Forgive me for the unimaginative title, but I just had to give a post a title before I actually get around to publishing it...
Now to business...
Phew! It's been a hell of a journey. I'm sure there's a lot of posts online about Grad School and lots of comics too. Let me take some time to describe my last week, and my adventures in the United States.
The last few days of the quarter, tension running high, I had two submissions on the last day of the Fall quarter and both on the minute before midnight on Friday night. The first of the two was an Advanced Operating Systems assignment. We were supposed to do the lab and a challenge problem. I had already done the lab a couple of days before, however, a challenge problem was pending. I like doing challenge problems as although the problems are usually defined (we do have the freedom to come up with our own, but I lack creativity and usually go the textbook approach) how to get around to actually doing them is actually up to us. So even though many people attempt the same challenge problem, the results are often contrastingly different.
The second submission was a project which was in particularly a bad shape, mainly because it was challenging, and as it was quite open-ended, there was no end the project could come to. We wanted to do as much as possible, so in order to get enough done, I and my project team began work and did two successive night-outs in the EGSA (Engineering Graduate Students Association) Lounge, but got our project in shape for submission.
On Thursday, we had an AOS challenge problem demo session. Some of us demonstrated our challenge problems we had implemented. I had not gone prepared to present anything, but ended up doing an impromptu presentation anyway. And yes, there was awesome cake and cold ice-cream!
I also had to do a challenge problem for the last lab, so I spent almost the whole of Friday doing that. I ended up doing a decently good challenge problem, and also implementing the "cp" and "mv" functionality in the shell. Both submissions were done, and the quarter was finally over!
Did it end there? Not quite!!!
A couple of weeks back, I had registered for a ski trip to Lake Tahoe (a bit east of San Francisco) and we had to leave on Sunday morning. As it turned out, since I was going to be in Los Angeles, I hadn't carried too many warm clothes from India. Therefore, I had to go shopping with some friends in order to get a waterproof jacket, some ski trousers and a couple more things from Target. It was late by the time we came back, but I had asked one friend to come over for tea (ended up in being dinner!) We had a pretty amazing time, and by the time we were done, it was around midnight. It was a fitting clelbration for the end of the quarter, and..... I still hadn't packed for the trip!
After packing, I realized that if I slept, I would never be able to wake up in time for the trip, so I chatted some more with the friend I had over for dinner (thankfully, she was online) and ended up sleeping for just one hour, and all the way on the bus to Lake Tahoe.
The next three days were quite amazing, to be honest. I ended up learning how to stop, and how to turn (while on skis, obviously!) and ended up falling around ten times in all. I also got to ride a ski-lift. I finally got to see it snow! That had been one of my dreams. There were also a couple of things I learnt about myself while we were there. We all (60 of us) stayed in a huge lodge and enjoyed spending time together. Turns out, I hate it when there's too many people making a lot of noise or playing load music in the same room, especially if I do not know most of them personally... Thankfully, I had a friend who saw this immediately, and helped me get away from all the ruckus. I should work on my people skills...
The food was awesome, and the staff in charge of the trip was very organized, helpful and a lot of fun. I met a lot of people and made a handful of friends. Around a dozen of us also played Taboo on the day before departure back home till 2:30 am. The game is awesome, and we made it guys v/s gals, which made it even more fun. We tried our best, and I'm happy to note that we won by sever points less than the other team... We had also played a couple of games of Shrink on the previous days which was also fun to play...
The ride back was almost uneventful except for the fact that we saw Lake Tahoe (finally!) and watched a couple of "good" movies.
I thought the fun was over, and could finally look forward to some free time. But no, not quite yet!
Turns out, my roommate's friends had come over for the holidays, so we went to Venice Beach the next day! The water was so cold that we couldn't stay in it for more than a minute. However, me and my trusty DSLR got a decent number of amazing shots of seagulls flying, and of the sunset. Made the trip to the beach so worth it....
As if that was not enough, the next day, all of us went to Universal Studios Hollywood! We went quite late though, and it did not help that it was a rainy day. There were a lot of amazing shows and rides there, and I think it'll take another post to write about all of them, and all the fun we had there.... I finally got my picture taken in front of the Universal Studios globe (one more thing I wanted since a really long time) The studio tour was amazing, the Shrek 4 show was cool, and the Mummy and Jurassic Park rides were thrilling (roller coaster - one which also went backwards for a bit, and Aquadive at Esselworld respectively) We came back at night, and had dinner at Chipotle (yummy!)
It was an amazing end to the first quarter at UCLA with lots and lots of fun, and several gigabytes of pics!
Looking forward to more stuff we'll be doing over the next few days....
Later!
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Something's Changed
This was a post I had written a long time ago... dated 10/4/08 10:34 PM
Just decided to publish it because of all the effort I had taken to write it...
All the people I refer to in it.... please don't take it personally, they were only observations from my side.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's day 3 of the inter-hostel cultural-technical competition Zephyr.
It all started with an innocent IM message from a friend asking if I had even attended a single Zephyr program.....
Rewind.....
2 years back, in my first year, our enthusiasm was obviously very high so we had attended almost everything that had come our way... including Zephyr. It had been fun watching the various competitions in the Auditorium such as Mr n Miss Zephyr and Fash P.
1 year back.... I and all of my friends had gone home due to an electricity problem.... hence missing the entire Zephyr.....
So back to the present.
The IM message really got me thinking. This semester, till now atleast had been somewhat... no very different from the previous ones.....
