Delhi University North Campus and South Campus location

Basic Guide to Admission Process in Delhi University

University of Delhi has a rich history behind it. It started in the 1922 and has grown today to a university which has more than two lakh students on its rolls. With so many colleges, filling up forms for each one used to be a big headache earlier. To simply this procedure, Delhi University adopted a common admission form which students can fill up. The catch here is that two colleges – St Stephen’s and Jesus & Mary College. Most other colleges also have their own individual forms, in case you don’t want to use the common application form. Download a specimen Delhi University common application form for undergraduate applications here (PDF, ~1.3 MB). This is an OMR form so in case you are not familiar with filling these up you can practice with this dummy copy. The list of colleges and courses on the second page of this form is also a handy quick reference to information regarding which college has which course.

The next thing that you need to do is to get the common admission form. These will be sold at at all colleges using that form starting from 1st June 2009 till 15th June 2009, which is also the last date to complete the submitted form. You should also go through the prospectus – click here to download complete Delhi University Undergraduate Admission Brochure 2009 (ZIP file approximately 12 MB in size, containing PDFs of the DU information brochure in parts). You can download this from the University website too (that’s where I got it from), but their server is notoriously unreliable; when I was downloading the speed was extremely slow and the download often got disconnected (not due to any in my connection).

Aspirants living in Delhi have the option to get first-hand knowledge from university officials and student volunteers during the open days, which started today. Click here to download Delhi University Open Days 2009 schedule to see which is the college closest to your place holding an open day. Note that this is about college admission in general and not the specific colleges as such, so it’s not held at all colleges. DU has also set up helpline numbers which you can call for any assistance.

Admission is done on the basis of Board marks. Students of Boards outside Delhi / ICSE are also accepted, but your percentage may be scaled up or down (depending on whether the board you gave you exam in generally give inflated scores or lower scores) to make it equivalent to CBSE. This done on the basis of an equivalence table that a university has. Apart from that, many colleges also admit students through their extra-curricular quota and sports quota. A small fraction of seats are reserved for these two, and each university which offers these hold their own tryouts to see how good candidates are. So if you haven’t got that good a score but are good at some extra-curricular activity (most colleges only consider debating or dramatics) or at some sport then you still have a chance of making it into a top college. Do note that competition is fierce in the tryouts. St Stephen’s and JMC have their own form, so criteria for admission at those places is different; Stephen’s for instance has interviews too. For some courses such as BA English (Hons), an entrance exam is going to be held from this year onwards. More details for this will be available from the college you want to join.

When people use the term ‘Delhi University colleges’, they are generally referring to colleges in North Campus and South Campus. West Campus (which consists of DU Faculty of Technology colleges DCE and NSIT) and East Campus (which has University College of Medical Sciences) are considered ‘separate’ because admission to these is on the basis of their own entrance exam. I’ll stick to North and South over here. Here’s some basic information on them.

North Campus

Delhi University North Campus map - click on the image to see full-size map

North Campus is the ‘original’ location where Delhi University started functioning. North Campus is a dense cluster of colleges with practically all colleges right next to each other. The list of colleges (with link to their official website) is as follows: St Stephen’s, SRCC, College of Business Studies, Hindu, Hansraj, Delhi School of Economics, Kirori Mal, Daulat Ram, Miranda House, Ramjas, Indraprastha College for Women, Rajdhani, Shivaji, Satyawati, SGTB Khalsa, Lady Irwin, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Pardon me if I’ve missed out any.

South Campus

Delhi University college locations map showing North Campus and South Campus colleges - click on the image to see full-size map

South Campus was set up by DU in 1973 to cope up with the high demand for seats. Colleges falling under South Campus are lesser in number and spread out over a wider geographical area than North Campus. The list of colleges falling in South Campus (with link to official site) is as follows: Sri Venkateswara, Lady Shri Ram, Jesus & Mary, Kamala Nehru, Gargi, Maitreyi, Delhi College of Arts & Commerce, College of Vocational Studies, Acharya Narendera Dev, Motilal Nehru, Ram Lal Anand, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Dyal Singh, Deshbandhu, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma. I hope this list is complete, pardon me if I’m wrong.

North Campus vs South Campus

The debate on whether North Campus or South Campus is better has raged for a long time. On both sides we have alumni and current students of both who forward in support of their side. VoiceTAP decided to lay down some basic facts by speaking to the students themselves. I would have given a comparison table, but the the topic is just to broad to compare in a tabular fashion. Having said that, colleges in North Campus are considered to be ‘more prestigious’ by many people; South Campus does have a colleges which are also considered prestigious such as Sri Venkateswara, LSR, JMC, Kamala Nehru, etc. Many say that the fact that North Campus colleges are so close together also helps in inter-college bonding between students – more of a ‘university’ atmosphere so to say. At both campuses you’ll find enough places to hang out.

Traditionally, South Campus has been considered to be better in this aspect but Delhi Metro’s extensive network in north / west / east Delhi has meant that a lot of commercial development has taken place in those areas too. You know have lots of malls, shopping complexes, and cineplexes – all within easy reach because of the Delhi Metro – in the North Campus. In South Campus there has already been such commercial development since a long time, but with the Delhi Metro starting by next year in South Delhi too, I guess this distinction between hangout joints will be blurred further. Prices are also slightly cheaper in North Campus because of the multitudes of eating joints / shops catering to the college-going crowd.

Certain courses like journalism are only available in South Campus colleges – this is the case mostly with girls-only colleges. Otherwise the list of courses available and their contents are standard across all colleges, since they are all under University of Delhi. The difference lies in faculty, your college batchmates – and for later on when you near graduation, how good the college placement cell is at its job. An important piece of advice given in the VoiceTAP call was that if you are sure about which course you want to go for, then go for whichever college you’re getting the course in. However, if you’re not sure of which course you want to take up then it might be a better idea to join a better college. The latter is also true for cases where a student might want to do a degree like an MBA after graduation where the bachelor’s degree won’t matter, so in that case too choosing college over course would be a better idea. (I’m sure I’ll repent typing this out in my blog post because I’m certain that a lot of students will convince themselves that they are not convinced about which course to take up – when they actually do have an idea and got swayed by a college brand name.)

