What not to do as an undergraduate major - Fatal Error #1

Or what not to choose to do as an undergraduate major.

Disclaimer: Most of the thoughts expressed here are highly personal and experiential and consensus from a set of fellow suffering graduate students of the same field. You might have been a highly motivated successful individual belonging to this area, that doesn't mean you have the right to insult/ arrest/ throw stones at me/ us. Thank you in advance. 

Biomedical Engineering. Or Bioengineering. It is such a freakish umbrella term. Interface of Biology and Engineering. Solving biological problems with engineering tools. Creating novel applications and coming up with innovative solutions that have mass impact. Sounds exciting! Diagnostics-Therapeutics-Equipments-Image Processing-Signal Processing- Electronic Circuits-Analog and Digital ICs-Microprocessors and Microcontrollers-Biomechanics-Medical Instrumentation-Medical Physics-Sensors-BioMEMS-Biocontrol Systems. Name it what! You touch upon every goddamn thing under the "bio"-"medical" sun! Depth? Nil. Zero. Shoonya!!!

The biomedical curriculum in India is majorly electronics as far as I know. But the knowledge level can never be equal to any electrical engineering undergraduate student. Take programming, no, cannot be on par with computer science. Cannot even think of comparing. Ok, atleast Biology?? No way, what do you think? A biotechnology or a pure biology student will know truck loads more than you, an unfortunate biomedical "engineer". And yes, please understand the world of difference between biotechnology and biomedical engineering. Everything boils down to making you feel as if you know nothing at all and leave you with an empty feeling of having done something vague for precious-four-odd years of your life. That thought of having no skill-set, scary isn't it? Atleast, to me it is, and this is what I am stuck with. Again, this may not be true for everyone.

If someone is "passionate" about biomedical sciences/ biomedical engineering with a focus on medical devices or applications that focus more on engineering - say, prostheses, brain computer interface, human computer interaction, image guided surgical tools, imaging modalities, fabrication of microsensors and so on, it would be extremely wise to major in electrical and computer engineering or instrumentation and control engineering or any core engineering discipline for that matter, like even chemical engineering which gives a decent understanding of materials science and thermodynamics OR pure mathematics, pure physics (it is all built on top of physics, communicated via mathematics). Even as you pursue a course on these core areas, it is very much possible to work on biomedical applications. That is the best example of extrapolation and translating core knowledge in a related domain. An interdiscplinary undergraduate major like biomedical does not lay a solid foundation on anything. Yes, it gives an overview of everything, which is okay, but never good enough. When it comes to working on something specific, it's like learning everything from the scratch, from the core subject perspective. If the ultimate aim is on learning, understanding, feeling satisfied about what you do later on in life, it might be good to refrain from BME while thinking of undergraduate major options. 

May be an encouraging sign.

Neeya Naana - Jan 6 2013

The last episode of Neeya Naana is a classic example of how to bring people together by creating better awareness and understanding of the issues daunting both sides. Just by sharing thoughts openly, magic happens. It is definitely possible to make the upper middle class empathize is one thing I see. I do not know if anything will be executed, but a change of heart is clearly noticeable. The bottomline is (telling myself): societal thoughts can be instilled in the common upper middle class. Make some effort. Period. 

Just another post on interaction encounters

I just wanted to ramble a little bit here before the clock struck 12 since today, the auspicious Christmas day marks the beginning of my virtual chatter, the third anniversary. Funny how time flies. Although I haven't customized many thoughts, I remember how I started this when I was a kid back then.

There are a lot of things I need to ooze out in the form of writing before I talk about anything here in this blog but one a-mazing experience precedes all else. It stands out amongst the clutter of interesting and not-so-interesting incidents I've had in the new life I began three months ago. I'm sure many of you out there would agree with me, it's all about meeting new people. It's SO intriguing how a short meeting with some person or people in general can -- change perceptions, set us thinking, keep ideas flowing, give new direction to solving problems, have a profound impact in our lives. These periods of interaction of any kind, is in my opinion very engaging and more often than not, symbiotic. There is so much to learn from every person we meet!

