ChEA Voice 2012-13

With great pleasure I’d like to pre-

sent to you the much awaited issue of ChEA

Voice. Though this issue took some time, it is

finally here with some changes and new addi-

tions that include a Fine Arts corner, and dedi-

cated poetry section by our batch mates.

The articles have been chosen keep-

ing the varies tastes and preferences of the

reader in mind.

There a few informative articles which give

insight into the professional ethics that stu-

dents either lack these days or people have

started expecting too much.

A few students have also shared their Intern-

ship and Project experiences that encompass

a wide variety of opportunities. We also have

an article on the new trend that is setting

amongst students about studying .

Apart from this an informal & leisure section

has also been added which has a poem and

an article by an alumnus about the life after a

B. Tech. The enthusiasm shown was appre-

ciable. Hope you enjoy this issue !!

KRITI GUPTA

2nd YEAR STUDENT

A Special Thanks to the contributors of this issue of

ChEA Voice.

Prof. H. Narayanan

Dhruv Gupta

Arpan A. Bandopadhyay

Akanksha Thawani

Atharva Kelkar

Vibhore Jain

Deeksha Parihar

Arun Neethipudi

Vikrant Raj

Varsha Choudhary

Neha Dhakar

Naveen Pal Singh

Rekhit Singh Kaushal

Neha Bunkar

Anisha Garg

EDITOR SPEAK

DISCLAIMER &

FEEDBACK:

The ChEA Voice is aimed to

provide the students of the

Chemical Engineering a plat-

form to express their views. It

does not intend to malign any

group or individual. The opin-

ions expressed in this news

letter belong essentially to the

authors and the content man-

agers and do not reflect the

opinions of ChEA. Any queries

related to the issue may be

addressed to the Editor.

We would love to have your

feedback on this issue. Please

your suggestions for helping us

improvise. The faculty are

especially requested to send in

their views and comments.

CONTACT:

Kriti Gupta ChEA Editor

[email protected]

ChEA Voice

2012-2013, Ist Edition

Professional Ethics 2

Intern Experiences 5

A study on no study 9

AZeotropy 2012-2013 10

Life after a B.Tech 11

Fine Arts Corner 12

Inside this issue:

A dilemma faced by young people, usually at the stage when they leave home for the first time, is that rules that they have lived by thus far seem questionable. This article is about an approach to handling the problem of formulating a very personal but practical ethical code. The actual, detailed, solution to the problem is personal and not addressed here but the factors which need to be kept in mind are. Also some simple `dos and don'ts' are described. Ethical code: need and strategy First, should one have an ethical code at all? Why not play life by the ear? A personal ethical code is a strategy for choice of action in situations encountered commonly by an individual. It limits the choice and thereby reduces the stresses in-volved in constantly optimizing according to objectives which might vary with time and circumstance. If the choice is made according to a code, it is usually thought of as a duty carried out and therefore leads to lesser feel-ings of guilt, dissatisfaction with outcomes, fear of punishment etc. There is often a sense of satisfaction of having performed one's duty when one has acted in conso-nance with the code. What strategy should one use to design an ethical framework that is suitable for oneself while conforming broadly to universally ac-cepted norms? First look for generally agreed `universal prin-ciples'- as few of them as possible. Then study the condition of the individual by him/herself and in relation to others. Finally match the two and work out details. Fuzzy ethical rules

Individual should aim at long term personal `happiness'.

Individual should not `hurt' others (i.e., make them unhappy), should preferably be invariably kind. It is possible to argue that the second rule could contradict the first, but broadly most of us would agree with the spirit of

