Moving to NJ – Deam or Destiny

Random shit happens to all of us. I was laid off without any prior notice and without any fault of mine. Companies just don’t understand how they crush someone’s dreams about life in just moment.

Dreams like yours, like mine.. graduation dreams, dreams to see their proud parents sitting near the graduation rows, pay off your college loan, moving in with your special someone, buy a very cherished and long awaited electronic device or may be just nothing. Just a happy moment in short!

Well honestly, after 6 months of soul and job searching, I figured I had to give consultants a try.

Graduating from one of best schools in the North America, I had a rough time doing this. I adopted a certain lifestyle that I think is the best anyone should be doing. I set aggressive targets for me in terms – rigorous gym, tenacious swimming regime, strenuous book reading, and tough healthy eating, and a strict walking routine.

My walking partner, a female friend “H” decided to send my resume to a couple of friends and float it and see what happens. So I gave my resume to her boyfriend “N” and decided to see what happens.

Two days after in the morning, I got a call from this guy “J” for a phone interview. I got it  So the next thing I know, I have to physically be here in NJ. Ground zero!! I decided to come to the same person “N” for this temporary accommodation and before I know I was packing up my stuff for a 5 day visit to NJ.

Some say dreams are your reflection. Some say dreams are mere revelations; some say some sort of calling. I will buy that! Dreams are generally your calling, and you should listen to it. I did. I do. I was watching this movie called Latter days, and I heard this quotation

“Like the game we played when we were kids, joining the dots. Life is full of those dots and you will see that may be they don’t make sense right now, but they will make sense later on, just keep on joining them. ”

That is what dreams were to me. – Dots connecting my life to a meaning, so that I can fulfill my dream to give meaning to the entire world.

Till my next rambling! Chao!

How are we doing yet? Still hanging in here or left? — Part II

Continuing from my previous blog post,

3. Prepare a list of word templates you will need to react, reply and respond to the kind of answers you get from Professors.

Personally I had three prepared for myself

The first one was a more generic template. It expressed my interest in clear, concise and crisp grammatically correct English. You have to make changes regarding the research section, papers and your interests, etc.

The second one was a thank you reply! Unfortunately some professors will not “click” with your mails and profiles as some other will. As one of my friend who already got into the Phd program at New Zealand’s University of Auckland Dept of Imaging Science, he told me

Only 20 percent of the professors you approach in all, will acutually reply back.

The point here to be noted is that it is just a reply. It can be the most obvious one

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. You should apply through the admissions office at ZZZZZ@akd.edu

this one takes the cake!

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. Unfortunately, I am not taking any more students And/or Not teaching at the school anymore and/or Not full time faculty at the time
and/or I am on Sabbatical
(No offense. This kind of replies,make my day actually. You push me down. I will keep on coming up even with more force. The more you push me down, the more I will come up again to fight back)

So, if you get one of these replies, please don’t forget to send them a courtesy emails thanking them for time. Because you didn’t ask them before flooding their email inbox(s) and you wanted to see if you reach a common ground!

I know I do this everytime. And I know I would like to see a thank you note(atleast) from the person who sent me the first horrendously complex introductory emails. But that is just me

And the last tip for the post, don’t forget to keep your profile ( Academic Resume, Summary of interests, Linkedin Profile, email accounts, phone numbers, etc.) updated!!

Keep sharing and following! Have a good day! As again, I would love to read your stories

Share your stories and follow. I need motivation so does everyone So, just keep it on !!

Have a good day!

Academic Support document

Disclaimer: This blog post is a rationale for what you can do to strengthen your application at Graduate and PhD level.

Ideally, I could go with you ten rounds of discussion over what my profile has better than yours and what my school taught me even though it is not in the top 15 schools of the world. But any rational thinking person will agree that there can be no arguments about how much important it is to embellish your profile and your achievements and fine tune with the school(s) you are planning to apply.

No matter what major you are going for, be it IT, public policy or health! You will need to highlight what you have earned respectfully. I don’t know about you, I want to go to a top program. And to fulfill this desire to highlight your resume and accomplishments, you will find yourself in this position wanting to create something called as Portfolio for yourself.

As I understand it now and what internet tells me, an academic portfolio can be divided into following separate yet connected sections

I.            Education
II.          Teaching experience
III.         Research experience or areas/interest
IV.         Published or to be Papers
V.          Great Projects at School
VI.         Glory at Work experience
VII.        Resume

In this blog post, I will discuss the teaching experience part of portfolio. Now I know it is not in the order of the above, but everything counts!

A little BING search on the student portfolio(s) gives a good idea on what it looks like and what are its common components. (If you are reading this carefully, you will note how I wrote Student portfolio and not just portfolio.)  For some of us, who were lucky enough to land up a Teaching assistant or graduate assistant opportunity while in school, you will have some fluff to add towards your portfolio reflecting the amount of teaching exposure you have. Yay! And for the people who don’t have any teaching experience in those roles, research will be able to bolster your application.

Now moving ahead is definitely a good sign. You can ask me, Why? For two simple reasons – You get a separate chance to highlight your achievements as Teaching and/or graduate assistant(s). Second, most of the applicants wouldn’t have material to prepare this. So that makes you an early achiever or If I may say- early riser in the apps process from now onwards! Right!Till me next rambling!