My journey to completing my MS (by research)

  Ideally, students have to complete their dual degree program in 5 years. So, they sit for placements (which generally start in the first week of December) in their fifth year. But, as we all know, reality is not normally ideal. In fact, the scenario till then had been far from ideal. Very rarely did students complete their dual degree within 5 years. It was common that dual degree students sat for placements in their fifth year, but casually. They themselves were not sure that their work, thesis writing, and defense would all be completed within 5 years. By sitting for placements, they had nothing to lose. They would, in fact, gain some experience of the whole process. The serious placement preparation would happen only at the end of their MS work. Of course, there were those who have joined jobs after 5 years, but without completing their MS (I highly doubt if even half of them have completed it till now). I did not want to do that. I knew that I wanted to complete my MS and only then join a job. I felt that the time I would have to spend for placement preparation could be used for doing my MS work so that I can complete it sooner. Also, I had this fear of facing technical interviews. So, I was always in the mood to defer it.

It was April 2012. My fifth year was about to end. My friend, batch mate, and lab mate BBB had just got admitted for PhD at a European university. He was planning his thesis framework. Thus an urge started within me to complete my MS work soon.

By that time, I had one paper as first author in a very good conference, but it was not A+. I could not have written a thesis based on just that work. I was still looking for any related work I could do so that I had some stuff to write in my thesis. I had been working on another not so related area but I could not see how it would contribute to my thesis. I did not have a publication from this work and hence was not keen on making this topic the main crux of my thesis. I was in a state which is pretty common among researchers: The state of worry; the state of despair.  

During a discussion with my guide, he asked me to prepare a draft, on this other work which I had been doing, to be sent for a journal publication. My frustration increased. I was planning to send it to a conference and get done with it so that I could have time for my thesis work. But I could not escape. I prepared a draft which went through almost 15 to 20 iterations to turn into a journal draft of reasonable quality. He was still not completely satisfied with the quality but asked me to send it nevertheless. I sent it. It was June 2012 by the time I sent it.

The next day after I sent it, my professor (guide) called me to his chamber. He said that he would not be able to support me from next semester onwards and that, according to institute rules, we were to be supported only till the end of 5^th year. No support meant no payment of registration fees at the beginning of the semester and no more monthly income (stipends).  And since he could not support me, he asked me to start planning for writing my thesis and complete it soon. He however agreed to pay me the assistant-ship, provided I work on some other project simultaneously.

Next semester registrations began on July 29^th. I had to register for the semester if I had to submit my thesis. I could not see how I could have completed my thesis in that 1 month without completing my work and having a proper framework. I decided to talk to my guide about it. I wanted to let him decide the topic of my thesis as I was in a state of dilemma myself over the topic of thesis.   

I met him and told him that I wanted to talk about my thesis. He didn’t ask me any questions. He didn’t let me talk further. He told me to make a list of all the topics/projects that I have worked on, people involved in the projects, etc. It was as if he read my mind. I immediately made a list of all the major research works that I had done till then, along with the people involved in those works, and the publications that arose out of those works.

In short, it looked as follows:

Work 1: Prosody modification work

People involved: A,B, myself

Publication: Yes. In “Centenary conference of IISc Bangalore”

My role: Co-author

Work 2: Breathy voice work

People involved: A, myself

Publication: Yes. In “International Conference on Signal processing in Communications”

My role: First author

Work 3: Mimicry speech work

People involved: C, myself

Publication: Yes. In “Interspeech”

My role: Co-author

Work 4: Laughter work

People involved: D, myself

Publication: Journal paper submitted to “Journal of Acoustical Society of America”

My role: First author

I showed it to him. He swiftly crossed off Work 1 and Work 3. He said that Work 3 would be the thesis topic of person ‘C’. He asked me to do some more work on Work 2 and then combine Work 2 and Work 4 and write it as a part of thesis. I asked if I could write two different not-so-related topics as a part of single thesis. He said, “Don’t worry about that. Leave that to me. We can link up any topic to any topic. You just complete the work related to Work 2”.  I then realized how ignorant I was and felt awe for him: 'Beta beta hota hai aur baap Baap’. I took about one month time to do some additional work on Work 2 and come up with a thesis framework. After that, he suggested a few changes in the framework and linked up Work 2 and Work 4 under the common banner, “Nonverbal elements of speech communication”. A moment of realization dawned upon me that I was dealing with a person of 45+ years of experience in this industry. I then took around two months (August, September) to complete writing my thesis. He had to do just one iteration of the thesis, mainly the first half (Work 2 related part) of it, to bring it to a polished state. As the second part of it was already sent to a journal publication, it was already in a polished state.  I completed all formalities and submitted my thesis on October 8^th, if I remember it right. I felt relieved that I had submitted it and was now looking towards future planning.

