Chea Voice

7/29/2019 Chea Voice

1/12

With great pleasure Id 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 ofChEA 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

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 [email protected]

ChEA Voice2012-2013, 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:


2/12

A dilemma faced by young people, usually at

the stage when they leave home for the rst

me, is that rules that they have lived bythus far seem quesonable. This arcle is

about an approach to handling the problem

of formulang a very personal but praccal

ethical code. The actual, detailed, soluon 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 strategyFirst, 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 acon in situaons encountered

commonly by an individual. It limits the

choice and thereby reduces the stresses in-

volved in constantly opmizing according to

objecves which might vary with me 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, dissasfacon with outcomes,fear of punishment etc. There is oen a

sense of sasfacon 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 condion of the individual by

him/herself and in relaon 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 rulecould contradict the rst, but broadly

most of us would agree with the spirit of the-

se rules. We however need a working

denion 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 relaon to the present

environment, past acons and future pro-

spects. We say the mood is elevated if we

perceive posively and depressed if we per-

ceive negavely. Excessive mood elevaon

could lead to inappropriate behavior with

adverse consequences. Happiness could beregarded as mildmood elevaon.

Control of moodSince our basic rules speak of long term per-

sonal happiness, it is pernent 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 rounes related to sleep,

mental or physical exercise, relaxaon, diet,social interacon, through deep involvement

in acvies 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.. raonal emove therapy,

cognive therapy). These are slow and me

tested. The last several decades have been

substanal 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, parcularly the brain,

should be kept in good health by using good

rounes related to sleep, food, exercise. In

addion, 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, whichare natural to everyone, and religious rou-

nes, that one might have grown up with.

Page 2

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


3/12

Page 3

Interacng with othersInteracon with others can take the form of

communicang with them or performing tan-gible acons on them. In the former case,

one should be truthful as far as possible.Ex-

cessive lying is noced by others and the in-

dividual is branded as unreliable. Also (and

this is very serious) lying aects one's own

view of external reality, and one starts be-

lieving one's own lies. Praccally speaking,

perhaps one should use three valued logic -

truth, falsehood, silence. Where one cannot

be truthful, it is beer to be silent.

The acons that one performs on others are

related to one's own feelings about them. In

most everyday situaons, thinking benignly

about others is benecial to us and negave

feelings towards them cause us acve harm.

Whenever others feel an individual can hurt

them, their reacon leads to a strengthening

of the individual's own negave feelings. All

negave feelings should therefore be hidden

to a lesser or greater extent from others --

depending on their nearness to oneself.Aempts must also be made to reduce these

feelings.

Convenonal 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 personhimself/herself.

Reducing negave feelingsIn order to reduce negave feelings one

could act posive, try to help others, to be

kind. The reacon to such acts will usually be

posive and thereby reduce one's own nega-

ve feelings.

As a general rule one could look outward

and be concerned with others' well being.

An extraordinarily eecve therapy for build-ing one's self esteem is to devote a certain

poron of one's me to caring for people

whose well being does not impinge directly

on oneself. One could call this the `Mother

Teresa' method, but of course praccallyevery 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 violang `laws' as far as

possible -- even the leer, but denitely the

spirit. One could of course independently

struggle to get unjust laws changed. But

while they are there, an individual would dowell 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 scienc acvityScienc Ethics: Rules

When you state your results, do not

knowingly uer falsehood. Give credit where it is due.

Falsifying resultsIn experimental work, deliberate falsicaon

is very dicult to detect since repeang

someone's experiment is me consuming

and expensive. But the author is deliberately

misleading the direcon of research the en-

re community is undertaking. Therefore, in

the rare instances where falsicaon is

proved, the system deals very harshly withthe perpetrator, essenally terminang

his/her professional career.

Giving creditSciensts deserve credit for their work.

When it is correctly accorded, the person

concerned is movated to connue doing

research. When a deserving scienst is de-

nied credit, usually the person would become

bier and get side tracked from connuing

the involvement in research.It is in the interest of the community that

whenever new research is reported, the work


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on which it rests is described with care and

fairness and due credit is given to these earli-

er workers (`Do unto others as you wouldhave them do to you ').

PlagiarismThis is the second most serious violaon of

scienc ethics. Here one is robbing others

of credit.

When it is commied, it is very easy to de-

tect and the punishment is certain and harsh.

