Dear IT Fresher :Chapter7: Do's and Dont's in Training

For previous chapters refer to
Previous Chapters

Internet Access:
  All Software It companies do have internet access. All companies have their own internet policy. Companies may restrict internet access based on grades and project needs. During the training days need for internet would be minimal as you would be busy in training and assignments. However to clear some doubts you may use the internet. Some companies do restrict internet access times and especially for trainees this need is not seen.
Use internet diligently, do not let your facebook and twitter access to overshadow the work at hand. Some people may get carried away with full unlimited internet access and leave the focus from training which could prove disastrous.
We would see internet access and policies in detail in a separate chapter later.

E-mail :
 Everyone will have an unique e-mail id created with <company>.com domain. The intention of this id is only for official purposes and the company has every right to inspect and review the mail box. Yes most companies do not mind using this for personal mail but one has to be aware that there is nothing personal in this mailbox. Any admin who has access to the server can read your mails and it is legally allowed.
Given this fact, unless and until something suspicious is happening no one will really sneak in to your inbox. However it is better to keep personal things private and official things official.

Intranet Forum Usage:
Most companies have common public forums within the company similar to many internet public forums. The forums could vary from totally junk items to very specific technical forums. The technical forums usually do not pose problems, even as a fresher you maybe welcome to post very basic queries and some nice techie guy would reply to you.  However it is not advisable to post your assignment here and ask for an answer.
The junk and general discussion forums usually needs some care in what you post. One is certainly not expected to post items favoring a political party or questioning a corporate policy.  However each company will have a policy to draw the lines and these forums are more actively monitored to identify trouble makers. There have been cases where people have been asked from posting apology letters to leaving the company.

Vandaloor zoo review/ Arignar anna zoological park review

Vandaloor zoo or more officially called the arignar anna zoological park is located on the outskirts of Chennai. It is around 6 Kms from Tambaram. This is my attempt to review this place as I hapenned to visit it recently.

Getting there:
Getting there is very easy, though on the outskirts it has very good connectivity.
By Rail, one can catch the local train and get down at Vandalur station. The station is 1 Km from the zoo and can be reached by walk or auto. Though I would not recommend walking as there is lot of walking to be done inside and one should not get tired even before starting. Auto charges around 50 rupees which is high considering the short distance. One can also cross the road from the railway station and catch any bus that goes and get down at the next stop. This would work out cheap.

Best time to get there:
It is always better to go early. 9;30 to 5:30 is the timings. If you plan to go to the zoo on a holiday, it is most likely that there are many people like you. Irrespective of the amount of time you plan to stay, unless you plan to walk 10kms, it is good to be there before 10.

How to see around:
There are multiple ways. walk would be best if you want to see everything but one needs lot of energy and packed food for doing that. It also depends on time you have to go around.
2 hrs: Go early and book the battery car ticket. It goes around for 1 hour or so covering major areas and stopping for main attractions (white tiger, tiger, snakes, hippo). Then one can go around attractions near the gate (varieties of monkeys/baboons etc, aquarium)
4 hrs: Do the battery car and also book the lion safari or hire a cycle and go around
full day: do all of the above maybe walk too

Food:
Better to take own food but plastics are not allowed, they pack them outside in paper and give it to you.  Have not heard good about canteens there but near entrance some food is available

Latest update  (5-Jun-13) : Outside food is not allowed as a deer died after eating a plastic bag. Not sure if this will change in future.

cost:
Not much entrance, bus, safari all cost 30 rupees each.

 cons:
1. Its great to see animals roaming in free area but not in a cage. However they seem far away and need zoom lens for good photos. Small Kids may not be so excited as they are far away.

Otherwise the best and cheapest way to spend ur day with kids

Dear IT Fresher : Chapters

This is a collection of all chapters of "Dear IT Fresher" series. I will update this post as and when a new chapter is written

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities
The Training Period -1
The Training Period -2
The Training Period - 3 

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 6: The Training Period -3 - Do's and Don'ts

Well the training period is your first chance in to the corporate world. You are still not there yet, this is a first step in to it. However please remember that you already are a professional.
Well Congratulations but do remember to behave like one :)

The corporates are pretty much aware that they are taking a bunch of old teenagers in to their campus and hence would have their rule book ready. Most of which would be told or shown or incorporated in to you during orientation.

The first Do would be to follow the rules told clearly.

One very frequently broken rule would be Gaming. Well some companies are smart enough to prevent any form of media from entering their campuses and do not provide a chance to enter their PCs. Well I know some big companies feel it is a perk they give employees and care less.  They may feel as a big corporate it is responsible to allow people to relax and play a bit. You are lucky if you are in one of them but mostly it would be a strict No during training. It would be best advised to keep the Road Rash and Age of Empires away from the training period.  If you want to relax, take a walk, have  a nice cup of tea. Take a stroll to see if really those big pictures you see in media about the company are real.

Second Do would be make friends

This is probably easy for most people but for those who have more friends in facebook than in real life, maybe its time to find new ones. One can say that it depends on the person and one cannot be forced to make friends.
It has multiple benefits. First it helps to build the habit of making friends, since in a big company one would be changing projects frequently, on the average maybe once in a year or two. Hence it is very important to have a friends circle to know the knitty gritties of a project and the company as a whole.
Next, once you are a professional you spend most of your time awake at office. Hence it is important to enjoy and have a life at office apart from work. Besides it is these co-workers who would help you out on a rough day.
The most important benefit especially during training time is the benefit of exchanging notes/ code/ assignments. the concept of copying your friends notes from college may also extend to your training period as well.  For some assignments, it maybe needed that you just copy paste someone's code , rename the variables and submit :) Well it is not ethical, maybe your first unethical corporate act but it happens and it works.

PS: What I thought would be small topic is extending. Some more to come.