Accommodation within a college is available in hardly any colleges. The best way to go about whether college accommodation is available is to go through the details of a college as listed in this complete list of DU colleges and then look up within that – scroll to the bottom of the page for each college profile. College accommodation is harder to find for boys than girls because demand is much more. ‘Paying guest’ accommodation is available near almost each and every college so this is probably where most students seeking accommodation will end up in. Staying alone in PG is a costly proposition; it makes sense to find some room-mates to split the cost of rent, bills, etc. When you go to buy your college forms you’ll find lots of PG accommodation hostel people handing out pamphlets with details, so that could be your starting point for a search. You should also get in touch with student union volunteers for guidance regarding this matter.

Infrastructure for sports – and for everything else in general – is considered by most to be better in North Campus. Stephen’s and Hindu have strong sporting traditions. As for other extra-curricular activities, again, North Campus is considered to be better and also performs better. To be fair, the fact that there are so many colleges close to each other a) makes it easier for students to participate in events b) promotes a strong sense of competition between those colleges. Stephen’s for debating / quizzing, Miranda / Kirori Mal for dramatics, LSR for choreography etc are well known in their fields. Having said that, competition to get into South Campus clubs can be intense too, and South Campus is certainly not lacking in talent. It’s just that the level of energy isn’t the same because of the spread-out campus.

For those who were unfortunate not to make in to the college of their choice, transfers between colleges can take place after the first year is over. Of course, a certain minimum percentage is required – and not all colleges accept transfer students. Details regarding this can be obtained from the DU helpline or at volunteer help counters when you go to buy forms from a college.

Further Reading

• List of all Delhi University colleges: This listing links to colleges profile which gives a quick reference to basic details about each college – address, courses available, contact numbers, accommodation available or not, link to official websites, etc. In many cases though, the data is outdated. Don’t bother emailing. Nobody answers. Go to a college to get your doubts cleared.
• Delhi University undergraduate admission FAQs: Answers to frequently asked questions regarding admission to Delhi University. Answers to more general FAQs can be found here.
• Delhi University admission cutoffs 2008: DU releases multiple cut-off lists for admission to colleges. The list on this page is in reverse order – you need to scroll till the end of the page to get the link to first cutoff, then work your way up to later cut-offs. Now this is a fine balance that you have to walk. Should you take admission in the first cutoff of some college you don’t want, or wait for the second/third cutoffs to land your preferred college? These are tough decisions, but can be made easier by looking at how last year’s cut-offs in DU progressed. Cutoffs change each year, so take this as a ballpark figure. Sometimes, waiting pays off – first list cutoffs for popular colleges go higher since almost everybody applies to those even when they know they’ve a marginal chance of getting through.
• Yahoo! India Maps: You are advised that when you go to buy the common DU pre-admission form that you get it from the college you want to join. This gives you an opportunity to the check out the college. Finding your way to the colleges can be tough task – for both Delhiites and non-Delhiiites. Yahoo! India Maps is the best mapping / routing service for this purpose because it provides direction for driving by car, bike, walking directions – and even using buses! Once you get narrow down on the type of directions you want you can take a print-out, or have it SMSd to you for free. Just keep one thing in mind – try to enter college / source / destination name as accurately as possible. For instance, use ‘Shri Ram College of Commerce’ insted of ‘SRCC’; in general, avoid short forms. It’s not that short forms don’t work – because Y! India Maps also pulls from user-generated databases – but using full names ensures that you get the location. Yahoo! India Maps will also estimate travel time, distance, autorickshaw fare / bus fare etc for you. And in case in a false fit of bravado you walked off without getting directions beforehand from Y! Maps, install Google Maps for Mobile.
• DU Beat: Unofficial student newspaper on life in Delhi University. Read the articles here to get a feel of how student life is DU and in specific colleges.
• JAM Magazine: Somewhat cluttered-looking website, but content is top-notch. JAM is always buzzing with activity and good quality content – thanks to dedicated writers such as Rashmi Bansal who’s the driving force behind this venture. Rashmi has often spoken out against college rankings like those brought out by India today, but for the DU college rankings JAM agrees with ‘mainstream’ lists. There some quite interesting sections worth checking out on JAM Magazine, such as Campus Buzz (new about happening in college campuses), Fest Zone (details and reviews of college fests), Unofficial Prospectus (tongue-in-cheek take on various colleges; use the dropdown box somewhere down the left sidebar to switch between colleges), and U Know U Are In (along the lines of Facebook memes on te traits of different colleges).
• NDTV / CNN-IBN features on DU admissions: CNN-IBN DU Admission microsite and NDTV Mission Admission provide videos, news stories, advise, and important links on University of Delhi admission process.
• Education Times / HT Next: Special supplements from Times of India and Hindustan Times respectively focussing on youth issues.
• India Today ‘How to choose between a course and a college’ by the principal of Miranda House, Delhi University.

Bottom Line

North Campus or South Campus – whichever one you opt for or end up in (depending on your way of looking at it) – both offer exciting academic, extra-curricular, and ‘other stuff’ opportunities. What you do with that is up to you. You’ll be studying the same things whichever college you join, extra-curriculars is something you can take the initiative for (if it’s not strong in the college you join) – and the best thing is that with Delhi Metro coming to South Delhi by next year, geographical barriers between the two will be effectively reduced. Best of luck with your admissions!

PS – Want to share the link to this page with you friends? Use this short URL for remembering easily – http://tr.im/northvssouth!

PPS – Do check out VoiceTAP website for college vs college comparison calls that have just started. These will have more in-depth discussions done on two colleges at a time. It’s a free service!

PPPS – If you have any interesting link which you feel would be beneficial to DU aspirants, please leave them in the comments below! These could be forums, blogs, websites giving comparison, information on accommodation..anything at all that could be helpful to others.

