Vivek's Blog

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Archive for category Education

Checking In

Nov 27

Posted by Vivek in Education, Gaming, General | 1 Comment

It’s been a while. Things have happened. Some were good, some were bad.

Managed an above average grade on my second Thermodynamics exam, which was a good sanity check after a below-average grade on the first one, but I’m not in the clear just yet. Need an above average score on the final to lock in that elusive B. Doing okay in my other class – just need to not screw up the final.

On the research side, things have been moving along at a canter. We created and characterized our first batch of samples and are currently trying to figure out the best fabrication approach to take in order to achieve better results with our second batch. I also did a literature survey recently and will be presenting to my subgroup on Dec 1. I’ve been through lots of training sessions and there’s more to come yet. On the whole though, I love being at MIT. Classes are brutal, but being constantly surrounded by smart people is great. I wish I could get to research directly without having to take classes, but it is what it is. Just need to survive. Getting used to being average took some time.

I won’t be going home this winter – first time in 5 years. I have to take a week-long microfabrication training course in January, so I decided to hang around for the entire break. However, I will be heading down to New York for the Christmas weekend and could possibly also make another trip to visit my cousin (and my nephew!) in West Virginia.

Since I got done with midterms recently, I’ve had time to indulge in video gaming. Picked up Left 4 Dead 2 after being persuaded by a friend and it is awesome. Really expands upon the original in several ways and makes the original look boring in comparison. Also picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum, Braid, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. courtesy of crazy Steam sales. Yes, the very Steam I’ve ranted about in the past. I have been converted. While I still like getting something tangible for my money (i.e., physical media), Steam is a great distribution platform and something that’s improving to the point of being as good as Xbox Live (although it still lacks several features compared to Live). Two games I’m eagerly anticipating are Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2, both releasing next year. Now that I know ME2 will run on my laptop, I’m going to get myself the Collector’s Edition. It will hit retail January 26, and I should have a week to blaze through it before the spring semester starts.

Well, that’s about it for now.

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The Life of an MIT Grad Student

Sep 9

Posted by Vivek in Education, General | 5 Comments

This post has been simmering in the back of my head for a while now. However, a multitude of orientation events and more generally, “getting settled” has taken priority. There’s also the small matter of finding a research group and a project that I like before all the good ones get taken. But that can process in the background. Let’s get on with the blogging.

So, after a largely comfortable (albeit hot) three months at home, I arrived in Boston/Cambridge on August 27 and immediately got to work taking care of administrative nonsense and settling in. I have a nice room with enough space to store all my belongings and still have room for a few people to sleep on the floor, shall the need ever arise. My dorm has a small gym, a games room, and a decent DVD library for residents to utilize. Our incoming class is pretty large (60 or so new students in the department) so I’ve been meeting a lot of people. I haven’t had much opportunity to explore Boston yet, but I have five years to rectify that.

My stored items showed up on Saturday and I’m oh so thankful that I have my speakers back. After spending a week using only my laptop speakers, I had forgotten what bass (not necessarily the instrument) sounded like. At the same time, it sounded too deep for my liking initially so I had to turn it down! Speaking of music, this will be a busy month for me. Porcupine Tree, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam are releasing new albums and I have a ticket to see PT live on the 27th. You can rest assured that a review of their new album is forthcoming, as is the concert review. I won’t be doing a review, but I saw District 9 recently and loved it. If you like sci-fi, do yourself a favor and watch this movie. It does get a bit nasty, so I wouldn’t recommend it for the squeamish.

I had my first class today. Now that I have an MIT ID, have registered for classes, and started attending them, I finally consider myself an MITian. I’m happy to be here and I keep reminding myself that I can’t slack off at all. People are nice, but most professors are notoriously difficult to get hold of, which explains why I haven’t picked a research group to join yet.

Some people have asked me to put up pictures of MIT and the surrounding area. I do have some pictures but I’ll take some more before uploading everything in one go, so please be patient. In other news, I dumped Firefox 3.5 for Opera 10. The other day, Fx was hoarding 1GB of RAM which convinced me to finally make the switch – Opera is speedy, stable, and sexy. I dislike how some websites won’t work with Opera, but the “Identify as/Mask as” option seems to work pretty reliably.

P.S.: That title really doesn’t make a lot of sense in the context of what’s in the blog post. Meh.