The anecdotes of meeting people in my school - academia comes later. Recently, I've been meeting immigrants who are well settled in this alien land for quite sometime. Bazillion thoughts cross my head during such encounters! They all seem happy to work for a "small" start-up, happy to meet people from their motherland occasionally, happy to learn cooking from some random mami's videos on youtube, happy to buy frozen food from the desi store, happy to discuss restaurants/ cloth stores/ lifestyle here,  happy with a couple of kids each, happy to see their kids speak a heavily accented mother-tongue or just plain accented English, happy to get them educated in a system that encourages questioning, happy to listen to them sing vara veena...

There are a few inspiring people in the lot. But being a highly principled being (or portraying myself as one), some questions kept thronging inside. Am I seeing a decade or two older self in these people? Do I have the stomach to become an alien to MY home, MY place back in the country? Will all the seemingly unpleasant things become the most acquainted ones sooner or later? Will I also "enjoy" watching the next gen growing up the way I see the kids here, now...?

Not wanting to think about these and with the satisfaction of scribbling, wishing a Merry Christmas to all!

The lost habits...

I know I'm supposed to complete the hypotheses I began in the previous post. But before that, I am trying to search for the lost me. The habits that constitute what I am. Or in fact the habits that used to define me. Old habits die hard they say. I have been proving it wrong and I seriously think it is bad habits that die hard. They are easy to cultivate and difficult to get out of. Something of a dangerous addiction. On musing about this issue, I encounter a few stunning revelations. Being disoriented, muddled, grouchy, bellyaching and so on and on and on..whoa, these have replaced my old self!  Now this is like being stuck in a rut; escaping from these centrifuge of actions depends on..er..no points for guessing, ya, it's just me!
Hoping to finish the housing hypotheses as I have had some more interesting experiences since last time. And it's time to move on with the fillers. What I should've been writing about. What it feels like to be out of my safe haven. The travails of looking for a person to work with in a classroom full of experienced people. The shock I went through on realizing I am not going to learn enough in the time span that a quarter revolves around. The hectic madness it all turns out to be. The disgusting use of toilet paper. The cold blast of wind making me numb and the frustratingly angled sunshine failing to make me warm. OH... there we go.. I just said I should stop doing this.
Okay, I have to make it sound like this: What is feels like to be independent. The exposure gained by belonging to a diverse classroom. The feverishly exciting pace at which things function here making me learn some tactics for managing the ever so precious time. The water conservation tendency that looms at large (which is good! it's a resource to be conserved! in future, we are going to face water-wars!). The pleasant weather with a tinge of the La Jolla Sun shining down on me, ever so mildly.. This is heaven on earth.
Sigh.

The Rant

I consider Twitter to be my rant board. But most of the times, that social networking cum micro blogging site allows me a meager 140 characters to spew out abuses, insults and anger. It isn't enough. So I get back to my dear old friend, blogspot!

Disclaimer: This particular post is not meant for reading. It will be more of rhetoric. The reason being, it is very closely related to some injustice I witnessed/ underwent in the past few weeks and there is just no way I can stomach that ordinarily. I have to vent. Since I do not find any means of fighting it in the near future, I write. 1. To soothe my mother's tired ears. 2. To see if my reasoning/ understanding is muddled.

I got an offer for pursuing (unfunded) Masters in a well-known university for my field in USA. I was thrilled since I hadn't in the least expected to get into this particular place. Natural instinct: try to minimize expenses as much as you can. Of all the procedures I am supposed to complete to enter USA as a graduate student, the first thing I did was to apply for on-campus housing. It is a general notion that poor Indian students will not be able to afford the expensive and luxurious apartments inside the campus. But in this zipcode of the US, the story is otherwise. In whichever way I calculate, on-campus turns out cheaper than off. Unless...