Banking industry in a nutshell

This was by far the most interesting bit of the call, where Ambuj summed up the part so the baking industry and different career paths so lucidly. Banking industry can be divided in to the four distinct parts:

1. Retail banking: This consists of credit cards, personal level loans, savings / current / fixed deposit account etc. It’s the face of banking which most of us get to see during our transactions with banks. High quantity but possibly low volume.
2. Corporate ‘wholesale’ banking: Handling the banking needs of large corporate firms at various levels. There are certain types of customers which would fall on the borderline between retail customers and corporate customer who placed in either one of the categories depending from bank to bank for management purposes.
3. Private banking: This involves giving investment advice and managing the portfolio of high value assets (i.e., people with net worth more than Rs 5 crore – in the Indian context). Customers at this level are given much more personalized care by the bank.
4. Investment banking: Sometimes this is clubbed with corporate banking. It involves managing portfolios of big corporate firms, trading large volumes in the stock market, et al.

Another criteria of classification is according to functional areas in the banking setup. The major ones are sales / distribution, operations, and risk management; with smaller areas such as IT, HR, treasury, etc. The most common entry path is to do an MBA and then get into one of the first two main areas; the MBA route is a ‘safe’ option because it also leaves the chance to migrate to other industries. While those with just bachelor’s degrees (BBA / B.Comm) are not excluded from joining as such, the preferred route is to do a professional course like an MBA. If a candidate is sure that they want to go into a vertical like risk management then they have the option to do specialist programmes on that (which are not very easily available in India, but there are quite a few international certifications). Doing actuarial science or statistics for bachelor’s could also be a first step towards moving into the risk management vertical. Candidates aspiring for private banking are could do courses in chartered financial accountancy – again, a course which is more easily available abroad than in India.

Typical career paths are different for different functional backgrounds. If you get into sales, then you’ll start of as a customer relation manager, work in that role for few years and then move on roles of team manager, branch manager, cluster manager and so on. Alternatively, your title might remain the same but you could grow in terms of the affluence of the client you’re dealing with, so you could move from mass market retail banking to private banking for affluent customers. On the other hand, those who get into the operations side of the business move from being a process analyst to senior process analyst and eventually to head of operations.

Those aspiring to rise to higher managerial levels are advised to work in both sales and operations, as a premium is placed on those who have done both. Sales is more valued out of the two, so even though you might not have hands-on experience in operations you can still rise.

Private banking sector prefers to take in freshers with a professional degrees (like MBA) or ones with certifications. It’s best to start off with this as a career because banking it’s difficult to switch in to banking later on in career. Public sector banks on the other hand have no such preference for professional degrees. They take in plain graduates through exams they conduct and then train them on the job. Hiring over the past year has been slow due to recession in both public and private sector banks, but this is expected to rectify soon.

Bottom Line

If you have a knack for numbers (being good at mathematics is essential) then banking is an exciting – and potentially windfalling – career for you.

Listen to VoiceTAP Civil Services as a career call by clicking here

Civil Services in India – In a nutshell

Civil Services in India can be divided into the following categories on basis of the kind of work that a civil servant would take up, exams for which (for central level) are conducted by the UPSC:

• Indian Administrative Service (IAS): Most well-known out of all the Indian civil services, also probably the toughest to get into. Only around a 100 people are inducted in a year’s batch. Postings are done all across India.
• Indian Police Service (IPS): IPS cadre takes care of administrative functioning of police at various levels.
• Indian Forest Service & Indian Foreign Service: IFS & IFS are concerned with taking care of India’s forests and India’s foreign relations, respectively. The former requires you to be a science graduate to be eligible.

There are many other different cadres, which are assigned to a successful candidate by UPSC on the basis of how well they perform in the entrance exams. Getting is tough – candidates are advised to start preparing three years in advance! Evidently, selection is difficult because just a handful of candidates are chosen out of the hundreds of thousands who give the exam. Considerable grasp of general knowledge, government functioning and structure of society is necessary. Some papers are mandatory, but among the optional papers you’re advised to stick to subjects which you’re familiar with – rather than get taken in by talk of ‘X subject is easier’.

Once you pass the gruelling Civil Services Examination you’re allocated to a state cadre at village level. Yes, you have to start right from the bottom. This is considered necessary to give a good grounding on the harsh realities of India. After that, you progress on to district magistrate level, state secretary et al till the highest position of Secretary in some ministry at the central level. (A Secretary is just one level below a cabinet minister.)

Starting salary is around Rs 35000 (per month) and scales up to Rs 1 lakh for IAS officers in the senior most positions. Perks are also given, such as (almost) free housing, telephone, transport, etc. But more than financial remuneration the reason why most people join the civil services is the amount of respect they get in their position (that’s a lot of respect they get) and the ability to actually effect policy decisions that change a common man’s life for the better. That by far is the biggest job satisfaction factor involved in being a civil servant. A small minority of civil services officers also move on to join at senior management levels in public sector undertakings, or even private companies.

Bottom Line

In the current atmosphere of youth charged up to bring about reforms in the country, being a part of the system and making lives better as a civil servant is a career path which can bring you a lot of job satisfaction.

PS – I’m not even going to try assuming that I can suggest ‘further reading’ for civil services exams.

Listen to VoiceTAP Journalism as a career call by clicking here

In a nutshell

Journalism is career where you can enter from multiple backgrounds, so this discussion was more free-ranging – focusing mostly on journalism in general. There are courses that you get started with, but there are hardly any that are specifically for journalism. The most common route these days is to do a course in mass communication, though that doesn’t preclude that other academic backgrounds are not allowed. Institutes such as Symbiosis and Asian College of Journalism (apart from IIJNM mentioned earlier) offer courses. There are various verticals within journalism such as tech journalism, automotive journalism, business journalism, TV / radio journalism – in each case some kind of training or qualification in the field you want would help. Those thinking of going into, say, business journalism could do their undergraduate degree in economics and then moving into journalism. If you’ve already got your bachelor’s degree and are looking to get into journalism then doing a one-year diploma course in would be one way of going about it.