these rules. We however need a working definition of `happiness' to proceed further. What does happiness mean? Nowadays we tend to talk in terms of one's mood. Mood could be thought of as an indi-cator of the state of mind related to how we perceive ourselves in relation to the present environment, past actions and future pros-pects. We say the mood is elevated if we per-ceive positively and depressed if we perceive negatively. Excessive mood elevation could lead to inappropriate behavior with adverse consequences. Happiness could be regarded as mild mood elevation. Control of mood Since our basic rules speak of long term per-sonal happiness, it is pertinent to speak of possible ways in which mood can be con-trolled and made mildly elevated. Mood can be controlled temporarily and in the long term by many techniques. The safest is to control through routines related to sleep, mental or physical exercise, relaxation, diet, social interaction, through deep involvement in activities and through change of scene. Somewhat more subtle methods involve con-trol through modes of thought which modify belief systems, modify thinking and behavior, improve self esteem and help perceive oth-ers as benign (e.g.. rational emotive therapy, cognitive therapy). These are slow and time tested. The last several decades have been substantial advances in control through If one accepts that one must aim at long term personal happiness, it follows that one must do one's best to maintain physical and mental health. Organs, particularly the brain, should be kept in good health by using good routines related to sleep, food, exercise. In addition, it is necessary to exercise self disci-pline in order to feel free and to train the mind to focus largely on the present, perceiv-ing others and the universe as benign. Use could be made of religious feelings, which are natural to everyone, and religious rou-tines, that one might have grown up with.

Professional Ethics

Abridged version of a text of a lecture delivered on 16th Oct 2012. Original version may be found athttp://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~hn/

Interacting with others Interaction with others can take the form of communicating with them or performing tan-gible actions on them. In the former case, one should be truthful as far as possible. Ex-cessive lying is noticed by others and the in-dividual is branded as unreliable. Also (and this is very serious) lying affects one's own view of external reality, and one starts be-lieving one's own lies. Practically speaking, perhaps one should use three valued logic - truth, falsehood, silence. Where one cannot be truthful, it is better to be silent. The actions that one performs on others are related to one's own feelings about them. In most everyday situations, thinking benignly about others is beneficial to us and negative feelings towards them cause us active harm. Whenever others feel an individual can hurt them, their reaction leads to a strengthening of the individual's own negative feelings. All negative feelings should therefore be hidden to a lesser or greater extent from others -- depending on their nearness to oneself. At-tempts must also be made to reduce these feelings. Conventional mechanisms for hiding one's feelings about others use the rules of polite-ness and `good manners'. A general policy is to appear `normal' and therefore non threat-ening. Further, when one disagrees with an-other person, unless it is explicitly required, one does not voice it or even if one does, the disagreement is with the view expressed by the person and not the person himself/herself. Reducing negative feelings In order to reduce negative feelings one could act positive, try to help others, to be kind. The reaction to such acts will usually be positive and thereby reduce one's own nega-tive feelings. As a general rule one could look outward and be concerned with others' well being. An extraordinarily effective therapy for build-ing one's self esteem is to devote a certain portion of one's time to caring for people

whose well being does not impinge directly on oneself. One could call this the `Mother Teresa' method, but of course practically every civilized religion preaches it. It gives one's life a purpose towards which one can work and increase one's long term happi-ness. Dealing with Laws One should avoid violating `laws' as far as possible -- even the letter, but definitely the spirit. One could of course independently struggle to get unjust laws changed. But while they are there, an individual would do well to stay within the limits imposed by them since punishments and the threat of punishments will reduce personal well being or the sense of well being. On the whole, personal rules should be stricter than laws so that one feels free. Ethics in scientific activity Scientific Ethics: Rules

When you state your results, do not knowingly utter falsehood.

Give credit where it is due. Falsifying results In experimental work, deliberate falsification is very difficult to detect since repeating someone's experiment is time consuming and expensive. But the author is deliberately misleading the direction of research the en-tire community is undertaking. Therefore, in the rare instances where falsification is proved, the system deals very harshly with the perpetrator, essentially terminating his/her professional career. Giving credit Scientists deserve credit for their work. When it is correctly accorded, the person concerned is motivated to continue doing research. When a deserving scientist is de-nied credit, usually the person would become bitter and get side tracked from continuing the involvement in research. It is in the interest of the community that whenever new research is reported, the work

