructions or suggestions given. {The e-mail which was telling about the selection in Chalmers also said to apply for visa as soon as we get the selection letter.}

I went to Chennai for collecting my visa and also booked my ticket for Gothenburg. After I came home, I had 4 days left for the journey. Last 3 days, got 101 degrees fever and I was worried if I’ll be able to go or not. When I called others (Suresh etc), they were in the same boat: they also got fever. Then my parents said maybe it’s because of the tension to go to that country (and also because of not finding an accommodation yet).

{In Sweden, finding house/apartment is very difficult especially for international students. So, try to apply for SGC bostader, blocket.se etc before coming here. You’ll be in a long queue and it takes lot of time to get one for you).

My parents and my sister gave me moral support, helped me in my shopping and also packed my luggage. Thanks to my sister because even she knows my shopping style, she came along with me, scolding within her sometimes, and helped me in my shopping.

How did it all happen: Pre-Arrival story-part 2

2009-12-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

In this post, I'll try to tell why did I select Sweden from the different options I had?

(Continuing with the previous post)

Now, I am in a very big dilemma of what to select. Should I go for RA + PhD in IITB which is a very good offer at that time or should I join in TCS for say 1 or 2 years meanwhile write GRE and apply for US universities or take DA-IICT PhD. I was in a very confused state. It appeared to me as that is the time to take one of the most important decisions of my life.

After consulting with four categories of people

DA-IICT alumni who

o are studying abroad – in US, in Europe; in India;

o are working in industries. Thanks to DA-IICT alumni group for giving suggestions on my questions and also thanks to all the alumni who have helped me in talking my decision.

Current PhD and ex-Master students of Chalmers
DA-IICT professors and the director
General opinion: my parents, my brother and my relatives. I thank one and all for giving me suggestions. It was quite useful in my decision making.

{I think this is the right time to thank one and all for their support and their suggestions. I particularly like to thank my parents(NageswaraRao, Adeswari) , my brother (Vijay Bhaskar), Vakuleswarao gaaru (typemaster as we call him), Abhinandan bhayya (for giving me some idea about how corporate life is), Prof. Vijay Kumar and the director for giving good suggestions and making me think about what is the right choice for me. My parents and my brother always gave me support to take my decisions independently and on my interest. They never said NO when I said I want to do this or that. They always supported me and trusted on my decision. } I also should say special Thanks to BalaKrishna Anna, who is currently doing his Masters Thesis (In IIIT Hyderabad--His masters is in BTH, Sweden), for giving me advices about teh differences between Swedish and Indian University education systems and also helping me througgh the process.

After many days of short sleep, at last I decided to go for Chalmers. Some main reasons for selecting are:

International exposure
Industrial exposure
Self-reliant.

One of the good advice I got during the discussions is that after completing MS in Sweden, I can always go back to IITB and do my PhD, so I'm not losing anything if I go to Sweden to do my MS. I also felt that taking IITB option was like a cake-walk for me. They said that they will fund me for my education. I was completely dependent on my parents during my Bachelors. Now again I’m feeling very secure since they said that they will fund me. I didn’t like to me so secure during PhD also. I want to learn how to stand on my own, want to learn how and what are the difficulties in life.

Finally I decided to choose to do my Masters in Chalmers.

How did it all happen: Pre-Arrival story-part 1

2009-12-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

In the next three posts, I'll write why I selected Sweden and the journey to Sweden including the difficulties I faced before coming here.

In this post, I'll try to tell what were my various options before getting the notification of result of Sweden?

I did my Bachelors in Information and Communication Technology in DA-IICT (www.daiict.ac.in) from 2005-2009. During my final year, I had applied for the GRE test, but due to my ill-health, I was not able to write the test. So, I was very disappointed as I was not able to write the exam for that duration and it was then too late to apply for the universities when I recovered from ill-health. At this point in time, I had TCS job offer. I was searching for different options other than joining TCS. I prepared for GATE, applied for ISRO and then saw this Sweden advertisement in regional newspaper (www.eenadu.net) about free education. I thank the eenadu team for enlightening us with different opportunities. I, along with some of my friends applied to Swedish universities by January 15th 2008, I guess. Since my GATE score was not too high (96.4 percentile), I didn’t apply into MTech’s in IIT’s as the stream I want to choose was Communications. (Don’t be shocked by looking at this: I wrote GATE in CS and wanted to do MTech in Communications. Yes. I didn’t have the time to prepare for ECE GATE, and so I opted to write for CS GATE. Thanks for the course ICT: I’ve some knowledge in CS also).

