If you think I am trying to promote Bengali literature which of course has a very wide audience and a Nobel, you are off the mark. I beg excuse, of course, for this rather long introduction to non-Bengalee readers, if any :( but when I started to write this post postponing my self-styled exile, the title quote of eccentric Dashu of my childhood favourite (even now) Sukumar Roy came to my mind. Dashu through a series of bizarre incidents got a chance to act in a play. He was playing the character of an angel. After one scene, he was supposed to go back to heaven and his role ends there. Unhappy to be away from the limelight, Dashu gate-crashed few scenes later with the above quote that the angel has returned from the heaven. This was not in the script and all the characters were dumbfounded. Dashu had a sharp memory. He remembered others’ dialogues too and spoke on other’s behalf ending the play in a hilarious note.
But this post may be on issues more serious than above. (Resemblance if any, is with me and Dashu :) and not the issues) The exile is postponed by a week or so. As such in the first three days of this new week, I was always on my running shoes, not knowing when and where I’ll take the lunch or a bath! But I learnt something in the process and also there were 5+1 discussions in my office and lab. with students of various levels 1st year UG, 2nd year UG, 3rd year UG, MS students etc. I think all these deserve a post and I may have few points there for your consideration.
It is always great to hear good things about our students from employers, mentors who supervised and assessed their work.
Two weeks back we had an opportunity to visit a new steel plant where two of our graduate students (2006 and 2007 Meta…) have really proved themselves. The persons they are reporting to were full of praise. The students also were enjoying, took us around the plant and were well received by the shop-floor guys. (Personally speaking, my confidence in meeting the target deliverables has increased quite a lot by their presence in that big consultancy project.)
Yesterday and today I heard a lot of praise from Prof.s of one US university where our 3rd year students go as intern and spend eight weeks or so. They work really hard and produce excellent output even in that short period of time. Then one visiting Prof. asked that disturbing question – Your undergraduate research must also be excellent, isn’t it? With so many good students and facilities available, I guess it is so.
I didn’t attempt to give an answer. But it gives me a food for thought. Is our undergraduate research in line with the potential we have in IIT system? I am afraid the answer is – No. There is some good work done by a few with good publication etc. but that is more of an exception than the rule. Why is it like that? It is easy to start a blame game. Students may say – there are not enough exciting problems to work on, not all the faculty members are approachable (for various reasons – disinterested, does not guarantee ‘EX’ etc.), the approachable faculty members are overburdened with too many students and have no time for discussions etc.
What does the faculty member say? I cannot speak on behalf of all the faculty members. (Who am I to do that?) I can express only what I feel citing few examples.
- A week or so back we (myself and another faculty) called a student representative in our lab and asked him why the students in general are so casual about study. It is becoming monotonous and painful for us to scold students every week. The student representative very politely said that (i) in March the students are not expected to study because of Gymkhana election, Dramatics and other extra curricular activity – the faculty members should ‘take it easy’ (ii) the IIT students are not lazy or indifferent. They work hard, for 12-14 hours a day when they go for internship (iii) the job is what only matters and IIT brand is sufficient for most of the students and (iv) once in IIT they don’t need to work hard as one can ‘get away’ with putting small/medium effort.
My reaction to above was – by this approach you are devaluing IIT brand and there is a time lag when brand dilution comes to surface. It does not matter to you because by that time you will be gone but your subsequent batches and we who remain with the system will feel the heat. A decade back, it was considered that the IIT students are the best. Few years back it became ‘the best student from a non-IIT engg. College is better than the worst from IIT’. Now employers think ‘the better students from a non-IIT engg. College is better than the worse students from IIT’. Thus the gap is narrowing. Why? On point (iv) I am reminded of a small story we were told when we were kids. A boy was brought up by his aunt. Since, the parents were not there, the aunt used to try to be very affectionate. In the process, she overlooked many of his follies and the boy used to get away with lying, stealing etc. The boy grew up and became a hardened criminal. Once caught, he was put to rigorous imprisonment. The aunt now old, lamenting, went to see him in jail. And at that time the grown up boy insulted the aunt profusely and told why the aunt didn’t scold and stop him when he was young. Then he could lead a life honour. Now, even if released, he will be seen as one who is back from jail and his life is sealed.
