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.