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!

Good reads

On insistence from a friend, I went to Good reads and to my amazement, I liked it. I thought I would just share.

Book worms love books

I know it not be a big deal for the people who don’t read or are already expert users of this website, either way, I think it is a great way to keep in touch with what you are reading and your preferences.

If you are a book lover, you wouldn’t want to miss this website, if you haven’t been to it. Believe me, you won’t regret it.

There is plenty of books available to select and maintain your shelves from. And you create your profile and create an inventory of books you have read, want to read, and reading. And there you go,you share your reviews, books and catalog.

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!