A word for Freshmen in COMSATS Lahore

Today, I am intended to write for those who are new entries into the CIIT (COMSATS) Lahore campus.
Take this as your startup guide into your graduation studies.
The first piece of advice is to keep a close-eye on your grades. Believe me in my graduation I also used to think as many of us do that GPA doesn't matter but IT DOES MATTER in some cases. And those some cases are extreme that sometimes you have to regret yourself. You are new at undergraduate so be prepared to take higher grades. Let me tell you where they does matter and where they don't.
You might have studied my earlier post on this blog about interviews, if you haven't still, do give it a look, it will tell what is gonna happen to you after 4 years.

WHERE GPA DOESN'T MATTER
Very obvious case, when I given interview for the PHP job, no one had asked me for it, I had given interview for a C++ job in Palmchip and a JAVA job in Five River Technologies, they do ask GPA on their interview forms but they never asked that in interview. The conclusion is, the GPA doesn't matter in those jobs and in those middle-tier companies.
When I given interview in Myson Engineering for interview for the job of BTS and BSC Engineer, they never asked for my GPA. They will never do. In telecom, where you just have to integrate stuff, GPA really doesn't matter.
People who have given interviews in companies like Solution Engineers for industry automation engineer, they also never asked for GPA, because they don't need it. Thats also an integration job.

WHERE GPA DOES MATTER
It does matter in fairly large companies, Pakistan has some big names with its software industry, that includes Netsol, Techlogicx, CureMD etc. When I was dropping my CV at Netsol stall in this year's Rozee Job Fair, the attendant asked me about my GPA, rather than telling him the GPA, I asked the same question "Does GPA Matters?" He nodded and said yes but if you have skills that doesn't. I said ok then my GPA is 2.24 and just give me a call for interview and I will show my skills, and what happened in the last... I never get my call.. and yes it was obvious, my GPA was the point who have to take me to the interview table and rest must be my skills in getting that job. I have the skills but doesn't have GPA so, I loosed out!
If you want to apply in Techlogicx and CureMD, do you know what you have to do? You have to send your scanned copies of Transcripts along with your CV, so they first see you results and believe me, they do hire persons who have above 3.0 GPA and also they do take a look into the class of institute. Don't be bothered by that class of institute, if the person hiring is not lobbying in the favor of his own institute (like UET, GIKI, NUST, FAST) and you have a good GPA, you will get an interview call.
And many students do not have an attitude during their graduation about studying further, like I had. But when I was in my final year, and after seeing condition of local market, I decided to study abroad and as far as now I probably have heard the call of heart, yes I want to be in research. You can imagine the condition of a guy who have bad GPA, a bad academic record, but he has the confidence that he can do it, but his GPA is on his way. DONT LET THAT HAPPEN TO YOU! Do keep your GPA above 3.0 so that you can get admission in seriously outstanding universities abroad, not money grabbers of UK or austrlia, instead top ranked universities of US and CANADA and that's too with scholarship and how to take that GPA, don't worry, I will tell you how it can be done.

Rule#1 Never miss your any assignment or quiz. They are the keys. What happened to me in my graduation that I hardly submit any assignment or given any quiz correctly. And that has the worst effect on your GPA. Don't wait for finals to score out of 50, those 25 of A/Q are the most important. You can score 45/50 in the final but what will happen in the end, you will have 45 in the finals and 12 in the sessionals and total will be 57 with 0 in A/Q... Now you are probably aware that why I have 2.24 in my graduation.. So do give your Assignments on time and always do them by your own, if you do your assignments by your own, your quizzes will be automatically prepared and you will have much less burden in your finals and sessionals.

Rule#2 Do prepare your lectures everyday. Make this your habit that you have to have revise your every lecture before sleeping every day. Dont sleep until you revise. That will keep you with the class and you will understand next lecture completely. A caution is that, many people do think that if I had a lecture of IP today and next lecture will be on thursday, so I will revise on wednesday evening, Please dont do this, as it will never happen you will never revise of Wednesday and what will happen.. you will miss the train..

Rule#3 Never miss your class. 80% attendance is mandatory here. And do believe me if teacher is not showing any flexibility in marking attendance, chances are obvious that you will not be allowed to sit in the finals. Do keep eye on COMSIS for your attendance record. Normally a 3 Cr. Hr course has 28-30 lectures and you are allowed to miss 6 of them. But don't use those 6 lectures by yourself. 2, 3 will slip by theirselves, like someday you will get emergency at home or you have missed your bus to come to campus, so keep that relaxation for those unwanted circumstances. And skipping a lecture will also skip you back from the class, so dont do it.

