🎓 Chandigarh University Graduation Ceremony 2024

I don’t know why I am crying today.

Yesterday was the convocation day, and I went to my Alma mater Chandigarh University where I did my Master of Engineering. Although not all of my classmates came for the celebration as some were busy with jobs, others were far away, and a few didn’t come simply because they weren’t interested. We were the only three who returned to get convocated: Deepanshi Joon, Ajay Mittal and me, Balveer Singh.

Deepanshi traveled all the way from Mumbai to Chandigarh by plane to join us. Along with us, there were three more friends Kriti, Ritika and Aakash who are now teaching on campus and pursuing PhDs. After the formal ceremony of awarding degrees and clicking pictures with the chief guest, we three special guests were invited by the Director of the department, Rakesh Sir, to have an interaction with the newly admitted Master’s students.

First, Deepanshi gave her speech and shared her valuable experiences and journey on campus. She has always been a source of inspiration for me. She first completed her B.Sc, then M.Sc in Physics, and afterward came for Master of Engineering in AI. Now, she’s working as a Post Graduate Engineer Trainee at Tata Consultancy Engineers.

Then I gave my speech, sharing how problems from a B.Tech project helped me reach where I am today. My first project, an aqua-serving robot, had a navigation problem, which eventually led to my Master’s thesis, YDM-SLAM, and now I’m pursuing a PhD at IIT Ropar, after clearing UGC-NET in the first attempt. I also shared how Dr. Rajeev Ahuja, who once visited our campus during a conference, inspired me to pursue a PhD.

While giving the speech, our department’s Director Rakesh Sir and a few other teachers were present. I did fumble a bit toward the end and wrapped up my speech, but I really wanted to talk more, especially about things that students usually don’t know, like the alternative paths to IITs. For example, I took a different route, first doing training at NIELIT and IIT Ropar, then a one-year internship at IIT Bombay, and now pursuing a PhD. I also shared that I cleared the entrance exams of IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur but didn’t make it after the interviews. Eventually, I did clear the interview at IIT Ropar.

After my speech, it was Ajay’s turn. He’s currently running two YouTube channels, one is Digital Daru (23K subscribers) in the field of AI, and the other is an entertainment channel called Fiction Tube, with close to a million subscribers. He shared his journey of entrepreneurship after B.Tech, how he got his first client from YouTube, lessons he learned from shutting down his first company, and how he transitioned into the entertainment space on the suggestion of our classmate and his friend, Sourav.

When we started our Master’s, I remember Fiction Tube had only 35K subscribers, and within a few months, they hit 1 lakh, and the rest is history. He shared many interesting and insightful things from his journey with the students.

At the end of the session, a large number of students came up to us with questions and for advice. It felt great to see that we could offer something valuable from our experiences.

After this event, I had very little time to meet all my professors who taught and guided me. But I did get the chance to meet Dr. Ranjit Singh, who taught us Image Processing and Computer Vision.

Later in the evening, we clicked a few photos, had a small party, and lots of heart-to-heart conversations.