A 100 year life

I recently finished a fascinating book “The 100-year life”. The central point of the book is that the human lifespan is increasing considerably, and most of us (at least the majority reading this post) can expect to live close to 100 years. I took away several perspectives on how to make the most of the gift of a long life. The important ones are:

1. Tangible assets will be built over longer periods: For both financial reasons (larger savings are needed to fund additional years of life) and for intellectual vitality (which is linked to happiness), many of us will work into at least our 70s.

2. Intangible assets need greater focus: “Assets” have tended to mean financial assets in our vocabulary. Equally if not more important for sustaining a longer life are “intangible” assets – knowledge, reputation, health & balanced living, quality relationships (family and friends), and networks. 

3. Career trajectories will vary vastly: My parent’s three-stage life of study-work-retire is obsolete. People will live multi-stage lives balancing recreation and re-creation, experiment greatly during their career, take sabbaticals, and possibly build portfolio careers that provide diverse income streams.

Society is only slowly waking up to the opportunities and challenges that a longer life provides. Those of us who take up leadership roles in corporations and government have an important role in shaping society with a higher life expectancy.

If you knew you were to live to 100 years, what would you do differently?

Who is an 'Indian'?

On February 4^th, 2014, Satya Nadella was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft. The Indian media and Indians around the world celebrated his appointment. An Indian had made it to the top of one of the most reputed technology companies in the world. Reason enough to cheer.

Satya was born in India and grew up there till he completed his undergraduate education. He then moved to the US for higher education and then pursued a career in the US.

Satya Nadella is a naturalized American citizen. To obtain citizenship, Satya took the United States Oath of Allegiance that reads:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Before taking the oath, Satya pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States and sang its national anthem.

The euphoria every time an ‘Indian’ is recognised for an achievement always raise a few questions in my mind.

1. Who is Satya?

            - Is he an Indian?

            - Is he an American?

            - Is he both an Indian and an American?

2. Who is an Indian? Is she/he one who:

            - Holds an Indian passport?

            . Was born in India?

            - Has an Indian parent?

            - Looks Indian?

            - Likes Indian culture/food/movies?

            - Speaks an Indian language?

            - Feels Indian at heart?

3. Who is an American then?

4. Is it possible for one to be both an Indian and an American?

5. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, an Indian born British and US citizen, when congratulated by Indians for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 supposedly remarked, “We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth.”  

            -  I agree we are all human beings first. Is the world in a position to accept that fact?

Finally, does all this even matter? :-)

Valmiki's Ramayana: the inexplicable

After reading the Ramayana everybody asks how Rama could kill Vali hiding from him and how he could renounce his loving wife Sita after taking all the effort to save her. While I am trying to figure out the answer to these questions (I doubt if anyone can convince me that Rama was correct), I realized I had a couple of more questions besides these:

1. Sugriva complained to Rama that his elder brother Vali had illegally taken Sugriva’s wife Ruma as his own. This was one of the main reasons Rama killed Vali (To correct the ‘adharma’ that Vali had done.) How then could Sugriva take Vali’s wife Tara as his own after his brother’s death? Isn’t that unrighteous too? After all, in Indian culture, your elder brother’s wife is equal to your mother…

2. How can one justify Ravana’s brother Vibhishana betraying his brother to join Rama in battle. Clearly he had the selfish gain of obtaining Lanka. When Rama is close to death after Indrajit’s attack, Vibhishana laments that he may never be able to rule over Lanka, rather than worrying about Rama’s health. On the other hand, in the Mahabharatha, Karna stays with the Kauravas even though he knows that they have wronged and will be on the losing side. Isn’t he a truer brother?

Final Episode: The universities I applied to...

Duke University: This was the first university that I applied to. I applied to Master of Engineering Management after a lot of research about the program. The webpage for the Master of Engineering Management page can be found at: http://memp.pratt.duke.edu/ Was one of my middle-range universities. Got an admit early February.

Stanford: Applied to MS in Management Science and Engineering. I felt there was a perfect fit between what I wanted and what was offered at Stanford. Did a lot of work on the Statement of Purpose and resume. Was fortunate to get very good recommendations. They do give a good weightage to GRE score. Was no. 1 choice of admit. Highly ambitious. Got a positive result early March. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/MSandE/

Columbia University: Was attracted to the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department. Realized pure Master of Engineering Management degrees like those in Duke are not much valued. So decided on solid MS programs. Applied to MS in Engineering Management Systems. http://www.ieor.columbia.edu/. Admitted.

University of Southern California: Middle range. Many Indian applicants do get in. So applied to EM again. http://www.usc.edu/dept/ise/. Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. Admitted.

