Maclagan Edition 5

MACLAGAN Edition

5

|July

PEC : More Than Just A College

F FE EA AT TU UR RE ED D A AR RT TI IC CL LE E

How To: Intern Edition

By Nikhil Mehta

2021

Page 2

Dark Humour, Validation, Acceptence?

Page 4

The 4th of July Page 9

Why Do You Pander Every Pride Month?

Page 11

PEC: More Than Just A College

By Arushi Aggarwal With prolonged online classes, feeling connected to the college is a herculean task matched by no other, leading most to remember it by the red brick stairs of PEC market, bustling crowds in the auditorium and long meetings at admin block.

However, the quarantine has brought about positive changes with numerous student organizations set up to guide and comfort PEC students in these times of distress and uncertainty. In this edition of Maclagan, we feature Humans of PEC and Formally Informal - two groups striving for the betterment of students in every way possible.

HU MA NS

Humans of PEC, a concept which first took root with Humans of New York back in 2010, is a photoblog providing an inside look into the lives of the countless we see on campus, be it the fruit vendor in PEC market or the classmate you’ve seen around but never spoken to.

The members of HoP aim to create a safe and comfortable space for everyone, associated with PEC in the slightest of degrees, to be able to share experiences which shaped them.

The beauty of experiences has always been the individualistic nature of it - two perspectives of a shared college life will differ and remain personal to those who narrate it, bringing forth a wide array of memoirs intended to inspire, comfort and ultimately, spread joy.

When you read/hear about what a person truly holds important to themselves, you see the people around you in a different light.. In doing so, it leaves the reader to view the world in angels they’ve never thought about before. HoP is accepting of anyone with something to say, be it their first day of school, how they discovered a love of dancing in college or teachings from extended online education which is what makes them so great, offering a platform allowing everyone to share and bond over joint trials. HoP has developed the building blocks of a sanctuary embracing people from all walks of life, exposing their audiences to stories which truly feel bigger than all of us.

OF PEC

FORMALLY INFORMAL Formally Informal started as a career-oriented podcast, intending to combine personal accounts of past alumni of PEC, all of whom went on to have fulfilling careers. The students, who created Formally Informal, noticed a lack of resources geared towards college students introducing them to occupational paths they might not even have known existed or aiding them with a plethora of advice regarding opportunities and processes to be followed jobhunting or applying for Masters. In a culture that promotes generic career paths, oversaturated with more graduates competing for jobs every single year, it’s easy to get trapped in a web of chasing the highest CTC possible and ignore areas you might actually be interested in just because you think it may not be fiscally gratifying due to ignorance about the same. To combat that, Formally Informal was set up to serve as a starting point to introduce

individuals to areas they mighthave never thought about with interviews providing an insightful look into the roadmap the alumnus went on to follow right after graduation. Each podcast episode focuses on a single alumnus, detailing their career map and obstacles they faced along the way, bringing about a new age of encouraging individuals to explore and educate themselves on new paths which were previously unknown. An episode could be the Kickstarter for many to take the plunge and follow the steps of our alumni in all the unique ways their career can shape out to be, with details easily accessible at one hub for viewing and available emails of the alumni for additional help and questions that anyone may hold. To sum it up, Formally Informal is truly the epitome of “for the students by the students” set up to aid anyone in need of questions not easily answered when stepping into the real world for the first time.

For the Students By the Students

DARK HUMOUR VALIDATION:

ACCEPTANCE

By Dolsi

The cemetery is so overcrowded.

People are just dying to get in. <Or any other dark joke> Disclaimer: Reddit users may skip this article as they are well aware of the type of content Black comedy serves us.

No antidepressant better than some edgy sense of humor.

Humor. Ever wondered what will happen if there’s N₂O exposed in a funeral? Everyone would be laughing their lungs out. Watery eyes inflicting uneasiness. Mind conflicting between the two contrasts. A bizarre sullen atmosphere. Uncanny. Right? But in reality your mood will be briefly uplifted. Your apprehension will be cured, howsoever harshly your climate has been treating you. Now this is transcribing the information as it is to the audience. But in these topsy-turvy situations, the ones created by us- ourselves; who appreciates directness? Add N₂O overdose and 5 more graves. And there you have, a bit of dark humor.

