I got independence!

This is an excerpt from my personal diary. Usually a personal diary will not let others to barge into it. But I’m letting out this page of mine because I felt it to be funny and my little brain thought everybody would experience such situations in their life and I would find me one with you. Now it’s high time for me to take you into my page. Here we go…

August 15, 2007 Wednesday

9.00am India’s Independence Day, sorry sorry my country’s Independence Day and just now I’m out of my bed. As usual I started with thumbing. I took my mobile phone to see many messages that had made it beep right from 12am, 14th August. Oh, people celebrate even this day. I chose a few best messages wishing Independence Day and forwarded it to many of my friends with a ‘Good Morning’ added to it.

9.20am I strolled down the stairs brushed and went straight into the kitchen saw mother preparing dosa for breakfast. Felt happy and went to the living room and sat down with the paper. There I encountered my father who asked me to take bath and also scolded me for getting up late. My eyes glue to the newspaper, but not my mind. I thought of the previous day when I said Mrs. Shahin, “I won’t take bath tomorrow mam, because it’s Independence Day. I want to be free.” as an answer to her question “What is your plan for tomorrow?” My eyes turned to the newspaper and scanned through it completely.

9.45am Special programs in various TV channels. I took control of the remote and started changing the channel and paused at one channel, which interviewed my favourite heroine. My face brightened to see her answer all Tamil questions in English, her independence to use any language.

9.47am Appa (my father) ordered me to switch off the TV and to drop him at the bus stop. I went reluctantly scolding his non-living vehicle for getting repaired at this day. I thought my job would end as soon as I drop my father in the bus stop, but only on my way I came to know that I’m on the way to shop, to buy a few things for my home for lunch. I was shocked and also taken aback, but absolutely helpless. No other go so I acquiesced to what my father said to me and went to places where all he directed me to go. It took 45 minutes for us to shop but when I returned home my mother just scolded with a smile saying that I have only bought a part of her list.

10.45am I don’t have patience any more. I asked my mother go with my father some time later and entered kitchen lighted the gas stove, made two dosa and started eating. As I was quenching my stomach my mother gave me one more dosa with an egg in it. She said it was made some time before for my little niece and she refused to eat it seems. It (the dosa) was damn cold, of course, me too but I ate it.

11.15am Now no dad and I can watch TV, saying so I sat before TV watching Mel Gibson in “The Patriot” suddenly my mother emerged with a heap of clothes and gave it to me saying iron all these clothes as you watch TV! My shirts were also there mixed with my brothers. I did it utmost care.

12.30pm Now let me go upstairs, if not I’ll be loaded with a new work, thought I, and also abetted my plan and went up. I sat in my PC and worked in Photoshop. I took one of my photo and tried to put me as if climbing up against the current of a huge water fall. Many thoughts came to my mind about to display my handy-work in my blog or not. What would people say on seeing it? Will they laugh? Will they tease? Let me show it to my friends before displaying it, I concluded and shut down my system. After shutting it down I pondered deeply about independence, MY independence. I thought why should I feel shy in show-casing my photograph and my Photoshop skill in MY blog. But did not think about it seriously and went on with reading a few books.

2.00pm I went down for my stomach compelled me to take my lunch. It was chicken that I and my appa bought. I ate well and saw TV but got vexed with the show and thereby went upstairs, my room, and slept.

5.30pm I got up, just opened my eyes, but did not feel like getting up from my bed. I started reading a magazine that was lying near me.

6.10pm My sister and her husband came to my home with my niece. I went down to our living room and there I spent time with those two kids playing and talking with them.

7.15pm Appa asked me to get some Parotta from the shop. The shop, our favourite shop, was just 5km away from my home. So I took my vehicle, my black cheetah (I wish to call it so), and went to the shop, spent a few minutes waiting and started home. On my way back the clouds discharged the gathered water drops and Madurai had good rain. Everybody on the road started to take refugee under the road side roofs. But I felt much happy and also got a bit emotional and started to drive slowly in the rain. I thought it’s my independence to welcome rain and get one with nature by getting drenched. I removed my helmet and started to get wet completely. I came home and was too happy when my mother gave me an umbrella and asked me to give it to my sister, who has gone to the near by hospital for some check up. I walked in the road, all alone except the rain drops. I enjoyed my walk and when I came back home my father blasted me for getting drenched. I dried my hair and never did mind his words. It was by 9 in the evening I thought I got independent.

RÉSUMÉ writing made easy

Every student goes to college regularly, attends his/her classes with certain convictions, does his work (studies) with utmost sincerity. These are the normal phenomena of today’s students. One more new point that has appended itself in the above LIST OF ACTIVITIES of our students is résumé writing. No graduate is exempted from preparing a résumé as they leave their college and enter the gates of career and growth.

A résumé is an essential or a basic requirement of every student, especially the engineering graduates, when they expel themselves out of the college.

