Explore the New Destination of GATE

Many of the GATE aspirants appeared in GATE 2012 today. Majority of them have made their mind to get admission into IITs and IISC, accepted. But many people don't know what good GATE score can offer them. 

Majority of the post graduation courses offered on basis of GATE score are in the field of technology (MTech/PHD). So it might be that many of you would not be aware of one the best institutes of India in the field of management, i.e. National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) Mumbai. Lets have a look what NITIE can offer you: 

• What is NITIE? 
• It is one of the best institutes in India for Management studies specializing in field of Industrial Engineering. It is one of the 15 centers of excellence along with IITs and IIMs. Due to its expertise in the field of Operation and Supply Chain Management, its also popularly known as "Karmabhumi of OPs and SCM" 

• Course Offered - PGDIE 
• Though people refer NITIE as a management institute, but its core competency is in field of Industrial Engineering & Management. The course offered by NITIE to GATE student is Post Graduation Diploma in Industrial Engineering(PGDIE). It is the flagship course of NITIE and very well reputed in industry. 

• Industrial Engineering in IIT or NITIE 
• I won't comment on the course offered by IITs, but the course offered by NITIE is not only technological, it is more of managerial i.e. techno-managerial course. You will be taught technical aspects as well as managerial aspects of the real world. You are free to explore your choice of subjects whether they are technical or managerial, as electives offered to PGDIE students are as diverse as other managerial courses offered in different managerial institutes. 
• After NITIE you will be called Managers, but after IITs you will be still called as engineers. 

• Admission Procedure and Fees 
• This I will leave to official team of PGDIE. You can contact them for more details on ietimes.nitie@gmail.com

• We are not managerial material. We are technical people. 
• Believe me we also thought same when we came in NITIE. The best part of the PGDIE NITIE is the culture to groom first year students by seniors. Senior invest three months to transform first year students into managers. Starting from soft skills, presentations, public speaking, GD, PI to technical aspects, they gave us sessions on everything that would help us to improve ourselves. 

• What about placement? 
• I don't need to comment on this. You can check NITIE site and see placement report. Believe me placement offered by NITIE is in line with IIMs. Top notch companies from every industry visit NITIE every year. All students of NITIE will go through same placement procedure and eligible for all companies that visit the campus. 

• How will we compete with CAT students? 
• As I have already told you after your grooming part, on time of placement you don't have to compete with peer batch. Keep my word in your mind, your biggest competitors will be your own batchmates. 

• But at IITs we can have stipend. 
• Good news. PGDIE students in NITIE also get stipend as decided by MHRD (i.e. 8000 per month) 

• What about work load? 
• I won't comment on this much. But you won't get better work life balance in any other managerial or technical post graduation institutes compared to NITIE.

Life at NITIE: NITIE Pond

Gujju's GD/PI Experience in NITIE

Thanks to Prem Rupareliya (PGDIE-39) who insisted me to fill the NITIE form when my moral was down in the dumps due to another pathetic Gate score (709). Considering the outcome  I lost hope for higher studies and started concentrating on my so called IT job, luckily I got call from NITIE. I got something which is not easy to digest. Call from NITIE. First 24 hours, I was in heaven. But line from my manager brought me down to ground. His line was “Vishnu. NITIE is totally different league.”

Considering that I started preparation for GD/PI. I talked to Prem, Amit Pranjpe (PGDIM-17),  Amit Bhatia (PGDISEM-10) about their GD/PI experience.

On 11^th May 2011, I came to NITIE Mumbai for my life’s first GD/PI.The cademic staff, faculties and seniorswere really cooperative and process was very smooth.

Process:

Slot 1: GD

I was slotted into group 3; panel 3 (I guess)

Number of people present in group: 10

Number of faculties to observe GD: 5

Time for thinking: 2 min

Time for discussion: 10 min

Topic for discussion: Revolution in retail industries has changed spending habit of average Indian.

GD Environment: Discussion was good. No one had created fish market. (Though we had one funny character in GD, but that’s out of topic right now) As for me, I entered 3 times in to the GD. Presented 2 new points. Outcome of GD was obvious, out of 10, 5 people had cleared the whole process and right now they are studying with me.

Slot 2: PI

Five to six faculties are there in each interview panel.

