AURANGABAD, June 10: The paeans have been sung, the revelry nearing its end and the heady feeling of jubilation giving way to a mellower mood brought on by the need to look and plan ahead. For the triumphant trio of Aurangabad, the HSC exam is just a stepping stone to greater successes and a brilliant career. And no time like the present to lay the plans out.Sanket Omprakash Dusad of Deogini College might have had to burn the midnight oil to top the HSC examination in the state but that is because his eyes were already set on the next step - the joint entrance examination for admission to the IITs. While his friends hit their prescribed HSC books with a vengeance, Sanket had just begun preparing for the JEE and by November, had mastered the IIT entrance syllabus - enough to switch over to the HSC preparations.Future plans include ``setting up a silicon chip manufacturing plant''. The choice appears to be a natural one for the bespectacled boy whose fascination for computers made him take up apost-graduate diploma course in Computer Software, which instead earned him a `Diploma in Advance Computing' before he entered Std IX the institute where he took the course found him ``too young'' to be awarded a PG diploma and was afraid that ``a little boy'' with an award like that would lead people to think it was an easy course!Sanket, who ranked 322nd in the IIT JEE now wants to take the five-year integrated course leading to a BTech at IIT Powai. Why not Computer Engineering? ``Because in that case I will have to move to IIT Kanpur and I have no intention of moving away from my parents.''Sanket credits his elder brother, Amit, a final-year BE (Mech) student - even more than his parents or teachers - for his success.The topper reads Alfred Hitchcock in his spare time and also enjoys ``old Hindi film'' music. And movies. ``I saw five or six in the theatre but I've lost count of how many I saw while channel-surfing at home,'' he adds.Jyoti Agarwal who topped the state in the MCBV course(Commerce) with 87.50 per cent plans to be a Chartered Accountant. Having scored 86 per cent in the SSC examination, she was under immense pressure to take up a Science course. ``But I stood my ground,'' says the girl from the `city of traders', Jalna. ``I had always planned to take up Commerce.''Jyoti feels coming from a family of Marwaris, it is ``quite natural'' for her to think of Chartered Accountancy as a career. She however regrets that Commerce students are ``denied the respect they deserve'' even as the achievements of Science students are exaggerated. ``Do we not serve society as much as a doctor or engineer?'' she asks.Jyoti plans to get a BCom degree from Nashik, which, she feels, offers better facilities to prepare for the CA examination.Shilpa Sidaramesh Kudarikar of Dayanand Science College, Latur, the topper among girls, wants to be a doctor but says she hasn't decided on a speciality. ``I'll take my time about it,'' she says. However, she says, she would love to get her MBBSdegree from one of the corporation colleges in Mumbai. Shilpa secured a whopping 96 per cent to get the top position.Like many other students, Shilpa feels one month is too inadequate to prepare for the MBBS entrance exam. ``No matter what others feel about my success, for me, it's back to square one,'' she sighs, as she gets set for another round of gruelling study.
