GUEST LECTURE IN VIT UNIVERSITY ON HIKING

On March 21st, 2016, Santosh, Co-Founder of Bangalore Hikers received an email from Vellore Institute of Technology, where Bangalore Hikers was invited as a chief guest to inaugurate their VIT trekking club 5th anniversary. The Board members of VIT requested a member form Bangalore Hikers to give a guest lecture on Empowerment of Women in Trekking. Perfect theme, I would say.

VIT Events

Since the guest lecture is about Empowerment Women in Trekking, Santosh felt I should drive this. I spoke with one of their board members and understood their expectations for the talk. The students want us to share our passion for trekking through inspirational talks and presentations. They requested us to focus on women empowerment, since they felt the number of women in their club was eventually less when compared to men. So, my lecture was mainly focused on encouraging women towards trekking and made them understand that trekking is not a male ruled passion.

VIT Trekking Club 5th Anniversary Agenda

Though trekking undoubtedly needs a lot of stamina, throughout my speech I carried a message that trekking needs more of will power than stamina by sharing my real experience from the past trekking events. I explained the problem women face during trekking and how to overcome them. I displayed the beautiful pictures clicked during Dudhasagar trip and all the students got impressed with the Serene beauty and got glued to the screen. At the end, they requested us to arrange a trip to Dudhsagar for them. They have also organized many events like Triathlon, Treasure hunt as a part of 5th anniversary and requested me to distribute the prize for the winners.

During the Session

The students requested me to do a workshop on camping and their highly positive spirit did not let me down from sharing all the experience. After the lecture and workshop, I met few of the students and explained them that women are no less as trekkers. One of the Adventure Freak reminisce the formation of VIT Trekking Club and how a group of adventure freaks started this club on 9th July, 2010. It was great to meet the students of VIT University who was very passionate about trekking.

Discussion on camping 

Camping Workshop

I had a request from students to stay with them for a night camping and share the experience of Night Treks, horror stories and memorable trekking experience. I stayed with the students that night and taught them the basis of camping and tents.

All the facilities such as stay, food and travel was arranged by VIT. No doubt, this event is a feather in cap for Bangalore hikers.

Written by: Deepika Muthusamy

Event date: 23rd April, 2016

Lecture by: Deepika Muthusamy

Place: Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu

This article was originally written for Bangalore Hikers and can be found here

Pearson Professional Center Bangalore review

Pearson Professional Center or Chopras

There are two PTE Academic test Centers in In Bangalore - Chopras and Pearson Professional Center. Before choosing the test center, I had a lot of things running in mind.

1. Is the test center calm or noisy environment?
2. Is the test center in reachable area?
3. Will the staffs be polite?
4. Are they trust worthy?
5. Do they publish the results on time?  
6. Are they punctual and did they start the exam on time?

When I wanted to pick the exam Center, there were no answers for these questions. Hence I decided to write whether Chopra's or Pearson's professional center is best for PTE exam.

Here is the detailed review about Pearson Professional Center

Is the test center calm?
Yes. It’s located on the third floor hence there is no much traffic or horn sounds. The center is absolutely less crowded.  Only people who are enrolled for the exams are let inside the center. The computer, head sets and microphones were in good condition.

Coming to the noise during the exam, it really depends on your luck. It depends on the people you get in the batch. The guy sitting next to me was shouting the answers to the core and even after repeated warning or request, he did not reduce his voice. When complained to the Pearson staffs, they said this exam test your concentration and you have to concentrate irrespective of your external disturbance. But I must say, I am lucky because the rest of the people were speaking in right level of volume.

Since reading is the first part of the exam, high noise will really disturb and annoy. Imagine 10 people reading aloud in a 10*10 room? Irritating right? This will be same across all the centers, so mentally prepare for the loud noise and external factors like this.

Apart from people shouting, yes absolutely no traffic noise while taking test.

About Pearson Professional Center

There is only one washroom in the center. So, while taking that optional 10 minute break you might end up in queue(in case if you wanna use washroom). But this is not a major issue, since the time taken to complete PART 1 and PART 2 differs from person to person and more than 3 persons won’t be taking the break at the same time.

The place is neat and pleasant.

Is the test center in reachable area?

It’s next to Manipal Centre, hence most of the auto and cab drivers know the route. From Manipal Centre it's just 50 m walk.

Are the staffs polite?

Only 2 people were in the Center and they were friendly and helping in the formalities.

Did they start the exam on time?

Yes, they started the exam on sharp. However, the time starts when we start the exam is only counted.

How about

Tough the results declaration does not depend on institute, I clearly want to stress that please don't go with the fancy lines which says Results within 24 hours and so. Those are all absolutely gimmick. They have a statement which says, PTE Academic scores are usually available within five business days. Sometimes scores are returned more quickly and, in a small number of cases, they may take longer to be returned.

Its not in small number of cases, most of the cases, the result will take longer than expected. They will take more than 20 days to publish your result. So, please be prepared for it.

When you contact customer service, you get absolutely useless answers for the same. So, if you are taking PTE, you may get result even after a month. This is the true fact. Contact any people who took PTE, you will hear thousands of painful stories they faced in getting the results.

Conclusion:
Since Chopras is an education consultancy and offers visa process guidelines, provides English language training like TOEFL, IELTS and PTE, I heard people coming in and going for inquiry or for training. Hence it is always crowded.

Personally, I felt good in taking the exam at Pearson Professional Center.

If you would like to know more information about the Pearson Professional Test Center drop a comment, I will reply at the earliest.

If you are still confused in finalizing the test center, visit both the test Centers a couple of days before you enroll for the exam and decide so. This also helps you to calculate the travel time and not getting lost on the test day.

All the best guys