Some alleged plagiarism only violates the

leer not the spirit, but even this gets pun-

ished currently. So extra care has to be takento see that one is not comming

inadvertent' plagiarism. Whenever a materi-

al (text, table, gure, photograph ...) is taken

from a source verbam, the source should

be immediately stated and also the fact that

the material is verbam.

Beyond the codeThe researcher should acvely resist the

temptaon to `appear good' (i.e. do whatev-

er yields immediate, oen quantave pro-

fessional credit) rather than concentrang on

being `good' (i.e., being deeply involved withthe problem). It is beer 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-

ons `with faint praise'. However, all of us

appreciate generosity in others even if we

ourselves have diculty in being generous.

So acve eorts 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 detecng and nurturing talent,

parcularly among the disadvantaged. When

such talent is discovered the enre research

community is inspired

(e.g.. Hardy discovering Ramanujan).

Page 4

PROF. H. NARAYANAN

EE Department, IIT Bombay

Now that my life is nally falling apart, now

that my skin is nally peeling I see you under

my skin, I nally see the pain thats been kill-

ing me.

Nostalgia, dear mother of pain, I see youve

made my heart your home.

Now pain is what is le of what used to be a

cherished memory.

And I cant 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 youve taught,

Every virtue I ever longed for,

Every bit of the person I wanted to be.

All my childhood castles have nally been

washed by that last wave of reality.

I wish I could be a bit more clear,

But the world would think Im sick.

Whats le of me is a bag of memories, and

broken will.

Whats le 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 Im sick.

I am not sick, I just miss school.

Though I know I dont deserve to be,

I just hope you remember me.

ARUN NEETHIPUDI

IInd Year Student


5/12

Page 5

The rst day was terribly disastrous, I some-

mes speak to myself.

I ended up spending my summer break lastyear in the beauful and safe city of Munich.

To begin with, I would say, Munich is a

crowded city (relavely; you cant compare

with India!). So, it is very dicult to get hold

a place to live for a me period as short as 3

months. I worked at Technische Universitt

Mnchen, 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 eld of

Theorecal Chemistry, which is not really

related to Chemical Engineering. The work

turned out to be really challenging and inter-

esng, much more than I was expecng. I

dealt with Gold-Palladium metal clusters and

the work was purely computaonal and mod-

eling based. There was a huge amount of

stu to learn. I could not complete what we

had planned before because we had under-

esmated 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 scienc power of all Europe

(and tremendously well organized). Speci-

cally, Munich has a great scienc back-

ground (the rst 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

nd in an average research lab in India. The

administrave part is well aended to, since

a normal professor has whole bunch of peo-

ple handing only administraon. 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 rst name).

But people really believe in work hard, party

harder. Young students would hang out withtheir friends aer work. The weekends are

always o, and you would not nd a single

soul in the enormous building on weekends

(my supervisor used to try and shoo me o

and suggest places to visit, but it did notwork well ll 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 somemes 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 dierence). I was

well aended to at the University and theDAAD meengs. Aer the rst two weeks, I

never missed home.

Living alone wasnt 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 me, I realized that I should not bebiased 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 dierent parts of the world (I really

mean it, Munich has 25% foreigners).

An uncanny skill of cooking and swimming is

what you would not nd in an average teen-

age Indian student. I was taught some

amount of cooking by a Lan American friendwho was sharing the oce with me.

Here is the most interesng stu-food! (I am

a vegetarian and I faced some mild dicul-

es) In all Europe, you would easily nd res-

taurants of dierent European countries. I

had a good taste of German, Greek, Italian

and American food. If you get a chance to go

Europe, dont miss out on Greek salad with

feta cheese, Italian lasagna and Zucchini

friers with tzatziki (the one on the nextpage, picture 1).

Intern Experience


6/12

Europe is culturally and environmentally rich

connent. With the visa for 23 countries and

great network of trains all through the con-

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 Germa-

ny, of course). Switzerland was really a para-

dise experience. But Rome, Paris (which I

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

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

the me you come back to India, you are

down with 4 wonders of the world already

and have your camera lled with beauful

scenic pictures! Above is a picture (picture 2)

of a really unaended canal in Switzerlandand the one next to it is about the scenic

train.

There was some out of the box stu that I

experienced (especially while travelling to

other countries) which made life really inter-

esng. Not being able to locate our accom-

modaon 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

beauful! There is a striking dierence be-

tween Munich and a city like Bombay. Alt-

hough both of them are equally important to

the respecve 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 spend

amount menoned on the invitaon leer.

