Life is a rollercoaster.....

At the stroke of midnight, when I was gazing at the stars from my window, I just looked at my life path right from my childhood till this 25 years...then my heart said....Life is definitely a roller coaster....some really great moments...some really bad disappointments and depression....Its quite obvious that even Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had ups and downs in their lives...No individual can say they just had great moments and no disappointments...if anybody says so...I would like to meet them....:D Just thought I can narrate some of my ups and downs which I experienced in this 25 years span of time....

It all started when I wrote my 12th standard board exam with the ambition of being an engineer or doctor...fortunately ended up with both the seats...certainly a moment which I cherished for some days...but unfortunately created all sort of confusion in my fickle mind and ultimately ended up in fiasco in choosing one...nevertheless I will never regret my decision now....certainly a good start to my rollercoaster ride at the age of 17....

Nothing great happened in College in the first three years to experience the ups and downs....then came the greatest disappointment in the final year...when I couldnt apply to the US universities with my stupid GRE scores...but soon complemented by one of the finest memories....my first job in HCL Technologies through campus interview....just enjoyed to the core in the final year of my college by basking on the future job....just thought....life is settled...

But soon I realized actual life started once I started to work in the amidst of the great bug fixers of HCL CISCO....then I could experience downward slope of my roller coaster ride....simply because nothing turned out well in my first job....but let me accept the fact that my attitude wasn't right at that moment to cope up with the pace of sprinters... after some time, the roller coaster ride took me to the upward slope.....job in Cognizant...to be honest...the upward slope of this ride was amazing....good friends....cute-looking girls ;)...decent work....but when I was travelling at the top of this upward slope...I saw another big slope which was far away from this ride....Masters in Germany...I was always skeptical about that ride because it appeared to me really costly and also risky....but then I realized to experience some pleasures....there should always be an element of risk....no pain no gain...so went for the costly and risky ride....Masters in Germany...

To be honest, the starting of this risky ride was awesome...my first great experience in abroad...everything appeared amazing...then slowly the ride went to the downward slope....with hunger, loneliness, homesick, cultural differences, language problem, financials, study cum work...but after sometime...the ride went on at even level for considerable amount of time...and suddenly it started to climb a bit...MBA admission with scholarship and my attitude of globetrotting exploring wonderful places on earth...definitely cherished the upward slope....this upward slope really showed the other side of life with western thinking and great scholars to rub shoulders with...I truely enjoyed this ride....

Definitely a ride with great upward slope should have an equivalent downward slope...and this slope came in the form of my Master Thesis at Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Berlin supposed to be Europe's greatest research institute...if at all I want to forget some moments of my life...it should be none other than my time in Berlin...the topic, the supervisors, the Professor, the job hunting, the loneliness and the depression....searched for some rescuers to help me during that fall of this ride....ultimately ended with only my two souls mom and dad....who helped me to survive that dangerous ride...

Thank god, that ride didn't pull me out, fortunately I reached safely on the ground with some minor injuries....and when I overlook the future rides, it gives me a glance of upward slope, my next job in Germany and I am pretty sure that upward slope will definitely have a downward slope after sometime...and life goes on like this....I should say I thoroughly enjoyed all of my rollercoaster rides....Life has to be that way....otherwise life becomes monotonous....life becomes boring...the taste of success depends on the extent of the defeat....Its very difficult to have a flat ride...because human mind is always demanding...but when one acheives the flat ride thats a clear indication of attaining peace. I am sure everyone reading this article had their rollercoaster rides....ofcourse Life is indeed a rollercoaster, isn't it....:)

Sathish Kumar S

Crazy Night in Berlin

Recently I had a chance to go to Berlin with my classmates just for partying. It was a nice group and a great combination: Andreas the American, Jan Oliver the German, Juan the Mexican, Christoph the Polish. Andreas drove the car, thank god he didnt get drunk while he was driving ;) It was a crazy night, we drank like anything, Jägermeister worked a lot :D and roaming in the streets of Berlin. By the time we went to disco we were all drunk. They didnt allow us to enter in to disco and asked to say the tongue twisters " She sells seashells on the sea shore" hehehee....Thank god we managed to say and entered the dance floor...All in all a great trip....I loved it after the stressful exams :)

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S

Business Planning

Recently I had one of the best course of my MBA studies, Business Planning. The idea of this course is to develop a new product idea, project the budget, profit, cashflows for the overall Business, decide the various marketing strategies and the overall organisation of the Business. Our group introduced the idea of starting the heating system well in advance by sending a simple SMS. It takes considerable amount of time for the heating to take in to effect without automatic heating system. Our product gives the flexibility to start the heating system well in advance so that when the user enters the car its warm and comfortable. We have a microcontroller which gets interfaced with the heating system in the car and GSM receiver is placed inside the mircocontroller to receive the SMS. Of course this product can be replicated to start the ACs in the car in hot countries. I simply loved the task of writing a Business Plan for this product with all the financial calculations. After this course I realized and smelled the idea of starting a Business at some point of time. Great course!!

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S

Strategy

Recently I had one of the best classes in my MBA...Strategy.....conducted by Prof. Carl Joachim Kock from IE Business School, Madrid, Spain...ranked number 8 throught out the world in Business schools...Prof. Kock, M.S and Ph.d from Wharton Business School, Univerisity of Pennsylvania, USA was undoubtedly one of the greatest speakers I have come acros...there were very few Professors who were gifted to make the class lively through out the session....Kock is a gifted speaker....explaining, dwelling, thrashing, dashing the Harvard case studies literally in to pieces....;) I really admire his way of explaning the things....making the concepts of Strategy crystal clear...Its a privilege to attend his class...Thanks to NIT who invited Prof. Kock to give the classes for Strategy...Hats off to Kock!

Sathish Kumar S