My Admission Story

I've always found other people's experiences and thoughts to be more interesting than a prospectus or a lecture by some jaded college official. Not that anyone in FLAME is jaded in any way, but as a general figure of speech. Those of you that actually do know me or have read anything I've written know that I'm blunt to the point of insanity. This is going to be a completely honest story. I'm going to take all of you through the exact mental process I went through while joining FLAME. A lot of it might not be nice, and a lot of it might make you think that FLAME isn't that great of a place. Just remember one thing as you read this though. I'm going to FLAME, and I haven't regretted this decision in the slightest.

I first heard about FLAME from my Uncle, Dr. Ravi Paturi. I wasn't interested at all, in the beginning. I wanted to go to Manipal and do my Engineering in Computer Science. My Uncle, in all fairness, did try to convince me and my Dad. He showed us a booklet that FLAME published known as 'Yatra'. I'm sure many of you who are joining in the same year as I am have seen it. I thought that thing was a joke. It was pathetic, since it didn't tell you anything about the Institute or the teachers, or even what it was. It was a weird poetic verse about a bunch of guys who got lost, and then dreamed about building an Institute. Oh, and I also got a CD with a bunch of architectural drawings. Compare that with Manipal, it's history, and it's renowned reputation. Not a match, right? That's what I figured, and threw the packet away. I didn't even think about it again. Sure, my Uncle did come over and discussed it with my Dad, but I never really paid attention.

I think I started to change my mind about Manipal, and Engineering as a whole, in February, one month before my exams. I had lots of time on my hands, so I began looking into it. Manipal's illustrious history seemed a little odd to me at that time. Studying exactly what was given, writing exams, and then forgetting about it really didn't appeal to me. Nor did the rather horrid selection of extra-curricular activities. So I started looking for alternatives. The best thing that I found at that time, was to take a gap year and apply somewhere abroad. Then exams started, and my time to contemplate was severely limited.

As exams went on, I saw all my friends obsessing over colleges and streams. None of them actually cared about what they would go onto to do, but more about what college they got into and what kind of a name it had. They were all content with getting into a software company, and then living an ordinary, happy life. I never wanted something like that. Between them, their choices, and the limiting choices in India I pretty much decided to take a gap year right there, or get into a program at Manipal and then go into a different profession altogether. Perhaps Biomedical Engineering, and then Medical School in the U.S.A.

Then my Uncle took me to the Group Discussion and Interview for the second test. It was at a hotel called Taj Mahal. The place looked nice, but it had awful food. Mind you, that was partially my mistake. Never go into a restaurant famed for it's South Indian dishes and order North Indian food. It never comes out good. I met some of the kids going to FLAME, and they were pretty interesting. Then I met Professor Himanshu, and General Mehta. That's when FLAME started to look like a place of interest to me. I came home, looked up the FLAME website and ran a Google Search on FLAME. The most interesting hit I got was for Rashmi Bansal's blog. For those of you that don't know, Rashmi is the Editor for a popular college magazine called JAM. It features stuff like campus surveys, fests going on, exams, issues in colleges, etc. Pretty good read. She wrote about FLAME, and it got me even more interested. Here's the link, if any of you haven't seen it yet:

http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2007/05/flame-foundation-for-liberal-and.html

So, as I was saying, I explored the website for a while. Looked up the curriculum, the Five Universes, and then went to faculty. That was what really surprised me. What I saw wasn't a group of your run-in-the-mill professors who join a starting institute for the hell of it. These were established people with good jobs and standing in Education. So I looked them up, one by one, and I was impressed even more with everything I saw. Still, the lure of being able to have a degree from a place like Manipal, and applying for my M.D/P.H.D program in a place like NYU seemed worth four years of torture. I still wasn't convinced about FLAME.

Then my Uncle wanted me to take the admission test. I don't know about you guys, but I thought the first part of it was a little silly, especially the verbal section and that kid with the weird brain. The concept was different, and new, but wasn't quite thought out. The Admission Test is mistakenly called a Two-Part test. It's actually three parts. The first one is Multiple choice test, with the verbal and math sections. The second part is the writing sample. The first one was to talk about how to make India a better place. Generic, and fun to write. I didn't have enough time to finish mine. I didn't even form a well written conclusion. I just tried to close it off in the best manner possible in the five minutes that I had. It was awful, trust me. Then they had us looking at pictures and writing a story about them in three minutes. I thought that was weird, mainly because the first few pictures were all about children. Also, three minutes isn't enough time to analyze, depict, and write. You can draw a picture in three minutes, but you can't write in three minutes.

Then came my group discussion and interview. Let me tell you one thing about Interviews. It's awkward enough talking to a stranger about stuff that matters to you, especially when said stranger is there to judge you. It become even more awkward when your very own Uncle, Professor Nagaraj Paturi, is on the panel that listens to you and judges you. When I walked into that room, and saw my Uncle there, the first thought that went through my head was "CRAP!". I honestly didn't know how to react. How would anyone react? Do you talk to your Uncle at an Interview for college? Ask him how your younger cousins are, tell him about your Dad, etc? More importantly I didn't know if Professor Veena Yadav, the other person on the panel, knew about my Uncle. So I made the best decision I could, and pretty much ignored my Uncle throughout the entire thing. I responded to his questions as I would to someone I didn't know. More on the GD though. The topic they picked for us was 'Are we becoming too dependent on Technology?". I thought it was an awful topic. Lucky for me though, they made two mistakes before the Group Discussion.

The first was that they didn't get to know us before selecting the topic. The second was that they gave us a decent amount of time to get to know each other. So as soon as it started, I went first. That gave me an opening to steer the topic away from something as silly as "OMFG TECHNOLOGU NUUU!!!!", to something like "How is Technology affecting the Indian Economy today?". We had a great discussion on that, with the exception of two people. We were a group of six, by the way.

During my Interview, I had a chance to talk to Professor Veena Yadav, who impressed me as much as Professor Himanshu did. These were people who were interesting, and I had so much I could learn from them. Not only in terms of their respective subjects and areas, but beyond the classroom. That was pretty much what sealed the deal for me. Great professors, great curriculum, and a diverse and interesting student body. What more could a person ask for, with the exception of Unlimited coke and a Pizza Hut and Dominos on campus?

So, I got accepted, and am now joining FLAME.