Hi, I am a computer science graduate from a well-known university. I belong to a middle class family. In this short story, I am going to describe my experience and thoughts over how friends, relatives, family and this  era of coaching institutes puts an impact (effective impact) on a student’s life and how he reacts on this situation. I have read three models in my carrier and here I will describe pros and cons of each model.

We always hear that the struggle in student’s life starts from industry but according to my opinion the real struggle starts from his college life because an appropriate guidance can make their carrier effective and in lack of appropriate guidance they have to suffer a lot.

I am having a good academic background i.e. first division in school, one time rewarded by chief minister of M.P. for good percentages. I was a bright student and my performance remains consistent in college means I was continuously scoring very high grades and the reason behind this high grades was my sincerity towards college and my daily studying habit. But after two years of my graduation I heard something about an organization of our institute known as Development Center (DC).

DC Model: DC or Development Center was the well-known organization of our institute. It was the place of self-motivated and self-enthusiastic students who wants to do something remarkable for the society by using their tech-skills. This organization contains only 10-12 students with having a superb quote “Keep learning, keep sharing”. DC was popular among all the students because those 10 to 12 students of the organization were having good technical skills and they were capable to challenge anyone in the institute. DC motivated me and generates a curiosity in me to become a member of this organization. But membership of that organization was not so easy because they have some terms and conditions like high-speed internet and minimum involvement of 40 hours per week.
                                I discussed about this organization (DC) with my family and told them about my willingness to join it, but my family member’s told me that why do you want to join this organization; You are performing well; your marks are also good and blah, blah, blah. But I decided to join it so I gave its entrance examination and joined that organization for learning new things. Joining of that organization completely changed my routine as well as my approach towards study. It teaches me that how one can learn all new technologies without paying a fee. It teaches me how to search our problem’s solution. It showed me the power of internet. The organization worked on practical aspects of the problems, all members followed best practices, they work on standard coding guidelines and best approaches to solve a problem. Within one month I found that my tech-skills were improved and my confidence level was boosted. So, I was very happy with my decision to join DC. But every coin has two faces; I was so involved with DC that I spend hours in front of computer. My parents were not happy with such an involvement and they told me not to spoil my personal/social life, but I kept continuously work with the organization. 
                   I was still happy with DC but the environment suddenly changed for me, my seniors and classmates start disturbing me. My most of the precious time was passed into solving others problems. But I was managing and compromising because all organization has the same scenario. As each organization needs some updated policies, DC also decided to implement a new model named as a newbie-big buddy model. In this model all the new students (newbies) have assigned to some senior, experienced students (big buddies) of the organization and these experience students (buddies) acts as a mentor for newbies. Newbies has to follow their senior’s instruction and has to report their weekly or monthly activity to their corresponding big buddy.  This policy was good and results a high learning rate but I was not comfortable with this policy because of poor communication between me and my mentor. This poor communication, taunting and time wasting affects my learning and made a gap between me and the organization and I left to go there. Then after sometime there was a meeting for presentation of everyone’s work so I presented my work in that meeting and shared my experience with that organization that “I like to be the part of this organization but our approach and policy is not fitted to me because of poor communication between me and my mentor”. After presentation they discussed with me and I felt that this was my mistake. It is my responsibility to ping my mentor but I wasted my time to blaming him. So, I decided to continue my journey with DC.

But my elder sister who was also a CS student and was working in an IT firm pressurize me to join a java coaching instead of DC. I refused her to change my pathway from python to java because I was happy with my learning way.  But, she is having more experience of IT industry than me, she said that everyone is learning java so you should also learn because everyone is not fool. All companies are working on java. Java is most popular, java is future. My friends, your friends, our relatives all are learning java so why not you. Why are you on wrong track? And I couldn’t answer any of her question and it results as I loss the debate and I left with only one way and i.e. to joined the java coaching classes. I discussed my problem with DC mentor and he shows me real statistic of the world that proves that we were on right track but my confusion and family pressure puzzled me and I was not ready to accept this result so I again discuss my problem with mentor and he suggests me if you want to learn java then learn it from yourself, don’t join any institute or coaching, we can tell you the resources otherwise do what you want . Now, everything is depends on my decision.

I choose to join that java coaching classes not only because of sister’s pressure but also because of the taunts on me and to save my time. After joining the java classes I think that I can manage both DC and coaching but I was wrong. I was busy in coaching and finally decided to leave the DC. But, I don’t inform my mentor about my decision and stopped to go there. They warned me but I ignored their warning and one day I received a big-mail and that was my termination letter from DC. They terminated me because of my irregularity, irresponsibility and poor communication.

After receiving this mail I was happy because no more tension, no more work pressure, no taunts, no jokes on me but next day I felt that I don’t deserve a  termination. I want to talk with my seniors or mentor but I thought that I can manage easily without them because I was familiar with their approach, resources etc. So, I kept continue my coaching and my life turned from DC model to coaching model.

Coaching Model:

After my termination from DC I was very serious about my java coaching. I attend daily lectures, do homework regularly, practice everything what they teach me. But then I found/observe that coaching model was straight forward i.e. everything depends on you. Attend the lecture if you want, do the home work if you want. The faculty was only concerns with their fee and timing. They does not implies any restriction if student wants to bunk the class they can, if they don’t want to study they can. But in the batch of 15 students only I was punctual and sincere and all others are lazy, just passes their time and have not any interest in lectures. Among these 15 students 5 were my friends also and their laziness and casual behavior about coaching starts attract to me. I was also finding excuses to not complete my homework and gradually these become my habit. Now, I am also 1 of those 15 students who was there to just wasting their time. After 6-7 months I felt that the complicated things which I can solve easily before joining coaching were taking unexpected amount time and then I realize that my decision was wrong.

And here comes college placements, the most awaited things for everyone. Time for my DC seniors to be placed and I was eagerly waiting for the result because I want to know that was my coaching decision was correct or not? Even I know that it was wrong but for my satisfaction I want that among them any one should say that my decision was correct. But placement results were shocking, all of my DC seniors including my mentor were placed in a good startup and they all are having a three-four times more package in comparison from non-DC students. I was shocked; at that time what I have was nothing but “emptiness”. I was regretting on my decision had a fought with my sister who encourages me in taking wrong decision but overall it was my mistake so, I have decided to rectify it. I have taken a brave decision i.e. I have decided to create my DC.

Group Model:

After a discussion with some of my friends and some ex-DC students who were also terminated or leave the DC, I have decided to create a group like DC which is also of self-motivated students. Now, I am the admin of this 8 students group so I have decided to create some policies and rules for our group. With the discussion between all members and our previous DC experience we all were successfully decided our group policies. We all were regular to our new group and in 10-15 days all faculties, seniors and original DC mentor observe us and praises us for our groups. After these we have named our group as “technosavy”. Everything was going good but after some days suddenly our group was divided into clusters. The reason behind these clusters was friendship, ego and love affairs between group members. I tried to sort out things but I was unable because although I was admin but I was their classmate also and why anyone should listen to their classmate. These clusters cause breaking of our group. Now our technosavy exists only on gmail and whatsapp. All are doing what they want. So, from these incident I spotted that this was the difference between our organization (technosavy) and their organization (DC) i.e. environment and mentor. Mentor is necessary and it should possess some qualities like having more experience and knowledge than you, we can create environment but without a mentor it is really hard to maintain it.

Now, I was feeling low because I have nothing to do. I was regretting on my decision and I share this problem with my friend who was currently DC member and he told me to join the DC again, no one will say anything to you and now I am going to meet DC incharge by writing this experience in this hope that he will approve my entry again in DC.