10 things I will miss about Aggieland

Hah! I am not going to make that false promise again. I admit, I never been able to keep up with my blog and I guess I never will. It’s been a semester since I wrote something here. I am done, done with my Masters. Right now, I am in the mood of catching my flight to India and reunite with my family after 17 months. But, just thought I should share what I am gonna miss. Of course, I have lotz of other interesting topics lined up which I guess I will be writing from India.

1) Being a student at Texas A&M

Without any second thoughts, anyone would easily say that the best part of life is being a student. Being a student at Texas A&M makes it even more special. I am gonna miss attending classes, asking questions, inducing debates, slogging for exams, competitions, grading, and everything that I complained about when I was a student How much ever strenuous it is, student life is still THE best

2) Evans & WCL
Nothing can beat studying for exams at WCL or Evans. You are surrounded by people with lots of caffeine slogging at the last minute reminding you that you are not left alone It may sound stupid, but I have a sentiment of doing better in exams when I study at WCL 3rd Floor. Free coffee, hot chocolate and chair massage for students – can it be any better?

3) Aggie Nights and $1 movie at Rudder
Aggie Nights is the best thing I noticed in my first semester. Pizza, Soda, Bowling, Pool, Board Games, and much more – of course, everything is for FREE. They know that students don’t cook on Fridays
The second best thing is $1 movie at Rudder. The sound system sucks, but you cannot really complain when you pay only one buck. It would be great if they start giving pop-corn and coke

4) Aggie Football & Yell Practice
I was not really an American Football enthusiast in last Fall. I hardly seen a full game and always compared it to Soccer and demeaned it. But, the game has really got stuff to entertain which I got to know this Fall. I watched 4 home games and now I am really looking forward to next season. Midnight Yell is something unique to Texas A&M and I still know only few of the yells. Farmers Farmers Fight! Whoop!!

5) ISMA
ISMA is undoubtedly the best student organization at Texas A&M. While my class with 90% Indian students never gave me the international experience I was seeking, ISMA did. Now I have friends from France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Estonia, Mexico, Serbia, Azerbaijan, West Indies, England, China, Taiwan, and many more countries. I strongly recommend ISMA if you want to make friends and have fun
6) AITP
If ISMA is for fun, AITP is probably the best professional organization in our school. Being the president of AITP taught me so many good things which otherwise I wouldn’t have learned. Especially delegating work to team members and getting it done on time. Man! I used to suck at that. Of course, there was couple of instances in which I was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it was great.

7) Aggie Traditions
From saying ‘Howdy!’, ‘Gig’em’, and BTHO to Yell Practice,Ring Dunk, Silver Taps, and Elephant Walk, Texas A&M has got its share of unique traditions which are blended into our life. I am surely gonna miss these. I hope I have my ring dunk party next semester in Aggieland (but I will dunk only in Coke ).

8) North Gate
I am not a party animal and in fact, I visited North Gate for the first time only this Fall. North Gate is definitely fun, especially if you have had a rough week and want to forget the woes by shaking your legs. North Gate has influenced me to listen to English songs (Yep! I never listened to any English songs until like 2 months back). I am just sad that I did not get enough chances to go to North Gate of late but I can always drive back from Houston whenever I want to

9) Rec
I still remember many of my friends pulling my legs about working out in rec. I don’t really know whether I achieved my objective of putting weight, but believe me, rec is such a great stress buster. Especially when you have too much of work and your concentration is oscillating, rec can definitely be a rescue. Just flex your muscles, do some weights, and you will feel better. At least, I did.

10) Fellow Aggies
You may confront me saying some of the things listed above are not anything unique to Aggieland and almost any town/city in US would have them. I agree! But, the real flavor here is the Aggies who are present in all the things listed above. I lived in Houston for about 3 months and believe me, Houston is such a barren land (I hope you get what I am talking about). I am gonna miss you all Aggies!

When I wrote this post, I just felt like DJ of RDB (Rang De Basanti – a Hindi movie). If you don’t get what I am talking about:

Student life and sleepless nights

One of the reasons for me choosing the Management Information Systems course at the Texas A&M University is that, as my seniors told, the course allows you to have perfect balance with your life giving ample free time for doing activities that you are interested in. But, after coming here, I realized that, I have to keep running headlong, at least for this semester as of now. Upon discussions with many current and old students, I found out that this IS the case in most of the graduate programs and PhDs in US universities. At least, I was not prepared to have continuous sleepless nights like this. So, how did I find time to post this? Well, if I am not sleeping, I bound to have extra hours

When I selected my courses (4 courses for this semester), I found that each course has only 2.5 hours of class room sessions every week. Apart from that I have to work as Graduate Assistant for 2 courses which roughly will be 20 hours per week. I was presuming that I am going to have sufficient time to visit to REC (Student Recreation Center) and improve my tennis…Alas! though classes are only for 10 hours, the assignments given by profs (professors) here make you work for the whole day…thats how the system works here…don’t think of these assignments as what we used to do in India…these are different, challenging and provide excellent information….

For instance, in two of the subjects that I am having in this semester, the assignments mostly comprise of writing 2 page summaries for case studies, industry examples or new concepts…that sounds cool…but each article is at least 30-40 pages long…reading and understanding these swallows most of your time…if you don’t get the pith of it, you will never be able to summarize it…in between, every now and then companies are conducting information sessions on the positions they have…so, being a job hunter, we cannot miss them…i found it really difficult to manage these during initial couple of weeks..now, I am alright, as I am devoting my entire weekend and nights on completing deliverables…on average I slept for 4 hours for the past 4 days…next week seems to be a little lighter than this, and we never know when a ‘prospective’ employer will announce an information session

So, that tells a story…almost every course (at least Masters and PhD) here at US exacts hell lot work from you…if you are a prospective student, be prepared…its not the same as what we did in UG and you are expected to work hard…though it depends a lot on the courses you take, almost every prof here expects the students to work hard on their part…

I must discuss about the attitude of some local students here…when International students like us mostly respect profs and behave like ‘students’…many students here have a different viewpoint…they think, since they pay, its their right to listen to or not to listen to classes…you can see them solving sudokus, reading magazines or surfing net in their laptops during the class..and very importantly, profs don’t mind these things (thats a BIG difference between Indian profs and profs here)…discipline means different things here…the discipline that we were taughgt back in India is blatantly missing to some extent and profs don’t seem to be bothered about that…

That’s it for now…I will try to discuss on the Harvard Business Review articles that I am reading as part of my assignments…they provide WEALTHY knowledge…keep watching this space