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.
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