Abridged version of a text of a lecture delivered on 16th Oct 2012. Original version may be found athttp://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~hn/

on which it rests is described with care and fairness and due credit is given to these ear-lier workers (`Do unto others as you would have them do to you '). Plagiarism This is the second most serious violation of scientific ethics. Here one is robbing others of credit. When it is committed, it is very easy to de-tect and the punishment is certain and harsh. Some alleged plagiarism only violates the letter not the spirit, but even this gets pun-ished currently. So extra care has to be taken to see that one is not committing ‘inadvertent' plagiarism. Whenever a mate-rial (text, table, figure, photograph ...) is taken from a source verbatim, the source should be immediately stated and also the fact that the material is verbatim. Beyond the code The researcher should actively resist the temptation to `appear good' (i.e. do what-

ever yields immediate, often quantitative professional credit) rather than concentrat-ing on being `good' (i.e., being deeply in-volved with the problem). It is better to adopt a personal code which enables one to do this. This could be regarded as working towards long term personal happiness. One's natural tendency is to grab as much credit as possible for oneself or for one's im-mediate group and `damn' others' contribu-tions `with faint praise'. However, all of us appreciate generosity in others even if we ourselves have difficulty in being generous. So active efforts must be made to be gener-ous as far as possible (e.g.. Einstein's gener-osity to Bose). Established workers should always be on the lookout for detecting and nurturing talent, particularly among the disadvantaged. When such talent is discovered the entire research community is inspired (e.g.. Hardy discovering Ramanujan).

PROF. H. NARAYANAN

EE Department, IIT Bombay

Now that my life is finally falling apart, now that my skin is finally peeling I see you under my skin, I finally see the pain that’s been kill-ing me. Nostalgia, dear mother of pain, I see you’ve made my heart your home. Now pain is what is left of what used to be a cherished memory. And I can’t let go, ‘cause it would only end up killing me. Every faded photograph I see, Every single dream, Brings it all back, all the things you’ve taught, Every virtue I ever longed for, Every bit of the person I wanted to be.

I MISS SCHOOL

All my childhood castles have finally been washed by that last wave of reality. I wish I could be a bit more clear, But the world would think I’m sick. What’s left of me is a bag of memories, and broken will. What’s left of me is hanging from the last strand of hope, from the stained fabric of a screwed up life. I wish i could be a bit more clear, But the world would think I’m sick. I am not sick, I just miss school. Though I know I don’t deserve to be, I just hope you remember me.

ARUN NEETHIPUDI

IInd Year Student

The first day was terribly disastrous’, I some-times speak to myself. I ended up spending my summer break last year in the beautiful and safe city of Munich. To begin with, I would say, Munich is a crowded city (relatively; you can’t compare with India!). So, it is very difficult to get hold a place to live for a time period as short as 3 months. I worked at Technische Universität München, which was in one extreme corner of the city and lived in the other extreme. But the metro (they call it U/S- bahn there) net-work was very well established. I was interested in Chemistry more than Chemical Engineering. I worked in the field of Theoretical Chemistry, which is not really related to Chemical Engineering. The work turned out to be really challenging and inter-esting, much more than I was expecting. I dealt with Gold-Palladium metal clusters and the work was purely computational and mod-eling based. There was a huge amount of stuff to learn. I could not complete what we had planned before because we had under-estimated the complexity of task. And, I think they were more or less happy with my work, which is why I was asked to come back next year. Germany is the scientific power of all Europe (and tremendously well organized). Specifi-cally, Munich has a great scientific back-ground (the first nuclear plant of Germany was built outside TUM). If you talk to any person in the U-bahn, there is a high possibil-ity that he would be working as an engineer. And research, as far as I understood, is taken way more seriously there than you would find in an average research lab in India. The administrative part is well attended to, since a normal professor has whole bunch of peo-ple handing only administration. The gap be-tween the professor and students is very nar-row outside Asia (I used to call my 52 year old supervisor with his first name). But people really believe in ‘work hard, party harder’. Young students would hang out with their friends after work. The weekends are always off, and you would not find a single