- If that was the story of mid CGPA students, this is one for a high CGPA student. The other day, De..(…) was lamenting that one good student applied for an internship in a foreign university, his host is decided, stipend too is assured. Now the boy senses that a new internship opportunity may be there in another university. The boy asked the De.. if this one offers a stipend few hundred USD more then he is keen to change his option. The De..(…) appears to have stated that stipend part is not yet decided. The boy wanted assurance on higher stipend before he changes option.
My reaction is – Is this the mindset of a good researcher? Few hundred bucks this side or that side, does it matter? What about the commitment to the earlier university faculty who wanted to host? Usually the stipend is enough to support oneself. Should it be the criteria of exercising one’s option?
- In another scene, the students soon after being given the offer letter (they were careful, I guess, not to do it before -why I say that - in recent past, another group of students timed their complaint about a faculty member only after the grades were out - Disclaimer: the faculty complaint part was as told to me by a senior faculty and I had no personal exposure) for internship by a visiting faculty team from a US university started pleading if the stipend can be increased from USD 3000 to USD 3500. One member of the visiting team remarked aside that they were expecting the students will be asking questions on research opportunities, environments etc. The stipend is decided on some formula from the fund that is available and considers what is sufficient for the student to support himself there and not to be considered as an earning opportunity. If stipend is raised, they have to take less number of students and it might not be acceptable to the students themselves and also to the donor of the fund who want more number of IIT students to have an opportunity to visit good US universities. Also such things are not decided in the corridor by begging, pleading.
My reaction is – Do our top students need to do that before Institute guests? I also want to ask this. Does it have anything to do with the expectation building from students pleading and getting more marks and higher grades for different subjects in IIT (The other day, TAs - MTech PhD students who are mostly BTech from non-IIT engg. colleges were laughing how IIT UG students try, try and try to raise even one mark if possible by pleading for hours/days/often weeks)? I request not to take these comments personally (In our Patel Hall days it was said - when we say, we don't mean it, when we don't say, we mean it. I am not elaborating - say what?) as personally I am a great fan of the most vociferous of the group pleading before visiting Prof.s from his BTDS days, I still remember his role in Bengali play 'Muktadhara' (one girl also did a fantastic job there). And I myself also asked for moneteary benefits in terms of discounts while procuring database for our group, sometimes in hundreds of Euros and sometimes in thousands of USD. However I said, (i) if they have a policy to give discount and (ii) if not, can we offer some service to them, say, developing Indian database which they can sell to others and recover whatever discounts they give to us. Believe me it worked, and also my suggestion was included in the annual review of one EU body.
Money is important. But it is not more important than many things. The other day few UG 1st year and 2nd year students came to meet me. Apparently, they were keen to work with our group. We had burnt our fingers once in trying to develop a team around such young people. Last year, one fac. from M.. dept. came to my office and said that he wanted to offer money to four 2nd year E.. students to work in his project. And insisted that I should tell the students to do so as they earlier expressed interest to work with us. I told him that it is better left to the students to work wherever they like. But I believed and still believe they should not simultaneously work at many places. Then the work gets diluted. The fac… mem.. at Prof. level (I am still an Asst. Prof., the bottom most level, no hard feelings though :( I feel it is better if other asks why not a higher position than why :), yes, 'grapes are sour.') was very angry and annoyed and since then stopped talking to me . I don’t want to comment on what those students did as the issue in this para here is to look into another dimension of money available in UG research. Anyway, I told those 1st and 2nd year students that there may be money with many faculty members/groups. Shouldn’t they want to explore those first as we don’t offer any money (neither we guarantee good grade, we have a relatively high benchmark)? Money can have many a use – application to foreign universities, reducing burden of parents or it may be simply fun. Look at your priority. And the students said they should explore if money can be made out of UG research.
I would ask the reader to take the first part of above paragraph as criticism but the second part is mere statement of facts. It should not be misunderstood that where there is money, there is no research output. Neither its converse is true. If a student gets an opportunity to earn some money and get good research output, what is wrong with that? Nothing, from the student point of view. But, if money is the priority, you need to be careful if you are compromising somewhere with the research goal. This is because of the fact that the fund given is often not to get a high innovative component (which requires patience, perseverence) but for some time bound output, even with low innovative component where bricks and mortars are innovation of others. (I tell my M.S., PhD students funded from project that the priority is project deliverables on given timelines. If you can get a thesis out of it and get a degree I'll be happy but you are paid by the sponsor to deliver them something in a given time that works.) Also going after money one tend to ignore other promising areas where there is no money to give to UG students. And I believe for a significant number of IIT UG students money cannot be the priority. I don’t know if I am wrong.