Broadly, there are there major lines of journalism – print, TV / radio, and online. Print has been around for a long time and is considered to be much more respected because of the sober view that newsprint is supposed to carry. TV journalism has been around for a few decades but has often been accused of sensationalizing news reports in the thirst for 24/7 news coverage. TV journalism requires good writing and directing skills as a reporter has to distill down a news report into significantly lesser words than a counterpart article in print media – and at the same time lay down how the story is going to be presented on air. Radio journalism is not that big in India because the government only allows All India Radio to broadcast news shows. Everyone else (i.e., FM channels) can only give short news bulletins. If the spoken word is what you really want to be in then you can look into using Internet radio and / or podcasting as your platform. Which brings me to the newest kid on the block – online journalism. Online journalism is a different beast to tame altogether. It is important to understand that online journalism simply doesn’t mean taking a print media article and publishing it online. Online inherently is much more interactive and readers demand such interactivity. Being tech-savvy is a must; again as I said, trying to make online an extension of print and end it there results in disaster. Also unlike other forms of media, readers are spoilt for choice and have low attention spans – writing in an engaging style to keep them on a web page is tough. (Entry barrier for getting into this is so low that it takes a lot of effort to stand out from the crowd.) And why just web pages? With lowered cost of distribution of media, online allows for niche content to be produced more easily, and far more easier for the reader to consume. This includes video shows put up online which might not have a cost-benefit ratio if made for TV, but could make profits online. Online readers consumer content piece-meal, so content presentation is also important to keep them navigating on to related articles. Having said that, online journalism also presents significant challenges right now insofar as the quest for a business model more robust than advertising is concerned.

To become a journalist it is essential that you are curious about the world around you and that you can write well. (It goes without saying that you must buy a jhola. You know, for notepads and stuff.) The desire to find out things sets a good journalist apart from a bad one. A common myth is that if you’re into TV journalism instead of print media then you don’t need to be good at writing; far from it, you are expected to write your own anchor scripts if you are an anchor or if you’re working behind the scenes in copy-editing. The knack of getting a story across effectively in the least amount of words / visuals is a must.

Typical career trajectory is that you join as a sub-editor or reporter – or even as a trainee – and then move up the ranks depending on whether you can deliver compelling content within deadlines. Starting salaries are currently similar to those of lower-end IT professionals but on the basis of your work the potential to scale is large. This coupled with the fact that once you’re a journalist you might end up as an instrument of change makes this a lucrative career option. Journalists also have the option to switch over to allied fields such as public relations, marketing consultancy, advertising, editing in publishing houses, etc.

It is not always necessary to go through HR departments of media organizations to get a job. HR departments are primarily looking for freshers at college campus recruitment, so if you don’t fit the description but you think you’re good enough then you could probably set up an appointment with an editor to show samples of your work. This applies equally to photographers too who want to get into journalism. Current situation is a bit bleak with salaries being lowered due the recession (bonuses for Times Group employees were kept on hold this year) but as the economic situation improves on the whole this is expected to go away. It’s the best time to take up a course for the profession right now and then by the time you’re done things will be back to normal!

Further reading

• Inverted Pyramid structure of writing: I’m not sure how many of you know this, but in journalism you are expected to write your reports in the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure. This basically means that most important details of a story are put at the top with paragraphs coming later on having less important details. This allows for easy editing out of less important bits if needed simply by lopping off a section of the end of an article.
• Medianama: Good example of an independent online news media website. This whole operation is primarily run by just one person but the site still commands a lot of respect in the business journalism circle.
• Stephen Glass incident: Finding respectability for online journalism has always been a hard task, with many print media journalists looking down upon it. Way back in 1998 a watershed event occured that shook American print media by its roots – a reporter from a reputed Washington magazine was exposed as having concoted stories multiple times by Forbes Digital. This event broke the myth that getting published in print meant there was no chance of oversight and that its easier to print crap on the Internet. It showed that online journalism could do hard-hitting stories too.
• Pulitzer Prize winning entries: You’ll need to click around a bit – on the page to which the link leads, click on a category. It will show you a yearwise lisiting of winners in that category. Click on ‘More Details’ and then ‘Works’ to see the prize winning entries. This only works for winners from 1995-present, rest all are not available for online viewing.
• Radioverve: I’m not aware of any Indian Internet radio news stations, but here’s an example of one Internet radio station which plays music. As the expert on call said, there’s no reason why this platform can’t be used for news media too.

Bottom Line

Those who love writing will love journalism, but before you plunge in you should be aware that there is a lot of stress involved because of the constant pressure to meet deadlines. Having said that, journalism can provide an exciting and fulfilling career – both in monetary and job satisfaction terms. You could always turn novelist.

Listen to VoiceTAP Law as a career call by clicking here

Law as a career – in a nutshell

If working for a company with incredibly longs names & ampersand symbols gives you a high, law is definitely the career to be in. ;) There are routes to get started with law in India. The first is an integrated BA, LLB degree of a duration of five years that undergraduates can join; second is a postgraduate degree which is of a duration of three years and can be done by someone who already has a bachelor’s degree in some field. There are no other options available because Bar Council of India (no, it’s not a group of autocratic bartenders – oh dear, am i going to get sued for this?) lays down strict rules on the hours / years of teaching that a candidate must have to be qualified as a lawyer.

At the undergraduate level, the top rung is occupied by the 14 autonomous National Law Schools – of which National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore is the most reputed. As far as law is concerned these are considered to be as prestigious as IITs or IIMs. Admission to these was a harrowing process earlier because each one used to conduct its own separate entrance exam. However in 2008, the NLS decided to adopt a unified entrance exam called Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). Below these are university law colleges, government law colleges, and private law colleges. The ones I linked in the last sentence are the most popular alternatives in Delhi, but there are others. At the postgraduate level, you have a bit more flexibility as law colleges allow you to choose specializations to go in for such as corporate law or criminal law.