soul in the enormous building on weekends (my supervisor used to try and shoo me off and suggest places to visit, but it did not work well till the end). People try to travel as much as they can in summer, because the winters are freezing cold. The supermarkets close at 8 pm everyday and are not open on Sundays at all. The banks sometimes close at 3 pm, which was very annoying for me in the beginning. Generally, people are more kind, friendly and helpful in all Germany (Indians are more so-cial and there is a subtle difference). I was well attended to at the University and the DAAD ‘meetings’. After the first two weeks, I never missed home. Living alone wasn’t very uncommon. Stu-dents separate from their parents at the age of around 19 years and start living alone, which is precisely why they were all more independent than me. I was living alone in the apartment too. There was no other stu-dent from IIT Bombay that I knew or met. But in some time, I realized that I should not be biased towards being around more Indians (though I travelled to other countries with the rest of IITB junta who were living in Ger-many and France). It was nice to be with peo-ple from different parts of the world (I really mean it, Munich has 25% foreigners). An uncanny skill of cooking and swimming is what you would not find in an average teen-age Indian student. I was taught some amount of cooking by a Latin American friend who was sharing the office with me. Here is the most interesting stuff-food! (I am

a vegetarian and I faced some mild difficul-

ties) In all Europe, you would easily find res-

taurants of different European countries. I

had a good taste of German, Greek, Italian

and American food. If you get a chance to go

Europe, don’t miss out on Greek salad with

feta cheese, Italian lasagna and Zucchini frit-

ters with tzatziki (the one on the next page,

picture 1).

Intern Experience

Europe is culturally and environmentally rich

continent. With the visa for 23 countries and

great network of trains all through the conti-

nent, travelling was very easy. The scenic

trains (all trains passing through Switzerland

belong to this category in my opinion) would

provide you the best train experience ever! I

had visited Italy and Switzerland (and Ger-

many, of course). Switzerland was really a

paradise experience. But Rome, Paris (which I

could not go to), Vatican city, Pisa and Salz-

burg ice caves are not to be left out too. By

the time you come back to India, you are

down with 4 wonders of the world already

and have your camera filled with beautiful

scenic pictures! Above is a picture (picture 2)

of a really unattended canal in Switzerland

and the one next to it is about the scenic

train.

There was some ‘out of the box’ stuff that I experienced (especially while travelling to other countries) which made life really inter-esting. Not being able to locate our accom-modation in the city at 1 am at night and spending night in a tent (frozen) are memo-

ries that I would never forget. City and suburbs are much more clean that I found in India. Even the graveyards look beautiful! There is a striking difference be-tween Munich and a city like Bombay. Al-though both of them are equally important to the respective countries, environment and technology live together in Munich, while not so much in Bombay. Schengen visa for Germany is issued in one day. But keep in mind to have your stipend amount mentioned on the invitation letter. Travelling to other countries require some amount of preparation, like carrying stuff according to weather, booking accommoda-tions well before leaving, reservations for trains, etc. To conclude, I had a great experience, both

academically and otherwise. I feel that Mu-

nich is a good choice to take with nearly 30

museums, 40 churches, town halls, Allianz

Arena and Olympic Park inside the city, so a

lot to explore in 2 months itself! And it has

been more than 3 weeks already since I have

left the city, but I still miss the place badly.

More than that I miss all those people who

made me feel at home.

