A Surprising Outcome

At the start of this semester, everything seemed to be working against me. The Cultural Council was demanding more time than ever - from much more work in Kshitij (particularly the recruitment) than I had ever imagined to the Freshers' Debate to the Mock PD. A new set of challengers had emerged in CE-III, all with the sudden realization that a high CGPA does matter. As if that were not enough, the subjects and the people who taught them were well below the standards expected.

With all this in mind, I was confident that my CGPA would take a hit this time. Ah, but destiny had something else in mind! Thanks to a few words of advice from my mentor and friend, I put my extra-curricular work and rather average performance behind me and worked on the ETE, complete with a study schedule (poorly followed, as always) and a number of textbooks (three for CE-311!). And here are the results.

The two biggest surprises were CE-311 and CE-351, in which I had badly messed up the MTEs. Thanks to some very kind tutors and exceptionally good ETEs, I cracked these two, with an A+ apiece. IEQ-04 was bang on target, with a total of 91/100 guaranteeing me an A+ even if it went to absolute grading (which it didn't thanks to a kind professor). CE-321 was always a turntable sort of subject and whether the Camp was counted or not, the A+ came as a pleasant surprise, since I had factored in an A initially.

CE-331 was a relief, despite the A. This subject saw totals reaching 96/100 and with a clear bias in favour of girls. Therefore, the gradient was pretty steep, with grades changing very quickly. Just getting into the A-band was an achievement in itself. Nonetheless, I did manage to learn something from this, an I look forward to its follow-on course, CE-332. CE-341 was a pretty similar story, although this time, I had the highest score, but got just an A because the HOD intervened to see that nobody got an A+. It was arbitrary interference and thoroughly unfair, if not illegal by the Institute's rules. But what can one do when even the faculty can't take him on? The good news is that 2012 is his last year in that position and his heir-apparent is a reasonable man indeed.

So, with such a high SG, I managed to break my own record which was 9.673 (end of 1-2, the Golden Semester). Because of the pathetic subjects, I won't call this another golden semester. Maybe next time?