The last two years in college, I had been practically jobless, doing whatever came to my mind, enjoying, watching a lot of anime, series, movies, etc... Nights meant hour long walks with my friends, talking about random stuff, picking on one another, pulling each other's leg now and then and all sort of fun stuff..... We used to discuss a lot of stuff, knocking on each other's doors a lot of the times, inventing new and crazy lingo, play carrom...... Basically spend a lot of time together..... We also had most of our subjects in common, allowing us to attend classes together.
This semester, things started out a lot differently than expected. Since I was CS, and most... no almost all of my friends were EEE or EnI.... we hardly had any subjects in common, and our timetables hardly matched.
We still had DECO classes together.... however the subject was quite interesting and the continual and incessant chatter and random comments kept irritating me and did not allow me to concentrate.... since then I chose a different place to sit during class.....
Mostly, the times we met were only during meals, that too very rarely..... All our late night walks had become extinct... It was as if there was a wall between me and all of them....
But then I saw that half of it or maybe more.....was also my fault.... Since it was the CS subjects I was studying, it somehow seemed to make me more confident and sure of myself, and maybe even arrogant to a certain degree. After all, I had been waiting for these since four whole years.... I sympathised with the fate of the EEE/EnI students who had almost double the workload we had..... Atleast that's what I felt seeing that their course work was calculus filled, and taking into consideration that calculus is my weak point..... God alone knows how I got through the Physics and Electrical Sciences courses.....
One evening, one of my friends was gonna treat all of us. I was invited, but I told him that as I had some work, I would be slightly late..... As the work was computers related, and as fate would have it, I totally forgot about it,..... (knowing me, as I am, I can live without food or water for a few days, as long as I have a computer with me.........) and remembered only late at night..... I was surprised that not one of my 'so-called' friends had even tried calling me to find out if I was gonna come or not...... So much for friendship....... I do not know if I had wronged any of them in the past.... If so, I'm really very sorry.....
I really don't know what went wrong and where.... I had always been one who did not like having too many friends, but the few I had were and are true gems.....
Anyway, these experiences taught what I had heard but not believed from people more times than one..... that school is a controlled environment, but the rest of the world, even college is a place where you have to fend for yourself.... you are alone, and will have no help whatsoever...... What you make of yourself is in your own hands.......
Jeez... I seem to have drifted off the topic....
Yeah, so there was a DJ night organised...... some of my friends had attended the Mr n Miss Zephyr in the Auditorium, and unfortunately, I had not been able to make it due to my tight and busy schedule......
After having dinner alone...... I was sort of bored and exhausted... but just coz DJ nite was being organised..... my feet carried me there..... I was hoping to meet atleast someone whom I knew.... who I could sit around and chat with.... it had been a long and tiresome day...... But as fate would have it, no one could be found..... and I walked away disheartened.....
However... because of that, I walked around the campus for almost an hour, treading on familiar ground like I had several times in the past..... but now alone, instead of with friends to chat with..... thinking..... pondering...... about various random things...... I finally had some time alone to myself.... to go where my feet took me..... wandering......
But you know what..... at the DJ night, and mostly at all other 'audi' events, I have had this pricking sensation inside..... It always felt that by attending these kind of programmes, I was wasting my precious time... which could have been invested in doing something much better.... as if there was something higher to achieve, which I would miss if I wasted time attending events that sometimes were quite boring and did not interest me...... and honestly, music and performances were entertaining but they did not really add to me or my experience or knowledge in any way whatsoever.....
Either way.....
Something had definitely changed........
Just decided to publish it because of all the effort I had taken to write it...
All the people I refer to in it.... please don't take it personally, they were only observations from my side.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's day 3 of the inter-hostel cultural-technical competition Zephyr.
It all started with an innocent IM message from a friend asking if I had even attended a single Zephyr program.....
Rewind.....
2 years back, in my first year, our enthusiasm was obviously very high so we had attended almost everything that had come our way... including Zephyr. It had been fun watching the various competitions in the Auditorium such as Mr n Miss Zephyr and Fash P.
1 year back.... I and all of my friends had gone home due to an electricity problem.... hence missing the entire Zephyr.....
So back to the present.
The IM message really got me thinking. This semester, till now atleast had been somewhat... no very different from the previous ones.....
The last two years in college, I had been practically jobless, doing whatever came to my mind, enjoying, watching a lot of anime, series, movies, etc... Nights meant hour long walks with my friends, talking about random stuff, picking on one another, pulling each other's leg now and then and all sort of fun stuff..... We used to discuss a lot of stuff, knocking on each other's doors a lot of the times, inventing new and crazy lingo, play carrom...... Basically spend a lot of time together..... We also had most of our subjects in common, allowing us to attend classes together.
This semester, things started out a lot differently than expected. Since I was CS, and most... no almost all of my friends were EEE or EnI.... we hardly had any subjects in common, and our timetables hardly matched.
We still had DECO classes together.... however the subject was quite interesting and the continual and incessant chatter and random comments kept irritating me and did not allow me to concentrate.... since then I chose a different place to sit during class.....
Mostly, the times we met were only during meals, that too very rarely..... All our late night walks had become extinct... It was as if there was a wall between me and all of them....
But then I saw that half of it or maybe more.....was also my fault.... Since it was the CS subjects I was studying, it somehow seemed to make me more confident and sure of myself, and maybe even arrogant to a certain degree. After all, I had been waiting for these since four whole years.... I sympathised with the fate of the EEE/EnI students who had almost double the workload we had..... Atleast that's what I felt seeing that their course work was calculus filled, and taking into consideration that calculus is my weak point..... God alone knows how I got through the Physics and Electrical Sciences courses.....