Picture 1 Picture 2

AKANKSHA THAWANI

IIIrd Year Student

After a frustrating wait for the results which were finally announced in March 2012 and some minor delays in the Visa process etc finally it was all done and I was ready to fly away to Canada having already taken a few short( survival) cooking lessons from my local guardians in Mumbai. My host professor got me in touch with an Indian graduate student at McMaster University( where I was to in-tern) who received me and helped me with the initial adjustment into the Canadian sys-tems. There was the usual culture shock and an awe for the mouth-watering prosperity be-yond imagination, but the grad student men-tored me through and soon I was quite com-fortable with the Canadian system of living apart from one eludible thing: FOOD!!! I was hungry, I was craving, I ravenously hunted for restaurants and finally did find a few places offering authentic Punjabi cuisine however they were either far off or too expensive so I busied myself into sifting through archives of Zee TV's all time famous ``Sanjeev Kapoor's Khana-Khazana'' episodes trying to make something out of those innocuous looking vegetables and beans. I sort of got this strange feeling that I was living just to eat food and nothing else. Whole days would go in shopping groceries, learning cooking, cut-ting, cooking and eating food. Then came the big jolt! I was selected out of all the Indian MITACS students to give a pres-entation on the Science Technology Innova-tion policy of India at University of Ottawa alongside with 13 full professors represent-ing their respective countries including the Director of MIT talking about US. Man! I was almost dead with the very idea of doing this. I am good with mathematics and engineering but here I was suddenly asked to talk about a whole country's policies which I had never studied or critically thought about. I was nervous and did not want to let anyone down, but then there were reassurances from director of MITACS and the organizing professor from University of

Ottawa. The organizing professor also got me in touch with Dr Chidambram (Principal Sci-entific Advisor to Prime Minister of India) who guided me on some key ideas to which I added my inputs which I had gained from attending endless number of institute collo-quiums in IIT, sessions of P2P StudE Club and various other sources. The conference was great. My presentation was well appreciated and was a nice change for the attendees from the rather usual eco-nomic policy perspective( GDP, funding etc) to talking policies from an engineering per-spective. I spent a week in Ottawa, the capi-tal of Canada, was invited to diplomatic din-ners by various embassies, met the Prime Minister of Canada at the Canadian parlia-ment and got an exposure to a completely new paradigm. In this process I was also in touch with vari-ous IIT alumni in Canada and US, talking with whom was a great personal experience. After this two week dabbling into socio-techno-politico part of science, I returned to my mainstream work. My guide explained me the problem I was to work on, assigned me a PhD mentor and planned out a regular meeting schedule. I used to go to my lab at around 9AM and return by 4PM to my room strictly only on working days (summer time in Canada has a lot of festive holidays! :D). I was working with a simulator of a hydrogen manufacturing plant, from analyzing the data of which I had to give my analytical inputs about some fault tolerant operational schemes. The work was light and non-taxing. I was already selected as a potential PhD stu-dent at McMaster University and was called there just to be around and see if I would want to come back. I gave my work the requisite respect and di-verted my remaining faculties to other inter-ests which I had been postponing for a long time due to hectic coursework during the semesters. This was also a time for personal introspection and revelations. I spent sleep-less nights sometimes rhetorically asking

Intern Experience

myself why my country is monetarily poor and about the next steps I had to take for my career, keeping in my mind my patriotic bend as well as the great opportunities (mostly in developed countries) to solve problems of the mankind as a whole through science. Well of course there were the usual tourist trips, multiple luncheons, dinners and the partying around. Myself along with my friends were once randomly picked up from the crowd while roaming at Dundas Square in Toronto downtown for a quick interview tele-casted live on Canada TV about how we were having fun in Canada. It was a nice feeling to see oneself on one of the gigantic screens at the square. There were many trips to various industries (which offered me jobs!) and good work-shops which basically funded my tourist trip to the city they were organized in :D. The main purpose of the MITACS program is to give a first hand experience of the world class research facilities and people at univer-sities in Canada. The reckoning and various

inputs completely changed my viewpoint about countries, ideas of belongingness, pro-fessional and social understanding etc. I will perhaps write more on this in some other article of mine since it would be on a very philosophical note. Summer 2012 was a very happening time for me and of all the multitude of experiences that I had as a MITACS Globalink intern in Canada, I have discussed only a select few in this article. I am still unable to decide that by choosing this internship over other real op-portunities to strengthen my resume for my PhD apps was worth this experience. How-ever in all when I look back now I think it was a good break (and perhaps much needed at that time) from academics and engineering stuff to learn other important things for which I am still unsure if it was the suitable time in my career. It did opened up opportu-nities in Canada, made awesome friends and learnt how to cook food! And of course not to forget the ever-enthusiastic Brazilian com-pany! ;D

