Farewell

Here is the speech i gave yesterday in the auditorium of our college for the BE farewell
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Hi everyone! Good morning and welcome to all who have gathered here today!

I’ll try my best to avoid the “Papa Kehte speeches of koi engineer ka kaam karega, business mein koi apna naam karega”


Its kind of funny that we have got to bid farewell to this college today only to come back in a few days to give our vivas and 8th sem exams. But then I guess we have to make do with what we have, and I’m happy that I got a chance to speak to all my friends from college on this occasion

I think that a farewell speech is probably the ONLY speech where students actually listen to the speaker (well I am hoping at least that is the case right now!)

Now that I have your undivided attention, let me share a few experiences I had during the past 4 years of my life in K.J Somaiya Engineering.

It was a scary feeling when all of us got in this college through the admission rounds at VJTI. When I came out of the inner hall with the confirmation slip in my hand I hardly knew anything about the college. It was chosen only for its proximity to my place. And what a decision it was – in return for an engineering seat in an unknown college I got back innumerable friends and loads of good times.

First Year Engineering must be THE most memorable year for any of the students out here. I think all of us would agree that the Symphony during our First Year –when Parikrama had been here - was the best one we had. The best part about FE was that the college management had not divided the students according to branches. This gave us a chance to interact with people from all the branches for one whole year. This helped a lot by keeping us acquainted, even when we were separated from the second year onwards. I can remember it clearly - FE classes in the old workshop building with temperatures reaching boiling point, all students fresh HSC graduates- absolutely clueless about what engineering is going to be like and the best part was - no screams of BE COMPS BE MECH or any form of branch rivalry. We all were the same and we all became close buddies.

From Second year onwards we all got into the mould of our respective branches. Personally, I got a taste of what Computer Engineering is like. I don’t know about you guys, but I had NO clue what Computer Engineering was about when I took admission. My knowledge of hardware was restricted upto which cd-writer was the cheapest and that of software was whether the latest computer game has cheat codes or not. It was a bit tough initially. The only difference we could make out then was that instead of writing assignments about Trusses and Kirchoff’s Law, we were writing even lengthier ones about stacks and queues. On one occasion, I recall we had even written a 40 page assignment and the total submission file size had exceeded more than 200 pages! But, as we all started learning, I realized it wasn’t such a bad deal after all. The fundamentals that were taught to us then helped a lot for courses in the next year.

The Third year got us firmly entrenched in the grind. The most significant memory was the House Cup that was started by the earlier council. It was an amazing event and really helped in building the inter branch-rivalry. Most of our college placements took soon after third year and lot of people got into good companies.

The Final Year has been an altogether different engineering degree by itself. Working on the BE Project, maintaining 75% attendance, completing journals, appearing for vivas, giving other competitive exams and the actual semester exam required the skill of a professional. However, all said and done, at the end of it, all of us have come through stronger. It has been the most eventful year of out engineering. The people who were unlucky earlier have got placed. We have geniuses who got calls from the IIMs, those applying for Masters degrees abroad have got admits from superb universities.

I think all of us can be sure of becoming fabulous managers after going through the past 4 years. We might not have sharpened our technical skills yet, but we definitely come up champions in time management. I think we can safely claim that engineers are the absolute masters of handling stress and work overload. If not in our technical aptitude as compared to the IITs, we can easily beat them in task execution capabilities! Now whether these qualities are inculcated in us by educational institutes intentionally or not is a different issue altogether!

It is a funny system – submission files over which you have toiled hard every semester getting holes punched right through them as soon as you give them, revaluation results declaring you have passed sometimes coming after you have given the KT exam. I don’t know whether it is BECAUSE of the system or INSPITE of the system, but the reality is that each and every one of us today has a bright future lined up for us. And it is after all due to our own - K.J Somaiya College of Engineering. I am indeed grateful to every person here involved in the process of making us into engineers. However, lets face it. Life begins on the day we step out, graduating from this college. What we had till now was a protected environment. Our biggest nightmare till now was something like not getting our certification in time. Now, bigger challenges lie ahead in life. But because of the last 4 years, this time, we know one thing for sure - we can handle anything that comes our way. Thank you very much.
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I am really glad i got this chance to express my views yesterday. It was a wonderful farewell with all the final year engineering students venting out their frustrations at the system yet rekindling fond memories. I will always remember these 4 years throughout my life. am sure same is the case with everyone who was with me in college.