Dark Humor: /A subtle attempt to normalize/

A concept which every one wishes to talk about. But the social convention forbids us to so it has to be usually delivered in a rather comical way.

People frown upon those- laughing like maniacs on morbid subjects. But they never question the source in their heads leading to those chortles. It might not be necessary that the reason to chuckle is they wish to demean the underprivileged. Instead it can be their way of mocking at the inadequate working of this society and its failures. It might be their way to cope up with those failures. Not everyone can mock morbid subjects and social issues. Tabooed subjects like disease or diseased, sex or sexuality etc.

This style of comedy not only requires quirky quips and a sense of emotional detachment but also demands intellect and good observation skills to decipher the word play. No wonder so many failed JEE-aspirants have turned out to be great comedians!

Above were my personal thoughts. Now, let’s hear it from the Researchers of a Medical University of Vienna who concluded after a study, that those with the highest comprehension and appreciation of dark humor scored the highest in IQ tests, were well off, and scored lower for aggression and bad mood. Turns out the ones with an unearthly sense of humor were not really the absurd ones after all.

In contrast to our plain scientific research works on humor, let’s add some philosophical spice. To scrutinize the ethical aspects of humor we need to work our ways with the “seriousness” of a joke. When someone gets offended at a dark joke. That is just their insecurities popping out. This may seem like an invalid argument. But let’s verify it with an example of yawning. A professor teaching in class, gets offended by one of your batch-mate’s yawns and dismisses him for the next 3 classes. But did your batch-mate yawn because he found the lecture boring? Or was it his psychological response to the sleepless night he spent binging on some crappy show? The professor did not care to know the reason. The yawn for him was a question about his teaching skills.

Similarly, laughing is an untimed psychological response and us getting offended on a dark joke is a mere trigger to our own insecurities. The best way to cope with it is to laugh about it. Accept it!

Andswers 1.Panic At The Disco

2.Silence of the Lambs

3. The Matrix

HOW MANY DID YOU GET?

A Pun-ny For Your Thoughts?

HOW TO: INTERN EDITION

By Nikhil Mehta, Electronics and Communication Engg (ECE), Batch of 2022 Edited by Piyush Gulati

As we gear up for yet another season of internship and placement cycles, ‘How to: Intern Edition’ this time focuses on a core internship and covers the internship experience of Nikhil Mehta, who interned at Texas Instruments.

Texas Instruments Incorporated(TI) is a global industrial giant when it comes to the design and manufacturing of semiconductors, integrated circuits, and many other electrical and electronic components. This company comes to PEC only for incorporating students in the internship cycle and focuses on the core electrical(EE) and electronics and communication(ECE) branches primarily. Hailing from the ECE department, Texas Instruments was always a dream company for me because of its stellar reputation. The work and research that goes on at TI in the field of Analog design motivated me the most to prepare for this internship. Texas instruments are at the top of their game in the international markets pertaining to analog design and this was a major contributing factor towards my interest in this profile.

Mainly, TI comes with the aspiration of recruiting students in three profiles: Analog, Digital, and Software engineering intern. The probability of securing an internship in the analog profile is considerably higher than the other two, as past history shows that TI recruits roughly four students for the analog profile, while the number is one each for the other two profiles. As it is a dream-tier company, their PPT, test, and interviews are conducted in the first week of the placement/internship cycle.

The preparation for securing an internship at TI is mainly split into two halves: the test and the interview preparation. For the test, a thorough understanding and knowledge of Circuit Analysis, RC Networks, Semiconductor Devices, MOSFETS, Amplifiers, Analog One and Two is imperative along with going through and practicing the previous year's GATE questions for the topics mentioned above.

Books that can be referred for the preparation are Boylestad, Sedra Smith, and MTG previous year papers. Now, an interesting point to talk about here is that at PEC, generally, the Power Analog team comes for conducting the interviews. Hence, a thorough knowledge of Power FETs and Control Systems is a must. This is extremely important as the knowledge of these two topics plays a deciding role on who will be offered the Pre Placement Offer(PPO) in the analog profile after the completion of the internship. The interview preparation is based more on playing with MOSFET and the regions in which they operate accompanied by basic questions of Electronics.

The internship experience exceeded all of my expectations. The work at TI is hard, challenging, and intensive in nature but doable, and most important of all, very interesting. The work is not strenuous or energy draining. The mentors allocated to you are quite helpful and the HR support by the company is also good. The working environment at TI is conducive and facilitates the nurturing of innovative thoughts.