Figure 1: The meeting room in Parliament, where I met the Prime Minister( not in the photograph)

DHRUV GUPTA

IVth Year Student

to make a decision by seeing the opening and closing ranks of the previous years' students, which makes it a decision of luck

The post-IIT arrival reasons: IIT as a means to a better end : IIT is seen by most as some place which, after having stayed four years in, will give them a stud job and a dream package. How distorted from reality this really is is another question alto-gether. This feeling of having it as a means means that we expect fruits from only the hard work that we put in during the JEE days. IIT as a pathway to IIM's : Many people have a stereotyped idea about IIM taking in all IIT grads irrespective of anything else. This means that one, they do not need to study in IIT to get in, and that acads now are useless and only CAT is where the real thing is. Methods of teaching : This point is somewhat controversial, but this does happen in many courses, where the professors don't use novel or student-friendly techniques which will help in garnering the student's attention. Citing an example for this, many people in my freshman year preferred to not attend classes and watch MIT professors teach in-stead, only because of their teaching meth-odology

This article is not an article trying to preach to the world as to how to balance acads and everything else (I would love to learn this art from someone), but it is my attempt at de-bugging the fact that people's enthusiasm decreases exponentially in something that they loved less than months back.

IIT-ian Pre-IIT : Before tenth : Wow Physics is so interesting! Electricity is so awesome! Tesla is God! JEE days : Arey yaar, aaj parabola khatam karna hai! Kya mast chapter hai yaar! IIT-ian at IIT : First year : Abbey kya give up hai mod-phy! Second year : Kahaan narak me phas gaye bhagwaan! This drastic change, though seemingly hilari-ous, does occur. In almost each and every one of us, to a certain extent. When I came to IIT, I saw everyone all cheered up to score full and top every exam like they used to in All India JEE mock tests. But as days pass by, the enthusiasm towards academics is replaced by a sense of rebellion. And knowingly or unknowingly, what we came here for keeps drifting to the back of our minds, and other attractions (read sports, cult, moodI and not only DC) start racing forward. Let me make it clear that I am NOT against extra curricular activities, in fact I feel life at IIT is seriously incomplete without that. What I intend to state is that these activities which are supposed to be extra curricular, become an excuse to take our minds off something we are against. These reasons could be cate-gorized into two phases post-JEE and post-IIT arrival. Some post-JEE reasons : Lack of information on branches during coun-seling : The counseling brochure does not contain ANY information on branches, thus leading to choosing of branches based on misconceptions prevalent about the branch and no proper knowledge. Rank– based stereotypes: “Tu top 100 hai? CS lega?.One is expected

ATHARVA KELKAR

II nd Year Student

A study on no study

In the year 2050, when big chemical plants with distillation towers and smoke stacks would have disappeared; new, clean and compact plants would be operating in indus-trial parks neighboring residential quarters without disturbing the environment; new technologies will be used for exploiting new starting materials, efficient reactions and separation processes would have trans-formed what once was a typically energy-guzzling industry into a model energy saving industry. Seems too good to be true, innit? Realizing this dream calls for a dire need to be aware of the obstacles that you walk past but refuse or ignore to work on. Awareness demands action. Action demands thought. And thought demands INNOVATION. Hence, innovation is a very crucial and novel compo-nent of our strategy toolkit. An old saying goes, "Innovation and evolu-tion go hand in hand" because evolution drives the change and takes us to the next level of innovation. Endeavoring to bring a change, this is exactly what AZeotropy 2k13 brings to you. We plan to propagate the mes-sage – “Inspire, Innovate, Evolve!”

