Being a very tiring fortnight after facing some unhappy happenings, i made up my mind to write something about my engineering experiences in college since I believe that would rejuvenate me :) . So what did not go well in the last 10 days? - One, I lost my new windows 7 phone while travelling in an auto. And that is the only reason :) . You might ask losing a phone is a very normal happening but that phone was special to me. I started developing applications for that phone and it went away from me in no time :( . Okay anyways you cannot hold anything unless it is written for you.
So today i wanted to share my thoughts about how a student in school like me finds how amazing computer science can be in some good college like CIT(Notice that i am not talking about very good colleges like IITs or very few NITs).This applies only for colleges like CIT or some other nice colleges that give unimaginable freedom to its students. To start with , my school was a place where you cannot apply your thought. Yes, my school was one of the most popular schools in chennai but I hated that place like anything. It never gave me a chance to explore or innovate. I never dreamt of studying in a college like CIT(wrt the freedom :) ). In a place like CIT where you are expected nothing, it is very easy to choose your way of nurturing your skills. CIT is one of the best places in my life that I have dwelt. You can become CEO of a very big MNC or a politician or even a third grade criminal or an useless goose studying in CIT. Its all in your hands. I was very new to computer science when i joined CIT and I am new still :) . I had no idea of what computers were doing. But my instinct always told me that I will be computer science guy.
The first semester had only common subjects for all branches of study and I dint face any problems then. I was quite happy with my performance. The second semester started and I had my first department specific paper "C programming theory and practice". Ms.Devi was the one who handled that subject. She is very brilliant(lol) that she used to write "Please Enter the number" inside a scanf statement and ask us to take notes of the same. I should not blame her , at that point I didnt even know that :) . Soon the classes started moving fast and I was not able to write a single program in classes, Not even a program that would print Hello world. It took me nearly 1 week to successfully compile my fisrt program. Ms.Devi noted that I didnt know anything in the subject and stated asking me questions on a daily basis. Still I remember the question she used to ask me -"What is function definition and what is function declaration?".Many guys used to finish programs very easily while I was searching for a person who will give me a USB stick with the mere 40 lines of C code loaded. Eventually I scored 14 upon 50 in my first lab exam. I was very sure that I would re-write that paper in october :) . At that time there were some boasters in my class. They would talk as if they were the ones who mentored Dennis to design the language. I was intimidated by them like anything. I tell you one thing, it does not matter how fast you learn a programming language. What matters is only your love for a language. I loved C but I didn't learn it fast. Finally I somehow managed to pass that lab.
Second year started with DSA.The subject had a good head start. I had a flair for that subject as the subject was clean and it was do more with pure math rather than fancy programs(that would not have even a simple application :P ).I still remember that second year where in I used to get dreams in which I would design a finite state automata which would behave like any machine recognizing what is actually expected(lol)!!. I started writing some small programs in C and C++ and started parallely to work with algortihms.My seniors and orkut have played a very crucial role in my engineering career. There are many people in my life who have inspired and influenced me completely in various stages of my life. To mention a few, Dr.Prabhakar,Dr.Naveen,R.K(my brother's friend),Selva,Adith,Abhinand,Felix and the list goes on. For me and most of the comp sci students, learning algorithms can never be compensated by any other pleasure(be it even having a lakh rupee in hand and 10 friends sourrounding you). Once you start writing good, efficient algorithms your coding skills will shoot up like anything in a few days. You will start writing some solid code.While others were trying to complete some assignments , I would bunk the classes and participate in some orkut discussions in forums. I swear that I have never written a single assignment on my own except for some coding assignments in OS and Algorithms. Even people started asking me doubts and I was able to tell them somthing or the other(But ofcourse not the exact solution :P ).Since then I decided that i should do my masters and doctorate in something pertaining to algorithms. For me it has been a life time ambition. Lets see how it works :) .
Once you get the glimpse of writing efficient code , comp sci is your home and indeed your world..!!. You will start loving each and every aspect of computer science and people who are passionate about writing code. You will relish it and live it like I and many others do :).
Thats all I had for this post. Soon will be back with some interesting stuff about one particular topic that one of my close friends has requested me to write about...!!
Good one !
ReplyDelete