The Fine Print Issue Two, March 2015 | Page 2

Issue Two has landed, and, as you’ll see, it follows closely on the heels of its immediate predecessor - plus additions to make up for the atrocious lack of academic and career coxswaining. Cue postgraduate studies, search for greener pastures in the academia and inciting the entrepreneurship culture - flip to pages five and six; we might help prick your ambitious self. “Some of us are so busy worrying about the next first-hour tutorial test, we seem to believe that there is nothing great about academics. Don’t get me wrong. My CGPA is probably lower than anyone who will read this post. But I genuinely believe in trying to get what I read. BITS is not obligated to give me marks for that. Things only happen when we do something. Activism changes things. Just writing out the problems doesn’t help. Authorities don’t really need to do anything. One of Over the past five decades, this establishment we are privileged to be the greatest things about our Oases and APOGEEs is that they are organized by partaking from has been the apostle for some of the very best us. Independence is our power, one that we must not trade in for cash.” professionals and flag-bearers of the country. Thumb through the Let’s be objective and do a reality check. To better understand the back catalogue of our illustrious ledger of alumni, and you’ll encounter status quo, we need to do a bit of digging - technical capacity and a sublime gathering of people to look up to. competence of the current breed of BITSians (sounds familiar?) and how the BITS ‘brand’ fares in comparison to the rest of the stalwarts. Touché. Right, here’s some proactive talk. I’m running out of space in this little reserved column for an exposition of this data, but, I can assure you that the result is about as They’re all gone and we begin anew after every iteration of our online understated as a brick to the face. entrance test. There is no modicum of conviction in believing that an illustrious heirloom promises a bright prospect for yourself. “We do Mildly disparaging. Notwithstanding, we do witness quite a few flashes not,” and I quote, “prop into one end of a conveyer belt and come of excellence. out spick and spam on the other.” So, we’re still at the helm of undergraduate excellence in our country, There is perhaps no engineering establishment in the country where correct? Naturally, as long as you can keep the shiny side up, you’ve the public perception of the Institute is further removed from the cracked it. Surely? Threadbare, rather. reality than ours. Alright - that was me being unreasonable, but, we Yes, I kid you. bask in the glory of our long obsolete test scores and refuse to take Let’s not be of the mentality, “been there, done that, bought the Tmeaningful leaps ahead that are orders of magnitude more substantial. shirt.” The idea is best summed up by a recent opinion from our reader: IG, Angad, Pranita, Spriha, Siddhant, Tanya; Ajay Ramya, Debolina, Kruti, Neel, Nithya, Passey, Prateek, Ritvik, Sahil D, Sahil K, Shalaka, Shashank, Shruti, Steffie, Viraj; Ananth, Anish, Archit, Madhusudan, Pratik, Rahul, Rusheen, Soumya, Srishti, Tanay, Tanmayee, Vijay; Akhilesh, Danish, Deeksha, Devina, Gayatri, Lasya, Manesh, Sanket, Shubham, Vaishnavi, Venu, Vishal, Yimkum; Niharika, Pranav, Prayaag, Rishabh, Saylee, Sibesh. Introducing: Gautham, Lalit WE TURN BACK THE DIAL TO THIS VERY MONTH, DIG THROUGH OUR ARCHIVES TO BRING YOU SLICES FROM PILANI’S PAST BACKGROUND CHECK M. C. Pandey was the first competitor in the instrumental section. He and Ajay Goel, who followed him, played on electric guitars and enthralled the audience. They won the first and third prize respectively. Krishnamurthy on piano won the second place. J. S. Gill, who played accordion, was not up to the expectations we had of him. The BITS Beat is the first student publication of BITS Pilani, the predecessor of The Fine Print and Cactus Flower alike. The first edition came out in print in August 3, 1964, packing its pages with fine specimens of journalistic and literary prowess from the students. We take the pleasure of bringing you some of that zest and It was while Krishnamurthy was playing gusto