My first semester of Phd studies (academic version)

Well, today marks the completion of my first semester of PhD studies. I am writing today to comment on what I felt during the past 4 months or so; how my research work is affected by my thoughts and what it takes to be successful.

Since this was my first semester, I was loaded with lots and lots of course work. And as I was shifting from primarily an Industrial Engineering background to hard core manufacturing specialist, I had to do a lot of course work. This certainly helps me when I am reading research papers in my area of research and also unlocks up an extra memory block in my mind to think over some of the critical issues that the manufacturing industry is facing today.

So, as I said I was loaded with course work - it was hard for me to find time to relax and enjoy. Each subject contained weekly assignments which I had to complete and that to in a strict non-cooperative environment (missed undergrad days here..:)). On top of it, each assignment involved some programming language to code stuff - one uses C++, other MATLAB and third one Mathematica!! Phew! At one point of time, I was beginning to confuse between the syntax used in different programming applications. I did ended in spending long nights understanding syntax, writing code and debugging it. And to resolve our misunderstanding / incapability to move forward in solving problems, we had TA hours. If you miss that for some reason or didn't started your assignment well before in time so that you can efficiently utilize this time, you are basically screwed up. That happened with me 4-5 times and I ended up spending far more time that I expected. So the moral of the story is to attack assignments as soon as you see them online. (:P)

Then there were times when it was almost impossible to proceed (whatever the reason be), in those times I used to take coffee breaks and may be talk with other students to find out how screwed he is in his set of assignments. That provided me much needed relief (how sadistic!) and little bit fresh mind to think over my problem again. So, that's pretty much how I fought with my course work during past semester.

Now, I will talk about something which everybody in grad school thinks twice before asking a grad student - "research". That's a strict protocol between grad students that no one will ask anything even remotely related to research; which tempts me to write this famous one-liner (researcher's version) - "whatever happen in lab remains in lab". It was a real hard time to satisfy professor with adequate research work along side courses which are ready to suck all your energy. I was taking up on a project where a recent phd graduate left. After it's description, at first I thought it's an easy one to work on where he did all the theoretical research work, developed set-up for conducting experiments and even procured work pieces to work upon. I was excited and so was my professor in assigning this project to me. Then after a while, as I progressed, complication also keeps on progressing. It forced me to change my mindset towards this project as it demanded some more respect from me. I told to myself - this is not going to be a cakewalk for sure, let me use the classical tool of "divide and rule". I broke the problem into parts and focused on each one with full respect and concentration (and taking to my lab mates alongside about my thinking). I was able to move forward and at the end I could realize the solution to the problem(s). I guess this is what we call research!

If I am able to maintain the right mindset and keep trying all the possible ways one by one, I am sure there exist at least one path which leads to eternity (after all solving a problem feels nothing less than eternity). So, that's describes pretty much how my semester went (academic version). Fun version coming soon! :)