Engineering @ Purdue (US University)

I hear this many times that apart from MIT, Stanford and Berkley, getting into a decent engineering college in US is not difficult. I agree to that notion but the reality is surviving the engineering courses at those schools.

I think doing an undergrad engineering degree at Purdue, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UT Austin, Texas A & M, UMICH, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech is more or less the same. The curriculum of these colleges overlaps as much as 75%. So if you get an admission into any of these (or equivalent colleges) and are going to be 100% dedicated thereafter, only then it's worth spending $35k per annum. Also not to forget the drop out rate of engineering students in public schools like these are the highest in the nation. Hence this proves that just getting in is not important, surviving the classes is more important.

Unlike IIT wherin they expect every student to have mastered all the concepts of Physics, Chemistry & Calculus before entering the colleges, in US remember that if you like a program they will start basically from scratch and grow on that. (Though i am not saying that IIT are not good, they are good in there own sense). It's like looking at a pyramid from the top. Your course in Calculus may start with limits and 1st order differential equation but by the end of 16 week semester they would have covered vector calculus, partial differentiation and multiple integrals too. The same thing is applicable for the rest of the engineering courses in a decent University.

The first year has got some FYE course to be finished. These are the basic tools for succeeding in the professional engineering school. Only after finishing these courses one can be admitted to the desired engineering school. The courses are Calculus I, II, III, Physics I, II, Chemistry I, II, CAD modeling/GDT, Seminar Engineering series, English Language (writing), Communication (writtent and verbal), Computer engineering problem solving tools. Even though some of the first year classes may have class strength of 250-300 students, but these are just the lectures in which the instructor is one of the best in his/her field and would be actively involved in some ground breaking research; but along with these are recitation/labs consisting of 25-30 students taught by graduate/Phd student. This is just to give you a feel of what engineering classes in first year really are. From second year onwards the class strength reduces.

In a good engineering school, there will be a dozen specialisation like aeronautics, mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical, biomedical, construction, industrial, material, agriculture, and etc. Not to forget along with this, a student can also pursue his/her area of a secondary course like management, entrepreneurship, economics, foreign language, mucis/performing arts, humanities & social science courses. Basically one can get a second degree or a minor degree in almost any field.

One of the greatest advantages offered by some good American Engineering Universities is the Co-Op and internship program. In a traditional Co-Op program (Cooperative education program) a student is hired by a company and is offered 3-5 internship alternating with the academic semester. This is a typically 4.5-5 year program but the extra year is worth the time. Apart from getting $2-3k per month a student gets valuable work experience on his/her resume realting to his academic major. This not only makes you more marketaeble after you graduate but also give you an exposure of the real engineering projects, functioning of a global company. I personally had a good experince working with Robert Bosch LLC. I was in the Engineering Developement of the Gasoline Systems Fuel Injection for the North America. Our plant was the biggest in North America. Even though it was my first internship, i got an opportunity to be a part of tele-conference with other engineers from Germany, Michigan. It was the real engineering work because whatever work i did, meant something to our department. I got to do some design and validation testing on developing products not yet launched in the market amd write some developement reports. This is a rare opportunity which is available in US. These are the programs that give you an edge in the early phase of your career. In India, average work experince of a high school graduate is nearly zero, so something like this is very helpful to us.

Also there are many engineering clubs in which you can join. Something like SAE would build a car and race with other clubs from various colleges across US. Such things give you a real feel of working in team with a diverse group of students. That is the case in real life, as thomas friedman says, "The world is really Flat", because in the life after college you would be working in an American company, with Asian engineers, product being desgined in Germany, parts imported from Mexico or Brazil and manufacturing happening in Australia. As the globalisation has become a crucial movement in the last decade having a good internation exposure is essential for all the students.

Apart from the undergraduate degree, US colleges are known world wide for their Graduate programs and Phd research programs. They have got all the world class facility with million dollar funding. Some colleges like Purdue, even have their own particle accelerator. Even for the undergraduate students there are research opportunities available rigth after the frehman year.
The research would be actually be done in some research park with some professor. Hence this is definitely something big for a student at such a young age.

Good Luck to all for your professional career. If you need any further guidance, i can be reached at patel57-at-purdue-dot-edu(Hope that screws up lots of web crawlers!).

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(Note: Although I have shared my experiances at Purdue University, I am presuming that any other equivalent University would offer similar exposure to the students)

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.