During my college days (and this was basically until three months back), the CEG tag was always a pride. You’d stand out literally anywhere you go, starting from a quiz or a symposium where your peers would look up to you, to a professional cricket field where they mock you by saying, “CEG? Then you must be a Padips (Nerd). What are you doing here?”

Fast forward three months and I find the situation completely different. I’ve moved to Delhi NCR for my new job, and here I’m surrounded by IITians and NITians. Now, we all know that the college ranking sites list our college among the top 10 colleges in India. But when I introduce myself to my new friends, they aren’t familiar with College of Engineering, Guindy. To make them understand, I have to say, “Dude, it is Anna University, Chennai”. And they’re like, “Ohhhh, the one opposite IIT Madras”. “Well, yeah”.

The situation is very different within Tamil Nadu. A friend of mine has started working in a company on OMR in Chennai. There, the whole world is aware of CEG, famous for its intelligent students, liberal rules (well, we are in the current generation where boys are forbidden to talk to girls in certain institutions) and amazing fests.

This creates expectations of different orders. At one place, we are expected to establish our worth as someone part of the crème de la crème. In the other place, we strive to prove that we are no less than the guys with top brains from the national and regional Indian Institutes and create a brand name for our college.

But one thing is certain wherever you go. You find a lack of the multifaceted talent that you find in CEG. The conspicuous fun, energy and intellect that we’ve been used to among our peers in college are terribly missed.  For reasons like these, I wish my friends from CEG had made it along with me to work.