I applied for Phd in IIT Bombay and got shortlisted and was called for interview. Although I didn’t perform extremely well, I explained them my BTech project and told that I have an idea (an extension of BTech project) to continue in my PhD. I thank my Prof. Vijay Kumar sir who was my BTP (BTech Project) mentor for giving me the confidence for attending the PhD interview in IITB. After the interview, I got a call from one of the professors in IITB that he is interested to take me in for 6 months as Research assistant and then PhD. (After the interview, when I met some professors there in IITB, they asked me why didn’t I apply for MTech in IITB. I said that I followed last year statistics and for this low percentile, nobody got last year in IITB. They told me about funded Mtech: MTech which is funded by some companies or by the funds from the department in some projects. Since the cost of application was very less, I should have applied: not just has the half knowledge.)

Luckily I cleared the ISRO exam again in CS department. I also cleared the Phd interview in our college DA-IICT. By the time of May (after the results of Sweden), I had these options (IITB: RA + PhD; ISRO; DA-IICT PhD; TCS) besides Chalmers.

At last in Sweden

2009-09-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone...

I got into Chalmers University of Technology for pursuing my Masters in Communication Engineering. (I did my BTech in DA-IICT (www.daiict.ac.in) in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Gandhinagar, Gujarat.) The people here are very friendly. Most of them speak English. In University the teaching is in English. (Atleast I'm sure for my course). If you have any queries regarding Sweden studies, may be I can try to help you....

bye

Masters in Sweden

2009-05-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

Sweden has centralized admissions. You need to choose 4 universities and need to give priorities among them. You need to send only 1 set of documents to the central admission office.

There was no tuition fees in Sweden for me (in fact for anybody who wants to study in Sweden-National or International student). Education is completely subsidized by the Swedish Government. But from Autumn 2011, they may start tuition fees. For more info http://www.studyinsweden.se/Home/News-archive/Possible-tuition-fees-for-non-EUEES-students-from-2011/

Main website: https://www.studera.nu/studera/1499.html
Key dates: https://www.studera.nu/studera/1666.html

In the "Course Search" (left hand side of the main page) https://www.studera.nu/aw/courseGuide.do?lang=en, you can find the Universities available for the course which you'll select.

Late Applications: Some universities, for some courses consider late applications. So, once you select the area which you want to do Master on, list of Universities will pop up, select universities which you want, then you'll know if there are any universities which are still accepting applications.

You need to create a user Account available at https://www.studera.nu/aw/toAccount.do?lang=en.

In US universities where you will apply different applications for different universities, and after you get calls from different universities, then you decide which university to go for. This is not the scenario in Sweden. During the application process, that is before sending the application, you need to select the Universities (4 maximum) and also need to priority within those 4 universities. So, if you get higher priority(according to your priority) university, then the universities which are below that priorities will be automatically deleted.

I've applied for Msc in Communication systems for Autumn 2009. My priorities were 1) Chalmers University 2) Linkoping 3) kth 4) Blekinge

I got a call from Chalmers University, which was my first priority, so eventually as said earlier, my other universities which are below that priority were deleted.

Regarding the cost of living, I came to know the cost of living will be nearly 4-6Lakhs for 2 years.

I found this site also useful: http://wiki.andreineculau.com/Studera.nu_Application

I'll update information as and when I get.

Bye...Have A Nice Day.

Recession(Contd...)

2009-03-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

The following article contains some random thoughts about the current recession. Everything I’ve written is strictly my views on the topic. If I’ve hurt somebody with my views, I’m sorry for that.

After the 6th Central pay commission report in India, the salary for Govt. employees has been increased and the youth is mainly seeing these jobs as an alternative to the private jobs. Now, being the recession period, the competition to these jobs is relatively higher as these jobs are relatively safe than their private counterparts where we don’t know when the job will be gone. I think the Govt. has taken the right step at the right time. With the hike in the salary for the employees, now the students who have talent will also look to go into these Government companies, which is beneficial to both the parties.

