Frustrations and Joys of Research

Here is an interesting excerpt from a pdf I found on Carnegie Mellon University website.

"Research can be very rewarding and very frustrating. Most students describe graduate school as a roller-coaster with tremendous highs and tremendous lows.
Frustrations can come from not being able to solve a problem that you’re working on, or from having someone else beat you to the solution. Frustrations can come from loneliness. However, probably the biggest frustration is the realization that you’re not as great as you thought you were.

Here’s a very typical story:
Student X comes from famous school Y in country Z, where he was ranked 5th out of over hundreds of thousands of students. He was also ranked #1 in his class for the year in terms of GPA. The student comes to graduate school expecting to be the best and starts working very hard on research. By the end of his first or second year, the student realizes that he has not yet published any papers. His friends and family from home start asking what’s wrong with him. He feels frustrated and ashamed. He blames his advisor, he blames his department, he blames his school. Finally, he grows up and accepts the fact that maybe he’s not the best, but he can still do well if he works hard. He starts listening better, works harder, and ends up quite successful.

For all the frustrations, research can be extremely joyous. For some people, the joy of research is the joy of discovering something new that no one knew about. You might be discovering a new algorithm, a new operating system design idea, a new idea for maximizing the performance of disk arrays, etc.. For others, there’s the joy of truly understanding. You’ve probably noticed that in classes a professor or book will stop just when things are getting really interesting and say, “the rest is beyond the scope of this class.” In research, you can take a problem as far as you want and understand everything about it. For many, the joy of research comes from being able to make an impact – to change the way systems are built and design them in a smarter way. There’s also the joy of doing it right. In a company, the aim is to get a working product and ship it out quickly. In research, you can take your time and plan out your project so that you are proud to defend every one of your design decisions. Research is not about simple heuristics or quick hacks. Many people also relish the joy of being the authority on an area and of having their work cited by others."

GRE on Sept 3

My GRE is on this Monday. Just finished the cycle tests today. Was dont-care for all the subjects. Experienced the feeling of not being prepared for the cycle tests. Inspite of that, tests were decent.

Talked to Sagar Thakar (3-4 years senior to me, now in IIMB) about what universities I should apply to. Here they are: Stanford, Georgia, Michigan, Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon. Will have to research about them...

Watched the movie "Amelie". It was very good.

Inspite of all the workload, never does a day pass by, when I dont think about her.

A.P.J Abdul Kalam for Convo

Saw honorary Abdul Kalam, in person, who came in our college during Convocation. Couldn't get into Barn, where convo was actually held, because you needed to be invited by a person who was graduating that day, or you had to be a girl :(

When you dont want to see/meet a person, you always keep bumping into her... ;) Thats life.

"When a person really desires something all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream."

I have accepted the hard facts, and moved on with my life. So now all the romantic, longing songs have been replaced by Lakshya - Title song, and Eminem - I am the way I am.

Had a treat yesterday given by Dongli, Badri and Shishir. Had my first peg (60ml) of Vodka. Had diluted with Pepsi of course. Tasted very bitter, and weird. Decided that wont try it ever again, cos it seems pointless. Retained full control of my mind and body. :P

GRE preparation is decently going on, scoring 800 (Quant) + 550 (Verbal) consistently. Finding it difficult to get above it. Cycle Tests around the corner, but not studying much for them (as if I studied a lot before :P).

I need to get atleast 1400 to aim for any of the top 10 CS universities. Found a nice thought attributed to Einstein:

"Not everything that counts can be counted,
and not everything that can be counted counts."

Delta Nightout

I had a complete night out in Octagon for Delta. This is my way of bidding farewell to delta for 3 weeks till my GRE day. :)

Completed blogs, videos, and changed the template of nitt.edu. Screwed up news. (Rectifying it is left to the juniors as an exercise). Changed the homepage of Delta too.

IBM Technology Day

Yesterday was the IBM Technology Day. I had registered for it, for I did not want to miss anything important, but at the same time, I had this beast of Barrons wordlist over me.

Still, I decided to go for it. It was in A2 hall. The talks were on Multi-core Architecture and Web 2.0. It was mainly for CSE and MCAs, but it was made open to other departments like ECE (why? :( ).

Had a nice chat with one of the IBM guys about the upcoming challenges in Linux and computing in general. During the lecture of Web 2.0, the speaker urged us to implement some of the technologies he was speaking of. I got up and told him about all the things Delta has done like RSS Feedreader, AJAXed student search, wikipedia, books, songs, etc. I also mentioned about "Spider" forums. (I am not sure if I showed off too much).

Then at the end, I gave a lot of ideas that IBM can help our institute with. I have to take a poll on these topics and see what the junta is interested in.

I talked to Sagar and Ramona today. They have been my closest friends. They cheered me up.

I 'm feeling lucky

I finally got an "official" confirmation from Google. I am getting my offer letter today.

GRE Prep has started but not picked up momentum yet. Hope it does. Delta-spider war has began. Delta has a good headstart now. :)

2B v ~2B

I had great confusion whether to sit for Microsoft or not. Given the situation I am in, it was really tough to decide. Kept oscillating, till finally today in the morning, I tossed a coin.

I am not a great believer in fate, destiny, etc. but life has its own way of teaching lessons. So, the final decision I made was, I am not sitting for Microsoft. I know that I am risking my life here, but if I am good enough, I will do well anywhere.

I have realized one thing over the past couple of weeks: I am better being an introvert. I have been trying to break the shackles and change. But my problem is the access specifiers. Even though I have public, protected and private variables, friends have access to all. And my definition of friend happens to be very lenient. I assume that every person is good, by default; which I now realize is not a very good assumption in real life.

I have started my GRE prep now. Currently executing the first pass over the word list. This will mark all the known words, so that I can concentrate on the other words in the second pass. The "Judgement Day" is on Sept 3, just 4 weeks from now. I recently got a 250 GB hard disk, so now I am trying to heap up all the serials and movies I will want to watch after my GRE.

Meanwhile, I have deleted all traces of "her" in my life. All photos, contact no, entry in the kela chart, orkut invite, picasa gallery, blog is gone. My brain is the only place left, it is just a matter of time before it vanishes from there too.

Twist in the tale (tail)

I haven't got the PPO (Pre Placement Offer) from Google yet. The HRs said that I was through the Hiring Committee, but yet to go through the Compensation Committee and signing from Larry Page. This process takes some time, and around 1 out of 1000 applications get rejected after this. The reasons for that being low grades or the committee feeling that we haven't been tested enough.

Microsoft is coming on campus this Monday. So, technically speaking I am eligible to sit for it. But now I am confused, I don't want to mess someone else's chances, and ditch MS for Google (if I get it). Anyways I plan to give GRE and go for higher studies if I get into any of the top 10 universities.

"The most difficult phase of life is not when no one understands you; It is when you don't understand yourself"

Placed in Google

I am finally placed in Google Bangalore :)

Got the news yesterday. I have been having a streak of kelas, so I desperately needed a good news. And this is great.

So, now I am free for GRE preparation. I tried rescheduling it to the end of September but all the dates are taken. I wanted to aim higher and give it my best shot. But I think I can do that even now. I am planning to bunk all the 8:30 am and 1:30 classes from tomorrow to Sept 3, when I write my GRE. I talked to the HOD of our department about attendance problems and he said that it will not be a problem.

In the absolute worst case, I will produce a medical certificate. Though I hope my GRE score card should suffice. ;)