UnObtainium

2011-02-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

Unobtainium

It comes in various forms
In falling rain
In a child taking his first steps
In a mother putting her child to sleep
In songs which stir your soul
Force you to take a step back and relax
To smile, to hope
To dance.

Life is a never ending struggle to capture that, the unobtainium
Its there, definitely there
But uncapturable
Like a half remembered dream
Escaping as soon as you come close to it
Its capture predicating its existence

At Stanford - first quarter comes to an end!

2009-12-31T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hey all,
This blog is a continuation of my old blog -
http://at-iitb.blogspot.com . I have started my MS/Phd(still not sure about that) study in EE at Stanford since the September of this year and I have been much much happier in this place than I have ever been at IIT. Years at IIT were fun only because we were in that age then i.e. 18 to 22. That is an age when you feel you are indestructible and the world is your oyster. The environment at IIT certainly contributed nothing to this feeling. It was competitive and not always a healthy competitive. Plus there was no real need of understanding the subject in depth as you could manage the exams easily with the Professors' notes. On top of all this, there was no honor code and it was common practice to copy assignments from your friends. And this is the situation of India's supposedly best technical institutions.

Amongst its many bads, one bad which stands out is zero encouragement given to independent thought. There was a certain way you could solve assignments and if you knew it, you are through else 'ditch'. The semester sped by so quickly and what with infinite quizzes, assignments, finals you dint have the time to think about stuff. The academic learning was reduced to understanding what others have done and applying them correctly to situations they were meant for. But then what are computers for ?
I was lucky to be in the EE department where we had a semester long electronic design project. That single project taught me more about practically applying the concepts I had learnt than any other course had done.

Next was the hype around CPI. If you could apply the concepts you got the grade. Of course grades are important and high grades show your commitment, sincerity and stuff like that. But coming from an institution of higher learning, it is disappointing to see the emphasis on grades. Imagine if we started doling out Nobel Prizes by taking a test. Your grade in a test is a function of your learning and the ability of the test to measure it. But I think this measuring ability of the test varies from person to person and tests should be personalized as much as possible. In any case, making projects and letting students create stuff is the best way possible to help them learn and later on also measure their effort.

I guess the great thing about studying at IIT was that you get to meet so many people much more hard working and talented than you. That makes you realize that you are not the king of the world and will never be. That is a very important lesson in life and it took me sometime to understand it. The first quiz in IIT and you are right at the 20 something position when you have been amongst the top 5 all your life, hits hard. But you get used to it. Rather you have to. IIT is no place to cry over spilt milk.
That was the only good part I found in IIT which distinguishes it from the other Indian Institutes. For the rest, it is really like any other college, albeit with a significantly higher number of student suicides.

Inspite of all its bads, I love IIT and I hope I will be able to set right some of its wrongs in the future. The things I miss most about IIT are:
1) ICED TEA - Oh ya, you HAVE to taste it once. A pick-me-up kind of drink, it rejuvenated you totally for another utterly boring class.
2) PAF - Can never forget any of the PAFs I saw in the OAT, especially DejaVu. The amount of work and hope which goes into making a PAF is inspirational :)
3)

My two years(?) at Stanford

UnObtainium

At Stanford - first quarter comes to an end!