So many people who are engaged in the private (companies) corporate world are trying to get their seat belt. They're jumping from one company to other company which they feel is safer. Many people are trying to go for further studies. There are record admissions this year in many universities for Masters/PHD. I see this affect in my University itself. Nearly 6 students of my batch have applied to a good university in US (Many have a good pointers say 9.5 /10 and have nice publications), even then they got a rejection, which shocked us all. So, one can tell based on above that for these masters/PHd especially in this period, there is a huge demand. Same applies for MTech/MS/PHD in India.

So, even in this global recession, where nobody is an exemption, there seem some sectors which are safe. As discussed above, the government sectors are safe. As we’ve seen that admissions to Universities are increasing in a rapid rate, there is a huge demand for the professors. So, according to me, settling as a professor is also a good option.

In India, whatever may be the economic conditions; parents tend to send their children to higher education, either by paying the money themselves or by taking money from bank loan. By hook or crook, they want to send their children to higher studies whatever may be the economic situation. In this regard, settling as a lecturer or a professor is a good job since there is ever green demand in these fields.

Recession

2009-02-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

We all know how much this economic crisis is affecting even our day to day decisions. Students who have graduated are not getting placed. Even Top B Schools like IIM-Ahmedabad is no exception. Students who have graduated last year and are working in industry now are planning to do Masters because of insecurity for job. Every industry is affected and IT is no exception. I'm stressing on IT because India in the last few years has become an IT hub and mainly it used to do the outsourcing work. Great leaders say that when there are difficulty times, then there is also an opportunity, I wish I can also see those opportunities.

We know that recently America has tightened its rules on H1-B visas. Some European countries had declared that the companies had to first take their citizens to jobs then only prefer foreigners. Its obvious that when we are in trouble, we first look out for our things than for others. In this situation, many-a-times, i get a doubt whether to do a job or to do an MS. Some people say that for estimating the losses in US, it's taking so long time, then for actual recovery it may take atleast 3 years. So, if I do my MS now, in 2 years in the worst case if this financial crisis is not yet solved, then what will happen to my future? People who are experienced have been removed from jobs....then they're all my competitors in the job hunt...Will a get a job atleast the one which I'll be not opting now (I'm not saying that I'll do MS for sure this year...) ... This is the doubts that I get many-a-times...

Ok..anyhow....share your ideas about this economic crisis and about Job Vs MS in this scenario...by the way I think, if I leave the question as above, It'll be not completed unless I had said my goal...I want to settle as a Professor in my life...I'm not in an urge to become professor immediately..I want to experience the industry life and then come back to professor ship... So, Now since you've my goal also in this post...I think you can answer my confusion..Job in TCS for 3 years (say) and then go for MS, PHD...or do an MS right now......

I got the following site when I was surfing net....It is about "What’s Hot for 2009? ...Top areas of opportunity in the downturn (in IT)"....
http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/careerwatch

3G Technology

2009-02-24T07:48:00.000-08:00

Recently BSNL has announced that it's planning new initiatives such as bringing down tariff to 40-50 paise a minute, mobile number portability — allowing subscribers to retain their number while changing operators — are in the pipeline.

How is this possible.... Let's go to a technlogy ahead from 2G to 3G

3G or Third Generation technology is a convergence of various Second Generation telecommunication systems. The technology is intended for SMARTPHONES - multimedia cell phones. Video broadcasting and other e-commerce services such as, stock transactions and e-learning will now are made possible much faster. It offers 3 Mbps speed for downloading, which is very high as compared to that of the 2G technology. 3G phones are like mini-laptops and can accommodate broadband applications like video conferencing, receiving streaming video from the Web, sending and receiving faxes and instantly downloading e-mail messages with attachments. 3G wireless technology represents a shift from voice-centric services to multimedia-oriented like video, voice, data, fax services.

Mobile Interview
In today's global scenario, the 3G technology will enable organizations and qualified candidates to have a telephonic interview in a modern way through video conferencing. Traditional telephonic interview and personal interviews may be replaced by 3G voice and video conferencing. This will reduce the cost and save the time of both the organizations and the candidates.

