As I had predicted, the last week of training was hectic, chaotic and crazy. Although we ended up leaving the whole project simulation in jeopardy, we learned a lot of things, especially how things that work smoothly at one second can go wrong very very wrong the next second.
I had decided beforehand that I would volunteer for roles that I want to do in my career, and that at the same time would leave me out of my comfort zone. I played the BA role for two days, and although I made lots of mistakes, I did certain things well. I was appreciated for the e-mails I sent out that day. And I got some nice feedback from the head of training, and I am sure his words will help me in my way forward.
Once BA-ing was out of the way, I was ready for some coding. But it was a learning experience in itself. On the first day of coding, I and pair spent the whole day staring at our monitor wondering why something ridiculously simple did not work the way it was supposed to do. Later in the day, we discovered that it was because somebody had written code that was simply swallowing an exception instead of throwing it up or doing something about it then and there. One feedback that I had got from my Dev trainers had warned me of exactly this sort of a thing happening, and I could see why he was very serious about this issue.
The next day was luckier for me, as the pair I was part of actually managed to contribute towards completing one functionality. And we were given the t-shirts that we would wear for our graduation from TWU. During the night, I had to spend some time (read the whole night) trying to re-factor the code I had written for my assignment. In the morning, I was too tired, too sleepy and too giddy to wake up and could not attend the project simulation. I turned up in the afternoon, and found all my colleagues having lots of fun, playing dodge-ball. I learned that the project simulation had failed.
We had a graduation ceremony at the office. Receiving the certificate from the MD, wearing our special edition t-shirts and graduation hats was a great experience. I wonder why Kerala University cannot have a graduation ceremony for B.Tech students.
TWU-14 graduates. I am somewhere in there, even I dont know where I am!
In the evening, we had a graduation party at a nice place called ‘Take5’. The food was great, and all souls who enjoy alcohol had an even better time. I sat there with my glass of orange juice. While there was party around us in full flow, I had a nice conversation with a co-worker about philosophy and how life is sometimes very unfair. Intellectually stimulating conversation in a not-so-simulating environment! But I had to leave early, as I had to head home and appear at the Regional Passport Office, Malappuram to prove that I was indeed Sadique Ali K M. More about the passport story later!
The university experience was great, and I learned a lot from trainers and co-workers, met lots of interesting people and made friends with some of them.