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Updates Orgy

Jan 30

Posted by Vivek in Education, General, Technology, Updates | 4 Comments

I really should blog more often, especially since I have Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays off this semester. Oh well. I think I’m going to have to be brief here, but the following lines will catch you up on what I’ve been doing (and what has happened to me) since I left India.

I now have a twitter account. Follow me here.  I attempt to update at least twice a day (which is about 100x more often than my blog, har har).  I’m going to try and add my twitter feed to the blog soon.

This post is coming from Firefox 3.0.5 running on Windows 7 Ultimate (beta).  I’ve been using the 64bit beta on and off for the past two weeks now, and I like it.  The interface changes are good and I’m happy that they finally put in shortcuts to minimize and maximize windows.  ArsTechnica did a great article on the beta, so you might want to read that for the skinny on Windows 7.  So far, the only thing to not work: abc.com’s video player.

Last Friday, I received a call from Northwestern University.  After introducing himself, the nice guy at the other end said I’d been recommended to the Ph.D. program in Materials Science.  After staring into space, wondering what that meant, and subsequently collecting my jaw from the floor, I said, “oh, that’s great” and proceeded to mumble through the rest of the phone call.  Following that shocker, I received word from MIT and Stanford this Wednesday, congratulating me on being accepted.  Thus far, only Northwestern has told me how much financial aid I’ll get, but to get into three out of my top four choices has left me excited, delighted, shocked, and <insert adjective describing joy>.  It also means that I have a tough decision to make, but thankfully, the scheduling works out so that I can visit all three places in the coming months.  I’m hoping that the visits convincingly swing my decision one way, since April 15 is not that far away.

I just spent several hours of this week working on a solar module donation request to BP Solar.  If we get the solar panels, we (Columbia University Engineers Without Borders) hope to set up a health center in Melghat, India that will house a vaccine fridge, indoor bulbs, and outdoor lights all running off the panels.  Considering that our budget for all the equipment other than the panels is about as much as the panels would cost, we’re really hoping to get the donation.  It would be a major achievement, and something to brag about in our résumés.

Man, all this writing has made me hungry.  I should go get some food before BATTLESTAR GALACTICA at 10.  Peace out.

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Greetings From Cornell University

Jul 23

Posted by Vivek in Education, General | No Comments

So, I’ve been here almost three days now.  Nice place.  Covers a ginormous area.  The weather is colder than in NYC and it has been raining intermittently.  Yesterday, we were able to locate “Fall Creek” – famous for a high suicide rate.  Let me make one thing clear: Cornell and Ithaca are gorgeous (or gorges – same thing).  But they are also far away from any large town/city, so things can get boring fast.  As an undergraduate user of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility, I am not allowed in except during 8AM – 6PM.  This has restricted what I can do and when.  Training took more or less all of Monday and Tuesday but I got the ball rolling on my processing today.  I’m hoping the first stage will be done tomorrow morning and then I can do the second stage in the afternoon.  The final stage will probably have to be done by the graduate student I work with since I won’t able to get into or stay inside the facility after 6PM.  We have to get out of Ithaca on Thursday night or early Friday morning.  I’m hoping that I don’t have to return for some small processing.

Also, once I get back, I’ll upload all the pictures I’m taking here.

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Field Tripping

Jun 18

Posted by Vivek in Education | No Comments

Material ConneXion.  I guess this name betrays the whole point of the field trip.  Material ConneXion is a company that serves as a resource for new and innovative materials.  Manufacturers and inventors of materials submit their latest to the company where they are evaluated and then each month, a select few are picked as being the most innovative.  These materials are then put on display at the company library for public viewing as well as for other companies and people to select from for their work.  I still don’t completely understand their role and how they make their profits, but I was there to see materials, not worry about accounting and finance.

The panoply of materials we got to see at their library was mind-blowing.  They had everything – plastics, ceramics, fabrics, metals, composites, glasses, and even bright LEDs.  The little descriptions accompanying each item actually made sense – I guess after a year of constantly being exposed to materials science, things do start to sink into your brain.  None of the terminology was new and even some of the manufacturing processes listed were familiar to me.  The really cool stuff included an LED system where the lights follow movements above them, a lamp with sliding-touch controls for brightness and color temperature, and a glass-based panel that can go from clear to opaque at the flick of a switch thanks to a liquid crystal layer that changes polarization.  Neat stuff.

I realize that a post like this needs pictures and perhaps even actual samples!  But unfortunately, pictures weren’t allowed and no technology exists that will let me beam the feel of the materials straight to your brains.

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