Once you are done with an undergraduate degree, you can join a general law firm, or opt to go for a job in a law firm dealing with specific areas such as intellectual property law, insurance law, et al. The latter option is suggested only if you are really sure of which line to take up; otherwise it is advisable to join a general corporate law firm and then branch out from there. Now all this was for corporate law. Criminal lawyers ususally as individuals at the trial court level so there are no criminal law firms as such. If you are interested in criminal law then you can join in on the team of lawyers which assists a major criminal lawyer and then proceed from there.

If you join a corporate law firm you join at the level of an ‘associate’ in the firm. As with any profession your rise in the firm is determined by how adept you are in law and how well you play in a team. Typical rise to the next level – that of ‘senior associate’ – takes around 4-8 years on an average. At this level you are given a bit more freedom in dealing with clients. Further up you have ‘principal associates’ and ‘salaried partners’. Salaried partners get pay almost at the level of partners in a law firm but don’t get their name added on to the firms name. The highest level, of course, is a partner in a law firm. This is the case in a large corporate law firm but trajectories can be different for other specializations in the legal industry. Also note that although job title might remain the same for many years, within that same job title there are multiple ‘levels’ – so your seniority and salary will increase according to performance. Criminal lawyers are dependant more on their own skills while ones with an entrepreneurial bend might contemplate starting their own law firm (given that capital is available) after working for a few years.

Further reading

One of the major challenges that you will have in finding out information about careers in law is that no lawyer on law firm in India has a website. This is not due to any of them shying away from technology but because of Bar Council of India rules that prevent lawyers from advertising their services in any medium or in any form. (To get in touch with lawyers, the best you have are third-party lists.) To circumvent this issue what many in the legal profession do is to set up websites giving information on Indian law in general. (Most of these are terribly designed.) Let’s have a look at some of these resources. I haven’t included any ‘worldwide’ resources simply because that wouldn’t make sense – you’ll be dealing in Indian law after all.

• Career Launcher’s LST programme: If you’re looking for coaching classes for CLAT or other undergraduate law school admission tests, Career Launcher’s courses are by far the most popular – and some say, successful. Check out the extensive FAQ section on legal education in India even if you’re not interested to join coaching because it will give you basic information which you need. You do even correspondence courses from them if you feel you can’t take time out for classroom courses. There are some other coaching institutes too.
• Mint 2008 ranking of best law colleges in India: This survey carried out by HT Media’s Mint business newspaper ranks the best law colleges in India.
• Indian Kanoon: Indian Kanoon is a search engine for searching up details on Indian laws, past judgements, etc. This data is collated from indiacode.nic.in and judis.nic.in. Could be useful for the law bits of entrance papers and / or as a resource once you’re in college and looking for getting into law for postgraduate studies.
• Cyberlaw India: Classic example of lawyers / law firms trying to evade Bar Council restrictions on having a website. This is useful information for those who want to specialize in cyber law; owned by Pavan Duggal, considered to be India’s top cybercrime lawyer. (Too bad he doesn’t seem to be aware of private whois registration.) Another such site is this.
• Intellectual Property law in India: Intellectual property (IP) is a hot topic in legal circles and this niche offers an interesting choice of a career for those who seek something ‘different’. Get better acquainted with the field on this site.
• The Consumerist: I said I won’t be listing global sites here, but I had to mention The Consumerist – for general reading. This is a blog on consumer affairs – mostly US-centric but worth reading nevertheless.

Bottom Line

A career in law is an exciting career option for those who have good analytical ability and the ability to work well in a team. Entrance tests are primarily designed to check a candidate’s prowess in logical reasoning, English, and basic law. Offers career prospects of working both as an independent lawyer or in a law firm, depending upon your preference. You can always decide to become a judge too after working as a lawyer!

VoiceTAP‘s call on Advertising as a career was held yesterday, 20th May 2009. Unfortunately I was not able to make a post on this sooner because I kept getting disconnected from the call multiple times yesterday. Before I begin, there’s a quick poll that VoiceTAP is conducting on what kind of sessions you’d want, so if you can leave your response below that would be nice.

Listen to VoiceTAP Advertising as a career call by clicking here

Advertising as a career in a nutshell

The expert on call was V Subramaniam, who has worked in a senior position with advertising major Ogilvy & Mather. A lot of the advice given in the Event Management as a career call is equally valid for the realm of advertising too, so I would suggest you read up that first. While there are courses for advertising, most of these are postgraduate specializations. Just like in event management, the academic background that you’re coming from is not a roadblock to a career in advertising. Instead, it is your creativity and passion for the field that counts. Within the specific field of creatives, you have two different specializations – namely, copywriting and artwork. For specializing in artwork, design courses from National Institute of Design is a reputed institute which accepts students at the undergraduate level too. With the advent of online advertising and use of computer-aided graphics design, doing a course in this area may be beneficial too. Wigan & Leigh College and Amity School of Communication offer programmes in this field.

Most of the courses specializing in advertising however are mostly at the postgraduate level. Thus, if you want to join a course at the undergraduate level then you can join mass communication, journalism, or English (Hons) courses. Ideally this sets you up for the copywriting line but then you can always cross over to something else.

Getting into advertising has become more competitive – regardless of whether you’re doing a course in the field, or a course in an unrelated field. It is vitally important that you start building a portfolio – which will help you intern at companies and give you some hands-on experience. One way of going about this to, say, make an ad poster or video or something along the same lines for your favorite products. If you’re good at photography, then upload your pictures to Flickr – it has a really vibrant community, and you are sure to get feedback from others on how your photos are. Check what the pros do by browsing through Flickr Explore images. Make sure to be an active participant by commenting on others pictures.