One evening, one of my friends was gonna treat all of us. I was invited, but I told him that as I had some work, I would be slightly late..... As the work was computers related, and as fate would have it, I totally forgot about it,..... (knowing me, as I am, I can live without food or water for a few days, as long as I have a computer with me.........) and remembered only late at night..... I was surprised that not one of my 'so-called' friends had even tried calling me to find out if I was gonna come or not...... So much for friendship....... I do not know if I had wronged any of them in the past.... If so, I'm really very sorry.....
I really don't know what went wrong and where.... I had always been one who did not like having too many friends, but the few I had were and are true gems.....
Anyway, these experiences taught what I had heard but not believed from people more times than one..... that school is a controlled environment, but the rest of the world, even college is a place where you have to fend for yourself.... you are alone, and will have no help whatsoever...... What you make of yourself is in your own hands.......
Jeez... I seem to have drifted off the topic....
Yeah, so there was a DJ night organised...... some of my friends had attended the Mr n Miss Zephyr in the Auditorium, and unfortunately, I had not been able to make it due to my tight and busy schedule......
After having dinner alone...... I was sort of bored and exhausted... but just coz DJ nite was being organised..... my feet carried me there..... I was hoping to meet atleast someone whom I knew.... who I could sit around and chat with.... it had been a long and tiresome day...... But as fate would have it, no one could be found..... and I walked away disheartened.....
However... because of that, I walked around the campus for almost an hour, treading on familiar ground like I had several times in the past..... but now alone, instead of with friends to chat with..... thinking..... pondering...... about various random things...... I finally had some time alone to myself.... to go where my feet took me..... wandering......
But you know what..... at the DJ night, and mostly at all other 'audi' events, I have had this pricking sensation inside..... It always felt that by attending these kind of programmes, I was wasting my precious time... which could have been invested in doing something much better.... as if there was something higher to achieve, which I would miss if I wasted time attending events that sometimes were quite boring and did not interest me...... and honestly, music and performances were entertaining but they did not really add to me or my experience or knowledge in any way whatsoever.....
Either way.....
Something had definitely changed........
Friday, September 24, 2010
Over to Los Angeles
Having completed my stint at Bangalore without too many professional hiccups, I was blessed (in hindsight, really?) with an admit to the Masters of Science program at multiple good US universities. After fighting a tough mental battle to choose between Purdue (my first admit) and Georgia Tech (my second admit) I was faced with an even more difficult choice when UCLA was added to my list of universities.
It is often said that whenever you are confronted with a difficult choice, you should learn to read the signs. As it so happened, I decided to attend Georgia Tech this fall. Then, I chatted with a soon-to-be classmate at Georgia Tech, and she was quite surprised that I was choosing Georgia Tech over UCLA. Her arguments in favor of UCLA got me thinking again, and just on the day I was going to send an email to UCLA asking them to cancel my admission, I decided to attend UCLA. I am indeed thankful to her for giving me a fresh perspective.
So now, my journey took me to UCLA, Los Angeles in California, the state known for its brilliant weather all through the year. Having settled down in a nice and cozy home, classes finally started just yesterday. The first class Advanced Operating Systems was fun, just the way I had expected it to be. However, we were burdened with tons of reading to do for next class.
Los Angeles is a very nice place and UCLA is cooler! We've now had four orientations till date and many welcome parties. It's amazing to be in a place so active, alive and diverse. I only wish that I had done my undergrad here too...
My next mission is to try stay afloat in the piles of stuff I'll have to read and assignments I'll have to solve before deadlines.
More later!
It is often said that whenever you are confronted with a difficult choice, you should learn to read the signs. As it so happened, I decided to attend Georgia Tech this fall. Then, I chatted with a soon-to-be classmate at Georgia Tech, and she was quite surprised that I was choosing Georgia Tech over UCLA. Her arguments in favor of UCLA got me thinking again, and just on the day I was going to send an email to UCLA asking them to cancel my admission, I decided to attend UCLA. I am indeed thankful to her for giving me a fresh perspective.
So now, my journey took me to UCLA, Los Angeles in California, the state known for its brilliant weather all through the year. Having settled down in a nice and cozy home, classes finally started just yesterday. The first class Advanced Operating Systems was fun, just the way I had expected it to be. However, we were burdened with tons of reading to do for next class.
Los Angeles is a very nice place and UCLA is cooler! We've now had four orientations till date and many welcome parties. It's amazing to be in a place so active, alive and diverse. I only wish that I had done my undergrad here too...
My next mission is to try stay afloat in the piles of stuff I'll have to read and assignments I'll have to solve before deadlines.
More later!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Cube Hunt - The End
I had written a post about my search for a perfect cube way back in January 2008. It's been two and a half years since then. I had forgotten all about cubing till only a few weeks back when the occurrence of some events made me look for something to do to get my mind off stuff.
Rummaging through all the junk that I tend to accumulate over time, even in the short span of six months at Bangalore, I came across my old cube. It was quite difficult to handle, and a few cubelets even came off when I rotated it. However, since I had completely forgotten how to solve it, I turned back and learnt the solution from scratch. I also remembered the post I had written on my blog.
Now, since I was in a new city, I began the search anew. There was a pretty huge toy shop near where I lived, so as soon as I got my first opportunity, I asked if they had a high quality Rubik's Cube. Much to my dismay (no surprises there...) if was out of stock here as well.