The supposed on-campus housing is managed, maintained, administered by a separate group. This looks like the (or my?) public research university has delegated the housing activity to private players. There are approximately seven residential communities in which undergrad, grad students, post doc scholars and staffs are given offers. The basic criteria for getting housing offer is the date of application; provided the students are not given preference based on whether they are recommended by their dept or are physically challenged or have children. Another crucial factor that determines housing offers to be made is the move-in date along with the 3 residential community preferences. Also, the offers are made 30 days in advance when a vacant spot is available. One concession is that we may update our application any number of times and that will not affect the wait-list position which is again, solely based on application date. Or that's what they say. When an offer is made, an individual is allowed one refusal. If he/she refuses the second, their application is withdrawn from the wait-list. On refusing once, there might be an interminable (or is it indeterminable) amount of time before which offer-2 might be made.

Given all these constraints (which eventually turn out to be variables instead of boundary conditions), I tried predicting the offer-making-ceremony using a standard set. That's the association for incoming Indian graduate students. The people in it will henceforth be referred to as A, B, C... Z. I had the earliest application date amongst all. And I tried to share my knowledge gained by inputs from seniors on what preferences and dates to give.

The first offer is made nearly 2 months in advance to person A. Person A and I had the same preferences and same move-in date. Only that my application date was 2 weeks earlier. But the most preferred housing offer was made to A leaving me out and puzzled. Email exchanges with housing admin and calls in vain. Moving on. Vigorously searching for a place off-campus. The next 2 offers were made consecutively to persons B and C from my second preferred housing community. Their application dates were 1 month later and move-in date about 18 days earlier. Alas, a point has just slipped my mind. The earlier the move-in date, the better chances of getting an offer, the more the rent I pay. I was forced to advance my move-in date and switch the first two housing preferences. I wait. I get an offer. Wow, not so exciting. I get an offer from my third preference -- any housing. So I get one of the most expensive, unfurnished apartments, quite far from the dept (which is very much unlike my first 2 prefs). Now that I cannot estimate the interminable time lag between the first and second offers, I choose to accept it, lest I can live in equally or more expensive off-campus apartments. This is also because one of my potential roommates (D) gets an offer along with me, but in a community that charges 60 dollars lesser than mine. Whatever it is, I thought my offer was decent after I spoke to a few well-meaning seniors and people who've lived in the locality for a long time. Now that I have accepted the offer, my application is withdrawn from the wait-list.

*exhaling*

Person E, also a potential roommate finally gets an apartment on-campus. Great! I was relieved. Not so fast..! E gets it in the same community as D, but in a different wing. What difference is that going to make? Only that it is just 102 dollars more than the former. :O Also, E gets the offer one-day prior to the mentioned move-in date. And is asked to pay security deposit and the rent in one-day. The only mode of payment from India is by sending a DD in American dollars (not all banks do this) via courier. E eventually gets time for payment after reasoning out the problem and the time constraint. Sealed.

Another offer. Person F. Application date 2 weeks late. Move-in 15 days late. Housing community, my updated first preference. Offer made 15 days in advance, new rule, F says.

Hmm...

I infer that the website has very ambiguous information about application and offers made. Also, the move-in date is the determining factor for getting an offer of choice. In case of tie with the move-in date, earlier application date is given preference. Again, an inference. This, combined with pending wait-listed applicants for as long/ more than a year, makes the system all the more complicated, mysterious, irritable and loathsome. The whole scheme of updation and giving housing offers must be decided by some algorithm I presume. The sophisticated-system-controlled-design adds to the complexity.

See it? I don’t have concrete information, leave alone arriving at a solid proof. Lots of loopholes and pieces to be fitted in. I wait for further inferences to be made. Eagerly looking forward to test my hypotheses. Life is an experiment after all! :D

Happy August! :)