Flickr is good for those who’re more interested in photography-type artwork for advertising, but if you’re more into graphic design work, then deviantART is the place to be in. deviantART is a website dedicated to sharing and discovering artwork and this will be of immense help to those who want to go into artwork specializations. You will eventually need to edit even photographs, so this is something you should check out even if you’re more interested in photography. Image editing is done either in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator – knowledge of both will be necessary. The best place for Photoshop tutorials is Psdtuts+ (Psdtuts+ even has a video channel for demonstrations). If you don’t want to spend money yet on these commercial software, try out The Gimp (raster editor like Photoshop; basic tutorials are available here, and books – some of them free – are available here) and Inkscape (vector editor like Illustrator).

The second specialization is copywriting. Taking up a course in English or mass communication helps create a base for you, but it is strictly not necessary if your writing is good. One way of improving your writing and getting feedback is to start blogging. You no longer have to write on sheets of paper and keep thinking on whether your creative writing is good or not when you can put it up online and get genuine feedback from people – this could be constructive criticism or encouragement, both of which can be useful to you. Setting up a blog is free and the best place to do that is WordPress.com. (The other major alternative is Blogger.com, but it often doesn’t function properly these days.) On the technical side, you’ll probably need knowledge of Adobe InDesign (free alternative is Scribus). Adobe PageMaker is an older (now deprecated) but still widely used software.

Further Reading

The amount of content that you’ll find online

• What an Advertise-Meant?: Blog doing in-depth analysis of prominent ads in the Indian media space. You’ll find details of how the ad was shot, the creative process behind it, and ratings of the ads on various parameters. This is blog is such a pleasure to read!
• Copyblogger: If you plan to go into copywriting, then this extremely popular blog is a must-read. It focuses more on digital media, but copywriting tips given are equally valid for ‘traditional’ media.
• Campaign India: Campaign India provides comprehensive news of developments in Indian advertising. It features interviews with prominent Indian advertising personalities; an added bonus is the job listings section. They also have a video channel.
• exchange4media: exchange4media runs two popular magazines dedicated to the Indian ad space – one is a monthly magazine called Pitch, and the other is a weekly called Impact. You can read Pitch online for free, but a subscription is required for Impact. (I also think that calling the online version ‘e-dition’ instead of ‘eEdition’ makes more sense, but then that’s just me.)
• YouTube: OK, everyone knows about YouTube of course, but maybe not many of you know that you can find almost any ad that you’ve seen on television on YouTube. These are uploaded mostly by fans and you can search these out easily by searching for ‘companyname ad india’, with a few more descriptive terms if needed. In most cases, the description and comments sections contain trivia on the agency behind the ad, actors / models featured in the ad, interesting anecdotes on how the ad was shot erc. As far as I know there are no ‘official’ YouTube channels of ad agencies where they put up their ads because I’ve never encountered one, but do correct me if I’m wrong. Sometimes though you might find a company which has an official YouTube channel and puts up its ads on it – or a an employee or a fan of that company who puts up videos. Once you start looking around for a couple of videos for the brands you’re interested in, you’ll be able to track down these users and subscribe to them for future updates on the brands you like. You can even look through the category Mad Ads on my blog – not been updated for a while though.
• Lürzer’s Archive: This is a paid resource, but well worth the price. It collates the best ad campaigns across any medium with commentary on them. (Thanks to the Buddhi Tree Free for pointing me to this!)
• Ads of the World: A blog, with an active forum that archives interesting ads from around the world.
• I Believe In Advertising: Similar to the one above, it posts daily updates on interesting ads from around the world, almost daily.
• Ad*Access: Collection of ads in American and Canadian newspapers from 1911 to 1955. It’s might interesting to go through this archive of how advertising used to be done in those days!

Bottom Line

Advertising is most certainly a demanding profession, and it needs a lot of creativity. You’ve gotta come up with stuff that the customer is going to remember – and distinguish your client from its competitors – right up to the point the customer buys a product. Having a sense of humor helps too. Don’t get too hung up about the technical aspects (such as software) – that is not a major concern when you’re working.

Listen to VoiceTAP Event Management as a career call by clicking here

Event Management in a nutshell

The expert for this particular call was Vikas Mishra, who works as a Vice President at CS Direkt, one of the leading firms in this field. Marketing can be of broadly classified into two categories – ‘above the line’ as in mass media advertising where there is no direct interaction with the customer, and ‘below the line‘ which involves direct interaction with the customer; event management falls into the latter category. Event management involves end-to-end solutions of every kind, including but not limited to corporate events, conferences, outdoor advertising (a la, stalls you see outside shops or malls set up on behalf of companies), et al. Outdoor advertising campaigns are referred to as ‘activations’. Now I’m certain that this particular term must have been thought up as a joke in a pub by some event management guy, and the term stuck (because terribly bad puns have long lifespans). The ‘terribly bad pun’ being that by ‘activations’, it’s a nudge-nudge wink-wink inside joke about the fact that the whole point is to ‘turn on’ customers to the brand being marketed.

Event management companies draw in employees from various fields such as creative writing, graphics design, operations management, business development, etc. There are no specific courses required to join event management companies, but doing some of these might give a basic idea of what event management is all about. Amity University and NIEM are other prominent names. In the end however, even if you don’t do a degree specifically in this field, you can still come in from allied fields such as advertising, mass communications, English etc. This career path requires you to really dive into the whole operation and learn to take up responsibilites right from day one – those who can do this, no matter which academic background they come from, succeed.

Prominent event management companies (apart from CS Direkt mentioned above) are Wizcraft (famous for management events such as Indian movie award ceremonies, managing events for some IPL teams…), Encompass Events, ESP, Showtime…in all there more than 140 members who are part of Event Management Association of India. Another group called the Event & Entertainment Management Association exists, with various members. Starting salary at most event companies ranges from Rs 10000-30000 per month, but can quickly scale up to by large amounts if the employee performs well.