Now, I had a friend over from college, so while showing him around my area, I took him to the Forum, which has a huge store called Landmark. Describing Landmark would take an entire post in itself, so I'll just say that it is the largest general purpose store I have seen. Of course, the sections of my interest are books and music. It also has a toy section, so I took a chance and asked if they had Funskool Cubes in stock.
Thankfully (phew!!!) they did, and so I walked out of the store, a proud owner of a new cube, a cube that turned so easily and effortlessly that it was a charm to solve.
Thus ended the two years and a half long cube hunt!
Rummaging through all the junk that I tend to accumulate over time, even in the short span of six months at Bangalore, I came across my old cube. It was quite difficult to handle, and a few cubelets even came off when I rotated it. However, since I had completely forgotten how to solve it, I turned back and learnt the solution from scratch. I also remembered the post I had written on my blog.
Now, since I was in a new city, I began the search anew. There was a pretty huge toy shop near where I lived, so as soon as I got my first opportunity, I asked if they had a high quality Rubik's Cube. Much to my dismay (no surprises there...) if was out of stock here as well.
Now, I had a friend over from college, so while showing him around my area, I took him to the Forum, which has a huge store called Landmark. Describing Landmark would take an entire post in itself, so I'll just say that it is the largest general purpose store I have seen. Of course, the sections of my interest are books and music. It also has a toy section, so I took a chance and asked if they had Funskool Cubes in stock.
Thankfully (phew!!!) they did, and so I walked out of the store, a proud owner of a new cube, a cube that turned so easily and effortlessly that it was a charm to solve.
Thus ended the two years and a half long cube hunt!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
My Interview for TECHBYTE
Hi All,
I was recently interviewed for TECHBYTE, which is a magazine the Computer Science Department of BITS Pilani Goa Campus has come up with this year.
Thought I should put the contents of the interview here for those who do not happen to have access to the magazine.
First of all, many congratulations to you!
Thank you very much!
So tell us, What is your work ethic? How did you manage all the awesome stuff - Placement, IIM calls, GRE score, admits, CGPA?
Well, there was a saying in 3 Idiots that went something like this... Pursue excellence and success will automatically follow. This has always been true for me. I have always lived life one day at a time, trying to make the best use of it. No, I don't mean I always made the best use of my time, or always studied, or anything like that. I just did what I felt like doing. Some days it was chatting on DC or Google Talk, some days just bunking all classes and watching TV series the whole day, but on some days, I would actually have to get down to business and get some serious work done, be it completing assignments, or studying for the (never ending) T1s, T2s and compres.
Yeah, the transition from school/junior college to BITS was tough for me, and I'm sure it has been the same for many people. I started out with a 7.79 GPA in the first semester. Thankfully, my parents believed in me and encouraged me to do better than just blaming my computer for the poor GPA. Yeah, I had a computer with me right from my first day at BITS. You may not believe it now, but people around you, friends, parents and especially professors do matter a lot and influence you in ways you may not see immediately.
Let us start with the 'CSI IT Idol of Goa'. How did that come about and how was your experience?
Yeah, with this competition I just got lucky. In fact, I wasn't even thinking of applying to it. One of my friends, Kartik (eragon) asked if I wanted to apply just for fun. And that's why I did. Guess it turned out great at the end. To be honest, I hadn't expected winning the competition. There were numerous rounds to be cleared. The first one was the written test. That was simple enough, Rasagy, Kartik and Yogesh got through it with me. The second was the programming round at Goa University. They asked us to code for some program (to construct and search in a tree, I think) and that was fun as well. The next was a presentation round and I had been asked to present on the topic "Future and Challenges in Cloud Computing" This round had been only a few days after Test 2, so none of us who had qualified had adequate time to prepare. Thankfully, all our presentations were top-notch. The last round was interviews with a panel. I learnt a valuable lesson here. Humour always helps. A small joke goes a long way in creating a positive impression in the mind of the interviewers. It gives them something to remember you by and almost always tips the scales in your favour.
You got placed at Oracle. What preparations did you do for that?
I knew that the placement situation on campus was poor looking at the placements in the previous semester and the general state of the economy. However, we had the good fortune of being visited by some fine companies, Oracle Server Technology being one of them. I think that the matter of clearing the written test is usually a matter of luck and impromptu thinking more than preparation. The verbal section does need the study of English or the inculcation of the very important habit of reading which most of us give up right after coming to BITS due to various reasons. However, if you're preparing for the GRE then this does not pose a problem. The interviews are all about keeping cool and being honest. Tension shows easily and usually brings out the worst in a person. It helps to stay calm and answer confidently, and say that you don't know the answer to a question if you don't rather than fluking. Interviewers can catch flukes and drill you on your answer. At the end of the day, all that matters is what you learnt in your CDC semesters and a bit of luck. The best part about being placed at Oracle was that it happened the day before Waves, and for that very reason, that was the best Waves in these four years for me.
Coming to 'Belling the CAT'. How did you go about it?
To be honest, I was never serious about the CAT or pursuing an MBA course immediately after BITS. It's just that I was curious and CAT has had a reputation of being one of the tougher and more competitive examinations, so I decided to give it just like that. Trust me when I say that I hadn't put in any preparation for the CAT. I gave it in Bangalore on January 30th because I had faced technical difficulties while giving my examination at home in Mumbai. I guess the change in pattern and difficulty of the examination helped me.
