Indian exports, naukri (job) and general news

So I recently joined the fresh crop of graduates from US universities to start work in the silicon valley - as software makers. Feels such a stereotypical kinda situation - u come to the US - get into a univ - slog it out - graduate - get a job at a big software company doing what u did the past 6 years in college - only this time people actually use ur buggy code!!!! Or as in my case - enterprises not people.

Anyhow - this is not about what i am doing or not doing - may be more on that later - but for now - i actually wanted to write more about this incident that happened about 2 weeks ago. I had gone to a community fare in San Jose with my cousins - i have a very beautiful 7 year old cousin sister and the funnest 13 year old cousin brother in the area - and the 7 year old had a dance performance on the Falguni Pathak number - meine payal hai chankayi. I went along with them to check this event out and also see my cousin on stage and boy was i surprised with what i saw there. I saw americans from various backgrounds and races dancing to Falguni's tunes! Of course u may say that this is nothing out of the ordinary. But but...when u see people - hispanics, blacks, whites, asians alike - matching or trying to match foot steps with Falguni Pathak's steps - its an amazing feeling.

What i think is that our music/films/art is a very important export. So i mean although we have mangoes, basmati rice, software, etc which we export - but stuff like arts and entertainment is something which touches the people of other countries much more than most of the other things. And in that - we should take pride. When talking to a (american) friend here - i was introduced to this rather trivial but still new concept of why american culture is so popular - america related tshirts so ubiquitous and why people in general around the world are in awe of america - its Hollywood!! People like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie etc are all over the world and star in such larger than life flicks that people associate america with that and well the rest is obvious observation and left as an exercise in self-discovery to the reader (c'mon u know u like amreeka mostly coz u see good stuff in the movies!!).

Anyways - coming back to where i started from - the new shift into job life from college life sometimes makes me feel like the name of this blog is kinda unfitting. But since i did not want to be pigeon holed into this softechie kinda guy who makes a living out of writing buggy code and then parties on the weekends/pays bills and rinses and repeats - i am doing a bunch of other stuff too - which involves thinking about playing soccer!! :D But more seriously - take a look at kaaledge.com - this is my effort in trying to give something back to people - Oprah said this will help in compounding ur happiness!! So - Oprah - i am following ur principles - the idea is to help students with their preparation to study abroad - specifically in the US.

I think i have had a good run at this - my own preparation was good and went thru a lots of ups and downs and then saw the game from the other side of the table - was part of the admissions committee at Stanford CS dept - so i think i am in a good spot to help students out. Also - i answer specific queries about the application process here: www.kaaledge.com/forums and basically just blog and interview people here: www.kaaledge.com - there are other contributors also - which you can know more about on the site.

Moving On...

So finally I saw my name among the list of people who are going to get their degrees from the CS department day before yesterday. And only then did i heave a sigh of relieve - I am actually going to end my college days after 6 years!! 6 very event full year!! I might come back actually, back to college - I kinda have this feeling. For now though, its finally time to face the big bad world, the real world - and I am excited.

I feel like I have been able to take a lot out of my years in college, my education and the people i have met along the way. And I want to give back some of that. So here is my plan - I now going to help out people with ambitions of studying at American universities in their application processes and related stuff. I think after being part of the Computer Science Admissions Committee at Stanford, i have a fair bit of understanding as to how the process works and as such having gone through it myself - successfully - and having helped a bunch of my friends - it looks like the next step is to take it forward and help people coming next.

So, please visit kaaledge.com - (kaal as in time, edge as in edge - get the edge in this age!) - my friends who have themselves been involved in the admission procedures of the University of California and Cornell University are also going to assist me on this website. Your questions are welcome - here kaaledge.com/forums.

Here is what we are going to tackle:

• Not sure which colleges you should apply to given the 1000s of colleges out there? Worry not - we can help you with that.
• Not sure what should be put down in your SOP? We have written and seen many successful essays, we can help you here.
• Not aware of what a good recommendation should say - we got you covered.
• And all your other what , where and how questions!!

So, i will continue to blog - personal stuff here - but college related stuff goes onto kaaledge.com!!

So see you on kaaledge guys!!