Are computer scientists happy?

Some of us are happy; some of us are not. For some of us, computer science is the core of our identity, a source of ineffable beauty and awesome purpose, a solace against the sadness and terror of the rest of the world. For some of us, computer science is a day job that we barely tolerate only because it keeps enough money in our pockets to support our real lives. Some of us live happy, healthy, balanced lives in supportive environments and with loving families. Some of us suffer from desperate isolation, mental illness, physical and emotional abuse, crippling financial burdens, hunger, and homelessness.

In short, computer scientists are people.

-Jeff Erickson CS Professor-University of Illinois

Clerk After 12 & Thinking about Entering IIM ?

I was a student at IIM Calcutta 2004–06. One of my classmates used to work as a clerk in Vijaya Bank. So, the simple answer to your question is YES.

There is more to his story.

He joined the Bank as a clerk with Class 12 as the qualification. His dad and the primary bread winner passed away and he had to take charge of the family. He finished his B.Com and ICWAI through private study while working in the bank. He even got promoted as an officer about 5 years after joining the bank.

He didn't consider MBA as a career option for quite some time. Then he saved enough money for his family to sustain for two years when he is away.

Finally, at the age of 26, he left the bank to join IIMC. He had spent 7.5 years in service by then. He had struggled with every single section in CAT and more than half the courses in IIMC. Every single time he had the perseverance to fight through.

Today he is an amazingly successful and highly respected corporate finance professional.

Leaving out his name to protect his privacy. A very dear friend of mine and someone who I regard highly.

 

-Adithya Lanka

You’re complaining about a slow laptop?

Laptops didn’t exist when I learned to code. Or personal computers at all for that matter.

When I went to grad school for my MSCS degree, all of our assignments ran on a UNIVAC 1108 mainframe computer — which had a 1.33 MHz processor, and about 1 MB of main memory. Or about 1000 times slower and 8000 times smaller memory than a cheap laptop. And cost over two millions dollars (almost $14 million today).

But the speed and memory size weren’t directly relevant to me, because there weren’t any dial up terminals yet (those were added the year I graduated). When they did come along, the normal speed was 300 baud. That’s about two seconds per line displayed on a screen.

All of our programs were submitted on punch cards in boxes like this:

and we would get the results back in a few hours, or more often, the next day.

Compile error? Too bad. Wait another day.

Yet I learned FORTRAN IV, UNIVAC 1108 assembler, LISP, COBOL and ALGOL 68 this way. I got my Master’s degree in Computer Science and am still working full-time 50 years later as a programmer at the age of 74.

Over the years I’ve picked up another dozen or so high-level languages, and 15 additional variations of assembler.

Please don’t expect me to shed any tears over your slow laptop.

   -Tom Crosley,M.S. in Computer Science, Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago 

More Hardwork = More Money

The greatest secret of earning wealth is the ability of a person to suffer failure and learn the lessons from failures instead of quitting.

If you are not willing to fail, you don’t have chances to become rich by your own effort.

There are many jobs that are so easy to be done that no one fails. For example, if you choose to be a labourer, worker in a factory, maidservant, driver, there is hardly any chances of failure as everyone can master these jobs quite easily.

Yet you can never become rich doing these jobs even if you are working 18 hours a day.

However, there are other professions, where the chances of failures are very high. For example, when we attempt to learn any subject in our schools and colleges and try to solve a problem, we fail multiple times before we start finding the right answers to the questions.

We keep learning from every mistake, and soon we stop making mistakes in solving the problems which looked so difficult to us once.

When you pass your college and choose a profession, there are some jobs where the chances of failures are very high and there are somewhere the chances of failure are very low.

( It does not mean you don't have to work hard but you have to work  Hard Then Super Hard but in the Right Direction and on the Right Path ) 

Ignorance is Bliss ?

When I was a young child, I once asked my mother the reasons for the solar and lunar eclipse.

She narrated me the story of Puranas and explained that solar and lunar eclipse happens when Rahu-Ketu eats Sun and Moon by taking revenge for exposing them to Lord Vishnu who was in the form of a beautiful woman ‘Mohini’ .

Almost everyone in my village still believes in this story and considers eclipse as inauspecious and avoids doing many activities including eating food cooked before eclipse.

However, when I later studied science, I came to know the scientific reason for the solar and lunar eclipse due to planatory motions in which God has no role to play.

However, I could never explain my mother and most of my relatives that myths are false and that God has no role to play in eclipse as they deeply believe in the stories of Puranas and reject all the scientific principles that runs contrary to these stories.

Unfortunately, billions of people around the world still believe in the myths and fallacies of mythologies and religion rather than posing faith on scientific explanations of the realities.

If you are living in a society where almost everyone believes in myths, you are declared as outcaste and ridiculed rather than respected for your knowledge and wisdom.

I have been voracious reader for last couple of decades and I read almost fifty books every year.

Most of my friends and colleagues in civil services and relatives have stopped learning and only recycle their old knowledge. They rarely read books except those which deals with their job.

I am gradually realising that I now have little in common with my old friends, colleagues and relatives, as most of them are still stuck up in the mental state at which they were decades ago while I am getting transformed everyday due to learning new things in life.

I sometime marvel the power of book, which help us interact with the best of the best minds of the world that ever existed in any part of the world since the beginning of human civilisation.

And once you have enjoyed their company and understood the thoughts of such great minds, how can you think like ignorant men once again and enjoy the company of foolish and ignorance masses?

Ignorance is indeed a bliss for most people in the world because ignorant people are like blind men guiding each other and enjoying happiness since they can’t see the bad things in the world, while forgetting that they also can’t see the beauty of the world as well.

Even if I want, I can’t enjoy the bliss of ignorance just like a man with eyes can never enjoy the bliss of a blind man by closing his eyes forever.

I can never stop the search of knowledge because only the right knowledge can open our eyes to the reality and guide us to the right path of sustainable happiness and bliss.

Once you have enjoyed the bliss of knowledge, there is no way you can ever live with ignorance and enjoy its blessings.

 -Awdhesh Singh  Former IRS, IITian