How did it feel to get a call from one of the most prestigious B-schools - IIM?
It's definitely a great feeling. In fact, when I got my CAT result, I was pleasantly surprised to see 99+ percentile on my score card considering I hadn't put any effort towards preparation for the examination.
Okay so tell us, why do you think so many engineers go for an MBA nowadays? Don't you think that undermines your first degree?
I believe that pursuing any engineering course helps to build certain skills in a person, some of them being logical thinking, working under pressure, meeting deadlines etc. Even though so many students pursue engineering, some do aspire to be managers rather than pursue a technical career. Studying engineering before management allows individuals to be well versed with both the technical aspects as well as the managerial expertise. This gives engineers an edge when they are at a managerial post in a technical organisation. Hence I do not feel that an MBA undermines the importance of your first degree.
You also did very well in GRE. What preparations led to that?
I gave my GRE at the end of the summer vacations after my third year at BITS. Unfortunately, I wasn't satisfied with my preparation because I ended up not studying for most of the summer (because of the BITSian habit of procrastination) I studied vocabulary for only a fortnight before my GRE date. Thankfully, I ended up with 1400, which is a decent enough score. I regret that I could not pursue an internship during the summer as most of my batchmates did. My advice would be to try to get an intern during the summer vacations after your third year. An internship really helps while applying to universities abroad. And as one of my friends (Nilesh Kulkarni) proved, you do not need 2 months to prepare for the GRE. One can study and give it in fourteen days of tremendously hard effort and get a score greater that mine.
A call from Purdue and recently, Georgia Tech. Lots of options to weigh upon. Which do u plan to take up and what do you plan to study there?
Yes, I got an admit from Georgia Tech just a couple of days back. Other admits I received were from Purdue, University of California at Los Angeles and Ohio State University. Indeed, a good number of options to choose from. I had a very difficult time choosing between UCLA and Purdue before I got the GaTech admit, and now I'm having an even tougher time choosing from the three. Most probably, I will be attending Georgia Tech this fall. My interest has been Networking, Distributed Systems and High Performance Computing. Nettech and my research for the CSI IT Idol presentation helped me realise what my interests were. I had also chosen varied courses in my fourth year, such as Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence and Parallel Computing to help me decide, In the end, I decided that Parallel Computing was more interesting as compared to the other two, and this strengthened my interest,
Lots of students here will be interested in knowing how to apply to these prestigious colleges? what all do they look for in the applicants?
Students interested in pursuing a Masters or a PhD should join the BITS2MSPHD Yahoo Group at the earliest. It has a group of really helpful seniors who answer the queries students have about applying to US universities and offer any other assistance if required. One should also start going through the websites of the universities that interest them so as to gain an insight into the professors and their research areas at the university. It also helps to keep in touch with seniors studying there. As far as what a university looks for in an applicant, I think the first parameter is probably the CGPA. A higher CGPA increases the chances of an admit tremendously. Apart from that, the Statement of Purpose is also very important and must be written in a concise manner but must still clearly explain your reasons for graduate study. The SOP allows the Admissions Committee to understand you better and gain an insight into your personality. Letters of Recommendation also matter a great deal. Be sure to work on atleast one project in your field of interest with a professor at BITS. Last but not the least, internships at known research institutes such as IISc, TIFR, etc boost your chances by a fair amount.
After having done it all, do you think it's wise for students to do all 3 things - CGPA, MBA prep and GRE Prep?
At the end of the day, no matter what others say, your CGPA does count a great deal, but at the same time, it's not the only thing that counts. It is also important to enjoy your four (or five) years at BITS as you will never get this much freedom to explore yourself and your interests later in life. Yes, I think it's reasonable and quite possible to pursue all three at once if you are focussed. If you have a specific interest such as pursuing an MBA or an MS, then one must concentrate on one specific task than trying to achieve everything. I wanted to pursue graduate study, so the GRE was my first priority. I gave the CAT just to see how far I could go without any preparation, and I just happened to get lucky.
You must have worked on several computer languages. Which one do you think is the future?
All programming languages are built with a specific purpose in mind. C, C++ and Java were built for general programming, PHP for small to medium scale web development, Perl and Python for scripting. I use a specific language based on the application. For instance, string processing is very difficult in C but is extremely simple in Perl, Java and Python. Therefore, I think there is no one specific language which will be used in the future. However, the simplicity of Python has been really fascinating. I think one should definitely have a look at Python as a language for quick and pain-free development.
Which are your favorite websites for resources.
Google usually helps in most cases. Apart from that a special mention to http://www.w3schools.com/ for some amazing tutorials and http://www.cplusplus.com/ for complete reference for the C and C++ programming languages.
Tell us something about the CSD. The experience, your work, etc. (You must have been partly responsible for blocking several sites huh :P).
Working with the Centre for Software Development was an amazing experience. In fact, I spent most of my time between classes in my third year working at the CSD. I was always interested in the real world application of what I was learning at BITS. The internet has been a severe problem for a while now. We tried our level best to cooperate with the Computer Centre and propose new solutions in order to provide safe, yet fast internet access to students. I believe some of our efforts have helped to alleviate the problems to a considerable extent. We also set up a few repositories for popular distributions such as Ubuntu and openSUSE to promote the use of GNU/Linux in campus. The CSD also brought me in contact with professors such as Dr. D.M. Kulkarni and Mr. Mangesh Bedekar and it has been a pleasure working with them. As students, we understood the difficulties faced by students in accessing certain sites blocked by accident and in fact, we tried to propose ways in which only sites necessary would be censored without affecting the productivity of the internet access. Therefore, we were responsible for unblocking wrongly blocked sites rather than blocking more sites.
