Left high paying MNC Job for Civil Service Exam Preparation

A friend of mine recently left high paying job in an MNC with annual salary more than INR 10 Lakh (approx USD 25K), which is quite high as per Indian Standard to pursue his goal of serving society by appearing in India's one of most tough civil services exam. He has taken a big leap of faith and confidence. I know his journey is not going to be easy but I wish him good luck in all he does. Over the chat I asked how he feels about his decision and he says "

i m happy dude, no regrets"

He inspires me. He tell me what it means to follow your heart. He gives me strength to follow mine. I promised him that I will make him proud one day too by accomplishing something worthwhile in life. Remember, I am still toiling with the Idea of PhD/Startup after MS. I need to make a good choice for myself and do something worthwhile.

To have such friends who gives you strength to aim high is a blessing and I am few blessed ones. My best wishes to my dear friend and pray all his tough times don't last long and his effort pays off well.

Unstoppable

If your dog doesn't get the bone you are hanging high enough for him to get, chances are he will loose interest and stray away. Contrary to this, if a man is faced with a similar challenge, he can innovate/improve upon his strategy and try a little more long. .....Hmm..I just lost my train of thoughts after the guy in the lab started howling. I will still go ahead and post it as I think I still have a point.

Fire : It can be Controlled.

I got to share with you all some wonderful research done by one of my friend and his research group at UMASS Lowell titled "Non-Toxic Flame Retardants". It has to do with inventing new coating substance which retards the spread of fire and even prevent burning. US Army has shown keen interest to this project. The coating is made using organic waste. I am excited about his research and may even get you more details after talking to him but at the moment I would urge you all to go to the site and post comments/feedback and spread the word. It is crucial that large number of people know about it to create momentum for its fruition.

Thank You.

Connecting the future dots

Remember me talking about connecting dots in general and connecting the future dots and how sometimes I have intuition about what's going to happen next by looking at what's happening today. Well I just had a moment yesterday which I would like to share.

For past one year, I am struggling with a questions, "Should I pursue PhD and become Professor after MS or should I start a business after MS?". I am exploring each of these two options by talking with Professors, reading about latest research, and by participating in forthcoming Boston Startup Weekend etc. Yesterday I just happen to attend a technical colloquium at my Computer Science Department on topic based on Forensic analysis of P2P system for Child Pornography. It was interesting topic and the speaker Swagatika Prusty presented it well and handled the questions clearly. I liked it. I learned something new. After the presentation, the usual practice of few audiences forming a circle around the speaker and participating in the discussion happened and I joined the league. There were random topics mostly concentrated around what was presented and then we moved on to career. One from the audience was a Professor from my department and asked the speaker (which if you have noticed is only a second year Master's student at UMASS Amherst) whether she would like to pursue PhD? To which she responded that she is yet not decided but would prefer to be a doctorate student only to be interrupted by the Professor "unless you land a fat paying job" to everyone's humor. Then he spoke about his life, how he was in Israeli army at young age, then went on to start a business where he made good money and told his mother that he doesn't see why he should attend college considering he is already earning quite well. To which her mother responded "You are stupid" which mentally tormented him and he joined college obtaining his bachelors degree and realized that "it is so much fun" and enrolled for Masters degree which again he realized "This is so much fun" and rest all is history.

Now, the story part is over. Next phase that went into my head is, why is the professor speaking about his career decisions, why did I meet another student who is in dilemma of doing PhD or not, why am I here amongst all the infinite possibility and how come each of these things are happening when I am suppose to go for a startup event on coming weekend. Well, Steve Jobs said you can connect the dots by only looking backward and he is absolutely right because connecting the future dots is only probabilistic in nature. Getting obsessed about connecting future dots can make someone dogmatic but I would recommend that he/she should just take it as some form of information and continue doing their daily routines and when the final day of making a choice comes, use these pointers along with regular pros & cons rationality. Making future look like the way you want will disturb the natural order making the future connections only fraud.

Do share your story if you happen to experience the same.

Have a wonderful future

Amit

P.S. I feel so relaxed after writing this topic because I was waiting for a long time for an event to happen naturally where I can make future connections and talk to my readers about it.

How to be smart.

"It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Steve Jobs , The Entrepreneur.

At this moment, I have a mixed feeling because I am extremely sad for demise of Steve Jobs. He has taught me valuable lessons of life through his Stanford Commencement Speech.

He was a great entrepreneur, someone whom I listened live or heard in my life span. He will be remembered by millions.

The second feeling I have today is of accomplishment. I am able to execute a program for which I have been working for more than 1 month as part of my college assignment in Operating System Graduate Course at UMASS Lowell. The Professor has been kind enough to give me flexibility and not penalize me heavily for delay of 2 weeks which I have already done. I made lot of mistakes, I asked for help at places I couldn't find a way out but I kept trying just to make sure I learn in the honest way.

I give credit to my today's success to Steve Jobs  for lessons in perseverance.

Thank You Steve. May you rest in peace.

Randomness

Right now, I have an assignment to choose 1 out of first 15 sections in the book of "The Society of Mind" by Marvin Minsky and write a one page summary of it as homework assignment for Artificial Intelligence Course in my graduate studies.

Since it was not an easy choice where all parts are good topics, I decided to generate a random number using RANDOM.org website between 1 to 15. It may sound lot of unnecessary work for just a number but if you might have faced or heard that some of the best things happens by chance and I thought that if I choose a random chapter rather than going by my bias, it will give me an opportunity to explore something new and who knows it might hold my attention for entire life. 

The stage is set.

Get Set Go.

So my random number is 11 and so it is. The section name is "The Shape of Space". Wow, I surely wouldn't have picked this one thinking "What has space got to do with Artificial Intelligence?". Let's see how it works out. Don't let too much intelligence ruin the chance of discovering something new by loosening yourself and giving randomness a chance.

Have  Nice Weekend.
Cheers.