It was my 5th semester of Engineering school when I got a notification of IPTSE program going to be organised at IIIT Hyderabad. Thanks to the placeCom guys first who keep sending us important information at regular intervals. :)
This program was jointly organised by Carnegie Mellon University and IIIT Hyderabad. If you don't know about CMU then I should tell you that it is one of the top 5 universities at US. Situated at Pittsburg, CMU has a long tradition of some very high quality research like the one in the area of speech technologies. They have their own top class speech recognizer called CMU Sphinx. To know more about CMU click here.
IIIT is one of the premier institutes of IT situated at Hyderabad known for its high quality education and top class faculty. The best part here is that professors are not sleeping. Everyone is engaged in some kind of research which definitely motivates students too. You will be amazed to know that they have their own speech translator developed by their faculty. What a good environment to learn and get yourself motivated.
The winter school was divided into three tracks:
1. Educational games
2. Speech
3. Computer supported collaborative learning
Due to my interest in game development I chose Educational games track as my first preference. My selection at the program was first ever achievement (even small though) of undergraduate life. The best part was not only me but three other students namely Vijit, Akash and Ashita were also got selected.
We reached Hyderabad at morning 7 and got a nice 4 people room at the institute hostel. Also it was my first experience with "Illa Illa something udama pudama" people. Our fourth roomie was someone from Bombay who was looking like a 12th grade student killed by the burden of hydrocarbons and trigonometry. He just came, said nothing and slept for 3 hours. When he gave his introduction, our mouth remained open. He was Ravi, from IIT Bombay Computer science JEE rank 13. Ahh! all the past memories and wounds of not getting into IIT came alive.
The orientation started at around 10 a.m., we were given some material related to our respective tracks. This was my first experience of interaction with foreign professors and phd students. My mentor was Matthew Kam, nick named Matt, was from Singapore. Although he was very serious and focused person but we always used to find him very funny mainly because of his accent which was not American. He was very famous for his long lectures; ask him a small question and he has the ability of giving you an hour long lecture on that; now just keep searching the ways to escape. He was here for MILLEE organization.
The second mentor was Caroline who looked like a 50 year old sweet girl. I was amazed how she had maintained a charm and enthusiasm even at this age. She was also very funny and famous for her special kind of laughter. During presentations, she used to laugh with such a high tone that all the sleeping audience spring to their senses at once. Well this was her unusual way of making boring lectures bearable for the students.
Another person that I would like to mention here was Derek. He was doing his phd from CMU and was there for playpower. He was a gentle man, like a typical Hollywood movie star. I liked his way to interact with people. Although he sometimes used to get frustrated, but this was normal for a person having his mentor called Matt. :)
During the first 3 days, we were just attending presentations and seminars by a variety of people. Everything was centred around research. Well it is a known fact that research environment at India is in a very sorry state. Whatever might be the reason, people don't want to follow the academic research path. So their main objective was to attract students towards some quality research. We also did some good discussions with the mentors and the phd students of CMU and they shared their life experiences with us.
The schedule became very tight for us in the initial days; we were leaving the room at 10 in the morning and coming back at 7 or 8 in the evening. We four roomies generated a nice bond during this time. We always used to keep pulling the leg of Vijit as a "Badey Log" for his being selected at Microsoft. Well he also deserved this title because entering their is something like cracking a hard nut. We also came to know about an exceptional quality of Vijit of cracking very very poor PJ's. Sometimes we just keep looking each other's faces trying to figure out the meaning of his "Forceful Joke." The MR. IIT was also very funny with his habit of screaming while sleeping.
Both Playpower and MILLEE had got fair amount of sponsorships and thus we usually got grand pizza parties from them at regular intervals. We also got a great chance of visiting Microsoft campus; thanks to Shekar sir and Hitesh sir, the NSIT aumni and Mohit sir for introducing them to us. Well the Microsoft campus was like "Mind Blowing!!". They have three big buildings constructed on the mountains. The first building was MS IDC, India Development center, where both of the seniors work. Although we didn't find any major security arrangements their (Yes we are going to bomb MS with the help of Vijit - the under cover agent), but the doors used to open with touch identity cards provided to the employees. The decoration inside was pretty good with a lot of indoor games. They have a small cafeteria build on each floor. We went to the meeting rooms, cubicles of employees where we clicked some photographs and seated for few minutes to have a feeling of professionals. :)
The second building was MSIT which according to Shekhar sir was the heart of MS mainly because all the pretty girls work their. It has even more beautiful interior decoration. I don't know whether it was feminine effect or the server rooms which made the inside very hot. :)
The days were passing by like a rocket and everyday we were learning something new. I also met Anuj, another Phd student of CMU. He was such a nice person, always ready to help and I was kind of lucky that he became my second mentor. He actually guided my drifting boat into the right direction. Under his guidance, I started to do some good research in the area of speech processing. Although it was quite new for me but over the time things started becoming easier. Under his guidance, I came to know what exactly is research about.
It was the final day of our winter school and we had to present our work to the CMU team. The first presentation was of Vijit who did made a very serious and good presentation after hours of preparations. He did mugging for a complete day and he was talking like a stereo. His presentation went wonderful.
Then came my turn and what can you expect from a person who had left the presentation to the mercy of sponti!! Everyone seemed like a nursery student trying to figure out the 'A for Apple' thing during the whole presentation.
Then we all went for our first outing at Hyderabad. We went to Imax which was a wonderful mall and watched a movie. Then we went to eat street which was a special place for eaters. It has all types of eating stalls ranging form North Indian to South Indian. I would surely like to suggest you people to visit this place if you ever go to Hyderabad.
This is how the 13 days fun was ended. Surely it was a first of its kind experience where we learnt a lot of new facts, interacted with some very great and funny people, made some very good friends, visited Microsoft and got lots of free parties.
Really I would remember these days forever in my life. :)