Once writing a résumé was considered an art. People had different, individual résumés and that negotiated for them with the interviewer or with the company. Nowadays résumé writing is no more considered an art. It has become much mechanical and every person, who prepares a résumé for him/her, just cuts/copies and pastes the previous students/seniors résumés with a variation in their name, address and the percentage of marks in education column. Is this the innovative or the creative skills the company expects from the candidates?

Here is an attempt, a different attempt (I like to call), about résumé preparation. I have planned not to give instructions or guidelines to the readers about the winning tone of a résumé or about how to make your résumé have a stay in the interviewer’s card, instead let me try a practical approach that would make you work on your own résumé. (The success of this short attempt depends completely with you).

First, I would like you to note that the word “résumé” has a different pronunciation when people use it during their job search. The reason for this change in the pronunciation could be analysed etymologically. The word résumé is of French origin meaning “summary”. The root meaning in itself says the function of a résumé, that it is a summary or a short autobiography of a person that would highlight some personal dexterity of a person in acquiring a job.

A résumé has so many sub – divisions within it. I have divided them into two different heads – compulsory elements and optional elements.

Compulsory elements:
Under compulsory elements, we have titles like:
1. Objective statement
2. Educational qualifications
3. Experience

Objective statement is a line or two much resembling to that of our sentence under the heading AIM in the science or any other record that we maintain when doing some practical experiments. I would like to give a few qualities of an Objective Statement:

* It need not be a complete sentence, i.e., it need not fulfill the grammatical sense of a sentence. It could be left as a fragment also.

* It should give an at – a – glance picture of you, by exhibiting your relevant skills, aim and professional identity (all these must be related with the job to which you are applying for).

* It must be specific, i.e., you must not beat around the bush in establishing your career goals. Please come to the point without wasting many words.

* Be simple in your diction.

* Last but not the least; know the words and their meanings very well before going for interviews (most HR questions are posed to candidates from their objective statements).

Educational Qualifications column is very essential for a fresher. It is based on the educational or the academic performance the interviewer would evaluate a fresher, when he/she is applying for a job. Educational qualification, for a fresher, would be the only asset and support to grab the opportunity in the job market. A few qualities of educational qualification column in a résumé are:

* Highlight the latest qualification first and then go in the descending order.

* Highlight achievements, like standing first in the class, acquiring university rank, district rank, school first, etc., if you had any during your course of study.

* Tell the period of study and the name of the institution where you took the course and completed it successfully. If you are still pursuing a course then do not indicate the end year instead say the beginning year and end it with the phrase till date.

Experience column must be next to the career objective column, when you have work experience. Here again follow the same rule as indicated in the education column. List your work experience in the descending order – the reverse order. Say the designation under which you worked in the previous organization and you have the freedom to say something about the nature of work that you performed in the organization.

Other elements of a résumé:
1. Co – curricular Activities
2. Extra - curricular Activities
3. Hobbies
4. Project/research work
5. Computer proficiency
6. Area of interest (subject related)
7. Value Added Courses

All the elements mentioned above could be included in a résumé according to the individual need and according to the job you are seeking for. The hierarchy of these topics should vary according to the company that you are applying for. This process of altering these topics in accordance with the job is said to be TAILORING. Tailoring your résumé is very essential when you apply for different companies. A single résumé won’t answer all kind of people.

Given below is a résumé template that you could use, as a sample, for building your own résumé.
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RÉSUMÉ

NAME

Address Line 1
Address Line 2 ................................email: formal name@email.com
City ...................................................Phone No.: STD code - number

________________________________________________
Career Objective:

To utilize my [qualifications, strengths, or skills] as a [position title]
Or
A position as a [position title] for [company name] allowing me to develop my [qualifications, strengths, or skills]
Or
An opportunity to [professional goal] in a [type of organization, work environment, or field]
Or
[Position title] with emphasis in [areas of expertise]

Educational Background:

• 2004 – Till Date B.E. (Mech. Engg.) at KM college of Engg, Chennai with 75.12%
• 2002 – 2004 DME at KM Polytechnic College, Madurai with 84.23%
• 2001 – 2002 HSC at KM Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore with 78.89%
• 1999 – 2000 SSLC at KM Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore with 82.18%

Value Added Course:

• DCBT – Multimedia Technology at NIIT, Madurai, June 2007.
• CAD at CADD/CAM Centre, Madurai, January 2006.

Co – curricular Activities:

• Presented a paper on “Nanotechnology” at the international symposium held at TH College, Madurai.
• Worked on a mini-project entitled “Modern Mechatronics” during March 2004.

Extra - curricular Activities:

• Participated in National Level dance competition and bagged first prize
• University South Zone Volley ball player

Area of Interest:

• Production and Designing

Computer Proficiency:

• Basics of C
• Photoshop

Hobbies:

• Reading Books
• Gardening

If you have furthur doubts please feel free to forward your resumes to claspmadd@gmail.com. You are most welcome to lodge your valuable comments about this article by clicking the comments, and your questions could also be asked there.