- Industry representative from Ana.. De.. in a meeting says (two days back, seconded by another Industry representative) that they employ a IIT student not for the fact that they know how to handle certain tools. That can be taught in seven days by inviting an engineer from the tool supplying company. They want from the IIT students domain knowledge (like Signal Processing, Curve Fitting, Minimization etc.) and problem solving ability. This is what is available in IIT and not elsewhere. In tea break, I asked that person – Can you come to our Dept. and talk to our students? I believe there is a misconception or proper information not reaching proper place. (In this connection, I would like to propose a student journalist programme. Student journalists from each Dept. will be responsible to cover major events, specially the ones where outsiders come and this can be put up in an electronic student magazine) He said – I would love to.
The first example of a student representative speaking in a lab took place in D… Signal Processing Lab.
I think the above is enough to highlight my points why quality is missing. To put it simply, we are not aspiring for quality as yet. Given the talents we have in our students, we definitely can achieve quality research output and that too in good number.
One member of a 3rd year student group I was talking to this afternoon asked how should one go about to get quality UG research output. It appeared that the question was sincere, also I have a high regard for the student who asked that question. After returning from office I was wondering if I should address that or do something for which I have already committed and by delaying more the pressure will further increase (Received a mail today that asks me after my 2008-2009 commitments are done to commit 2010 and 2011 for two works and that mail “is to keep you informed in advance so that you may plan activities at your end appropriately.”). But as I said, the question appeared sincere and that’s why this long post for my young friends. To answer to his question I would say - The specific things can be told by the faculty members or group leaders of the group you join. But from my own experience I would tend to suggest the following in general.
1. Select an area being pursued in IIT where there is innovation related challenges, as early as possible. There are lots of information available nowadays. If it offers money, consider that as icing on the cake. But, don’t miss the cake.
2. Select a faculty member or a research group in that area. Don’t commit anything. Say, out of your own interest, you want to read some background paper – Review, Tutorial kind. Read them carefully.
3. See if that area excites you or not. If not, repeat step 1 and 2 till you zero on one. This may take 3-4 months time. The exercise is worth doing as you get to know many different areas and often cross-fertilization gives quality research output.
4. Once your area is selected, browse last 5 years publications in IEEE and Elsivier to find out the current trend. Try to narrow down on 2-3 problems in this area. Talk to your group leader/faculty member. He may give 1-2 more choices too in which their group is currently investigating. Take some time, take a closer look at all the options and select one. It may take a month or so. The 1-2-3-4 may be completed in one semester.
5. If you have started early then you might not have done necessary courses required for quality research in this area. Now you have to take the group leader into confidence and assure him of your long term interest and commitment to the group. He may formulate a training program for you : theoretical and experimental with some start-up code.
6. In parallel, take print of last 5 years papers from good journals around that problem. Use pencil to underline important lines. (Papers in good journals explain proposed method beautifully. If something they use are work of others, they may briefly touch it but will definitely give a reference. Find out that paper from reference section. Read the relevant portion.) In the margin of every page write in short what is ‘Aha..’ factor i.e. appears great, a sort of revelations to you and what is ‘Uhh..’ factor i.e. appears as weakness to you. In my last visit abroad one senior faculty of a reputed US university was telling that the research students should actively study philosophy, logic. Then they will be able to find weakness in the argument of others and also build his own argument properly when he writes a paper. Every paper, however good, has weakness. Else research in that direction would have stopped at least by the authors of that paper. That does not happen.
7. Done diligently step 5-6 may take almost a semester. This is called literature survey. This is very important for quality research. (I know one person from a reputed research lab of IIT who once told me how much effort he had given to bring one innovation in his design. I asked what about communicating it to a journal. He said he is not sure if some other group has already designed in that manner before as he did not do proper literature survey. What is this boss? This is not professionalism!) During this time, also try to replicate the result of at least 2-3 good recent papers. You may wonder what is its use. Besides getting a feel of the problem, the code/result will be required for comparison when you yourself propose something new later.
8. Steps 1-7 may take a year or so. But you now have a proper launch pad. In a 4 year program if you have started at the end of 2nd year, you still have one year left. If you start earlier or in Dual Degree programme you have additional time. In any case, the talented among you are well poised to take it to the next level. And the rest becomes specific to that group.
9. Please keep in touch with your group head. Attend all group meetings. If you are into too many things, you will miss some of them. At least, once every fortnight discuss your progress, make a presentation.