AZeotropy, one of India’s largest Chemical Engineering-oriented festivals organized by Chemical Engineering Department of IIT Bombay, is now standing high, attracting huge audience. What began as an idea with a few events in 2007 has sublimated into a plethora of not only intriguing competitions and events, but also a wide variety of lec-tures by eminent personalities, panel discus-sions on critical issues and exciting on-the-spot quizzes, informal events etc. Time passed by and we sailed smooth through “Opt for Optimization”, “We mean Green”, “Safer practices for Safer Returns”, “R3- Re-use Recycle Refine” and now “Inspire, Inno-vate, Evolve”. You there, can be a part of our team effort. It will cost you nil. All you need is to stand and move ahead with ideas effervescing in your mind, visions clear. We ought to realize that the future of our lives depends magnificently on innovation. Innovation by those minds who haven’t yet spoken and by those who haven’t been heard. So many like stars in the sky that stay still even in the darkest hour, but brighten up millions of eyes watching them!

Inspire, Innovate, Evolve

DEEKSHA PARIHAR & VIBHORE JAIN IIIrd Year Students

AZeotropy 2012-2013 team

An undergraduate degree prepares you for many good jobs but there are many jobs like project leaders in industrial research divi-sions, university professor etc. that require advanced degrees. Research teams in the top industry think-tanks & government labs con-sist primarily of people holding masters or doctorate degrees. The excitement of explor-ing the cutting edge of knowledge, and the thrill of your first research result, something you have discovered that no one else in the world knows, are worth savoring. These were the factors, which led me to take up my graduate studies at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The first year in any graduate program is all about courses. While most schools have the written of qualifying exams for PhD qualify-ing examinations within or after the first year, here you have to present your thesis proposal in front of a faculty panel followed by an oral examination testing your chemical engineering concepts and we need to do at least 10 courses within 3 semesters. But it’s more about learning and hardly about grades Advisor selection in graduate schools is tricky and probably the most ‘crucial’ decision of our life. Schools vary between having a rota-tion system (taking up short projects in about 3 different groups until you finalize 1) or where professors present their research and based on mutual consent, students decide on advisors, which was aptly quoted by one of my friends, as the ‘advisor dating’ process. UMN has the ‘advisor dating’ process where we need to meet at least 20 professors be-fore finalizing on our advisor (so far I have only met 10 :P). Actually, it’s good because you are exposed to the research going around in the department and I feel it is nice to be open to various research themes be-fore deciding your advisor.

My experience in UMN has been excellent so far. I am completely awestruck by the cutting edge research going around here. My class-mates include people from US, India, Greece, Turkey, Bangladesh and its always exciting to interact with them. The senior graduate stu-dents are there to help you out in every man-ner possible. The research infrastructure is simply excellent and most of the labs have there own TEM (you don’t have to be at the mercy of SAIF). Professors are extremely ap-proachable, highly collaborative and are ready to co-advise on any project, which suits the interest of the students. The department here is very social. The first Friday of every month we have our round-tables (IIT counter part of happy hour) which is total fun. We have ‘ping pong’ champion-ships where students and professors com-pete for the title with equal zest ,our HOD had been the champion for a long time and was recently defeated by one of the new pro-fessor :D .Talking about Minnesota without talking about the weather is incomplete. It is fall now and temperatures are already sub zero with no sign of snow yet. :( But the beautiful fall colors make up for it :] Life of a graduate student is not necessarily like the one we read in PhD comics. It is all about learning and gaining skills, which come handy in career ahead, both academic and industrial setting. It is a common misconcep-tion that, PhD leads to academia. I’ve real-ized so far in UMN that the companies like are always on lookout for graduate students for their various research position openings. Companies even go to the extent of track-ing/stalking students to offer them jobs. Hence, if students have an inclination for re-search, PhD is a surely a worthwhile invest-ment.

Life after a B.Tech

ARPAN A. BANDOPADHYAY

Alumnus, Batch of 2012

Naveen Pal Singh, IInd year student

Rekhit Singh Kaushal, IInd year student

Vikrant Raj, IIIrd year student

Anisha Garg, Ist Year Student

Neha Bunkar, Ist Year Student

Neha Dhakar, IInd Year Student

Varsha Choudhary, IIIrd Year Student

Fine Arts Section

ChEA Voice 2012-13

Documents

Transcript of ChEA Voice 2012-13