Travelling to other countries require some

amount of preparaon, like carrying stu

according to weather, booking accommoda-

ons well before leaving, reservaons 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

le the city, but I sll miss the place badly.

More than that I miss all those people who

made me feel at home.

Page 6

Picture 1

Picture 2

AKANKSHA THAWANIIIIrd Year Student


7/12

Page 7

Aer a frustrang wait for the results which

were nally announced in March 2012 and

some minor delays in the Visa process etcnally it was all done and I was ready to y

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 inial adjustment into the Canadian sys-

tems.

There was the usual culture shock and anawe for the mouth-watering prosperity be-

yond imaginaon, 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 nally did nd a few places

oering authenc Punjabi cuisine however

they were either far o or too expensive so I

busied myself into siing through archives of

Zee TV's all me famous ``Sanjeev Kapoor'sKhana-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,

cung, cooking and eang food.

Then came the big jolt! I was selected out of

all the Indian MITACS students to give a

presentaon on the Science Technology In-novaon policy of India at University of Oa-

wa alongside with 13 full professors repre-

senng their respecve 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 mathemacs and engi-

neering but here I was suddenly asked to talk

about a whole country's policies which I had

never studied or crically thought about. I

was nervous and did not want to let anyone

down, but then there were reassurancesfrom director of MITACS and

the organizing professor from University of

Oawa. The organizing professor also got me

in touch with Dr Chidambram (Principal Sci-

enc Advisor to Prime Minister of India)who guided me on some key ideas to which I

added my inputs which I had gained from

aending endless number of instute collo-

quiums in IIT, sessions of P2P StudE Club and

various other sources.

The conference was great. My presentaon

was well appreciated and was a nice change

for the aendees from the rather usual eco-

nomic policy perspecve( GDP, funding etc)

to talking policies from an engineering per-specve. I spent a week in Oawa, the capi-

tal of Canada, was invited to diplomac 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.

Aer this two week dabbling into socio-

techno-polico 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

meeng schedule. I used to go to my lab at

around 9AM and return by 4PM to my room

strictly only on working days (summer me in

Canada has a lot of fesve holidays! :D). I was

working with a simulator of a hydrogen man-

ufacturing plant, from analyzing the data of

which I had to give my analycal inputs aboutsome fault tolerant operaonal schemes. The

work was light and non-taxing.

I was already selected as a potenal 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 facules to other inter-

ests which I had been postponing for a long

me due to hecc coursework during the

semesters. This was also a me for personalintrospecon and revelaons. I spent sleep-

less nights somemes rhetorically asking

INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE


8/12

Page 8

myself why my country is monetarily poor

and about the next steps I had to take for my

career, keeping in my mind my patrioc bend

as well as the great opportunies (mostly in

developed countries) to solve problems of

the mankind as a whole through science.

Well of course there were the usual tourist

trips, mulple 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 tosee oneself on one of the giganc screens at

the square.

There were many trips to various industries

(which oered 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 rst hand experience of the world

class research facilies and people at univer-

sies 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

arcle of mine since it would be on a very

philosophical note.

Summer 2012 was a very happening me for

me and of all the multude of experiences

that I had as a MITACS Globalink intern in

Canada, I have discussed only a select few in

this arcle. I am sll unable to decide that by

choosing this internship over other real op-

portunies to strengthen my resume for my

PhD apps was worth this experience. Howev-er in all when I look back now I think it was a

good break (and perhaps much needed at

that me) from academics and engineering

stu to learn other important things for

which I am sll unsure if it was the suitable

me in my career.

My takeaways: opened up opportunies in

Canada, made awesome friends and learnt

how to cook food!

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

DHRUV GUPTA

IVth Year Student


9/12

Page 9

to make a decision by seeing the opening

and closing ranks of the previous years'

students, which makes it a decision ofluck

The post-IIT arrival reasons:

IIT as a means to a beer end : IIT is seen by

most as some place which, aer having

stayed four years in, will give them a stud job

and a dream package. How distorted from

reality this really is is another queson 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 irrespecve 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 nov-el or student-friendly techniques which will

help in garnering the student's aenon.

Cing an example for this, many people in

my freshman year preferred to not aend

classes and watch MIT professors teach in-

stead, only because of their teaching meth-

odology

This arcle is not an arcle trying to preach

to the world as to how to balance acads and

everything else (I would love to learn this artfrom someone), but it is my aempt at de-

bugging the fact that people's enthusiasm

decreases exponenally in something that

they loved less than months back.

