Towards Eureka

There are those who love maths and those who hate it. This post is targeted at students in the first category, to present a career option they may not be previously aware of.

When I was in 11th standard at SNK, now and then my thoughts turned to the famous "What after school?" question. I dropped biology after 10th (It's an excellent subject but not for me) and I was not particularly excited by the traditional engineering option, partly because I was too lazy to put in the amount of effort a good rank in IIT-JEE requires. As with all good stories, help came at the right moment, in the form of the training camp for informatics olympiad.

Which reminds me: if you have a strong interest in math or any of the sciences, it is a sin not to appear for the olympiads. Olympiads are international competitions at school level in 6 subjects: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy and Informatics. Each of them typically involves a regional stage, a national stage, a training camp at the national level and the showdown i.e. the actual international competition. Another thing you should do is appear for KVPY in 11th.

Moving on, at the aforementioned camp, I came in contact with Professors and students from Chennai Mathematical Institute (henceforth, CMI) and started considering research as a serious career option. I subsequently joined CMI and am now pursuing a PhD in theoretical computer science at NYU.

I would recommend that you check out the Math and CS (Computer Science) program at CMI. Be warned that the "math" at CMI is highly different from school-math and olympiad-style math. I'm not saying it's more difficult (though some of my batchmates may disagree), but it's certainly different. Similarly, the CS courses at CMI will not merely teach you programming languages but ideas and concepts that are at the very centre of our notion of computation. Also, CS at CMI is different from CS taught at IITs, i.e., more of theory (algorithms, complexity) and less or almost nothing of engineering (systems, networks, computer vision, machine learning). One may call this a drawback but this narrow focus is probably a reason why the CMI model has worked well.

Having said this, let me stress that CMI assumes only basic mathematical background and absolutely no CS background on the part of the student. In my opinion, the important qualities of a prospective CMI student are a penchant with puzzles, problem solving skills and the willingness to take up a career which values these traits. In short, do you have it in you.

Now, let's get real. What does a CMI graduate do for a living. Many students who enter CMI do so with the express intention of following a research career and many others get inspired to do research. These typically join a Phd program in India, Europe or USA. Phd programs are almost always funded, and I believe a Phd from a good university is as close to a "safety degree" as you can get. CMI graduates are placed in top-notch institutions around the world. Other options include pursuing fields such as financial mathematics and quantitative economics in India (Applied Statistics and Informatics at IIT, courses at IFMR etc.) and outside (eg. NYU and many other universities), masters program at CMI and other institutions. It is sometimes possible to get funding for Masters programs. Of course, as a graduate you can also appear for CAT and one CMI student *has* ended up in IIM Lucknow, but if your inclinations run that way, in my opinion CMI is not the best choice for you.

Lastly, "college life" considerations: CMI is an extremely small institute. It is growing, but it is still quite small. You can get an idea of the numbers by looking at the alumni page. The upside is that there is no scarcity of resources or facilities. The downsides are a small campus, lack of cultural events (more or less) and a scarcity of pretty faces. A CMI student in the Math and CS program receives Rs. 5000 per month as stipend conditioned on satisfactory academic performance. Also, there are legions of hiking places and holiday spots an overnight train journey away from Chennai.

I have been harping on about CMI because it is my college, but you should also check out the B.Stat program at ISI Calcutta and the B.Math program at ISI Bangalore. The B.Stat program focuses (predictably) on Statistics, and is older and more famous than either CMI or ISI Bangalore. Compared to ISI Bangalore, CMI is more informal and flexible as an institute. It also has a strong presence in theoretical computer science because of its own faculty and institutional ties with IMSc.