Rule#4 In a university, a teacher is the one who can break you or make you! I read that line when I was a freshmen in COMSATS on a college website and I did the same mistake. I had a quarrel with a teacher on some issue in 2nd semester, that teacher is of Maths dept. and I thought that I probably never had to study from him but what happened that in very next semester he came to teach ODE and the ultimate result was that I was fail in ODE in that semester and in the next semester when I was pass in the paper, he had shorted out my attendance. I had to study ODE third time from another teacher and he given me a B grade. Seen? Don't go against any teacher whatsover is the case. Good and bad people are everywhere, so in COMSATS there are bad teachers alongwith good one's, just try to ignore them, I will give a brief review in my next blog about the faculty, do read that keep your distance from those bad guys. Generally, you dont have any need to make your negative impression in the eyes of any teacher, just concentrate on your studies.
These are the tips, if you follow them, believe me your GPA will reside between 3.2 - 3.5, which is indeed very good one.

Probation & Discontinuation
Now at the last, let me explain you Probation and DI rules here. You must have studied them in your prospectus and you should give them an eye again.
If you has GPA or CPGA less than 2.0 in any semster, you will be automatically marked at Probation and in subsequent semester if it repeats again, you will be on DI which means discontinuation and you will have to pack your bags and go out of the gate! Yes it literally means that, if in first 4 semesters you get DI, you are out and if in second half of the degree you get DI, you will get a single chance and on failing to comply with that, you will be out!
Just remember the simple rule to avoid DI, your passing marks are 60 in every subject... thats 2.0 in GPA.. not 50 as they say! Literally, means that, If you make your target 50 in every course to just pass out the degree, what will happen, just take a look below:
50 has 1.3 in GPA.
Suppose you are studying 5 courses and you got all D grade with 50 in them.
1.3x5 = 6.5/5 = 1.3
Your GPA will be 1.3 in that semester. Got what I mean? If you take 60 and above in your courses you will remain above 2.0 and out of danger zone and if you got 50 or 55 in any course, that will start pulling you down the 2.0 red line and its possible that you may have passed all of your courses but you still got first probation and after that DI. That happened to one of my classfellows, he got first Probation in 6th semester while his all courses were passed, admin given him a chance according to rule, he had to repeat the same semester again and again he cleared all his courses but his GPA remained below 2.0 and he was out in his 8th semester when all of other class was going with graduation batches he was sitting in his home.. just the plain FS.c after 4 years too...
So keep those marks atleast above 60 in any case.
I will give a brief review of faculty of COMSATS in my next blog as this one seems to quit lengthy now. Hope it should help you in understanding things here, If you have any confusion or question, you can drop a comment here or send me a scrap on my orkut profile.

Ubuntu 7.04 Fiesty Frawn Review

Well this is immensly excited.

Windows and Microsoft era is finally near to over and that has made me excited as hell. Guys this is new, this is reliable and this is easy. Yes its New Ubuntu 7.04 the latest edition in line.
It is infact on the level of Vista to compete it and to tell you the truth, it has knocked down vista in many features.

The prominent features are:

• Much lighter than Vista in terms of space, both in volatile and non-volatile memory.
• It's free.
• It's reliable and stable.
• Your messengers will be running by default from day one. Gone are the days when on Red Hat you have to downloand separate packages and then integrate them using ur tech skills, it includes Gaim, on which you can run all famous IMs.
• I use WebStar's cable modem in my home and I was wondering that if Linux has the driver of it as the WebStar's on site doesnt offer driver for Linux. But when installed, my Internet was working by default, thats BINGO!!!
• Installation is smooth and easy, Ubuntu understands that first you will like a review, when you boot from the CD, it will give you a preview without installation, you can play around the whole OS but changes will not be preserved as that's running from CD. From their you can Install and Installation is quite easy, you just need to know that on which drive you want to install and that Linux needs ext3 format for its file structure and also a swap partition (like virtual RAM on your windows).
• You can use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office.
• It has its own client for getting rid of Microsoft Outlook.
• Only be downloading just fiew codecs, I was able to play my mp3s and videos, which was quite a hectic job in previous flavors of Linux.
• It has 64-bit version for AMD and Core 2 Duo and higher machines, as I am on a 64 bit machine, it was hard to find a 64-bit compatible flavor of Linux in the local market, but downloading from ubuntu's site of 64-bit version, just made my life easier.
• You can install Wine on it to run most of the softwares which are made to run on Windows.

And on the last ofcourse Ubuntu still has some drawbacks. My Internet connection some times seems to hault and also I am still unable to run my home networking over it. However, this will be soon over in the next version and I believe that ease will also be enabled. Long Live Ubuntu, through you, I have resolved my guilt of using a pirated OS. Thanx! :)

You can download Ubuntu from http://www.ubuntu.com/

Interviews

I am very confused these days. I have done my graduation in Computer Engineering with 64% marks overall. Now I have to start my career, but in which field, thats a difficult question.

