It's that time of the year when one sits in retrospection and wonders how fast time flies by every single year! The autonomy seems to be working well, both for the students and the teachers. 

For students, because there is better organisation of schedules and time bound announcements from the COE's office, which is so easily accessible. Prof.Perumal and Prof.Sukumar have both moved from the chaos and clutter of the early days, to a smooth flow of work in the Controller's office. Prof.Balusamy, the Chief Superintendent carries out the conduct of the exams with hall arrangements, etc, handling the pressure with composure and goodwil.

For teachers,  there is freedom to experiment, vet, choose and implement the syllabus of their choice; along with it, is the added pleasure of co-ordinated vacation.

I, especially, loved the challenge in 2010 of designing the syllabus, channelising the classroom activities, preparing extra materials, thinking out relevant and enjoyable assignments for the third years and the first years, preparing an e-book to stimulate the reading habits of our third years, learning to manage the language lab resources and best of all,  the joy of giving learners confidence and belief in their own abilities, whether in language learning or in other extra-curricular activities. 

How can I forget the long hours the team of GCE newsletter spent from 4  to, sometimes, even six in the evenings, as we planned, experimented with software, web designing, collecting data and materials and resources. The team is absolutely fantastic. 

I have Arvind, the serious aciever, who comes up with his brilliant ideas, Uday, the laughter icon of the team, with his joyous ways, Navneethan, sincere and filled with a desire to keep learning, Prashant with his charming ways and relaxed attitude, Jinu, the result getter, calm, composed and laughingly accepting the teasing of the group, Krithika and Rabiya, the silent contributors. They are a good team, result oriented, they see the vision and are ready to work, but abvoe all, they are fabulous at working together in a straight, no-nonsense manner. There are no under-currents here, so, it's a pleasure working with them all. This has been one of my best piece of work of the year. They made my work enjoyable and made me see, once again, the best side of our GCE students.

Yes, the last two semesters have been particularly and extremely tough on my endurance, cos of the faculty shortage in the department and the academic and administrative responsibilities, but, I'm ready for the challenges this new year 2011. 

People have been kind and considerate...Prof. Srinivasan, who appreciated my efforts to handle my responsibilites as class advisor and on many occasions, extended a piece of advice that would help me out with the work, deserves a special mention for having made 2010, bearable. Thank God, for small mercies.

I love what I'm doing and hope to be able to continue to give GCE, Salem, all my passion for my profession. 

A few of our students have had personal losses in their lives. My heart goes out to them. Many have had success in their studies. I'm happy for them. We've lost a student to an illness...I'm sad, he did not live to enjoy the best part of his growing years. 

Work, chaos, challenges, friendships, team work, achievements, hopes, frustration, sadness...what a mix of emotions and experiences, it's been this year. 2010, farewell to thee.

Arvind came up with a brilliant idea to launch the online version of the newsletter, without waiting for the process of publishing to be completed. It made sense and the Principal was also extremely happy to give the thumbs up for the idea. So, the process of converting it into pdf, making it tamperproof, hosting it in a webpage and sharing the link through various net sources like the gce webpage, alumni webpage, placement webpage, this blog and email addresses is what we are looking at right now.
You will get the link very soon on this page.

HCL has taken in 52 of the 54 shortlisted. Kids are coming around fattening us up on Adyar Ananda Bavan's sweets and savoury items. They are so  happy and relieved that their ordeal is over. The care they show for the ones who still have to be placed is touching. Only young people can care like this for another in mental agony. Older people give advice and younger people laugh it all off...only a peer member can understand the pain and can immediately think of ways in which the situation can be saved. 
I believe there are other companies also coming in. Good job by the placement co-ordinators of the various branches. 

I feel like Jonathan in 'Masterchef Australia'... feels like everything's half done. Audio setup has been checked everywhere in the halls for the first year exams and we find there's one that blown a fuse and another that will be available only tomorrow at nine. I'm hoping everything's goes off well. But what was heartening through the whole ordeal from morning till evening, as we went around visiting the halls and checking systems, audio drivers, sound cords, mixers, amplifie and the speakers , was that there was a colloborative effort from Mech, Meta and CSE students as they tried to set the equipment right.

I have to say this - every single time you need them, our students are there, to lend their gathered wisom and skills and their willing hands to set things right. As I saw them putting their heads together to find out why the amp was not glowing, I told myself 'That is where our students are way above the students of SF colleges who will consider it beneath their dignity to do what they think a lab assistant should'. And that is where our students score - their willingness to learn, their readiness to help, their unwillingness to let go, till a solution is found. Our students possess rare qualities, which if companies don't recognise, the loss is theirs.

TCS was here on Monday. They have selected 71 students from the college. 33 from CSE, 15 from ECE, 8 from Mech, 3 from Civil, 20 from EEE and 2 from Metallurgy - figures I heard unofficially. The beaming faces of students said it all. 
While I'm very happy for the selected candidates, my heart goes out to those who had looked forward to a placement in a software company. The girls from Civil Engineering seem to have been buffetted by both core and software companies. Core companies have not preferred them, since most recruitment was for distant and remote places. TCS also seems not to have selected girls from Civil, though there are about ten with brilliant attitude, academic performance and very good communication skills. 
I believe HCL is coming in next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the kids.