Georgia Tech: Boasts of the no. 1 ranked program for Industrial Engineering. Was an ambitious application. Managed to get in. But I find that the MS&E program of Stanford gives a broader range of subject choices compared to GAtech. http://www.isye.gatech.edu/

Purdue: An optimistic application from my side. But, the program seems very narrow in scope and more of a traditional Industrial Engineering degree. So decided not to take it up. https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/

Highly ranked Industrial Engineering Department. But the Industrial Engineering department’s handling of my application was very poor. They did not give me my result for more than 6 months. I finally mailed them asking them to cancel my application. http://www.ise.vt.edu/main/index.php

A safe bet. The Industrial Engineering department has a modest ranking of 13^th in USA. Got an admit with partial fee waiver.http://www.ise.ufl.edu/

MEng. in Engineering Management. Comes under the Civil Engineering Department at Cornell. MEng. Can be very limiting if you want to get into research at later stages. Too short a duration. 9 months. Before you can really dig in to the courses, I guess you’ll have to get out of the university! http://www.cee.cornell.edu/graduate-programs/meng-in-engineering-management.cfm

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: My only reject. Very good Industrial Engineering program. But their website s not too informative. A must-apply if you are serious about hard-core Industrial Engineering. http://ioe.engin.umich.edu/

Well that’s it! I have finally got through with detailing my applications procedure. Something I always wanted to pen down. Being from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Goa Campus was a huge advantage. The brand name certainly helped. I mentioned Goa Campus as much as I could in the applications. Proud to be a BITS Goan! I will have surely missed a few points here and there. Hope you gain something out of these posts. Do mail me if you have other queries.

Episode 5: Final steps

You will have to mail hard copies of your academic transcripts (if they do not accept soft copies) to the university you applied to. Ensure that you also send your resume with the transcripts. Write a polite covering letter detailing the contents of the package you are couriering.

Submit the GRE and TOEFL scores to each university. The total cost of applying to a single university will be close to $100-$120. Yes, applying is an expensive process.

Now, you can't just sit back and relax for too long. Follow up on the application. See that all the documents have reached and that you application is fully complete. Mail the department if you have any queries.

The admission results for fall admissions start coming in earliest by February beginning. Start saying you prayers and hoping for the best. When you do get your results, don't accept immediately. Wait for the other results to come in. It will be very nice of you to thank your recommenders and tell them of your results. They will appreciate it. If you are sure to reject a particular university, let them know by mailing them or following the procedures they expect.

Episode 4: Statement of Purpose and Recommendation Letters

Quick points on SOP

• It has to be original and completely yours. You can copy formats of others, but never the contents.
• It is statement trying to convince the admissions committee why you 'fit-in' to their department. For this, you should know about their department inside out, know the research, the labs, the professors and be able to mention some of these in the SOP.
• Do not repeat your resume (Oh Yes! You should have an academic resume created for yourself) on the SOP.
• Refer some websites on Statement of Purpose. Ask seniors for their SOPs and get ideas from them. statementofpurpose.com is where I got my first ideas from.
• Do review the SOP many times. Ask your parents and friends to do so. No grammatical errors, no smileys, be professional and convincing.

Quick points on recommendation letters:

• Take recommendation letters from faculty members who know you well and can describe you on a personal level.
• The rank of the professor is not important if he is going to give you a standard 'He/She is a good student' recommendation.
• There is no binding rule that your recommenders should be from the same department that you studied in. If your mathematics faculty member knows you well, but you are a CS major, doesn't matter!
• Have at least 4 options for recommenders. Approach them early. Usually 3 recommenders are needed. Mix and match and ensure that 1 recommender is not common in all the universities recommendation.
• If your recommender wants to keep his/her recommendation confidential, you do no have a choice. Respect their sentiments.
• If your recommender gives you a choice of drafting a rough copy, brilliant! Put in immense effort, use polished language and great adjectives and hope that at least some of the points are taken
• It is better if the recommender holds a doctorate degree.
• Always thank the recommender profusely for recommending you.

The SOP and recommendation letters are the two major factors that can make or break your application. Do spend considerable time and effort on them. It will make all the difference in the end.

Episode 3: Selecting the universities you would like to be in

This is perhaps the most critical stage of the MS application. Usually, students select 8-10 universities. Take 2-3 ambitious ones (where you believe getting in would be a miracle), 3-4 moderate ones (where you have even chances) and 2-3 safe bets (sure admits).

Before selecting though, you need to figure out what subject you want to do graduate study in. If you are a Computer Science major, it is not necessary that you do graduate study in CS, unless you really like the field. Remember, you will be spending lot of time and money on the program, and your decision here could shape your career. So, go through the university pages, talk to people. Make sure you study what you like. Soul-searching is a term I’d like to use here. This is something very important.

Think about the subjects you like and explore. I was clear I did not want to continue Electrical Engineering, but wanted something focused towards Management and Economics. I first considered Engineering Management, then realized it limited scope and shifted towards Industrial Engineering. Doing this search requires lot of patience, hours of poring through websites for rankings, university websites for course structures, mailing some of the professors based on their research interests that match with yours, mailing people doing courses at universities etc. Professors usually do not reply back to students, but the process of mailing might in itself clear some doubts you may have! So, I would still suggest trying to mail some of them.

All this effort is worth it. Because the more you are excited and convinced about your choice of subject in graduate study, the more you can convince the admissions committee about you deserving admission to their program.