Awesome Talk
During the course of PhD, it often comes to mind if doing PhD is really worth it. Several thoughts cross through mind -- all friends are doing job, they are settled and even have family of their own; parents need helping hand; am I really going to change the world with my work etc etc. I feel if something is difficult it means something worthwhile, even if the thesis does not turn out to be ground-breaking. The uncertainty a person goes through teaches one to become patient, matured and persistent. Sometimes, I feel doing PhD is meaningful only in places like MIT.
Attending to technical talks is integral part of PhD life. But theoretical talks are most interesting as was today's talk by Nicole Immorlica which made me realize once again how exciting research could be. She got PhD from MIT and has been working with Microsoft Research. I learned some nice theoretical results in Algorithms Game Theory. Specifically, she gave nice application of Classic Secretary Problem. The Secretary problem states:
"If an office wants to hire a secretary from a set of N secretaries, assuming that each secretary has some measure of her goodness, and decision to hire or reject should be done at the end of interview. The question is how to ensure that the office hires approximately the best secretary (if once rejected secretary cannot be hired or once accepted secretary cannot be rejected later)."
Game Theory is one of my favorite subjects and auction-theory that she was talking about is one of its sub-field. Furthermore, I feel one of the features of presentations given by theoretical computer scientists is that those are immaculate -- such talks are absolutely free from rubbish, everything is precise and succinct. In contrast to common wisdom, theoreticians are have also good sense of humor. Basically, a clear and careful thought processing shows up in the presentation. That's when I realize, Aha ! here is the fun of doing research because no one else knew this result before her.
Indian Universities and Application Process
Although many universities in India have international repute, the application process is those univs is pretty much done in the same old fashioned way. I am sure there is increased number of students, faculty and staff, but the attitude of the people has not changed much. Recently I had to contact several univs to enquire about admission procedure into MSc programmes. Only thing I could say, I ended up being frustrated.
Although many universities have launched their websites, there is hardly any relevant information on those. For example, I was directed to the website of Periyar University to dig information about MSc in Life Science and actually there is nothing on it. I could barely understand, why can't they post contact telephone numbers.
There are different issues to deal with even if one gets contact numbers. I was visiting North Bengal University website and surprisingly there was no contact number. Only contact number one could find was of the company (AMBITION) which made homepage. So, I had to call them to find a relevant number of the Registrar. On another occasion, I tried to talk to staff in a college in Anna University. It appeared as if I made a mistake by calling them, the person was in so much hurry to hang up that I had to request not to hang up before asking every question. I had to send 4-5 mails and call equal number of times to get one piece of information. I really don't understand why they don't learn etiquettes of telephonic conversation.
I was little surprised that one has to struggle so much to talk to staff or people in Delhi University or JNU. Either there is no departmental homepage or even if one exists, there is no contact numbers of staff in the office. One has to go through separate directory search to unravel contact number of only Dept Head or professors. Sometimes, the website of a University is not even accessible, e.g., Univ of Tezpur.
Furthermore, I don't understand why can't they upload .doc or .pdf version of the application forms on their webpages. One has to order the application forms by sending Demand Drafts by post and acquire the application forms. Why can't they make it credit card payable ? What is the point of having booming IT industry ?
