I really cant get you, mon ami!
Chennai was blessed with copious rainfall for the last 2 days thanks to a cyclonic depression, which by the way according to the remarkable meteorologists here, was supposed to cross the coast today. Needless to say, the sun has seen shining as bright as , umm, a sun on a summer day. But the intoxicating rain coupled with the rather inane curfew on the institute LAN between 1 and 4 am has made us part of society's new avant-garde intelligentsia. Umm, yeah. Atleast out of me...
I am often asked as to why I don't wish to carry on with further studies abroad. Why don't I aspire to land up in some prestigious University like a MIT or a Stan to do a Masters or a PhD. Why is it I would rather stay back in India and do a MBA or take up a job. But I am confused. For to me, the question is but the opposite. The intricacies in the size of the address lines of a D-RAM memory unit of the 1 GB Main Memory or the supposed joy of discovering obscure fathomless results in the Approximate Counting of the Union Set problem in Theoretical Computer Science do not titillate or interest me at all. But hey, do not take me wrong, I like computer science and all that I've learnt. Its more that somehow the thought of continuing these studies seems oh-so-wrong.
My decision has other reasons too. I can never see myself sitting in a lab in some University as a Professor brooding over some ostensibly path-breaking research which will change the very way computer theorists think. So self-motivated I am not. In fact, living the rest of my life as a researcher frightens the heck out of me. It reminds me of a dingy dark room with no door. Maybe I am just biased. And I'm not even going into the money aspect. Well, after all this if I ever just to follow the herd and join the popular bandwagon, it just wouldn't be right. And hence my decision.
But then, why are SO many people actually doing it? Why are nearly half of the distinguished and inarguably intelligent batch of 2002 Computer Science, IIT Madras applying to various universities abroad? Am I missing something? Or are they?
Some of my close friends and classmates through all these years are desperate to make it to the US. And when I ask one of them why, he replies matter-of-factly that he can't see himself doing anything else. He can't see himself sitting in the 23rd floor of some multinational managing the affairs of his bumbling subordinates. Although the money would be good he adds. But then the pure joy of being at the forefront of technology ready to discover some unknown result overwhelms everything else. He thinks of a sparkling white room with a gazillion hi-tech computers with his intellectual fellow researchers as they discuss and argue about some research subject. He imagines himself presenting his astonishing work to the most brilliant men of his field, at which point he loses me as he begins to name the supposedly more famous of them.
It seems he likes the idea of doing research while I don't. And it seems I like the idea of doing a MBA while clearly he detests it.
And then I realise something that I have been assuming all along. I always thought that both of us should think like each other. Should be like each other. But the fact is that though our paths intersected for the brief period of 4 years, we were never meant to walk the whole road together. Mathematically put, this was merely a common node, one of many perhaps, in the gigantic universal graph. He with his research and me with my, umm, whatever would go on to do different things, go to different places and lead different lives. That's just the way it is.
And thus we come to a happy ending. Everyone is doing the right thing, atleast for now. How right each person is we probably can't say. But it is best to follow one's heart. To do as you desire and as you see fit. And as I always say, though I probably use this much too often but then its just too apt, "To each his own". Umm, his/her.
I am often asked as to why I don't wish to carry on with further studies abroad. Why don't I aspire to land up in some prestigious University like a MIT or a Stan to do a Masters or a PhD. Why is it I would rather stay back in India and do a MBA or take up a job. But I am confused. For to me, the question is but the opposite. The intricacies in the size of the address lines of a D-RAM memory unit of the 1 GB Main Memory or the supposed joy of discovering obscure fathomless results in the Approximate Counting of the Union Set problem in Theoretical Computer Science do not titillate or interest me at all. But hey, do not take me wrong, I like computer science and all that I've learnt. Its more that somehow the thought of continuing these studies seems oh-so-wrong.
My decision has other reasons too. I can never see myself sitting in a lab in some University as a Professor brooding over some ostensibly path-breaking research which will change the very way computer theorists think. So self-motivated I am not. In fact, living the rest of my life as a researcher frightens the heck out of me. It reminds me of a dingy dark room with no door. Maybe I am just biased. And I'm not even going into the money aspect. Well, after all this if I ever just to follow the herd and join the popular bandwagon, it just wouldn't be right. And hence my decision.
But then, why are SO many people actually doing it? Why are nearly half of the distinguished and inarguably intelligent batch of 2002 Computer Science, IIT Madras applying to various universities abroad? Am I missing something? Or are they?
Some of my close friends and classmates through all these years are desperate to make it to the US. And when I ask one of them why, he replies matter-of-factly that he can't see himself doing anything else. He can't see himself sitting in the 23rd floor of some multinational managing the affairs of his bumbling subordinates. Although the money would be good he adds. But then the pure joy of being at the forefront of technology ready to discover some unknown result overwhelms everything else. He thinks of a sparkling white room with a gazillion hi-tech computers with his intellectual fellow researchers as they discuss and argue about some research subject. He imagines himself presenting his astonishing work to the most brilliant men of his field, at which point he loses me as he begins to name the supposedly more famous of them.
It seems he likes the idea of doing research while I don't. And it seems I like the idea of doing a MBA while clearly he detests it.
And then I realise something that I have been assuming all along. I always thought that both of us should think like each other. Should be like each other. But the fact is that though our paths intersected for the brief period of 4 years, we were never meant to walk the whole road together. Mathematically put, this was merely a common node, one of many perhaps, in the gigantic universal graph. He with his research and me with my, umm, whatever would go on to do different things, go to different places and lead different lives. That's just the way it is.
And thus we come to a happy ending. Everyone is doing the right thing, atleast for now. How right each person is we probably can't say. But it is best to follow one's heart. To do as you desire and as you see fit. And as I always say, though I probably use this much too often but then its just too apt, "To each his own". Umm, his/her.
Comments
@ senti: huh? why?
I'm sooo screwed!!!!
@ Cock: Ob, same applies to you too. And what show da? :(... but it must be right if you say so :P
but then , out of curiosity..what exactly made you make that statement abt the 2002 batch of CompSci?? [though i dont know a single soul among them :)]