Conferences
3G technology provides for video conferencing which can help the Human Resource Department interact with their seniors at the time of urgency without wasting other resources. This can be very much helpful when the concerned person is out of state or country.

File Transfer
With the advent of video and audio multimedia and a faster rate of downloading e-mail attachments, employees in an organization can request any urgent file or report they need to present to the clients. This will again reduce the burden on organization's resources and increase employee effectiveness.

E-learning & m-learning
3G technology provides for internet browsing that will help the employees to surf and learn using their 3G cell phones while traveling (m-learning) or from home. The organizations can schedule training modules for the employees of other branches through video conferences.

Comparision:

3G networks have potential transfer speeds of up to 3 Mbps (about 15 seconds to download a 3-minute MP3 song). For comparison, the fastest 2G phones can achieve up to 144Kbps (about 8 minutes to download a 3-minute song).

For more information check

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone9.htm

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/02/23/stories/2009022351380100.htm

http://www.nmscommunications.com/DevPlatforms/OpenAccess/Technologies/3G324MandIPVideo/BroughWirelessTutorial.htm

As I'm a technical person, I'll try to write in my next posts why we're able to decrease the costs of the current mobile charges..what are the protocols used for achieving this etc...

Have a Nice day...bye

Presentation Success (My personal Experience)

2009-02-23T09:59:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I had my B Tech Part 1 presentation. It was much awaited one because I actually had to give this presentation last semester but due to my ill- health last semester, I had to postpone it. It was very memorable day. When I was going to the presentation hall, many M Tech people, BTech studentswere giving me their wishes “ALL The Best for your presentation”. My roomie, Ravi and one of my friends Krishna Teja came to see my presentation. Let me give you the events how my presentation was successful:

When I was in my B tech 1^st year in one of my courses we were asked to study about a material and speak in front of all 240 students. I did my background reading but when my chance came up I was not able to speak a word. Anupriya who was there in my team during that presentation stood up and said the professor that I had prepared but he is not able to speak. I thanked her for her bravery and she said that if I have studied I had to utilize those skills. I didn’t speak loudly at that time but with shivering legs spoke something. This was the starting of my presentations.

I eventually gave presentations in Introduction to Business and Finance course (with a team of 5 students), where I had written everything I had to speak and I spoke everything with a loud voice but I didn’t turn my head away from the paper. Fortunately Prof Vishnu Varhney was sleeping and he didn’t notice my body language. I got an ‘A’ grade althoughJ. I’m happy that I had spoken loudly that I’ve improved from my previous experience.

Introduction to Bio Technology, where Prof Sunita Jha had a lot of expectations but she said I had not reached her expectation. I then realized that people are expecting something out of me. We (Seshu and I) gave a presentation during the holidays on Network on Chip; we’ve worked under Research engineer Kishore. He was an excellent personality. Satish Pitchikala says that Kishore grasps the question very quickly and answers to the point.

I then gave a presentation during Embedded Systems course, where Satish Chandra and I were in a team. This presentation was also very important. In the IEEE Spectrum magazine, there was an article on e-nose and e-tongue and after reading that article I suggested Satish Chandra that we’ll give presentation on that topic. It was a very long wish of mine that I had to give presentation on latest research which I did. Prof Prabhat ranjan has asked me to away from the podium and come in front of the audience and speak. Thanks to the professor for next level of improvement of my presentation skill. Although I didn’t give my presentation as I had expected but still I’m happy that I’ve learnt something.

During the course of my presentations, I was not sure about the correctness of the content which I’ve to speak. Then I thought that first I should go step by step improvement. So first I’d to be confident with the material

Then in my sixth semester, in Artificial Neural Networks course, I gave a presentation along with Vivek. This time I was confident about the matter, but when I gave the presentation Sir said not to go so much fast. May be I’m feeling tensed about giving the presentation. When I analyzed as to what went wrong, I came to know that because I didn’t practice it.

Then I thought that next time I had to practice also.

Then I gave a presentation in IIIT Allahabad (I’ll write about this trip in my next posts). Sumit Bagla, Apurv Joshi, Navkar, Prof Prabhat ranjan and I had written a paper which got selected in International conference on Wireless communications and Sensor Networks. I had gone to IIIT-A to give a presentation on our selected paper “GPS-Less Animal Tracking System”. I had prepared the presentation, practiced it, now its turn to just speak with confidence, which I had luckily did it. This was not just a miracle; it was 4 years of experience and importantly the analysis of me and constant zeal to be a good speaker had made this achievement. By the way I read the book “Presentation Success” – a step by step by some famous author (sorry I don’t remember the name) approach during my train journey.

