Placements in colleges: now a history

All the folks in your graduation or post-graduation, please get ready to read this news in the media very soon. A lot of students have pinned their hopes on colleges for their lives ahead. All your hopes might come crashing down once this news becomes a reality soon. Prevention is better than cure. Instead of relying on the past record of history it would be quite helpful if students start relying on their own strengths and skills. Some of you might be wondering as to why this would happen very soon. Let me explain…

Few decades ago, there was nothing called as placements in colleges. Schools and colleges were meant to be places for pure education. They were just limited to teachers and students and a few other technical staff who would manage and run the entire show. Parents expected that their children would come out as the brightest students from the respective institutions and chose them based on the quality of teaching alone. Few years back, when the concept of placements was introduced into colleges, when few companies started recruiting people even before their graduation was complete it was a bonus for those students who performed really well up to the penultimate year in colleges. Since companies also could save time on interviewing a bunch of candidates just to select few, and hence save time, they collaborated with colleges to do the job of filtering the applicants. Even the few colleges chosen by companies, got the reputation amongst public for developing their students so well that they would be recognised by corporates even before convocation. So, it was a win-win situation for all. Unfortunately, as time passed this bonus no more remained a bonus; everyone wanted to make this bonus a part of the curriculum itself which started to ruin things in all directions for everyone. Applying facial make-up products at times can help you look better but applying them day and night shall only ruin your skin. The same started to happen in our education system.

Colleges were meant to concentrate to bring in good teachers, get good lab facilities, and conduct programs for overall development of students. Instead their focus shifted to getting companies to their campus to conduct placements for students. Naturally, the focus on earlier aspects reduced, and hence, the quality of education took a back seat. Companies also had to select students, no matter whether they were employable or not, only to maintain their good relations with the colleges due to past records and future hopes. On the contrary, students who chose colleges based on quality of education earlier, now started to blame the lack of quality, but still joined the same only with the hope for placements. Now, the students, who needed to concentrate on studying well and scoring good marks in tests, projects and exams, instead postponed their seriousness to the final year exclusively for placement tests and interviews. Obviously the subject knowledge went down in them. Hence the students’ quality also started decreasing cumulatively. Companies, who had tied up earlier with colleges depending on quality of education provided by the college and the quality of students graduating from the college, started losing hope on getting the best students from the college. Hence they stopped coming to colleges and students hopes went crashing down. Everyone was only losing in all directions. Colleges and companies started blaming students for lack of seriousness in studies and lack of skills while students started blaming colleges for lack of proper infrastructure and under-quality teaching. It only became a more vicious loop day by day as years passed by.

This has to end somewhere and equilibrium has to set in at some time in the very near future. As people say, ‘History repeats itself’, people will start realising soon the mistakes of their predecessors and start adopting the conventions of their predecessors following the rule of ‘Old is Gold’. Colleges shall soon shift their focus on giving the right quality in education than running around convincing companies to hire their students. Companies shall become choosier before entering any college, or might wait until the right candidates apply directly. Students have no other option but to change because college rules and company laws are in the hands of few wise people who might implement the changes overnight but, a student’s life is only in the hands of him/her. You need to make a wise choice for your life. You can no more depend on the college campus placements for deciding your future. Choose a college for the right quality of education, learn your subjects well, give your best in studies to score the best marks, use the time in college to develop yourself in multiple dimensions, and especially, take the help of teachers, not to adjust your attendance, but to clarify your doubts and answer your questions. Invest your time in developing yourself than your resume. It shall get built on its own and it shall speak to the company heads on your behalf in the interviews.

Many companies have stopped coming to colleges, many colleges have postponed their placement schedules, and many students are graduating out of colleges unemployed even with the best percentage. These are the signs to prove that the news in the title of today’s blog post is going to be in reality and in the media soon. Beware my dear students!

