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

Inflation & Standard of Living

 In 2010 - 1 Kg of White Polished Rice cost Rs. 190/- per 5 Kilogram Bag, today the same Brand White Rice costs Rs. 356/- per 5 Kilogram Bag

Thats an inflation of 8.74% Per Yr

In 2010 - Health Insurance Policy of Rs. 10 Lakhs cost Rs. 35,800/- for a 60 year old Man , today the same policy costs Rs. 68,500/-

Thats an inflation of 9.2% Per Yr

In 2010 - a Rs. 10 Lakh Term Deposit would yield Rs. 7,270/- per month in income after TDS. Today the same 10 Lakh Term Deposit yields only Rs. 4,702/- per month in income.

Thats a decrease of 4.33% per Yr

In 2010 - a 1500 Sq Ft (Gross Carpet Area) Flat in a Suburban Area cost Rs. 53.88 Lakhs on an Average (Electronics City Bangalore, Tambaram Chennai and Peelmed in Coimbatore - three of the most affordable housing in South India as per India Today in 2010) with an EMI of Rs. 56,900/- per month for Full Loan

In 2020 - the same 1350 Sq Ft (GCA) Flat in a Suburban Area cost Rs. 74.25 Lakhs on an Average with an EMI of Rs. 83,700/- per month for Full Loan in the three most afforable housing in South India (Different Locations from the above ones)

Thats 6.25% a Year inflation in Per SFT House Price and 6.07% a year inflation in Relative EMI Payable.

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Inflation should be lower and Standard of Living Higher but in India the opposite is true.

Inflation is rampant while Standard of Living is becoming lower and lower.

So assumption of 6% Inflation makes full sense for India. I always assume 8% inflation to be on the safe side.

  

- Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam

I was able to crack JEE with school in my first attempt due to two reasons.....

 I was able to crack JEE with school in my first attempt due to two reasons: dedicated focus and extensive prioritization.

I was extremely focused on clearing JEE during the last two years of my school life - so much so that I could not even imagine a life without clearing JEE. I used to attend my coaching classes sincerely, and go through my preparation material multiple times. In fact, I read each module at least seven times for the JEE preparation. I took each mock JEE exam as seriously as I would take the actual JEE exam, and closely analyzed my performance after each mock exam. I remember I had severe fever on the day of one of my mocks, but I still traveled to the exam center to take the exam, even though it would not have mattered a bit had I skipped that mock.

While others in my class were busy partying, I was immersed in the preparation. While my friends went on trips to celebrate the end of school days, I was busy revising my material for the hundredth time. During those two years, I did not attend a single family function, hardly saw any movies, and did not go out with my friends. Those two years of my life were completely dedicated to JEE preparation.

I also ensured extensive prioritization during those two years to manage my time. I attended school only once a week, and that too so that I could appear for the weekly tests that happened every Monday. I ensured I appeared for the school tests and exams, so that I would not lose out on any marks, while focusing the rest of the time on JEE preparation. I knew that if I prepared well for JEE, the school exams and the CBSE Board exams would be a cakewalk, but it would not be true the other way round. As a result, I ended up scoring 94.2% in my Board exams in class 12th, even though I had attended school only once a week!

The two years of dedication resulted in the coveted All India Rank 279 in IIT-JEE (now called JEE Advanced), and All India Rank 94 in AIEEE (now called JEE Mains).

JEE had become such an integral part of my life for those two years that I never considered JEE just as an exam. It was a part and parcel of my life.

In fact, to be frank - for those two years, JEE had actually become my whole life.

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If you wish to reach out to me, feel free to contact me on Instagram (@jainrohanrj)

 -Rohan Jain,IIM,IIT

PSU or Private Corporate Job ?

 I have worked in private as well as government organisation (PSU to be precise) so I think I am eligible to answer this question.

There is a famous saying that “Grass is always greener on the other side” and it holds very true when it comes to dilemmas like this.

I worked as a Graduate Engineer Trainee in Hero Motocorp Ltd, the worlds largest 2 wheeler manufacturer by volume and a major MNC in India. I was placed through campus and my CTC was 6.5 lpa.

Let me tell you the story of private job first.