I had registered for my B tech Project part-1 presentation but due to my ill- health (I’m promising that I’ll write about this in my next posts, I was not able to give my presentation. Yesterday I’d given that postponed presentation. That was one of the reasons why yesterday’s presentation was memorable. Other reason was as said in the 1^st of this article, many people were wishing for my success. Third reason is that I’d prepared my slides as I wanted (i.e., in animated form and step by step explanation which a lay man can also understand). And most important is that I’d learnt from all my past experiences and then gave my presentation.

So, Let me summarize the points which I’ve learnt (till now) that should be there for presentation:

If you’ve a choice to pick the topic, pick up a topic which you like the most.
Collect information on that topic and be sure that the information can be trusted
Read the information and prepare a draft listing the important points which you need to emphasize on. (Remember 80-20 principle, which will be explained in later posts)
Analyze your audience and prepare the slides according to the level of their understanding.
Practice, Practice and Practice. If possible go to the presentation place and practice (which I’d done yesterday and I got full confidence after that).
Be confident and speak.

I had studied in some article or book that even a great speaker gets tensed when he reached the stage. But with his past experience and his confidence he converts this negative energy into positive energy. But people who don’t have confidence will get into this negative energy and they can’t speak a word from their mouth, their hands and legs shiver etc. This is a general problem which people face. The only way to get out from this is to practice and give as many presentations as you can. You can even practice in front of your friends. There is no need to present only in stage.

I just got reminded of one of my friends Tilak (we call him Swamiji because of his simplicity and his cool attitude and his way of doing things, OAT etc). I remember him on my first presentation day i.e., in my first semester, I was not able to speak but he spoke very articulately and very confidently. May be if we see people around like that, then we get confidence that I have to speak and I can speak.

I hope this post is of some help to you. Don’t hesitate to contact me in case of any help.

The following link may be of use to you:

http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/fa014

Procastination

2009-02-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

Procrastination means "The act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or deferring an action to a later time".

I had kept a deadline that I've to start blogging right after my B Tech Project part 1 and I don't want to procrastinate it again. And As I've planned, I'm starting this right now. As the start page of the blogger site says that blog can be used to share thoughts, photos etc. I want to share my thoughts which I want to preserve using my posts. Feel free to contact me. I'll try to reply to your mails as far as possible.

As the belief goes, there is no bad time to start a good thing ..if you're postponing anything..stop doing that and act right away.

By the way I forgot to introduce myself...
I'm Naga VishnuKant Irukulapati, doing my B Tech Final year in Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT). My branch is Information and Communication technology (ICT) which is a unique and only course offered by our University to all the B tech students. It's a mixture of Electronics, Communications and Computer Science. A student can specialize in any of the fields or can broaden his knowledge in many fields.

I'll try to post information very frequently..right now I can't say how frequent can it be...
By the way my blog name seems very different isn't it?? Read it as "Andariki Shreyobhilashi" that means for a person who does good for everyone.

OK...All The Best for everything....bye..c u soon...

by the way Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit..it's a nice article.

Keep away from 5 Star Hotels ::NICE joke

2007-10-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

Keep away from 5 Star Hotels.....

Question : "What would you like to have ..Fruit
juice, Soda, Tea,
Chocolate, Milo, or Coffee?" *
Answer: "tea please" *

Question : " Ceylon tea, Herbal tea, Bush tea, Honey
bush tea, Ice tea or
green tea ?" *
Answer : "Ceylon tea " *

Question : "How would you like it ? black or white?

