Blog #3 - 1st and 2nd drafts of my cover letter.

First Draft:

Mr Mahesh Gupta

HR Manager, Gammon India.

Gammon House ,Veer Savarkar Marg,

Prabhadevi, Mumbai - 400 025,

+91 99657 87654

Dear Mr Gupta,

I am a student from National University of Singapore, currently in my first year. I am majoring in Civil Engineering. I wish to apply for an internship in the materials department of Gammon India.

I have excelled in my academics both in college and school and have participated in many extra-curricular activities. I have helped organize many successful events. I am a very hard worker and I am willing to spend long hours working. I can handle high pressure jobs and can work both in a group and individually. I hope to learn more from this experience and grow as an engineer.

My resume has been enclosed. I will follow up next Monday by calling you at your office. If you have any queries you can e-mail me at uk_1707@hotmail.com. Thank you very much for your consideration and time.

Yours Sincerely,

Uttara Koundinya.

Enclosure Resume.

 Second Draft:

Uttara Koundinya

F-301, Atrium,

49-Kalakshetra Road,

Chennai – 600 041

uk_1707@hotmail.com

12^th February 2011

Mr Mahesh Gupta

HR Manager, Gammon India.

Gammon House ,Veer Savarkar Marg,

Prabhadevi, Mumbai - 400 025,

+91 99657 87654

                To obtain an internship in the materials department.

Dear Mr Gupta,

I am a student in  National University of Singapore and currently in my first year. My major is civil engineering and I wish to specialize in materials. I wish to apply for an intership in the materials department.

Having been highly ranked in my academics in both school and college, I believe I will do well at your company. I have won numerous awards for academic excellence in school. Apart from academics, I have participated in my extra-curricular activities like dance, drama and tennis. I have organized many events like Reflections which is the inter-school cultural competition in which over 15 schools from all over the city participate. From these experiences I have learned how to carry out a task in high pressure situations. I am a hard-worker and am flexible in my working hours and with the nature of the tasks. I hope to gain more knowledge on materials and how the industry works and grow more as an engineer.

I will follow up next Monday by calling you at your office. If you have any queries please send me an e-mail(given above). Thank you very much for your consideration and time.

Yours Sincerely,

Uttara Koundinya

Enclosure Resume.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Well I've had many small fights with my friends and I guess that is natural as we all have conflicting views on certain subjects, but this one fight went way too far.

We had been good friends for almost 3 years and when we were 16, she was going through some “relationship crisis” and seemed to take out her frustration on everybody else. I generally hate letting people go, especially good friends so I put up with her complaining ALL the time, bitching about my other friends for no apparent reason, taking out her frustration by blaming others and snapping at me for no reason. At first I was convinced it was just a phase and she would get over it but over a month with no change I was the only one left who would still talk to her. This is when it really started getting annoying because her problems weren’t any bigger than what any ordinary person faced at 16 but she made it seem like she was in hell and as much as I tried to help she wouldn’t stop snapping at me.

We did have a few small fights when I thought she was being unfair but nothing big until she seriously insulting a few good friends and she decided last minute that she wouldn’t come to a movie she had agreed to come the previous week and we had already gotten the tickets. After the movie I called her to find out why she blew us off last minute and she had given a family outing as an excuse, turns out she never went. Finally I couldn’t stand to listen to her anymore and I told her she was being a self-centered diva, we went on arguing for a good hour and finally I stopped talking to her.

We ended up not talking for almost a year before finally catching up again and now we’re friends again and she has changed a lot since then and I’m glad we’re friends again. At that time I thought I did the right thing as I really could not stand her anymore but now when I think about it, it was unfair of me to simply lash out like that and maybe I could have handled myself better.

Any suggestions on what I could’ve done ?