These people are professionals in the true meaning of the term. They know the details, their job. We were a bunch of novice who had just graduated and knew nothing about this corporate world. They treat you like kings during the GET period. They try by every means to retain you and make an asset to the organisation. Believe me, 4 star and 5 star hotels were a common thing for us. During training period we used to stay in the priciest of the hotels for weeks long. The company will not let you down even for one second. As I told you, they are professionals, they wanted to win over us. It was a brilliantly organised training programme where we learnt a lot and made wonderful memories. The module was a beautiful amalgamation of technical as well as behavioural aspects.

Here are some photos of our training period:

Here we stayed for 3 months in Gurgaon

The next one is during our training in Kolkata. It is a 5 star hotel with the best facilities and amazing food. I used to fill my plate like crazy😂

We stayed there for 11 days and my laundry bill alone was near about 5k!!!! which ofcourse company paid.

I have bunch of photos but I wouldn't bother you with those. It is just meant to give you a feel of what it was like. Company took us to Corbett National park for behavioural training, various plant visits, always provided good modes of transportation. So it was definitely a honeymoon period.

Ok so GET period is fun. Made amazing friends who are still in touch. But all good things come to an end. After this training we were allocated different departments and I was posted as a Territory Service Manager in Assam Northeast region.

Now the actual game begins.

It was no easy job. We had to travel a lot. I used to travel from Kolkata to Guwahati back and forth every week. From Guwahati to other northeastern states back and forth. I used company provided flights so much that I had become a platinum customer in Jet airways. This gave me a lot of privileges like free tickets, business class upgrades, free airport lounge and what not. Again, notice that company is not shy about spending in you. They never asked us to travel by train. They saved those valuable hours which we would have otherwise wasted in travelling by train. I thoroughly enjoyed this life and thought wow!

Me and mom in business class

Accommodation was first class. I used to stay in a 4 star hotel in Guwahati for weeks.

This WOW thing didn't last long.

Having said that, they provide you with all sorts of pleasures but it does come with a price. We used to have targets. It was a stressful job. Visiting dealerships and talking with experienced businessmen was no child's play. They are always one step ahead of you. Each day used to be a minimum of 10 hours with all the hectic travelling from one place to another. Health does take a toll because your lunch timings get altered and you are eating out everyday. Home cooked food is special, no 5 star restaurant can give you that. You become bored of these eventually. I still remember that after a few months I asked the waiter of a 5 star restaurant to provide me with khichdi (you ought to have seen the look on his face as it was not in the menu). That explains a lot I guess.

There is fierce competition among the colleagues. You grow a lot, learn new things very fast. It is extremely professional.

In short, if you want a taste of actual corporate life, this is the place. Growth is exponential and knows no bounds. You'll always get increment percentage in double figures.

After 10 months of job, I quit. It was a tough decision and there were a lot of factors for that decision, family being one as my work involved too much travelling.

Then I started preparing for Engineering Services and luckily cracked in the first attempt. Meanwhile as I await joining, I am working in Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., a Maharatna PSU with a package of 12 lpa during the training period and 17 lpa after a year.

Salary is really good and they provide the best medical facilities.

But it all ends there.

I saw a major shift in everything. The training period was not as good as my earlier organisation. Some PSUs like IOCL provide good accommodations in the beginning, but not all!

The professionalism was missing to some extent. People are too good! There is no rat race amongst us. The hierarchy was flat. Be happy and enjoy life is the motto of BHEL and it cannot be truer!

Don't expect the PSU to spend tons of money on your training like private entities. No more flights! Only 2AC trains.😂

Accommodation is average as we are allotted hostels in the first year. The township is beautiful with a lot of greenery and good sports facilities which you will never find in a Private company. Posting can become a pain in the arse as sometimes you will be thrown in some remote location like in my case. I belong to Assam and I have been posted in a small town in Tamil Nadu.

PSUs are going through difficult times so yearly bonus has become a thing of the past. Many facilities which were provided earlier have been discontinued. PSUs served the nation since independence, build the state of the art infrastructure for the country but the present government feels that their task is over and needs to be dumped.

The growth will be substantially less here. Someone working in private sector will catch you up in 5–7 years if he works diligently. You will seldom work in metro cities so you have to be prepared to sacrifice a lot.