The company also provides a laptop for work from home purposes, and a decent stipend, to mention the least.

Lastly, I would like to mention an important point that I’ve observed and should be brought into perspective when it comes to preparing for an internship at TI. TI has a rigorous recruitment process consisting of different rounds and relying on only one company(as only TI comes for analog profile internships) is not a good approach. I personally feel that I lacked at the part where I was repelled even by the thought of coding. So, my advice for the people preparing is to give it your best shot, but all avenues should be explored and backup options should definitely be kept for a just-incase scenario. Generally, preparing for this role requires about a month of disciplined and serious preparation.

Wishing all the readers the very best for their preparation!

Cultural Comment

The 4th of July

By Divya Dhananjayan Design: Vivekanand

"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”

Another July rolls around and Google calendar reminds the anniversary of the nation that decided to move out of its parents' basement in 1776. Rumor was , the rules were getting too cruel. The English colonists were dying (figuratively) to get independence from the land their ancestors owned. Remove the tabs that colour slavery, inequality, genocide, cutthroat capitalism and colonialism, the story of the US independence is somewhat comical. The story starts with the infamous Italian Christopher Columbus and a series of injustice imposed on Natives, blacks and women.

Euro Americans established the Declaration of Independence proudly wearing the title "equality for all men (exclusively whites with property) and then going on a killing spree 16 days later, ceasing to exist not only the traditions and ethnicity of Native Americans, but the people themselves.

In 1784, Native leaders in the Midwest said that the American Revolution was “the greatest blow that could have been dealt us.” When the Revolution arose, colonists opposed to British rule called it a “war for liberty,” but Native people knew that it was also largely a continuation of the relentless aggression to possess Indian land. A purge to purify the land, a line picked out from a satanic book.

Really, they even called them "merciless Indian savages".

As for Black people, on July 4, 1776, they were still enslaved, in the most savage system of bondage in the history of humanity. Many of the so-called “founding fathers” who sat down and signed the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders. "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”

A near complete century later, in 1863 is what the Blacks paid to see their far-fromreach freedom come true. All hail President Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation. Sadly, Texas joined the party 2 years later because the bullies remarkably hid the news from the slaves.

By default, it goes without saying that women were not part of this celebration either, being robbed of the rights to vote, own property or create an impact in society. But they've come a long, proud way. From being a presidential candidate in 1872 to being the vice president in 2020, the women have been relentless.

The celebration makes for a pretty firework display, covering each corner of the night sky for 4th July as far as your eye can see but the bleak history behind it remains unknown to most. While history or its effects can't be explained in 500 words, this should serve as a remainder for the next time to question the dark corners of history as we know it.

Why Do You Pander Every Pride Month?

By Atulya Mani Tripathi

TW: Homophobia Rainbow capitalism is getting a little tiring now.

Last month, Netflix dropped a teaser of a series called Q-Force, an animated show about a queer spy division. The highlight of the trainwreck of a 55-second video was the sentence "You can't pander to the gays, they can smell it from a mile away", because oh the irony.

603K views and 78K dislikes later, the top comment sums up the video: "Uhm...I..think I'd rather have no representation at this point. None is better than..whatever this is.."

Constant stereotyping and (attempted) representation ends in a montage of caricatures, which managed to achieve what no social movement could: absolute unity between homophobic and homosexual folk.

With a cast of Wanda Sykes, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Cole et al, created by Michael Schur (of The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine fame), the show had a lot of expectations, but it fell down a path of stereotypes so deep it couldn't get out even on the shoulders of these giants, which begs the question: how to do justice to a character representing an underprivileged section of society?

It comes down to representation and research at its essence (writes the cisgender heterosexual male). Shows like Schitt's Creek (with LGBTQ+ members) have represented a Utopian society; while books such as the Rick Riordan universe (where the author has done his research) have given it a slightly more realistic touch, with friends taken aback, confused elders and mentions of kids rejected by families for expressing their sexualities. Working with different age groups and different perspectives, the creators have gotten inclusivity right, very obviously implying that information is the sole weapon in this war against hatred, a theory that agrees with real life observations.

Today’s fiction is our hope for a better tomorrow.

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The English Editorial Board

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