There are few options, I will discuss with you people, one by one.

1. PHP Development
2. Java and .Net Developer
3. VLSI
4. Embedded Systems
5. Telecommunication
6. Industry Automation

As you seen, number of options.

1) PHP Development

I had got a salary start in May this year with a job of PHP development, the salary was good, a mere 20,000 rs. A normal start for a fresh graduate engineer here is 12k to 15k. However, I got the job, I was happy but later-on the enviornment there turned to be cheesy, a too rushy place, 15 developers sitting in 12x12 room doing offshore development for foriegn clients. Eventually that didnt worked for me as being a confident engineer, I was not into doing this type of job and never wanted to make PHP my career.

I left that company after a month saying that I have to complete my final year project (which is over now) . The HR manager their even came to my residence to ask that if I come in the late hours, but I refused, he didnt accepted my resignation and offered me that complete your project and re-join. Just to tell you that I had made my worth their in just a period of a month.

2) Java and .NET

Most of the companies in Pakistan are doing development in Java and .NET, they have little better working environments and a career growth too. But problem here is again... thats CS and I am a Computer Engineer with specialization in VLSI.

3) VLSI

Well basic thinking was to make my feet strong in System on Chip and get over to USA to earn a little better. Again, I turned to my favorite EDAboard.com where while reading the threads of job markets in europe and america about VLSI, I got the idea that even thats not good in there. Pretty average salary, even comparable to PHP one's. My heart got break there. Because its a far far more techie work then PHP does. However, that option is still underconsideration. Forget to tell you that, in Pakistan only 2 or 3 companies are working in VLSI, who also asks 5+ years of experience.

4) Embedded Systems

Well this industry is gonna take its start as Software industry started in early 99. Its there, its pathetic, it give lower salaries but condition is improving day by day. Most important, it is directly related to my studies. Hunted 3, 4 good companies, who initially dont pay good..but later on they take you even with PHP job and obviously I am not sure but hoping that this industry do have a growth here and abroad in the future too. Companies doing work are Enmac, Five River Technologies, Vonemm, Palmchip and mentor graphics, out of which only Five River is Pakistan based and hopefully that will be my first start from mere Rs. 3k/month.

5) Telecomunication

Well well, from outside its very lucrative, I have seen folks flooding into the BS telecom by forseeing the telecom boom in the country, but in reality BS telecom has nothing to do with what telecom companies in Pakistan has to offer. In BS, they study programming, courses like microprocessor, antenna, DSP etc etc. but in reality the work is just of integration.

Let me explain brief scenario, at that may be important for the guys wanting to do job in this sector.

Basic job is done by sub-contractors, like MySon, Sub-Con, Best Links etc who take the contract from vendors to complete. The real job is here, they do integrate sites, test them and give them over to the vendor who further give them over to the operator. My two room mates who were my class fellows are doing the same job, they hardly take any rest. The car of the company picks them and daily they have to go to remote sites all over the Punjab to test and integrate Nokia equipment. Well, I have asked them, they told me that they can teach me within 10 mints that what they do and what ever they do a Rigger(Laborer) can also do if they teach him. No use of engineering.

Vendors like Nokia and Huawei, do give jobs but that just remain to test and take over the site from sub-con.

Operators like Ufone and Mobilink have engineering depts just for the purpose of RF Optimization (one of my classfellow is also there in Ufone as RF executive), this job is also of traveling to the remote areas, selecting which place is suitable for the site and upon returning, the site is then handed over to the vendor to install, after installation a few copy paste commands are required to actually hook up the site. The other engineers do what vendors do with sub-cons, they go and test the site, if found ok the site is accepted.

Now, where is engineering there? No where. Its just integration. No creative work no nothing. The only charm there is of money. Currently this the highest paying sector, you start of with 12k, you need to know nothing, that means GPA doesnt matter, you just take ur basic training and with in 2 years you reach 60k. Well thats even not the case with established software houses here. Vendor and operator companies also have office environment.

6-Industry Automation

Pakistan basically have little industry as compared to developed countries but industry automation is there, my 15 classfellows are working in this field, it is also a integartion work but a little more knowledge is required. Also a field work and you have to travel a lot. As compared to the size of industry, industry automation is also on the same run. Few companies with 20, 25 employees , doing work all over Pakistan. You can reach maximum at 60k in your life in this industry.

So guys here I am...totally confused where to go. Thinking, thinking.. thinking.. Well at last I am preparing for GRE for this and next month, will give it in September and until than I have to choose from above 5 fields and make that field my career. Truely turning point.