Special report on UTVi on Event Management

Further Information

• Event FAQs: This is must see. Provides latest information on happenings in the event management industry. They have a comprehensive listing of event management companies in India, books on event management (ordering will be difficult though since most are listed on Amazon, interviews, and more. The site has job listings too – or in case you’re feeling entreprenuerial and want to start your own event management company, check out the list of equipment vendors of basic items needed for this line.
• Event Planning Blog: What I liked about this blog is that the author frequently picks up ‘new media’ ways of doing old things, new solutions to old problems. If you plan to strike out on your own, this open source project the author has started might come handy.
• Niche companies: Those who love trivia can go into event management companies specializing in the field of quizzing. (I only bring this up because I fall in this category myself.) Promiment names are Derek O’Brien & Associates (needs no introduction, does he?), Synergy Adlabs (Siddhartha Basu’s company, the one behind – among others – Mastermind India, University Challenge, Kaun Banega Crorepati, Dus Ka Dum, etc), Greycaps (Girish Balasubramaniam‘s – they handle many events in the quizzing vertical sponsored by the Tatas), and Quizcraft (pretty famous in school quizzing circles). The point about this niche is that there aren’t too many competitors which you face, but the quality required from the company’s end is immense. You give quizzers a shitty quiz and I guarantee you that a mob will lynch your whole team by beating you to death using heavy encyclopedias (or at least rip your reputation apart on the blogosphere). And if you think that money in this field only lies in TV shows, consider that fact that television makes up for only 20% of Derek O’Brien & Associates’s revenues.
  (Whatever you do, for the love of Almighty Bob, don’t click on this link.)
• Books on event management: Check out some books on event management at Flipkart (my review). There are books targeted both for beginners and people looking for more advanced guidance.
• Social networking site for event managers: Hang out with other professionals in the field, pick up a few tips, look for job opportunities and more in this social network on Ning for event managers.

Using online videos pre / post event to reach out to a larger audience

Bottom Line

Event management has really taken off in India in the past few years. It’s a growing field where companies seek more engaging ways to reach out to their customers, and holding outdoor events / conferences is one way many of them are doing it. Essential skills needed are the ability to multi-task and the courage to step forward and take responsiblities even if nobody tells you to do so.

PS – A quick poll, everyone, on what you’d like to see discussed on VoiceTAP.

One query which cropped up multiple times during the call was whether an online resource is available for practicing BITSAT. The experts on call mentioned a few books – ones from Arihant and MTG Learning Media – but were not personally aware of online resources. Getting yourself acquainted with attempting a paper online is important because the experience is significantly different from giving an exam which is printed on paper. BITSAT is an exam where speed and accuracy counts, so it’s best not to lose precious time on the day of the exam making yourself comfortable. Here’s a listing of the e-learning resources you have at your disposal to prepare yourself for BITSAT. (Note: I personally tried out and / or used some of these mock BITSAT online tests last year.) Most of these resources are paid. If you want quality BITSAT papers, then you won’t find them for free.

• Official BITSAT Sample Paper: BITSAT itself releases a sample paper, but it’s small – contains just a handful of questions. This won’t give you much practice but it will give you an idea what the interface looks like. Made by Eduquity Technologies, the company which handles the BITSAT exam. (Noida centre of BITSAT exam is at Eduquity Technologies office.)
• MTG Learning Media / Arihant: BITSAT books from these two companies come bundled with ‘computer-based’ tests – normal question paper present in the book displayed on screen. These Flash-based versions will give you a feel of what the test interface is like but have one major drawback – they give you the score but do not display any kind of analysis. You need to manually check up solutions. In my opinion, when you’re paying for such a thing – that too computer based – then analysis is a must.
• Brilliant Tutorials: Made by Vriti Infocom, the company behind GoIIT. Brilliant tutorials provides the question bank, Vriti handles all the IT aspects. You can check out the online courses offered by Brilliant Tutorials for BITSAT here. Level questions closely mirrored the actual test. Occassionally, you might find errors in their system – not in the questions themselves, but in the form of incorrectly entered answer (same answer in some choice, etc); probably because of data entry errors at Vriti’s end. After a test you get detailed analysis of your performance too. In case you’re interested, Brilliant Tutorials also offers online test series for DCE. You don’t need to stay online the whole time – at the beginning of the test it downloads all the questions to your browser. When you’re done, you can reconnect and submit everything.
• Career Launcher: CL didn’t offer online tests when I studied there (we always got online reports for the exams we gave on paper though), but I’ve heard that now they do offer online BITSAT mock tests for their own students. Career Launcher has always been at the forefront of IT usage in education so I’d expect their testing system to be good. Their analysis reports for exams were very comprehensive in nature – a handy tool when you’re trying to eliminate weak points in the final days in run up to BITSAT. I suggest you get in touch with your nearest Career Launcher centre to find out more details.
• BITSAT Race: I’ve spoken (in not so flattering terms) about this service earlier. Questions in its database weren’t like the actual BITSAT. They might have improved over the last year though. You can check it out, but I advise against going for this one. English and logical reasoning section in its papers are especially bad.
• StudyPlaces.com: Never tried them. Free papers. I know the guys behind this venture from elsewhere – and their other offerings are pretty good – so you should give this a try.
• Time Institute: Famous for being the ones who are first to release solutions for any exam. Haven’t tried their course (it wasn’t around in my time).

That’s about it. Leave a comment below if you are aware of any other online testing services which have used and / or think is good. Use these mock BITSATs to acquaint yourself with the format and keep BITSAT cutoff scores in mind when analysing your performance reports in these tests.

]]> http://www.ankurb.info/2009/05/04/voicetap-bitsat-call-online-test-series-for-entrance-exams/feed/ 8 http://www.ankurb.info/2009/04/22/voicetap-review/ http://www.ankurb.info/2009/04/22/voicetap-review/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:44:14 +0000 Ankur Banerjee http://www.ankurb.info/?p=1918 A few days back I had done a post on VoiceTAP’s IIT JEE conference call. I’d promised a more complete review of VoiceTAP for later after attending their AIEEE conference (no, I’m not giving the exam) on 19th April…here it is. To recapitulate quickly VoiceTAP is a platform that allows knowledge-seekers in a particular field to interact with experienced knowledge-givers over a conference. The way this works is that a conference call is pre-scheduled, then the participants login to the VoiceTAP system by calling up a pre-defined number and entering their unique PIN.