Now a few fun questions:
Comments on the new name of the campus?
Any change meets resistance initially, but I think changing the name of our campus has made it stand out from the other BITS campuses. It has made our campus more special and given it a new personality.
If you had 10 crores, what would you do for the campus? Let your imagination run wild for this one.
10 crores is a really large amount. I would probably use it to build a swimming pool (it's really hot in Goa during the second semester) and establish new research laboratories in our campus. And build India's fastest supercomputer in campus too.
Who on campus do you think deserves a golden mural?
Far too many people, in my opinion. The B-dome would be full of them if we made a golden mural for every person who I think deserves it. ;)
One final question, where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
As I have mentioned before, I live life a day at a time, and putting down where I see myself 10 years from now would just be limiting the endless possibilities. As it is said popularly, the sky is the limit, and I would let that be. Just drop me an email in ten years, and I'll tell you where I am :)
I was recently interviewed for TECHBYTE, which is a magazine the Computer Science Department of BITS Pilani Goa Campus has come up with this year.
Thought I should put the contents of the interview here for those who do not happen to have access to the magazine.
First of all, many congratulations to you!
Thank you very much!
So tell us, What is your work ethic? How did you manage all the awesome stuff - Placement, IIM calls, GRE score, admits, CGPA?
Well, there was a saying in 3 Idiots that went something like this... Pursue excellence and success will automatically follow. This has always been true for me. I have always lived life one day at a time, trying to make the best use of it. No, I don't mean I always made the best use of my time, or always studied, or anything like that. I just did what I felt like doing. Some days it was chatting on DC or Google Talk, some days just bunking all classes and watching TV series the whole day, but on some days, I would actually have to get down to business and get some serious work done, be it completing assignments, or studying for the (never ending) T1s, T2s and compres.
Yeah, the transition from school/junior college to BITS was tough for me, and I'm sure it has been the same for many people. I started out with a 7.79 GPA in the first semester. Thankfully, my parents believed in me and encouraged me to do better than just blaming my computer for the poor GPA. Yeah, I had a computer with me right from my first day at BITS. You may not believe it now, but people around you, friends, parents and especially professors do matter a lot and influence you in ways you may not see immediately.
Let us start with the 'CSI IT Idol of Goa'. How did that come about and how was your experience?
Yeah, with this competition I just got lucky. In fact, I wasn't even thinking of applying to it. One of my friends, Kartik (eragon) asked if I wanted to apply just for fun. And that's why I did. Guess it turned out great at the end. To be honest, I hadn't expected winning the competition. There were numerous rounds to be cleared. The first one was the written test. That was simple enough, Rasagy, Kartik and Yogesh got through it with me. The second was the programming round at Goa University. They asked us to code for some program (to construct and search in a tree, I think) and that was fun as well. The next was a presentation round and I had been asked to present on the topic "Future and Challenges in Cloud Computing" This round had been only a few days after Test 2, so none of us who had qualified had adequate time to prepare. Thankfully, all our presentations were top-notch. The last round was interviews with a panel. I learnt a valuable lesson here. Humour always helps. A small joke goes a long way in creating a positive impression in the mind of the interviewers. It gives them something to remember you by and almost always tips the scales in your favour.
You got placed at Oracle. What preparations did you do for that?
I knew that the placement situation on campus was poor looking at the placements in the previous semester and the general state of the economy. However, we had the good fortune of being visited by some fine companies, Oracle Server Technology being one of them. I think that the matter of clearing the written test is usually a matter of luck and impromptu thinking more than preparation. The verbal section does need the study of English or the inculcation of the very important habit of reading which most of us give up right after coming to BITS due to various reasons. However, if you're preparing for the GRE then this does not pose a problem. The interviews are all about keeping cool and being honest. Tension shows easily and usually brings out the worst in a person. It helps to stay calm and answer confidently, and say that you don't know the answer to a question if you don't rather than fluking. Interviewers can catch flukes and drill you on your answer. At the end of the day, all that matters is what you learnt in your CDC semesters and a bit of luck. The best part about being placed at Oracle was that it happened the day before Waves, and for that very reason, that was the best Waves in these four years for me.
Coming to 'Belling the CAT'. How did you go about it?
To be honest, I was never serious about the CAT or pursuing an MBA course immediately after BITS. It's just that I was curious and CAT has had a reputation of being one of the tougher and more competitive examinations, so I decided to give it just like that. Trust me when I say that I hadn't put in any preparation for the CAT. I gave it in Bangalore on January 30th because I had faced technical difficulties while giving my examination at home in Mumbai. I guess the change in pattern and difficulty of the examination helped me.
How did it feel to get a call from one of the most prestigious B-schools - IIM?
It's definitely a great feeling. In fact, when I got my CAT result, I was pleasantly surprised to see 99+ percentile on my score card considering I hadn't put any effort towards preparation for the examination.
Okay so tell us, why do you think so many engineers go for an MBA nowadays? Don't you think that undermines your first degree?
I believe that pursuing any engineering course helps to build certain skills in a person, some of them being logical thinking, working under pressure, meeting deadlines etc. Even though so many students pursue engineering, some do aspire to be managers rather than pursue a technical career. Studying engineering before management allows individuals to be well versed with both the technical aspects as well as the managerial expertise. This gives engineers an edge when they are at a managerial post in a technical organisation. Hence I do not feel that an MBA undermines the importance of your first degree.