Traffic lights in India

One can see traffic signal at many intersections in major cities and in tier-2/3 cities as well .
I was just wondering to what use are these traffic lights when no one cares for it.

On thinking further I realised the following uses

1) For vendors and beggars, traffic lights are the major source of income. When vehicles from all corners come and merge at a junction with no one paying heed to the lights above, the signal becomes a market place. When the traffic becomes lengthy and time taken is more there is a good opportunity to increase the rate or even double it. Hence traffic signals are useful in developing the economy of the nation.

2) For teaching children colours, mainly green and red. However one has to be careful not to teach them that red means stop and green means go as any amount of such assumption reduces ones life expectancy.

3) Checking for cops - this is a very useful benefit of traffic lights. It provides an opportunity for a semi-stop/slow down to ensure no cops are there to catch.

4) For continuing vehicular fights, someone might have brushed you half a kilometer ago and now he might be stuck in the jam. This provides an opportunity for you to give him a piece of your mind or hand.

Some foreigner once asked
"In India do you drive right or left"
The reply was
"Neither"
!!!
"Well right in the middle and when any vehicle comes from opposite side just move to any side you wish"

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 5: The Training Period - 2

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities
The Training Period -1


Every company spends lakhs of rupees to get you trained. Hence it is ensured that you get trained and get trained well. If you do not fit you are shown the door. This is also a period where companies try to test how you perform under pressure. It is very important to perform under pressure and not loose all hope. This is an essential character that one needs to display in the software industry.

The training period would vary from company to company but the content taught would be squeezed.
What content is taught during the training depends on the focus of the company and your background. The course for a computer science student would be different from that of a civil/Mechanical background person.

It may start from 'this is a keyboard, this is a mouse, MOUSE stands for ...' and it will end up in you designing/coding and delivering  a web page for a big company using flash, HTML and all latest languages and technologies - all in a span of 3 to 6 months.

Hence it is important to focus , the tests would be online and mostly multiple choice questions or programs to be written online. It is mostly not possible to copy, it is not possible if you remember the entire content of the material provided. It may not be enough if you manage to get previous questions from previous batches.

One has to understand the underlying concepts and apply them. One also has to be clear on the question, as in programming a small mistake would change the results (using = Vs ==) dramatically.

The training is neither a school nor a college nor a free for all. It takes the worst of all and combines them. Some companies take attendance 4 times a day during training period. If you do not believe read the first statement of this chapter again.

It is not difficult to clear the training , at the same time it is much much easier to fail. For some, this maybe the first time that someone encounters a failure in exams but one has to be bold enough as well to re write the test and clear it.

When you join a project later, your project manager may have full access to your score and this may affect the first impression he/she gets about you and it may stay for long.

Hence it is important to treat the training with importance. Yes there may be times when you can copy paste the answer or copy a program/project from earlier batches but ensure you get across the line.

The training period is the time where you would find the least support in a company and if you are lucky maybe the most difficult time of your career. Hence give it the due diligence and just get it over. Better days are waiting where things would be more in your control.

However if you do not clear please be assured that this is not the end of life.

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 4: The Training Period-1

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities


Nasscom says most of engineers coming out of colleges are not employable.  For this very reason most or all of IT companies train employees from 1 to 3 months or even more and then only deploy freshers on project. Again once inside the project there would be a training on specifics that we would see in later chapters.

If you feel that your studying is over and you have done a good job and have landed in a plush job and achieved life's goal and can relax and enjoy the money and freedom. THINK AGAIN.
Indian cricket team reached No1 ranking in tests in 2011 after a lot of hard work but came a cropper against England and Australia and were unable to maintain the ranking. This is exactly what could happen to you if you are complacent .

Personally I know people who have been kicked out of companies when they do not do well in the training period. As someone rightly said "DON'T LOVE YOUR COMPANY, YOUR COMPANY DOES NOT LOVE YOU". For the company it is business and if they find that you do not fit to professional environment then you don't fit here.

Every company has its own style of training program, which has evolved over the years based on feedback from various quarters (projects, engineers etc). You will receive your training plan and schedule as soon as you join probably on the first day itself. If you carefully observe the plan it maybe scheduled for 8 hours tightly but be prepared to spend extra 2 to 3 hours to complete your assignments. You will be given time to finish the assignments but be prepared to put extra effort if you could not finish on time.

A simple approach could be to switch off the fact that you are working and think you are in a High school/ Junior college. The treatment would be same. Ofcourse no one would question you for not doing an assignment or punish you but everything would reflect in the final marks scored per subject. The pass marks are usually very strict and if you fail you would be given a second chance but beyond a second chance, depends on companies policies.

Some companies conduct another interview or a viva, Some prefer to wait till you finish all courses and see if you are weak in only one subject or so . However in every training batch it is possible that 1 to 3% of people are sent back home/ asked to resign/ Terminated for non-performance. It must be your aim not to fall in this percentage.  It is very easy to fall in to this percentage if you treat this like a college and do not have prior knowledge on subjects.

Most big and medium companies have dedicated training centers with world class facilities and probably have hostels as well attached. There would be a library which would be well equipped with books for reference and with internet facilities. You would be allocated a system or need to share with someone a system. It may or may not have internet but would be well equipped with what you need to work.

It would be better to follow the KISS principle.(Keep It Simple Stupid).

You have crossed 14years of school, 4 years of engineering, it is not very difficult to cross 3 or 6 months of company training. All you need to do is do the basics right. It would be a bit difficult if you are from a  course that is not related to computers (civil, mech, chemical metallury etc). However the company that recruited you knows this well so the courses are designed in such a way that anyone with logical sense could understand an clear it.

It is not that difficult to get past this phase and then it is a different world altogether.
There are a few more things to note during training in the next chapter...