Prof 1: Tell me something about yourself.

I: Briefed about my engineering and IT experience. I tried to give more emphasis on my work experience and projects but they didn’t interrupt me in between. When I was about to finish my introduction, I purposefully mentioned about an application that I had developed during my college tenure. (So that further discussion would go in that direction.)

Prof 1: What was that application?

I: It was a virtual stock trading simulator

Prof 1: Don’t you think number of such applications is available in market. Why did you make that application again?

I: Answered.

(Kind of satisfactory answer, as no further questions came from that.)

Prof 1: What was your final year project?

I: Based on the application that we had developed but previously application was web based, which we had converted to standalone application.

Prof 1: Tell me 3 things that were there in your application and were not there in other market products.

I: Answered 2 differences.

I was interrupted by other faculty. By that moment almost 70% of interview was done.

Prof 2: You mentioned about traffic system in your current company project. Do you know ***** this algorithm? (I don’t remember that name)

I: No sir. There is a system already exist working on this we are just communicating with that system for further process.

Prof 3: Tell me three differences between Wipro & CTS. (As I have 23 months of work exp in Wipro and 10 months in CTS)

I: Working hour system, Culture and Growth strategy.

Prof 4: What kind of facilities is available if you want to start your business?

I didn’t understand question and started answering about my dream business, he interrupted me in between and repeated question again.

I: Venture capitalist, blah, blah…

(I thought that would be the end of question answer round and I was happy that question about which I was most feared didn’t come.)

Prof 1: Vishnu, you grades in 10^th and 12^th are excellent then why sudden decline in engineering, from 80+ to 69%?

I: Answered. (Had well prepared that one with help of Amit & Rahul Bajaj)

Prof 1: Ok, thank you.

Comments about PI: As always my interview was finished earlier than other candidates (5-10 mins before I guess) I tried to be myself. No mugged up answers. No fake answers.

Results: I am proud student of PGDIE-41 batch of NITIE, Mumbai. :D

A Gujju in Management School...

Out of no hope, when you got call only from NITIE and converted it; one must be lucky enough to have such a wonderful opportunity.

Well I am talking about myself. After working in IT industry for 33 months, I joined NITIE on 16th June 2011. Just like others' my dreams were same: A good brand of NITIE and get good package after two years. Don't worry I am not going to talk about any of them in this post. 

I just want to share few lines of some faculties and my batch mates. (Few of them I have already shared on my Facebook account.)

1.       This line used to come in initial 4-5 weeks.

"Are you Gujju? Tu Gujju hai kya? Sahi me yaar lag nahi raha..."

• What am I supposed to answer when I only told you I am Gujju. Secondly, we Gujarati don't have "Gujju" written on our fore-head.

2.       This one used to pop up when they asked me "Where are you from?" and I answered Surat.

"Suratkal"

• Oh mighty engineers, come out of best engineering college locations. You are from industry and you don't even know the name one of the fastest growing city in the world? 

3.       This line still comes to me whenever I eat non-veg in mess.

"Tum Non-Veg khaate ho"

• FYKI, Gujarat is a non-alcoholic state. Eating non-veg is not prohibited. Many Gujarati (including myself) eat non-veg and that too with parents’ full permission. So please.

4.       As a Gujarati, if I comment/state/do something, you will say

"Karli Gujju wali baat" And if you do the same thing, you will say "Be practical yaar!!"

• My dear friend just because we say it before doing, it doesn’t mean that we are cheaper. But yes we are different!!!

5.       Another line on food, the biggest from any non-gujju

“Yaar tum log har chij mithi khaate ho.”

• My dear friend just because you went to so-called Gujarati Thali restaurants, who just serve some Gujarati-Marwari mixed thaali with all sweet curry (sabji) and daal, it doesn’t mean that Gujju eats everything sweet.

6.       This one about the perception of

“We are living on Thepla, Khakhra and Fafda.”

• Come o.! Have you ever dared to ask a South Indian why you live on Idli, Sambar or Dosa. (No hard feelings for South Indians)

7.       This one I got from marketing faculties.

“Gujju log pehle price dekhte hai.”

• Dear sir, tell me one single middle class person who goes for shopping and buys something without looking at its price tag.

I think this should be more than enough for today. :D