Salem is having the best weather possible...the days are generally cool and the sky is always cloudy. There are intermittent showers through the day. It's been like this for the past fortnight or so. 
At college, the roads are wet and the red, satin backed beetles are seen burrowing themselves in the wet earth. While some of us hop, skip and jump over them, there are others whose unseeing feet squash the tiny things out of existence. 
ECE had its SAECE inauguration today. 
Students are paid their scholarships directly into their account, so all students have opened accounts at the SBI. 
And, there was a long line of M.E. admissions into the various PG streams this year. One noticed a number of  aspirants, some with wailing babes in arms and  some with accompanying parents. I feel that the AICTE directive that the entry level qualification for teaching positions in engineering colleges would be a PG degree may have been cause for the large number of admissions - especially since the number of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu has risen to around 425.

Life is looking good for GCEians- the first company has stepped in for this year. EIT- Energy Info Tech, a Delhi based company came in for campus recruitment. Students of Civil, Mechanical and Metallurgy gave the tests and out of these around 12 Mech and 6 Civil students have been shortlisted for the final round. It was jointly offered to A.C. Karaikudi and it appears that their Civil students have done very well- around 12 have been shortlisted. 
I wouldn't say there is a transformation, but I do notice more willingness on the part of the Tamilmedium students of the first year to take their communication skills more seriously. And, most of them, around 90% appear to be fairly good at using the language. Challenges from the industry are always accepted by our students readily and they gear themselves up to face the demands of the industry. Good sign, as always. 

Oh, and if I may add a post script to the former blog entry, it was unanimously agreed that the Public Address system totally failed on this occasion. There was a terrible echo and the twiddling of the controls worked no magic and the audience was treated to an unruly echo in the hall. 
Sad, but once again, what has to be noted is that the college has outgrown its auditorium and expansion and modernisation in this regard is imperative. 

VEDANTHANGAL 2010, the Alumni Day was held on 8 Aug 2010, at the college auditorium. 
I believe around 600 old students from 1986 -2005 turned up for the event. A few had even brought their families over. There were boys from Iraq, U.S, Germany and from all corners of India. 
One of the third year students, Uday, remarked with surprise writ large on his face ,'You know, there were government bigwigs who came with beacon lights in their vehicles who were dancing with us!!!' He also narrated how an old student asked for 'Kavimani' and Uday said, 'Kavimani sir' and the gentleman remarked, 'Unnakku vena principal, but ennakku ennoda classmate' and Uday was left speechless. I wish I could've seen Uday's face. He also noted that many of the former students are in such senior positions in such famous and well established companies, Indian and global that it is a revelaltion of the status of GCE in the world map. It was difficult for him to accept the dimension of the professional status of most of our former students.
The  sentimental journey to their Alma mater, re-establishing the bonds of friendship and reliving memories of places they had lived in, sat in and rejoiced in, was one that had been looked forward to by all the former students and also by the organisers,, who had worked like ants to make it a memorable day for them. 
I sadly missed it because of an important work on the home front. 


 

The first sign that the first year students are arriving is seen in the college bus, as they, their parents and their luggage start filling in the aisles, the seats, the steps and the luggage carriers from Five Roads on. 

Today, it was especially a large crowd. The fear, anxiety, thrill and anticipation of being an engineering student was visible on their faces.

At 10.30, the welcome meet was held in the auditorium. There again, people filled all the seats, the aisle, the space along the wall, the corridors on either side and the open space outside the audi. 

They were welcomed by all HODs and the Principal. The Principal took the cake with his well delineated and illustrated address. He extended a warm welcome and told the students that they had come to an institution well endowed with facilities. 

He pointed out that the institution focussed on four  factors - teachers, parents, students and the alumni. He appreciated the faculty for their sense of duty and commitment and assured students that they were one of the strengths of GCE. 

He stressed the important role that parents played in moulding the hearts of their children. He illustrated the point with the story of mother giraffes sdropping their babies from a height of 8 metres at the time of the birth of their babies and kicking them, even for an hour sometimes, till the little one got up on its unsteady legs and tottered about. He said that was done to keep the baby safe from predators. In a similar manner, parents  must, he said, keep their sons and daughters always aware of the need to survive. He then appreciated the alumni for the stellar role they are playing in helping their juniors. 

Next, he urged students to remember that they must, like Viswanathan Anand who braved the Icelandic eruption, cancellation of the flight that was scheduled to take him to the place of the World title match, the 48 hour bus journey that he undertook to play at the World Title match, though no one expected him, at his fourth place, to win the title. He did...in a similar fashion, he assured students that they only had to work to make success happen. 

The whole ceremony took two and a half hours and one could only pity the  large numbers of parents and students who stood all the time. The audi can accommodate around 350, and today, there must've been atleast three to four to the 450 students admitted. Time for a bigger audi and the alumni's role in ensuring that that one place which they love more than their classrooms should be rightly expanded.

In the afternoon, students were taken around by NCC cadets to the labs and classrooms. God bless these fresh faced kids...

My laptop, barely a year and a half old,  crashed...had a fight with Dell...and so had been missing from blogspace for quite sometime. 

The new batch of GCEians was admitted on the 30th. The hustle and the bustle associated with this, it is said, was really taxing. Office assistants were in college till late in the evening, till about 8.30 / 9.00 p.m winding up the accounts. 

I report this as 'it is said', because I missed the admissions on account of a training at British Council. I know I will miss the odd student or two who will tell me shyly when in their thrid or final year that I was the first person they met in GCE! However, the training that I attended was of a quality expected only from the best in the country.

I believe that on the 8th August 2010, there is an Alumni meet. I'm sure old students are waiting to meet, greet and hug one another in glee at meeting after many years. 

Today, there was a very important development - the first SWOT meeting of TEQIP, under the stewardship of Prof.Subramaniam, was held, to facilitate the second phase of TEQIP. This second phase of TEQIP will focus on research. The good news is that students from various departments with whom he interacted have given very happy feedback about the benefits of TEQIP Phase I. The faculty  also actively participated in a SWOT analysis and everyone had a say. 

Classes will begin on the 6th for the first years...this time, due to the increased intake of 120 - 60 each for Civil and Mechanical, classes will be held in D1, EEE block, ECE block and so on. I shall certainly miss going to classes in the admin block; instead, we'd all be running to the classes in different directions. May be a good solution for burning calories! 

Weekly meetings are being held on Mondays by the Newsletter editors and student correspondents...we might try Adobe Photoshop to try the layout and desktop publishing. 

Why should we seek professional publishers ( might save time and effort, all one would have to do would be to collect articles and information and get it published, but that wouldn't be the same as effort from student artists and journalists, would it?) It's a challenge and I'm sure that the biscuits, puffs and cakes that we have before the meetings will spur us on to achieve success in bringing out the newsletter creditably.