Vivek’s Blog

Today I went to a special screening of the documentary, “The 11th Hour” that talks about global warming and related economic aspects as well as solutions to overcome not only our dependence on fossil fuels, but also problems with population explosion and our impact on the earth.  It was a good film and quite informative since it featured interviews with several scientists and experts working in this field.  I was perhaps a wee bit disappointed that the movie did not feature more data to back up the claims of the experts.  Still, I thought it was a good overview of the problem and what needs to be done to solve it.  A good Q&A session followed the movie.

I got stuck having to set up and maintain a booth for Engineers Without Borders when the others who were supposed to be with me couldn’t make it to the event on time.  But I’ll let that one slip.  What did piss me off was Sci-Fi’s decision to only air a preview of the new Battlestar Galactica episode online.  The website said it was going to be a preview but they never mentioned how long it was going to be.  Further, the stream started off like a normal BSG episode and continued until the second commercial break.  Then BAM! the episode ended.  Frak you scifi.com, frak you hard.  Did Intel not not want to sponsor the rest of the episode?

Perhaps some of you know about this already, but I’m staying in NYC for the summer to work with my adviser on research.  I haven’t settled on a project yet, but I have a choice of two groups that I can work with.  I can either work on solar cells or I can work on microelectronics.

Both areas involve electronic materials (mostly silicon) and the use of sequential lateral solidification to make better cells or microelectronics.  Both areas sound interesting.  If you’ve followed my epic quest that finally ended when I bought the N95 back in February, then you know how picky I am and how much time I spend thinking and researching before I make a decision.

Right now I’m leaning more towards microelectronics and I have until the week of May 26 to make a final decision.  For those not scientifically inclined, the two choices as follows:  I get to either save the world (no cheerleaders involved, sadly) or I get to do something that will eventually help the electronics industry tremendously.  And as of right now, I’m biased towards the electronics industry.

If you feel like it, leave comments.  Otherwise, sit back and wonder how I’m only two posts away from a full week of blog posts.

So while I’ve been here for two weeks now, classes only started this past Tuesday. And even though this wasn’t a full week of classes, I saw enough to be able to pour it all out in a blog post. Besides, I haven’t written anything since I left home, have I?

So right off the bat, I’ll acknowledge that Columbia is going to be a lot more work that Adelphi. I have six classes at the moment but I will drop one math class after weighing my options. I already have homeworks in three of my classes and readings for all my classes. It will probably get worse next week when the other classes start to have homework.

Professors here are nice. Though not big on office hours, they seem like friendly, helpful people. Classrooms are nice and big for the most part although my MATLAB programming class has 70 students registered but only 44 computers in the lab. Some of my friends are in classes that have way more students registered than there are seats available in the rooms. The only class where I have 100+ students is Mechanics of Solids but we have a good room that can seat everyone.

Still trying to decide on a research position. There are several available, but I can’t seem to decide which one I want. It’s a good thing we are not given cable TV access here automatically. You need to pay and sign up which will keep us away from getting service. It means no console gaming and no LOST or Battlestar Galactica, but I’ll have to deal with it. It gives me more time to get work done and to join clubs and organizations on campus.

Well, I’ll stop right here. I have to go pick up a text book and some other stuff.

Finally! After more than a month of waiting, I heard back from Columbia. I applied to the 3-2 Combined Plan Program under which you study at a liberal arts school for three years and then transfer to Columbia for two years of engineering, provided you meet all their admissions criteria. I’ve spent three years as a Physics major at Adelphi University. Not that I don’t like it here, but engineering beckons and I’m now Columbia-bound.

I got my acceptance email today. I had a feeling that the admissions decision would be sent out either today or on Monday. I had been checking my email frequently and finally when I got back from research around 5:45pm, I found the admissions decision waiting in my inbox. Having seen my fair share of rejection letters (when I applied for Fall 2004), I trained my eyes on the first sentence of the email. And I found the word “Congratulations!” right there. I let out a huge sigh of relief (I let another one out right now) and told my friends about it. A lot of other applicants from Adelphi also got their decisions today and as far as I know, everyone got in. While I still have a lot to do here at Adelphi - finish my thesis, do well in my classes this semester, get some results in my research, etc. - I can’t wait to start at Columbia. Fall 2007 starts in September. It’ll be hard, it’ll be a challenge, it’ll be demanding, but hey, I got myself into this. I’ve wanted to be an engineer for years now, and at last, I will be able to follow my dream.

I plan on pursuing Materials Science & Engineering at Columbia. I think my Physics base makes this a good choice since Materials Science involves a lot of physics and in particular, solid state physics. In order to prepare for it, I’m taking Solid State Physics as an independent study class this semester. It’s somewhat new and weird, but the theory and applications are extremely interesting. I look forward to studying it in more detail over the course of this semester and at Columbia.

All right, enough about Solid State. I know most of you are either a) bored to death or b) afraid so I’ll stop. It’s just a huge relief and I wanted to share the excitement. It’s going to be tough leaving this place. It’s given my so much. All the lovely professors and friends who aren’t going to Columbia with me - I’ll miss them all. This place has been my home for almost three years.

I’m gonna go watch 300 later tonight. I’ve been playing too much Crackdown. I should try and sleep sometime soon. Not getting enough sleep in not cool, mmkay?

I talked about picking the right universities in my previous post but I guess I didn’t mention how many you should apply to. It’s a tough question to answer. You could either go crazy and apply to 15 universities if you are not sure where you want to go or you could apply to a select few (maybe 5-7) if you are confident of getting into them. Of course, your choices need to be based on how good a university is when it comes to your major. I applied to 10 universities - seems like a lot but this is how I figured them out:

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