Answer: "white" *

Question: "Milk, Whitener, or Condensed milk ?" *
Answer: "With milk " *

Question: "Goat milk, Camel milk or cow milk" *
Answer: "With cow milk please. *

Question: " Milk from Freeze land cow or Afrikaner cow?"
Answer: " Um, I'll take it black. " *

Question: " Would you like it with sweetener, sugar or honey?"
Answer: "With sugar" *

Question: " Beet sugar or cane sugar ?" *
Answer: "Cane sugar " *

Question:" White , brown or yellow sugar ?" *
Answer: "Forget about tea just give me a glass of water instead." *

Question: "Mineral water or still water ? " *
Answer: "Mineral water" *

Question: "Flavored or non-flavored ?" *
Answer: "I'll rather die of thirst *

Right brain Vs Left

2007-09-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Many a times, i saw that i have 2 choices...but which to choose??I'll not be able to pick up immediately. I think to choose one among the two but there'll always be the thinking that i'm leaving this, rather if i would have taken that, then i would have got that.....
The reason can be the conflict in oneself.
My be it's between the heart and the mind or may be it is between the brain itself.
What???
Yeah...within the brain...
for more information of what the left vs right brain is u can read the following
http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild060.shtml

Self Management

2007-09-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Never criticize yourself as having a weakness.There is no such thing. You are only talking about a present undeveloped skill or part of yourself that if you so choose, you can change.You do not have any weakness, only untapped potential

Frequently ask "Is What i am doing right now moving me toward my goals?"

Proud to be an Indian

2007-09-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the world.

So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to china.

On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read "$10,000 per call".

The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for.

The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God.

The American thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in japan. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it.

He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in china and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.

She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.

"O.K., thank you," said the American.

He then traveled to pakistan, srilanka, russia, Germany and France.

In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same "$10,000 per call" sign under it.The American, upon leaving Vermont decided to travel to up to India to see if Indians had the same phone.

He arrived in India, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read "One Rupee per call."

The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign."Father, I've traveled all over World and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call.

Why is it so cheap here?"

The priest smiled and answered, "You're in India now, son - it's a local call".
(India is itself a heaven)
Proud to be an Indian

Personality

2007-09-12T05:17:00.000-07:00

Once a turtle family decided to go on a picnic. Turtles,being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing.Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place for their outing. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last! For about six months they cleaned up the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left. Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years... six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, “SEE! I knew you wouldn’t wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt.”

[ Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don’t do anything ourselves.]

Proffessor's philosophy

2007-09-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

A professor stood before his Philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life."

The golf balls are the important things - your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.

"The sand is everything else--the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

"The same goes for life."

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Play with your children.

Take time to get medical checkups.

Take your partner out to dinner.

Play another 18.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter.

Set your priorities.

The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked, "It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend."

Please share this with someone you care about.

I JUST DID.

Think Outside the box

2007-09-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Imagine you're in a railway station.
While you're waiting for your train, you notice a kiosk selling biscuits . You buy a box, put them in your travelling bag and then you patiently search for an available seat so you can sit down and enjoy your biscuits. Finally you find a seat next to a gentleman. You reach down into your travelling bag and pull out your box of biscuits. As you do so, you notice that the gentleman starts watching you intensely.

He stares as you open the box and his eyes follow your hand as you pick up the biscuit and bring it to your mouth. Just then he reaches over and takes one of your biscuits from the box, and eats it! You're more than a little surprised at this. Actually, you're at a loss for words. Not only does he take one biscuit, but he alternates with you. For every one biscuit you take, he takes one.

Now, what's your immediate impression of this guy? Crazy? Greedy? He's got some nerve! Can you imagine the words you might use to describe this man to your associates back at the office? Meanwhile, you both continue eating the biscuits until there's just one left. To your surprise, the man reaches over and takes it. But then he does something unexpected. He breaks it in half, and gives half to you. After he's finished with his half he gets up, and without a word, he leaves.

You think to yourself, "Did this really happen?" You're left sitting there dumbfounded and still hungry. So you go back to the kiosk and buy another box of biscuits. You then return to your seat and begin opening your new box of biscuits when suddenly you glance down into your travelling bag. Sitting there in your bag is your original box of biscuits.........still unopened.

Only then do you realize that when you reached down earlier, you had reached into the other man's bag, and grabbed his box of biscuits by mistake. Now what do you think of the man? Generous? Tolerant? You've just experienced a profound paradigm shift. You're seeing things from a new point of view.

Is it time to change your point of view?

Now, think of this story as it relates to your life. Seeing things from a new point of view can be very enlightening.

Think outside the box.

Don't settle for the status quo.

Be open to suggestions.

Things may not be what they seem.

