FE, meet the Results. Results, meet an FE.

Like almost 70% of all the readers here, Engineering was a choice preferred by my 'parents' for me. IITs, NITs, BITS and Autonomous Institutions of my state. After aiming for every step of this descending order of hierarchy, even my CET score came low and I was doomed to choosing a college affiliated to Mumbai University based on my positive AIEEE score. Choosing the college was a tough task, as I come under the sincere student category which also may fit a bit of fun in it. The schoolish strict colleges caught my parents' attention first and I was admitted into one.

FE orientation did nothing but disorient me more, as the impressive seniors that looked really happy with our college talked nothing about the academics in their speeches. There was one guy who had topped the university in two consecutive years from our college, but he kept adjusting his glasses during his speech. (I detest glasses.) I kept wondering why every professor was trying to assure us that 'there will be no ragging inside the campus as we have taken the necessary measures to prevent ragging'. It felt like they're trying too hard to keep us safe, another cause of intimidating the vulnerable freshers.

We were christened with a common name, 'FE'. Every FE had a same face, easily spotted by a rowdy looking senior within 10m radius. Within a week of my college days, we were introduced to various student bodies who advertised their groups occasionally so that they can bag most of the loyal enthusiasts from FEs. The office staff felt like they'll treat us as helpless and hopeless 'customers' for the rest of our life to be spent here. The professors were sympathetic, but expected us to behave with the air of learning an undergrad course. Nobody explained their expectations and we chose to be indifferent about them. The Freshers night was super fun as defined by seniors, strange to the newly introduced FEs. As far as the upcoming events were concerned, they did attract me a bit. But the overload of 6 subjects to be covered in 4 months (with that level of excellence in guidance from Professors) forced me to say, "abhi ke liye reandey, next sem yeh sab karenge."

So then, tutorials, practicals, assignments, Maths, BEE, CP and Mech all decided to share the first position on my hit-list. The only massbunk executed by my class took attention of our principal and we were given punishments along with a letter to our parents. "We've chosen a good college for you so that you will learn better. We're providing you with everything you need, you making the best out of it is our only humble hope. Still we get such letters from your headmaster! That is a shame." were their words of condolence. So I decided to give a break to the imaginary freedom I had expected to encounter during Engineering and concentrate on studies. My participation during our cultural and technical festivals was of sitting at home, staying away from ragging-causing-senioria and dealing with Transformers and Trusses. (Every line of this paragraph has implicit ':-/' smiley after it.)

We were hardly out of the traumatic vivas and practicals when the exams hit us. My papers went well, not-bad category. I had written what all I knew well, went out of time for Physics and Chemistry papers. As expected, Mech and BEE were worse than 'as-expected'. Still, a proper checking would yield me minimum 50+ in every subject, was my deduction. When you are a 85+ scorer in 10th and 12th, you have this habit of judging your own paper from the examiner's point of view and calculating the minimum in your head to tell 5% less than your minimum expectation at home as your expected score. Once my parents said, "hmph.. we'll see" after hearing my expectations, I was a free bird to enjoy vacations!

New sem started and a month passed by so quickly, that no one even noticed! Everyone started to talk about the results. Some nerds from my division found a 'quick news about MU results' community over facebook and kept posting the updates on news feed.

Finally, the dreaded day arrived. I was with my school friends in the evening when my best friend from class texted me, 'results are out! iPassed!' I ran back home, searched for my hall ticket and put on my internet. 'MODEM is a device that can annoy you at perfectly the wrong time' should've been an acceptable definition of MODEM in BEE. After some time, that DSL LED stopped blinking and I got proper connection. www.mu.ac.in had an attractive 'New' flashing beside First Year Engineering Results which lead me to entering my number and hitting 'submit'.

FAILED
They don't need to type it in bold caps.
I had failed. For the first time in my life, my mark-sheet would have that remark. These are daemons, they don't publish your results in detail. Which subject, by how many marks, what went wrong, is there a hope for clearing in reval? Nothing. I had to wait for my college to display the results, which anyone, EVERYONE from my college would be able to read. I decided not to tell at home before actual results came out, but my mum got a call from her friend whose son was all clear and I had to break my secret to her. Her first reaction was a sad face. I knew dad's would be worse, he would look disappointed. It kills way more painfully than suicide to face a disappointed parent. I cried whole night and slept unknowingly when my head was tired of bursting with repeated "why me?"s and "please NOT me"s.

On Monday, I checked my result in college. I had cleared the rest of the subjects with 45-50 marks, got 39* in Mech but 23 of us in a row got 12-27 in CP with an 'F'. I pushed back my tears. My friends were there consoling me that it happens. Even when I said, "I know this cannot happen, my paper was good", they nodded with sympathy which added to my misery. Some of the seniors I'd known by then told me that it'll all be fine. Some encouraged by saying, "reval hai na" while some chose to be practical and say, "KT is a part of Engineering. You'll lose nothing. Placement me koi nahi poochta, calm down..."

I'm gonna let this post end here. I might clear my exam in revaluation, or might earn more KTs next sem, or might clear CP in coming year. The truth is, what might happen ahead changes nothing in the present about my past. This wasn't my first failure, and this won't be my last. So is the case with success. And it's not about failure or success anyway. It's about how I get ready to face what comes my way.

At least I'm glad to know Engineering better now.