You also did very well in GRE. What preparations led to that?
I gave my GRE at the end of the summer vacations after my third year at BITS. Unfortunately, I wasn't satisfied with my preparation because I ended up not studying for most of the summer (because of the BITSian habit of procrastination) I studied vocabulary for only a fortnight before my GRE date. Thankfully, I ended up with 1400, which is a decent enough score. I regret that I could not pursue an internship during the summer as most of my batchmates did. My advice would be to try to get an intern during the summer vacations after your third year. An internship really helps while applying to universities abroad. And as one of my friends (Nilesh Kulkarni) proved, you do not need 2 months to prepare for the GRE. One can study and give it in fourteen days of tremendously hard effort and get a score greater that mine.
A call from Purdue and recently, Georgia Tech. Lots of options to weigh upon. Which do u plan to take up and what do you plan to study there?
Yes, I got an admit from Georgia Tech just a couple of days back. Other admits I received were from Purdue, University of California at Los Angeles and Ohio State University. Indeed, a good number of options to choose from. I had a very difficult time choosing between UCLA and Purdue before I got the GaTech admit, and now I'm having an even tougher time choosing from the three. Most probably, I will be attending Georgia Tech this fall. My interest has been Networking, Distributed Systems and High Performance Computing. Nettech and my research for the CSI IT Idol presentation helped me realise what my interests were. I had also chosen varied courses in my fourth year, such as Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence and Parallel Computing to help me decide, In the end, I decided that Parallel Computing was more interesting as compared to the other two, and this strengthened my interest,
Lots of students here will be interested in knowing how to apply to these prestigious colleges? what all do they look for in the applicants?
Students interested in pursuing a Masters or a PhD should join the BITS2MSPHD Yahoo Group at the earliest. It has a group of really helpful seniors who answer the queries students have about applying to US universities and offer any other assistance if required. One should also start going through the websites of the universities that interest them so as to gain an insight into the professors and their research areas at the university. It also helps to keep in touch with seniors studying there. As far as what a university looks for in an applicant, I think the first parameter is probably the CGPA. A higher CGPA increases the chances of an admit tremendously. Apart from that, the Statement of Purpose is also very important and must be written in a concise manner but must still clearly explain your reasons for graduate study. The SOP allows the Admissions Committee to understand you better and gain an insight into your personality. Letters of Recommendation also matter a great deal. Be sure to work on atleast one project in your field of interest with a professor at BITS. Last but not the least, internships at known research institutes such as IISc, TIFR, etc boost your chances by a fair amount.
After having done it all, do you think it's wise for students to do all 3 things - CGPA, MBA prep and GRE Prep?
At the end of the day, no matter what others say, your CGPA does count a great deal, but at the same time, it's not the only thing that counts. It is also important to enjoy your four (or five) years at BITS as you will never get this much freedom to explore yourself and your interests later in life. Yes, I think it's reasonable and quite possible to pursue all three at once if you are focussed. If you have a specific interest such as pursuing an MBA or an MS, then one must concentrate on one specific task than trying to achieve everything. I wanted to pursue graduate study, so the GRE was my first priority. I gave the CAT just to see how far I could go without any preparation, and I just happened to get lucky.
You must have worked on several computer languages. Which one do you think is the future?
All programming languages are built with a specific purpose in mind. C, C++ and Java were built for general programming, PHP for small to medium scale web development, Perl and Python for scripting. I use a specific language based on the application. For instance, string processing is very difficult in C but is extremely simple in Perl, Java and Python. Therefore, I think there is no one specific language which will be used in the future. However, the simplicity of Python has been really fascinating. I think one should definitely have a look at Python as a language for quick and pain-free development.
Which are your favorite websites for resources.
Google usually helps in most cases. Apart from that a special mention to http://www.w3schools.com/ for some amazing tutorials and http://www.cplusplus.com/ for complete reference for the C and C++ programming languages.
Tell us something about the CSD. The experience, your work, etc. (You must have been partly responsible for blocking several sites huh :P).
Working with the Centre for Software Development was an amazing experience. In fact, I spent most of my time between classes in my third year working at the CSD. I was always interested in the real world application of what I was learning at BITS. The internet has been a severe problem for a while now. We tried our level best to cooperate with the Computer Centre and propose new solutions in order to provide safe, yet fast internet access to students. I believe some of our efforts have helped to alleviate the problems to a considerable extent. We also set up a few repositories for popular distributions such as Ubuntu and openSUSE to promote the use of GNU/Linux in campus. The CSD also brought me in contact with professors such as Dr. D.M. Kulkarni and Mr. Mangesh Bedekar and it has been a pleasure working with them. As students, we understood the difficulties faced by students in accessing certain sites blocked by accident and in fact, we tried to propose ways in which only sites necessary would be censored without affecting the productivity of the internet access. Therefore, we were responsible for unblocking wrongly blocked sites rather than blocking more sites.
Now a few fun questions:
Comments on the new name of the campus?
Any change meets resistance initially, but I think changing the name of our campus has made it stand out from the other BITS campuses. It has made our campus more special and given it a new personality.
If you had 10 crores, what would you do for the campus? Let your imagination run wild for this one.
10 crores is a really large amount. I would probably use it to build a swimming pool (it's really hot in Goa during the second semester) and establish new research laboratories in our campus. And build India's fastest supercomputer in campus too.
Who on campus do you think deserves a golden mural?
