Campus interview - Nostalgia

The good ol days from college pass before my eyes as I view the ocean of hopeful interviewees sitting in front of me, looking at me like I am some hotshot and treating me with such reverance and respect. It embarasses me even as it amuses me.

I had gone to a campus interview yesterday!

We, the panelists, were all asked to come to the auditorium where the kids were all waiting to be introduced to us. As soon as we entered the hall, the whole student body got up and for a startled moment I just stood there not sure what to do. That was when all my college memories came rushing at me. I too remembered the respect ingrained in us, to stand whenever a teacher entered. It pained me to see all the hopeful faces, for i knew i was going to have to reject some of them. But I was also soothed, for i knew i was going to select some of them and hence change the course of their lives, a very powerful feeling and an even greater responsiblity.

I knew, when i sat at the interview panel, exactly how the kid sitting opposite me felt. I too had sat in their seat and looked up at an interviewer with hope shining bright in my heart. Knowing this was where my life was going to change and a new path was going to open for me. But what I did not realise then was that the interviewer was a human too with pretty much the same insecurities and fears.

It was the first campus interview I was part of. The first candidate I got was a EEE student. God! i think i was more nervous than the kid. Having been a computer student myself I had absolutely no clue what to ask him. I was all prepared for C and C++ and Java, but what the heck do I know about electrical and electronics. I hemmed and hawed and dredged what little i could remember from my UG and got through with it *phew*

There were quite a few funny incidents that I was planning to share with you all, but somehow now it seems cruel to do so for it would be too much like I was making fun of the kids.

So let me just finish it by saying I had great fun and they presented me with a wrist watch for my efforts (a gents wrist watch at that ... :-p)


ps: I didn't realise what an avid blogger i had become until it struck me that i was writing this blog in my mind, even as I was interviewing the kids...