It generally takes 3 to 4 months’ time from submission of thesis to defending it. After we submit thesis evaluation form and research CV at the academic office, they are forwarded to the MS Thesis faculty coordinators (then, Prof. Vasudev Verma and Prof. P. J. Narayanan). They take about a week’s time to assign reviewers. We then have to submit three hard copies of thesis in the academic office. One copy is sent to guide and two copies are sent to two reviewers. Reviewers then take their own sweet time (typically 2-3 months) to review the thesis and forward the reviews to you. You then have to make suitable changes in the thesis, do additional work if needed, and then submit again to the reviewers. Then, you have to decide upon dates for public presentation and defense. The dates should be such that all the members of your panel (guide + reviewers) are available to attend. The public presentation is generally done before the actual defense. Only after defense, you are said to be a post graduate.

So, I submitted my thesis evaluation form and my hard copies of the thesis on October 8^th. I thought I could prepare for the defense and public presentation after I receive the reviews from reviewers. On October 25^th, I received a mail that some signature was missing somewhere and hence, I had to go and sign, after which the thesis would be forwarded. I then understood that they were untouched till that day. They opened my case only on that day to find that some signature was missing. I signed and came back cussing about how slow these people in administration work.

Two days later, I received a mail from the administration. The mail mentioned the name of a reviewer (only one), and that there shall be only one presentation (public and defense presentations) for me as mine was considered an exceptional case.

The mail read as follows:

Dear Student,

Following are the MS thesis examiners:

Dr. ABCD

Only one presentation (public and defense presentation) for you (exceptional case).

Please talk to your guide and examiner for scheduling the presentation.

My immediate reaction: “What! What could this possibly mean?!!” I was not even sure if should be glad or worried at that moment of time. I then inquired and found out from the administration that this was the first time that such exceptional (fast track) case was created. It was done by the recommendation of the Dean (R&D). It was a “Man me laddoo phoota” moment. I also learnt from a friend that he had heard of such a case a few years back. And the guy to whom this special status was given had great academic credentials and journal publications. It was then “Man me doosra laddoo phoota” moment. I then understood that they must’ve put me on fast track case as I had good number of publications (3 accepted, 1 submitted) including a submission for a journal publication.

So, in short, 1 reviewer instead of conventional 2 reviewers; No waiting for reviews; only one presentation;

The laddoos didn't stay long though. As soon as I realized who my reviewer was, I wondered if I should be that happy. Everyone in the college knew that she was very strict by nature and tried to boss over students in her own way (No disrespect to any faculty but it is what we thought as a student back then). But you got to do what you got to do. So, I took an appointment to meet her so that I can schedule the date of the presentation. I met her on November 3^rd to get her free dates so as to schedule the presentation. She greeted me warmly and asked what this exceptional case meant. I told her what I knew. She didn't seem to be impressed. It felt like she could not digest it. I could sense that she had decided to grill me. I actually planned to schedule my presentation somewhere around end of November so that I could have about 1 month time to prepare well. Also, I had to synthesize some speech samples for presentation. She immediately negated it saying that it was holiday time for students and since it was public presentation, we were bound to have it when public is available (as if the whole college is waiting to listen to me). So, we should be having it definitely before November 20^th as end semester exams were starting from that day. Then, she said that she was going home for festival on 11^th or 12^th of November and hence, we needed to have the presentation on 10^th of November (which gave me just 1 week time to prepare for). It was “Man me bomb phata” moment. She didn't stop there. She said that I had to explain my thesis work to her personally before the actual presentation. I said, “Alright, I’ll come and explain to you on 8^th or 9^th of November”. She simply negated it again and finally, we agreed to meet on November 6^th. It was “Man me doosra bomb phata” moment.

So, on 6^th November, I went and explained to her in detail my work. She said that she wanted a personal explanation because she didn't like grilling students in public and she could clarify her doubts in private. And on 10^th November, the big day, my defense presentation was attended by about 30 to 40 students (public). Well, living up to her reputation, my reviewer ended up grilling me (after claiming that she wouldn't). The presentation went just fine (not great, though). At the end of the presentation, after some internal discussion for 5 minutes, the final words were uttered by my guide and reviewer (at that moment, my God), “Congratulations. Wish you all the best for your future endeavors.”

Thus, I successfully completed my MS by research program, my ECD program. I became a post graduate.

In summary, the whole process was completed in 15 days, as opposed to conventional 3-4 months. Now this is what I would like to term as ‘luck’.

My journey to choosing a research guide

  I joined dual degree program (B.Tech + MS) in ECE at IIIT-H in 2007. I became an ECD guy. We had to choose a guide (implying a research lab) before the beginning of 3rd year. Being an ECE student in IIIT-H had nothing to boast of at that time (2009). It was one of the worst phases for ECE students in the history of the institute. There was a dearth of faculty. Existing faculty members were leaving. Some really good faculty members left the institute exactly around that time (2008, 2009, 2010) citing various reasons (research quality, institute showing disinterest in communications, etc.). If I remember correctly, there was Dr. Zafar who left for IIT, Hyderabad; there was Dr. Rambilas Pachauri who left for IIT, Indore; there was Prof. V U Reddy, a stalwart in Communications, who left for HCU. I may have missed mentioning one or two more faculty members who left the institute during that period. 