The AIEEE conference call was scheduled for 12 noon on 19th. I dialled in the VoiceTAP number and logged in to their system, got connected to conference call live. A session lasts around 30 minutes during which participants can put in their questions by pressing a sequence of numbers. A VoiceTAP representative then takes their question and a few selected ones are asked by the moderator to the experts who’re associated with the session. At the end of the session you can provide feedback by rating the session from a scale of 1-5. In a sense, this is quite like a radio talk show with the difference being in the medium used to deliver the content. The advantage that VoiceTAP has is that unlike radio which must cater to topics which have a wide audience, VoiceTAP can connect experts and ‘students’ from niche audiences too.

(For those who will be giving AIEEE you can listen in to a recording of the session by registering for the session on the VoiceTAP website. You’ll get an email containing all necessary details – your PIN, phone number you need to call. You’ll get tips on differences between IIT JEE and AIEEE, things you need keep in mind when attempting AIEEE, what you need to do in the days leading up to AIEEE, et al. It’s not that costly to ‘attend’ a call either; depending on whether you call in from a landline or cellphone you pay phone charges only to a tune of Rs 8-30, an excellent price for getting advice from experts.)

When you like a service you want the service to survive – and that means monetization. (I know startups want to focus on getting the product built well first and then monetize, but it’s something that needs to be kept in mind. And as a user I do need to think about it since without monetization the service dies out.) With that in mind I have a few suggestions for VoiceTAP:

• An obvious monetization strategy is advertising – through sponsorship in the way of ‘branded calls’ and in-conference ads. For instance, there’s a mid-session break during which questions asked by participants are compiled; that time can be used for airing relevant ads. Advertisers get good bang for buck as the participants are pro-active – they have dialled in to be a part of this and are not likely to hang up the phone. Probably more micro-breaks can be inserted.
• Podcasts / Downloads: Once advertising (as a business strategy) during the live call has been decided upon, I don’t see any reason why podcasts / downloads of conference calls can’t be made available. Ads already included in the ‘live’ version can be used, or ad slots can be sold to another set of advertisers. If people skipping ads in downloaded copies is an issue then maybe a streaming version of the recording can be made online. Later maybe paid downloads of recordings can also be considered. Anyway, at least in alpha / beta stage of VoiceTAP it would be a swell idea to provide downloads of recordings. Users are sceptical of ‘newfangled’ ideas and downloads would allow them to experience rich content without spending anything. Then, they may be enticed enough to attend a live version of future calls. Not a lot of expenditure is involved and it won’t make a significant dent because the ones using this would be tech-savvy users, who can evangelize and spread word-of-mouth publicity for VoiceTAP. (Like I am doing right now.)
• Premium-rated calls. After the conference call is done, participants who want to interact one-to-one with an expert can dial in on a premium number and have a word with them for a period of, say, up to one hour after the call (or however much the expert can devote). By ‘premium-rated call’ I mean those calls where you pay Rs 3-6 per minute. Of course, this is something VoiceTAP will only be able to negotiate with network service providers once they get volumes. I don’t think users would mind paying that price for interacting with an expert. Since the call is connected and moderated using VoiceTAP, privacy (phone number details) of the expert are also protected. By an extension, there could an SMS shortcode number to which participants can SMS queries to during and after session.
• VoiceTAP team and experts should go through some stock questions before going on air. By all means accept questions from participants, but be prepared with a few question-answer choices that are bound to come up. Do it over email, on phone before a conference, whatever. This helps in eliminating those ‘uhms’ and ‘ahs’ during a live call. I’m not saying current sessions are bad – the content is extremely good – but being prepared would help in smoother content delivery.
• Live polling. I’m not talking about just the feedback bit towards the end; I’m talking about asking questions during a session and giving responses accordingly. Example: In the AIEEE session, a quick poll could be taken on whether listeners want speakers to elaborate on some topic. Based on a quick 30-second poll the conference can go in two separate directions. Initially just yes-no questions since they’ll be easier to tally up when creating a poll on-the-fly during a show, but could be extended to varied choices. Or, say, polling the demographic of the audience listening in at the start of a session. (For AIEEE “Which class are you in?”, and so on.)
• Remove anonymity. I don’t know why they have done this, but the VoiceTAP team chooses to remain anonymous – referring to themselves by the first letter of their name. Users really don’t connect with you if you try to stay anonymous – and you’re trying to sell a product here. You don’t belong to James Bond’s secret organization so why obscure yourselves behind a facade of anonymity? :)

That’s about it. VoiceTAP is a promising concept and its USP of being able to reach niche audiences can make it a killer startup. I’ll be watching out for innovative developments at their end. Watch this space for updates.

My rating of VoiceTAP’s service: 8.7 / 10

The startup I’m talking about is VoiceTap. The USP of VoiceTap is that it allows the common man to interact with experts in particular fields over a phone conversation. This is done by setting up a dial-in voice conferencing system where users call a phone number, login, and listen to what the experts have to say. You get ask questions to them, moderated by the VoiceTap team. All conferences are pre-scheduled.

On 5th April 2009 VoiceTap held a conference on strategies for IIT JEE featuring Abhinav Garg and Archit Gupta (AIR JEE rankers 3 & 4). You can listen in to a record of the conference by going to VoiceTap and registering yourself for the session. You will get an email specifiying a phone number which you need to call. The automated IVRS system will ask you for your PIN (mentioned in the email). Once authenticated, you can listen to the approximately 30 minute long conference. I do suggest you try it out.

The idea sounds really nice, but I didn’t get to participate in an actual live conference. There’s another one coming up on 19th April 2009 for AIEEE. I’ll participate as a user in that and then give a full review.

I wish all the IIT JEE aspirants luck for their exam tomorrow!