Before and After

“Can’t do this. We just can’t do this.”

“This is just impossible.”

“Remind me, why did we even take up this project. What do we think of ourselves? Extra-ordinary genius?”

These are just some of the feelings and thoughts that every person who is forced to do a project has to deal with.

The hazardous process of making and completing a project can be broken down into the following three stages:

THE BEFORE STAGE:
The before stage starts with happiness, content and life all around but ends with shock, disbelief and despair. This era of misery comes around when during the very first class of a course when you don’t even know the basis of the subject, it is announced that before the start of final examination a project is to be submitted.
Whatever you say at this moment regarding the injustice of the situation doesn’t change anything. What’s done is done. If it’s a project they ask then it’s a project they want.

THE MIDDLE STAGE:
The middle stage starts immediately after the ‘before stage’. Infact they always are so intermingled that it’s hard to decipher when the ‘before stage’ ends and the ‘middle’ starts.
o Making a group:
Almost all the projects require a group. The selection of the people you want in your group and the ones you don’t is I guess the most delicate task which needs extra, extra-attention. Because once you make a group no matter how hard you try to get away from it you amazingly end up with the same group and with the same people, with some rare exceptions.
This is the time when you analyze each and every person in your class, even those who you haven’t noticed up till now. You must have seen this in detective movies when in the start of the movie the bio data of every person is shown for the benefit of the audience. The same is with the person who is trying to select people for his/her group – analyzing and deciding at every step.

o Selecting a subject/topic for the project:
With the group ready the task ahead is of selecting the topic.

“It shouldn’t be too hard, it shouldn’t be too easy.”

“We should do something unique, something no one has ever done before.”

This is the period of dreams and fantasies, when everything seems possible and probable.
The list of “THINGS TO DO” keeps on increasing till the day you actually start working on the project.
o THE PROJECT:
Okay now, the period of fantasies is over people. Get down to business.
This is the time filled with depression and complexes (inferior or superior). Either you think you can’t do anything or you think that you are invincible.
But everyone has their own way of dealing with tensions and failures. I, for one, never take the blame of anything. If something goes wrong it’s the fault of the computer, my internet service or (you won’t believe this one) the electricity of my house which goes out just when I think of working.
It was one of those times, when nothing seemed to be going the way we intended and I, being myself, said out aloud with the voice of a computer-expert ;
“It’s not our fault, you know. We are doing everything right; the computer just doesn’t get it. It has completely gone insane and I don’t think there is any hope of it ever being normal again.”

My friend sarcastically added:
“Yeah, it is never our fault. Anything that goes wrong is not our fault. It’s the inane computer’s fault. And if we do accomplish something, the credit is ours to take.”
But it was one of other friends of mine who finally got me to thinking the ultimate stupidity of this absurd declaration.
This friend of mine soberly said:
“You must have done something wrong. How could it be the computer’s fault which until now had been doing everything you wanted it to?”
But let me tell you I am correct to some extent when I say that things often tend to fail you when you need them the most to work out. Once, two days before the deadline the computers owned by everyone in my group refused to work.
It’s just not my bad luck. This happens every time with everyone. In one project, my friend stayed up for two-three nights to complete all the research work. And when she did all there was to be done, the next morning the computer took its revenge.


o THE DEADLINE:
As the submission date comes near and near, you go far and far from a thing called “sanity”. Nothing seems to make sense. All your efforts to postpone the submission date fail miserably. Amazingly, during this period instead of praying for the project to complete itself miraculously you keep on praying that the date gets extended. But even if the project is really postponed, you waste the extra days in relaxing and catching up on lost sleep and when the new deadline is again approaching you finally wake-up.
If your computer or electricity didn’t let you down until now it’s bound to do so this time.
It seems that “Good luck” doesn’t exist for you anymore. Your friends (who are not your group members) just don’t understand your problems, your group members who do understand your problem (because it’s basically their problem too) get sick and if nothing else, you come down with a cold.
But there are always some people who are helpful, who are willing to help you in an assignment due the next day on which you weren’t working because of the project, or who help you solve problems of your projects.

THE AFTER PHASE:

IF YOU GET GOOD MARKS:
If you pass with flying colors then no one is sweeter than you. You thank all those people who supported you (remember these are the people who you were complaining about all along). And you count the unlimited miracles that happened in the most darkest of times.

IF YOU GET NOT-SO-GOOD MARKS:
Ahh! Tough luck. This time you do the exact opposite of the above. You do count miracles but the ones that didn’t come along, but could have made your life much easier. This phase is dominated by the words “Kaash” or “I wish”.


So people, you have been warned. If you have a project coming up then you better buckle up.


Date Written: Feb-2006