The impetus advantage

Impetus means 'the force that makes something happen or happen more quickly'. Here I would like to focus more on the impetus generated due to different reasons. When a small stone is rolling down it can cause certain amount of damage but when a big boulder is rolling right at the back of this small stone and pushing it harder then the damage caused is much more. This is a simple example of the impetus advantage.

 

The impact created by a single force is always less compared to that created by a force that is backed up by one more force. It can be of different types. I have heard few people saying that success doesn't teach anything but only failure does but success provides an impetus for further success. Even when the work is less compared to the actual expectations the previous success always helps to leverage it's value to guarantee further success. A simple follower guided up by a wise leader always has higher chances of winning and also wins in most of the cases when compared to a simple person who does the same amount of work as per his level of wisdom. All these are simple examples of impetus advantage.

 

Swami Vivekananda's advice of reading lot of books, travelling lot of places and meeting lot of people helps one to gain this impetus advantage. The experience and the knowledge bank shall help us in every endeavour of ours and provide us an extra added advantage called as the impetus advantage. Your feedback shall provide me an impetus advantage for my blogging, so you can send your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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The primetime focus

We have to agree that there are innumerable distractions around us to drag us away from what we are supposed to do. Even more threatening fact is that not all distractions are bad, some are good as well, some are even better than what we are currently working on. Steve Jobs stated this perfectly - "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully".

Even I have to confess that I lost my focus a bit from my daily blogging habit because of the 'n' number of other urgent things that needed immediate attention. But needless to say that I'm BACK. Sometimes you just miss your track only to discover it back with more clarity. So choose carefully as to what are those which you chose to focus on to complete and divert all your energy to that first. Where focus goes, energy flows and idea grows. Even if you have missed focus from those which you committed for then don't dump yourself in worry on discovering this flaw. Just get back your primetime focus back on it. The primetime means the time dedicated for the prime interest which occupies the highest position in your priority list. So bring in your focus back in the primetime to cover for all the backlogs of your commitment. The best part is that the focus shall expand to occupy each second of your primetime.

We are living in a world where we are entitled to perform a lot of roles and a wide range of activities. Amidst all these we should not lose focus from our primetime activity that builds us. Even if you lose by any chance just back to it with complete rhythm using the concept of primetime focus where in you convert all your time available to primetime to focus on the work that you had left unfinished.

 

I hope that your primetime focus on feedback is back on

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Refocus Reorient Resurge

Focus, orientation and the surge towards your goals, dreams and ambitions are what make them come into reality. In front of the random situations that come before us and block our path we humans are too weak sometimes to fight against the odds. All the goals and dreams fade away under the shadow of the confusion eating our mental energy. Knowing that we have to do our regular work we miss it in the thought of finding the right solution for the question running in the mind. Atleast if the issue resolves on a positive note, you can be happy to get back to your work but when the issue tears your soul apart and breaks you down completely it is just damn difficult to get out of it. But remember friends, one who fights this fight of resurgence is the one who comes back stronger. I remember the incident in the life of the bodybuilding idol Arnold Shwarzenegger when he was in love with a girl and when he wanted to go to America to enter Hollywood, she was not willing to accompany him. Arnold describes in his book 'The Education of a bodybuilder' that at that point of time he was completely torn between love and his ambitions. Though Arnold spent sometime crying over the issue he had to finally decide to refocus, reorient and resurge towards his goals in life and he did the same. As a result of this comeback power he went on to conquer not just the hollywood but the hearts of millions of Americans. Likewise even I faced certain challenges of similar kind which just pulled me out of my regular workouts. Its been almost four days since I went to gym. Really disappointed with myself in this regard. Thanks to my mentor who helped me to overcome the tough situation with his wisdom-filled lessons. It was hard to accept the truth but there was no other way. A strangling feeling deepened inside but time always has the solutions. As time passed I could gather myself up back and once again refocus, reorient and resurge towards my dreams.