In contrast to that, you will get time to pursue your hobbies in PSUs. You will remain physically fit as there are lot of parks and sport facilities here unlike cities, where we are crammed in a small apartment for our whole lives.

But inspite of all these, being a part of nation building does give a sense of pride and joy, as if our lives have some purpose. And nothing can match this profound feeling of satisfaction.

Few photos of BHEL township:

Doggo posing like a pro 😅

Meeting with CMD sir

My favourite place! Library inside office! 😀

Before Pongal:

I wasn't kidding when I said one can stay fit 😅

And Yeah we slept through the training period!😂

Edit: The earlier pic had to be removed due to privacy concerns🤣

Now it is upto you to decide what you want!

Thanks for reading

Wasim Yuhana,B.Tech Mechanical Engineering at NIT Durgapur

I Would Say That “Sacrificing”.......

I would say that “sacrificing” your early 20s for your career is worth it.

My father always says we have two choices - Enjoy early life at your parents’ expense and suffer the rest of it, or, work like a horse all day throughout your early life and live like a king for the rest.

Every individual has dreams in life that she/he wants to achieve. And, nobody likes waiting. We all want things to happen fast. Sadly, that never does.

Nothing good ever comes easy.

When I was in final year, most of my friends who were in engineering had passed out and taken up jobs in IT sector. When I was doing my internship, a few got married. My friends who were in medical/dental from school joined PG in private colleges right after UG got over - it was an smooth transition.

For me (and majority of my batchmates from college), it has been a roller coster journey, emotionally and physically.

Days of tears, worries and anxiety! Endless cravings to just drop out and put an end to the whole rat race.

But we held on. Through fire and ice. Each of us wanted to get into a central government institution for PG.

Each of us have achieved that, finally.

There's still a long way to go, but the whole thing so far has been worth it. I'm (almost) financially independent now (salary comes after work starts), have a gorgeous room all to myself and am close to home.

Financial independence is something to die for in today's world. It gives you security and the power to design your life the way you want it (irrespective of what others around you feel!).

  

  -Aheli Bal,MD AIIMS,MBBS JIPMER

College Maths vs Arithmetic

 Proof-based mathematics is normal mathematics, and has been since the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, many school curricula focus almost entirely on being able to perform computations, with nary a thought about why any of this works, or what it means. As a simple example, I am quite certain that virtually no one who has not taken some intermediate level math courses in college would be able to provide a definition of the real numbers that I would not be able to tear to shreds. Considering that I have taught college students who were able to show exactly how you multiplied fractions, but were not able to properly explain why that was the right thing to write down, my confidence in this assertion is extremely high.

However, if you only have mechanical understanding of procedures, then you cannot write proofs, because that requires conceptual understanding. If you have no experience in explaining your reasoning (and most people are quite terrible at this), then you cannot write proofs. If you don’t have a good feeling for how logic works, then you cannot write proofs. Most people don’t really have a good understanding of logic—to wit, I accidentally tripped up a lot of my students on an exam by giving them the following question: they had to decide whether the statement:

Suppose that f′(x)=x3−2x+1$f^{\prime }(x)=x^3-2x+1$. Then f(x)=14x4−x2+x$f(x)=\frac{1}{4}{x}^4-x^2+x$.

was true or false. Virtually all of them answered that this statement was true, because they checked that the given function f(x)$f(x)$ really does have the desired derivative… and so you must be done, right? Well, no, because there are all sorts of different choices for f(x)$f(x)$ that would also give that same derivative, hence the statement is actually false. I am fairly certain that this was a problem of logic rather than a misunderstanding about anti-derivatives, because I did a good job of drilling into them that if you want to find an anti-derivative, you find a particular anti-derivative plus a constant. In other words, if I had asked them to write down the general anti-derivative of x3−2x+1$x^3-2x+1$, I wager that most of them would give a correct answer of 14x4−x2+x+C$\frac{1}{4}{x}^4-x^2+x+C$.

Writing proofs is not hard once you have developed the skills required to do so. The trouble is that most students are dumped into this all at once, without training any of the myriad skills that you need to be successful in this endeavor.

   

    -Senia Sheydvasser,PhD in Mathematics,BA-Physics