Much more than a BE project

Yesterday was our last day at Computer Associates. Harsh, Neha, Anish and myself spent the last ten months at CA doing our final year project and it would be an understatement to call it a fantastic experience. In four years of our engineering course, this project was our first (and unfortunately only) "on-the-job" exposure to technology, and the learning both on the technical as well as the how-organizations-work front has been incredible. I'm glad that we as a team were always keen on spending the time reserved for our project in a fruitful manner, and didn't want to end up just delivering some hastily cobbled together report at the end of the semester. I must admit though that when we started out last year, there were moments of concern as to whether we'd be able to match up to the high requirements from CA's side. Understanding the business requirements, developing a design strategy and then getting down to some hardcore coding -- we'd never done any of these tasks on their own, forget all together! But I guess our eagerness to learn and come out of this challenge successful eventually paid off - we managed to deliver what CA expected of us and we're delighted that CA views our work as a significant value addition to their existing solutions. A large part of our success can be attributed to the excellent work environment and culture we found at CA. Our guide Ashok and the entire CA Tech Services (CATS) team we interacted with -- Jignesh, Manish, Rajendra and Murad -- were always there when we had a question to ask. Moreover, they all made us feel like one of them -- it was never a superior-subordinate relationship, a refreshing change after the giant-sized egos we encounter every day at college! Finally (this is sounding a lot like an acceptance speech for some reason!), a big thanks to Harry, Netaji and Anishseth. Working with you guys has been the high point of my entire engineering and this whole project wouldn't have been the same had it not been for all the fun moments we shared on our Fridays at CA. We've all come together even closer as friends over the last ten months, and this for me will always be the most valuable take home from the entire CA experience. Here're some snaps of us at CA ... Harsh, Anish and me with our guide Ashok (second from right)
Me in CA's state-of-the-art Solution Center!
Neha in the Solution Center
Madhav and Harsh hard at work ...
... and Anish hard at play!