IIT-ian Pre-IIT :

Before tenth : Wow Physics is so interesng!

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 drasc change, though seemingly hilari-

ous, does occur. In almost each and everyone 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 driing to the back of

our minds, and other aracons (read sports,

cult, moodI and not only DC) start racing for-

ward.

Let me make it clear that I am NOT against

extra curricular acvies, in fact I feel life at

IIT is seriously incomplete without that. What

I intend to state is that these acvies which

are supposed to be extra curricular, become

an excuse to take our minds o 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 informaon on branches during coun-

seling : The counseling brochure does not

contain ANY informaon on branches, thus

leading to choosing of branches based on

misconcepons 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


10/12

In the year 2050, when big chemical plants

with disllaon towers and smoke stackswould have disappeared; new, clean and

compact plants would be operang in indus-

trial parks neighboring residenal quarters

without disturbing the environment; new

technologies will be used for exploing new

starng materials, ecient reacons and

separaon 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 acon. Acon demands thought.

And thought demands INNOVATION. Hence,

innovaon is a very crucial and novel compo-

nent of our strategy toolkit.

An old saying goes, "Innovaon and evolu-

on go hand in hand" because evoluon

drives the change and takes us to the nextlevel of innovaon. 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 Indias largest Chemical

Engineering-oriented fesvals organized by

Chemical Engineering Department of IIT

Bombay, is now standing high, aracng

huge audience. What began as an idea with a

few events in 2007 has sublimated into a

plethora of not only intriguing compeons

and events, but also a wide variety of lec-

tures by eminent personalies, panel discus-

sions on crical issues and excing on-the-

spot quizzes, informal events etc. Time

passed by and we sailed smooth through

Opt for Opmizaon, We mean Green,Safer pracces for Safer Returns, R3- Re-

use Recycle Rene and now Inspire, Inno-

vate, Evolve.

You there, can be a part of our team eort. It

will cost you nil. All you need is to stand and

move ahead with ideas eervescing in your

mind, visions clear. We ought to realize that

the future of our lives depends magnicently

on innovaon. Innovaon by those minds

who havent yet spoken and by those whohavent been heard. So many like stars in the

sky that stay sll even in the darkest hour,

but brighten up millions of eyes watching

them!

Page 10

DEEKSHA PARIHAR & VIBHORE JAIN

IIIrd Year Students

AZeotropy 2012-2013 team


11/12

Page 11

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 cung edge of knowledge, and the

thrill of your rst 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 grad-

uate studies at University of Minnesota, TwinCies.

The rst year in any graduate program is all

about courses. While most schools have the

wrien of qualifying exams for PhD qualifying

examinaons within or aer the rst year,

here you have to present your thesis pro-

posal in front of a faculty panel followed by

an oral examinaon tesng your chemical

engineering concepts and we need to do at

least 10 courses within 3 semesters. But itsmore about learning and hardly about grades

Advisor selecon in graduate schools is tricky

and probably the most crucial decision of

our life. Schools vary between having a rota-

on system (taking up short projects in about

3 dierent groups unl you nalize 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 dang process.UMN has the advisor dang process where

we need to meet at least 20 professors be-

fore nalizing on our advisor (so far I have

only met 10 :P). Actually, its 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 cung

edge research going around here. My class-mates include people from US, India, Greece,

Turkey, Bangladesh and its always excing 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 dont have to be at the

mercy of SAIF). Professors are extremely ap-

proachable, highly collaborave and are

ready to co-advise on any project, which suits

the interest of the students.

The department here is very social. The rst

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 tle with equal zest ,our HOD

had been the champion for a long me and

was recently defeated by one of the new pro-

fessor :D .Talking about Minnesota without

talking about the weather is incomplete. It isfall now and temperatures are already sub

zero with no sign of snow yet. :(

But the beauful 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 seng. It is a common misconcep-

on that, PhD leads to academia. Ive real-

ized so far in UMN that the companies likeare always on lookout for graduate students

for their various research posion openings.

Companies even go to the extent of track-

ing/stalking students to oer them jobs.

Hence, if students have an inclinaon for re-

search, PhD is a surely a worthwhile invest-

ment.

ARPAN A. BANDOPADHYAYAlumnus, Batch of 2012


12/12

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

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