adhunika blog

[from our archive] 

A few months ago I attended this conference that focuses on helping women in their career and personal development. This gave me an opportunity to learn about  many topics including conflict management, negotiation and positive confrontation techniques, presentation skills etc. All these, known as soft skills or people skills, can help one in his/her professional and personal lives to deal with other people and be a more effective person. I am going to share some of those here with our readers.

There was a talk about “The Power of Positive Confrontation” by Barbara Patcher. This is from her book with the same title. She said, many sticky situations we face in our day to day life, sometimes we are bothered by other peoples’ behavor, yet very seldom we are able to confront those people politely and powerfully. Either we don’t say anything (but say it in their back) or we say it rudely, either way it makes the realtionship worse. But if we can deal the situation with positive confrontation techniques we could solve some issues at the same time improve the realtionships with those people. Interstingly enough, she says she was this person who was never able to confront, she herself spent a lot of time in her adult life learning this skill. (more…)

“The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.”   
-Homer
 

Friendship is a priceless gift, which provides intimacy, rapport, trust and affection when we need it. Both men and women are fond of their friends. Some find it hard to make friends as they grow old, at the same time the two sexes often look for different qualities in their friends. A few find it hard to maintain childhood friendships, while others believe you can never make as good friends as you have in your childhood. Many of us have no time to socialize and are losing their old pals, some others spend so much time socializing yet have not found a true friend!
 

Talking with some of my female friends and colleagues recently, I found out that more or less every one have complains about their social life or find it hard to get along with the people they meet in their everyday life. So I decided to ask readers of Adhunika what they think are some of the things they look for in their friends? Or what are some of the characteristics their best buddies have in them for which they are still such good friends? (more…)

This write-up covers some very basic steps to take if you are thinking of applying to the US for undergraduate studies. It is compiled entirely based on my personal experience of applying to college. Therefore it might be outdated, since I started college in the Fall of 1999. Please make sure you check with the college websites to make sure things haven’t changed significantly!

 

Steps to applying to US Colleges as an Undergraduate International Student:

This section is not meant to address graduate school admissions at all. Check Graduate School and Professional Training for graduate admissions.

Undergraduate Admissions:
In the US, undergraduate admissions refer to four years of post-high school education at a college or University. This results in a bachelor’s degree at completion.

As admissions requirement, you need to have completed 12 years of high school education. This is equivalent to the completion of SSC and HSC according to our National Board system, and is equivalent to the completion of O’ and A’ Level exams.
Note: none of these exams are an admissions requirement. All the colleges require is proof of completion of 12 years of high school – the terminal exams and their results are not an admissions “requirement”. These results however, can provide supplemental information to support the strength of your candidacy!
Admissions requirements vary from college to college and it would be a good idea to check with individual colleges to make sure you complete all the required standardized testing for that particular college. (more…)

If you want to try new yet easy to make dishes, look at the following recipe for Arroz Con Pollo - Arroz con pollo is a classic Spanish dish that is fit for the gods. Every Spanish speaking country makes arroz con pollo different. Here is my recipe.  (more…)