10. This I told before but want to tell again. Please avoid probabilistic research. That is to remain engaged with 2-3 groups hoping at least one will click or you'll get reco. from many different faculty members. (Strong reco. citing your achievements, publication, journal communicated etc. from 1 or 2 is sufficient for what you usually look for) It dilutes every one of them. However smart you may be, it is not easy to concentrate on 2-3 problems simultaneously and go deep. You are also free to tell if we faculty members do probabilistic research. If 10 good students work with me definitely 2-3 will generate good output and I am not worried if I do not get 10 good outputs. True, the teaching load here is too much (The US Prof.s say that to do proper research, it should be 2 class per week, maximum 3, ours is average 10 and there is lot of non-teaching responsibilities too), number of students per faculty is increasing at a fast rate and one cannot blame if we cannot give sufficient time to all the students. (The other day my student Bi.., after I missed three appointments because of urgent meetings got things clarified from me in google chat during 10:30-11:00 p.m.) Also I would like the students to consider how much time we devote to our profession, to make the wheel running. To give you an example, for me, it is 14-15 hours a day on average.
11. Don’t use black box approach. That is not quality research. Don’t try to fool the supervisor and in turn yourself. If you have not done anything for a week tell that plain and simple. Don’t speak trash. Don’t worry about scolding or grades. The other day one UG student came to explain me his 7-10 days work. He was trying to pass through slides in a jet speed. In the very first slide after title slide he wrote 5-6 lines. I asked him to explain one simple sentence. He was simply stuck there. It is 1:15 a.m. As I write this blog I find that student is online. Hope he is preparing for the FRI presentation he himself rescheduled. Another point! After that project review meeting, his google catch line showed the following for a brief period - It is difficult to bluff confidently if a Prof. is there at the other side of the table :)
12. Don’t be afraid of failures. As I wrote elsewhere “To start with, don't count successes and failures. It is far more useful to fail with some technique but to be able to tell why it failed than to succeed with another but not to know why it worked. ”
Negating a hypothesis, that is to say, it won’t work is far more difficult. Still, if you try, you may find there could be something (modifications etc.) for which it can still work. There you are! That is something new! Everything counts if you are sincere and meticulous.
At the end, my apology if the post portrays anybody (including me) in a poor light. This is only to be seen in reference to the issue being discussed - our attitude towards quality reserach. I am sure people know how good we (IIT UG students, I am one of them) all are and such posts should show the new thinking going around to do even better at a larger scale (not limited to few toppers). I specially like and admire extracurricular activities of IIT students. Few years back I used to attend all BTDS productions. Now it is a bit difficult ... but I am almost regular in a weekly study circle where students are overhelming majority.
My best wishes to all of you! Believe me, research is much more exciting than money or grade. And in the long run, it pays you more even in those two terms. Purity (of thought, approach), Patience, Perseverence are the key. Spend 2+ years of quality time (don't simply hang on, in our small lab we have matresses for students to have 1-2 hour nap while working overnight, that kind of attitude). I am sure UG research will do wonder.
Now I hope, I have earned a break from this blog space and can have some time for myself now, to devote to many pressing things. You are welcome to send your view on this blog to my gmail id. May be such a long post with some cartoons would qualify as a IIIE paper (new forum of other kind, inspired by IEEE - just joking!).
All the best! See you again later.
Rejoinder : The following is excerpts from Kriti's new post at http://ptblanc.blogspot.com/ Kriti, now in PhD program in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech, worked with our group for his BTP, did reasonably good work, got one mid level journal publication, had all the potential to do much better but ............. well, something can be found from this.
“You think you got into the team because of your abilities? Think again. The list was made by us and sent to the Gymkhana.”
“I always told you that this guy (referring to me) was not up to it. We should never have put his name on the list.”
“You cannot leave the post just because you want to. The Hall gave you the post... and you better live up to the name of the Hall.”
“We don’t tolerate any attitude. If we say so, not a single person in the Hall will talk to you. How would you like that?”
“If you can’t do it, quit. People will curse you for a few days and then they will forget it.”
“Your first priority is academics, you say? Then why the hell did you take up the post? I had warned you earlier...”
“Kid, I believe in you. You can do it.”
---The first year in the Senior Hostel was a confusing and trying one. My extra-curricular ambitions had overlapped with the political ambitions of the Hall. And both of these bulldozed any academics ambitions that I might have had.
And the post goes on ......
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