Unless and until, one realizes about the fact, no one will change his or her view of thinking in spite of lot of external factors.

Every Point has THREE Sides; Your Side, My Side and The Right Side.

To understand either the Other's Side or the Right Side, one needs to leave His Side...

Gift for JRD TATA

2007-09-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here are pics of an amazing piece of art.
Location: Tata Museum ,Jamshedpur .
In the first pic, you can see a painting. This was a gift to JRD Tata on his Birthday by a street artist. Nobody was able to understand his art. Unfortunately, only the painting was given to JRD and the artist had promised to reveal the secret shortly . However, JRD was no more when the secret was actually revealed

See Down For Secret!!!!

Here's the secret revealed. When you place a steel rod at the circle in the first pic you saw, you will see the image of the JRD Tata as a reflection on the steel rod as seen in the second pic below. Isn't it incredible!!

Living In 2007

2007-09-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go back and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING at yourself.

90, 10 principle

2007-09-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

This is a lesson in stress management and its consequences - practical advice.

The 90/10 Principle

Author: Stephen Covey

Have you read this before? Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations). What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react. What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane
will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%.

The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%. How? By your reaction! You cannot control a red light, but you can control your reaction to it. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.

Let's use an example. You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just what happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react? You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over.She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has
been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye.

After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terribly. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home. When you arrive home, you find a small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and
daughter.

Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning! Why did you have a bad day?

A) Did the coffee cause it?

B) Did your daughter cause it?

C) Did the policeman cause it?

D) Did you cause it?

The answer is D. You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.

Here is what could have and should have happened. Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "It's ok honey, you just need to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She
turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good a day you are having.

Notice the difference? Two different scenarios! Both started the same. Both ended different. Why? Because of how you REACTED! You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.

Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.

If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.

How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic?
Do you lose your temper?
Pound on the steering wheel?(A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off) Do you curse?
Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?

Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.

You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time in finding another job.

The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration out on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.

Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it.

The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle. The result? Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. There never seems to be a success in life. Bad days follow bad days. Terrible things seem to be constantly happening. There is constant stress, lack of joy, and broken relationships. Worry consumes
time. Anger breaks friendships and life seems dreary and is not enjoyed to the fullest. Friends are lost. Life is a bore and often seems cruel. Does this describe you? If so, do not be discouraged. You can be different!

Understand and apply the 90/10 principle. It will change your life.

"Success Doesn't Need Hard Work It needs Smart Work" ---my motto

i loved dis very much...especially the situations which he described was superb..i loved how the author has handled the two situations.

i love the way "this would happen if u do dis rather that this "...this analyzing is very important for every human being.

What Mind can do

2007-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

Subject: amazing what the mind can do...

Interesting what we can train our minds to do:

It cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdgnieg

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,

the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the
rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit
porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amzanig huh?

I wanna add something to this article.

As it was said that the only thing is to know 1^st and last letter, I don’t agree with it completely…bcoz I was not able to recognize the word PAOMNNEHAL as fast as I was able to do the rest of them…so wat I want to say is that we should be aware of that word (we should have seen the word atleast once)

This is not that we had never seen. We had seen it many times…eg: in “The Hindu” every Saturday “Young World” edition comes, where there used to be a “scramble jumble”(ahhhhhh..i’m not able to remember the section name correctly) section.I think u got the idea ..there will be letters jumbled in a word and u need to arrange them so that it makes a complete sense word

Life Of an LPG Cylinder

2007-09-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

Do you know that there is an expiry date (physical life) for LPG cylinders?

Most of us do not know this.

Expired Cylinders are not safe for use and may cause accidents.

In this regard please be cautious at the time of accepting any LPG cylinder from the vendor.

Here is how we can check the expiry of LPG cylinders:

On one of three side stems of the cylinder,

the expiry date is coded alpha numerically as follows

A or B or C or D and some two digit number following this e.g. D06.

The alphabets stand for quarters -

A for March (First Qtr),

B for June (Second Qtr),

C for Sept (Third Qtr), &

D for December (Fourth Qtr).

The digits stand for the year till it is valid. Hence D06 would mean Fourth Qtr (December) of 2006.

Share this message with everyone you know,

UR kind cooperation will save life of many people and create awareness among the public.