Far too many people, in my opinion. The B-dome would be full of them if we made a golden mural for every person who I think deserves it. ;)
One final question, where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
As I have mentioned before, I live life a day at a time, and putting down where I see myself 10 years from now would just be limiting the endless possibilities. As it is said popularly, the sky is the limit, and I would let that be. Just drop me an email in ten years, and I'll tell you where I am :)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Trust
I'm posting to my blog so regularly that it's now getting scary... Either there's something really amiss with my life or I'm actually becoming an active blogger for want of a better pastime.
Keeping in tune with other posts, this one too shall contain no names.
I have a friend, let's call him X. Now, calling him a friend implies that we share stuff.. ideas, thoughts, words, time and sometimes even secrets. Now sharing secrets requires a mutual trust to exist between two people. So, yes there were some secrets kept between us, not just us but amongst all the people I usually hang out with. Now, this was never said, but I hoped that by an unwritten and unsaid contract, certain things would not be spread outside our circle.
Well I have been occasionally frivolous, almost all my life, especially with people I call friends. However, I believe I have also been as quick to apologize when I was hurting someone's sentiments. Needless to say, this has also happened innumerable times with this friend.
Today, I just found out some strange things. Quite accidentally, and almost unintentionally, I stumbled upon some piece of evidence that pointed to the fact that this "friend" had been discussing some of the things I had said unintentionally and accidentally with people whom I had wished not to know those things. And unfortunately, I'm quite sure he knew it.
Well, it's too troublesome confronting people, and needless to say, I won't confront him, for now at least. However, it's not easy to forget such things. Now, the matter that was discussed was probably quite silly and not very important, but it did make me question myself about the integrity of the people I keep as friends around me.
I may sound paranoid, but if you look at the larger picture, people you keep around yourself may not be just your friends, but your business associates whom you will trust to keep business secrets. And a leak at that point of time could bring everything down.
I've always been very selective about who I call a friend, and trust is something I never bestow without thinking it through. But all through my life, there have always been instances when I thought I had trusted the wrong people. And unfortunately, even though some of them have apologized, a sorry just doesn't take back their actions.
I've tried multiple times to rid myself of this paranoia, but there's always someone to re-affirm my belief in the fact that "Trust is a weakness" indeed...
Keeping in tune with other posts, this one too shall contain no names.
I have a friend, let's call him X. Now, calling him a friend implies that we share stuff.. ideas, thoughts, words, time and sometimes even secrets. Now sharing secrets requires a mutual trust to exist between two people. So, yes there were some secrets kept between us, not just us but amongst all the people I usually hang out with. Now, this was never said, but I hoped that by an unwritten and unsaid contract, certain things would not be spread outside our circle.
Well I have been occasionally frivolous, almost all my life, especially with people I call friends. However, I believe I have also been as quick to apologize when I was hurting someone's sentiments. Needless to say, this has also happened innumerable times with this friend.
Today, I just found out some strange things. Quite accidentally, and almost unintentionally, I stumbled upon some piece of evidence that pointed to the fact that this "friend" had been discussing some of the things I had said unintentionally and accidentally with people whom I had wished not to know those things. And unfortunately, I'm quite sure he knew it.
Well, it's too troublesome confronting people, and needless to say, I won't confront him, for now at least. However, it's not easy to forget such things. Now, the matter that was discussed was probably quite silly and not very important, but it did make me question myself about the integrity of the people I keep as friends around me.
I may sound paranoid, but if you look at the larger picture, people you keep around yourself may not be just your friends, but your business associates whom you will trust to keep business secrets. And a leak at that point of time could bring everything down.
I've always been very selective about who I call a friend, and trust is something I never bestow without thinking it through. But all through my life, there have always been instances when I thought I had trusted the wrong people. And unfortunately, even though some of them have apologized, a sorry just doesn't take back their actions.
I've tried multiple times to rid myself of this paranoia, but there's always someone to re-affirm my belief in the fact that "Trust is a weakness" indeed...
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Childhood Ambitions
It's 6:30 am on a Sunday, and I'm awake... :-|
Sitting with my laptop in the balcony, looking out at an amazing view of Bangalore city.
Looking, back, I realize that when I was a kid, I had lots of things I wanted to do. Some of them were kiddish, some were actually useful and worth doing, some were plain impossible...
Decided to enumerate them, here they are... (in no order whatsoever)
1) Collecting all the G.I.Joe action figures and vehicles
2) Completely buying Enid Blyton's Five Find Outers and Dog series
3) Interacting a lot more with other members of Mensa
4) Becoming a HAM Radio operator
5) Learning a new language
6) Becoming financially independent
7) Building a magnetic personality
8) Making a war bot and participating in Robot Wars
9) Reading minds
10)Learning handwriting analysis and palmistry
~MH
Sitting with my laptop in the balcony, looking out at an amazing view of Bangalore city.
Looking, back, I realize that when I was a kid, I had lots of things I wanted to do. Some of them were kiddish, some were actually useful and worth doing, some were plain impossible...
Decided to enumerate them, here they are... (in no order whatsoever)
1) Collecting all the G.I.Joe action figures and vehicles
2) Completely buying Enid Blyton's Five Find Outers and Dog series
3) Interacting a lot more with other members of Mensa
4) Becoming a HAM Radio operator
5) Learning a new language
6) Becoming financially independent
7) Building a magnetic personality
8) Making a war bot and participating in Robot Wars
9) Reading minds
10)Learning handwriting analysis and palmistry
~MH
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