FYP-ing all over the city!

FYP stands for Final Year Project, which actually happens to be the 3 credit hour project we are required to do in our last semester, and without which our degree is incomplete!  The FYP is supposed to "have greater scope than a mere semester project", which means a lot more work needs to go into it. Unfortunately, since a semester is all we have to do it in, this just means we're going nuts over it now!  



Our FYP is about leadership. The formal title is "Developing the next generation of Pakistani business leaders: Case studies and documentary". The idea behind the project is the need for authentic case studies representing the Pakistani business community, in terms of leadership development, emergence, and individual personalities, which would inspire and encourage the next generation to come forward as business leaders.

We propose to research successful Pakistani business leaders, to illuminate their struggles, triumphs and journeys, and present case studies on them. A short documentary with interview excerpts is also one of the deliverables.

What it means is that at the moment, we are going through the absolutely horrible process of trying to get appointments with the clanking top brass of the business community. And as most Pakistani's would be able to guess, the Hashwani's and the Saifullah's and the Mansha's of this world do not give appointments easily! So we spend every other day tramping all over the city, visiting the residences and offices of the people on our list, trying to beg our way in! The idea is, if we wait outside long enough, they have to emerge some time, don't they? =D And because we're a group of five pretty [we like to think so ;)] girls, we're hoping nobody will sic their guards on us!

There is a fun side to the FYP though. Dressing up, driving around, eating a lot, and sleepovers!! We make ever khwari trip an occassion! We listen to music, gossip, make time to stop for lunch or snacks in between appointments, and laugh a lot.



At Savour for lunch

Last thursday, we had the first FYP sleepover at my place. We spent the night working on the literature review for our project, but the serious work was heavily dosed with random crazy moments. We danced, took weird pictures, gave each other henna tattoos [read tramp-stamps =p], and slept for barely two hours, before waking up at 7 am to get ready for our first interview appointment at 10 am!

No matter how strenuos this routine feels right now, I know we're going to miss this time where our biggest worry is what Dr. Sadia [our supervisor]  will say about the latest submission. Soon, our lives will consist of job hunts, weddings, office politics, in-laws... and we'll miss this camaraderie, these friendships, this laughter.