Folks! time and again distractions, problems, confusions etc might just put you to a halt and trouble your mind and soul. Just remember one thing that time will pass. Good and bad times shall prevail for sometime always. Life is itself designed in such a pattern of highs and lows. When the problem is eating up your mental and emotional energies probably you won't be able to cater to your physical self also. You might just get lost in the distress that the problem induces. No matter how much ever wishful we are to win over the problem, sometimes the fate takes the winning side and we can do nothing about it. Just believe that God has planned it all. Just keep the belief in yourself that something better is going to come. Don't stop your action at any cost. Refocus on your priorities, reorient your actions towards working towards them, resurge like a tsunami once again with full zeal and energy to conquer the world. Even Robin Sharma states that sometimes we go offtrack only to come back ontrack. Recognise back all your strengths, remotivate yourself, get reinspired from your inspirational sources, reread your goals and dreams, become like a reborn phoenix and start flying again. The world doesn't end with any of our woes. No one ever will stop their life for the sake of your difficulty. You will be the one who will be responsible to either die in depression of the defeat or bounce back from the failure putting all your energised efforts to accomplish your dreams and visions. Ultimately the choice is YOURS alone.

My dear friends! its been a really tough task in last four days to get over the challenge. It was hard indeed and literally tough to get over the consequences of disappointment. I would advise my dear reader to make sure that you share your set of issues with someone whom you have trust in and learn the next steps to be taken which I did. The life is long enough wherein we will definitely meet a lot of new people and we are bound to find the right ones for us to be surrounded with. Shed the tears of emotions while increasing the longevity of smile on your face continuously which helped me get stronger. I am going to gym tomorrow morning for sure to restart my bodybuilding. Willing to know if you have had any such experiences on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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Everyone's making noise

You step outside your house and you start hearing the honking horns, shouting vegetable vendors, running mill, chatter boxes on the pedestal and loads of other sources of noise. The tap-tap sound of plastic balls, never ending barking of the street dogs, sound waves travelling from different vocal chords and loud speakers just jam our hearing system every moment. There's so much of noise around due to more of unwanted reasons than wanted ones. All these noise enter our brain and misdirect the nerve impulses' direction of travel. The blood rushes through the veins and probably gets jammed without knowing where further to travel because of this sound pollution. Noticing all these I can't stop myself from saying 'Everyone's making noise'.

Amidst the clutter of distorted sounds do we have enough control to concentrate on the things that we are supposed to. When we plan we plan the plan so well in silence without any disturbance that we give the necessary importance to every detail of the plan but the moment we get out into the chaotic world all our planned stuff gets filtered. I sometimes keep wondering why is there no filter for our senses. Just if we could filter what content we would like to hear, what we would like to see, what we would like to smell, what we would like to feel and further. May be talking and tasting are the only aspects over which we can have some sort of control, not the complete control because our eyes and nose taste the food through the appearance and smell before our tongue can taste it. There is just too much of distortion and disorganization in things around us that we get distracted from the path we would have set for ourselves. We forget our life affairs in between the current affairs, we misunderstand our goals living amidst so many fools, we neglect the essentials watching others' pontentials, we ignore our own dreams among the worldly sreams. Its time for us to wake up from the sleep we are living everyday counting on others more than on us.

FOCUS and REINFORCEMENTS are the two keys which will unlock the unperturbed path to our success. You might have heard a zillion times that 'Where Focus goes, energy flows'. There can't be a simpler statement than this. You need to focus on what you want to do and accomplish. We have to accept that we are human beings and have limited memory and concentration. Everytime we lose our focus from our goals we need to reinforce back what we had decided to do and reorient ourselves in doing them again with full zeal. Write down your dreams and goals and focus your complete energy on achieving them. Reinforce in yourself everyday the pleasures associated with achieving those dreams of yours because the moment you let lose of yourself you are sure to be submerged under the ocean of confusions and commotions because 'Remember! everyone's making noise'.

I would love to read through your complaints and compliments on the blog on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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