Let me try to give a brief background to the research labs, faculty members, and what it all meant.

The way we went about choosing our research career was:

1. Choose an area of interest (depending on the interest levels brought about by various courses we have taken so far)

2. Choose a research lab which works in that area (mostly, it was one to one mapping)

3. Choose a faculty from that research lab as your guide (based on his nature, achievements, tolerance levels, etc.)

All the above steps, if we had lots of choices. In our case, things were simplified.

As ECE students, we had lesser options to choose from among our research labs.

Areas of interest for an ECE student generally meant:

a. VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration)

b. Communications

c. Robotics

d. Signal Processing

Research labs corresponding to above areas of interest:

i. CVEST (Centre for VLSI design and Embedded Systems)

ii. CRC (Communications Research Centre)

iii. RRC (Robotics Research Centre)

iv. SVL (Speech and Vision lab) or CVIT (Centre for Visual Information Technology)

i, ii seem like straight forward research areas related to core of the ECE.

iii and iv could also be chosen, but one needed to be aware of what aspects of ECE are involved in them. 

Remember the one-to-one mapping?

a - i.

b - ii.

c - iii.

d - iv. (not really one-to-one though)

We were 9 people in ECD from our batch. If I remember properly,  two of them had joined RRC with Dr. Madhav Krishna and two of them had joined SVL with Dr. Kishore Prahallad. The remaining 5 (A,B,C,D, and I) of us were unemployed even after the 1st semester of our 3rd year began.

At that point of time, our probably employers were:

CRC: Dr. Zafar, Prof. V U Reddy, Dr. Ram Bilas Pachori, Prof. P R K Rao

CVEST: Prof. Satyam 

RRC: Dr. Madhav Krishna

CVIT: Prof. Jayanti Siwaswamy

SVL: Dr. Kishore Prahallad, Prof. B. Yegnanarayana

All of us, the unemployed, thought of going to the most obvious i.e., CRC or CVEST. 

By that time Dr. Zafar had already left. We met Prof. V U Reddy and he said that he won't be taking any students as he was already planning to leave. We met Dr. Ram Bilas Pachori, and he said that he had plans to leave soon and hence could not take us, and had also advised us not to join CRC. Also, at that point of time, Prof. PRK Rao had stopped taking students for MS. So, our roads to CRC were closed.

So, we headed to Prof. Satyam for working in CVEST. He was a nice man. He did not want to disappoint any of us but could not take all 5 of us.  He did not want us to be homeless. So, he gave us an assurance. He said, "Just try all other faculty members. If no one is taking you, then, I'll take you. Don't worry. Come to me in the end." 

‘D’ approached Prof. Jayanti as he thought she might consider taking him because she knew him well. She took him.

‘B’ and ‘C’ joined CVEST to work with Prof. Satyam.

‘A’, after about a month, joined Dr. Madhav Krishna in RRC, though he worked with another guy from the lab.

I was not interested to work in Robotics and was inclined towards Communications. Since CRC was a dead end, I considered Signal Processing as a closer option. 

At around the beginning of the semester, I happened to hear about a certain faculty named Prof. Yegnanarayana that he is a very reputed person and he works on speech. I wondered how speech had anything to do with ECE and hence didn’t consider meeting him. Also, if he was a very reputed fellow, why would he even consider taking me as his student? Later when the semester began, I attended his class on Speech signal processing, which I had taken up as an elective. I was mesmerized by his teaching. He was not as scary as I had imagined. I was sitting in the first bench and I was sure that he was also impressed by me after the first class. So, I met him after the class and asked if I could work with him. He asked me to meet him in his chamber. I met him in his chamber. He did not ask for my CGPA as some of the other faculty members generally did. He didn't care. He said, "Yes, you can work here. Go and meet so and so person. He will get you started." I was happy. I came out and a senior of mine casually asked if I had chosen a guide, etc. I told that I'll be working with Yegna. He was shocked. He inquired about my CGPA. I told him. His shock just magnified. He said, "Oh... that's great. He refused to take many of our batch mates when we approached him." (Clarification: When he said great, it meant for my guide, not for my CGPA). Now, my happiness just escalated. I understood that I was lucky. Later I got back to room and explored his profile online and realized that I would be working with the pioneer of speech technology in India, one of the best in speech research in the world, and (one of) the best faculty of the institute. (Later I realized that he is a wonderful human being as well).Thus my journey to MS began with speech lab. If he had not taken me then, I would have been guide less for that semester for sure. Also, I had no idea where or what I would have been doing. Many good things happened to me after I joined speech lab. 

My research journey began. I realized that my stars aligned to form a good pattern. Many positive changes happened in my life during my tenure in speech lab. I had good publications (incl. a journal publication). I made some good friends. I had lots of fun. I learnt a lot of stuff from the awesome company which was present those days. I learnt many lessons for life. I gained confidence. And my CGPA grew as well. As they say, “All is well that ends well”.