Let's gather some hope from this video clip. I agree this is long for youtube video's but it is really worth it.
You don't want to miss this.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Friday, July 10, 2009
How are we doing yet? Still hanging in here or left? -- Part II
Continuing from my previous blog post,
3. Prepare a list of word templates you will need to react, reply and respond to the kind of answers you get from Professors.
Personally I had three prepared for myself :-)
The first one was a more generic template. It expressed my interest in clear, concise and crisp grammatically correct English. You have to make changes regarding the research section, papers and your interests, etc.
The second one was a thank you reply! Unfortunately some professors will not "click" with your mails and profiles as some other will. As one of my friend who already got into the Phd program at New Zealand's University of Auckland Dept of Imaging Science, he told me
The point here to be noted is that it is just a reply. It can be the most obvious one
this one takes the cake!
So, if you get one of these replies, please don't forget to send them a courtesy emails thanking them for time. Because you didn't ask them before flooding their email inbox(s) and you wanted to see if you reach a common ground!
I know I do this everytime. And I know I would like to see a thank you note(atleast) from the person who sent me the first horrendously complex introductory emails. But that is just me :)
And the last tip for the post, don't forget to keep your profile ( Academic Resume, Summary of interests, Linkedin Profile, email accounts, phone numbers, etc.) updated!!
Keep sharing and following! Have a good day! As again, I would love to read your stories
Share your stories and follow. I need motivation :) so does everyone :) So, just keep it on !!
Have a good day!
3. Prepare a list of word templates you will need to react, reply and respond to the kind of answers you get from Professors.
Personally I had three prepared for myself :-)
The first one was a more generic template. It expressed my interest in clear, concise and crisp grammatically correct English. You have to make changes regarding the research section, papers and your interests, etc.
The second one was a thank you reply! Unfortunately some professors will not "click" with your mails and profiles as some other will. As one of my friend who already got into the Phd program at New Zealand's University of Auckland Dept of Imaging Science, he told me
Only 20 percent of the professors you approach in all, will acutually reply back.
The point here to be noted is that it is just a reply. It can be the most obvious one
Thanks your interest in our Phd program. You should apply through the admissions office at ZZZZZ@akd.edu
this one takes the cake!
Thanks your interest in our Phd program. Unfortunately, I am not taking any more students And/or Not teaching at the school anymore and/or Not full time faculty at the time(No offense. This kind of replies,make my day actually. You push me down. I will keep on coming up even with more force. The more you push me down, the more I will come up again to fight back)
and/or I am on Sabbatical
So, if you get one of these replies, please don't forget to send them a courtesy emails thanking them for time. Because you didn't ask them before flooding their email inbox(s) and you wanted to see if you reach a common ground!
I know I do this everytime. And I know I would like to see a thank you note(atleast) from the person who sent me the first horrendously complex introductory emails. But that is just me :)
And the last tip for the post, don't forget to keep your profile ( Academic Resume, Summary of interests, Linkedin Profile, email accounts, phone numbers, etc.) updated!!
Keep sharing and following! Have a good day! As again, I would love to read your stories
Share your stories and follow. I need motivation :) so does everyone :) So, just keep it on !!
Have a good day!
How are we doing yet? Still hanging in here or left?
As you know I am apply for PhD schools for Fall 2010 throughout the world among which are Canada, Singapore, New Zealand and USA. If you wanna know why I am applying for these countries in particular and not others, you must read my previous blog entry.
After the precursor, I am more than happy and delighted to say that I am done with the first round of my PhD struggle/sojourn. In simple I am done with introducing myself, my profile and a summary of my academic pursuits; modestly written in my email note as accomplishments. Ha!!
The documents that I used and/or had to create in this process are
1. An updated copy of your resume
Tip: Don't forget to mention your scholarships & grants that you might have earned throughout school or college. What I have learnt after seeing so many resumes on different professor's websites and different student profiles is that everything, I repeat Everything counts! Before you know it is heavy to underscore it's importance.
2. A brief summary of your research interests. !!
I learnt the hard-way out that as a research candidate you have to have a good idea about your research interests and have it handy in your book. You gotta make your documents before.
It happened to me! I applied to one of the the universities in Canada. A very respected Professor from the university whose research areas matched that of mine wrote back to me. He asked me in one statement about my research interests. I think it is critical that you are ready with the documents before even you start sending out your emails introducing yourself.
Continued in next blog post! Stay tuned!
After the precursor, I am more than happy and delighted to say that I am done with the first round of my PhD struggle/sojourn. In simple I am done with introducing myself, my profile and a summary of my academic pursuits; modestly written in my email note as accomplishments. Ha!!
The documents that I used and/or had to create in this process are
1. An updated copy of your resume
Tip: Don't forget to mention your scholarships & grants that you might have earned throughout school or college. What I have learnt after seeing so many resumes on different professor's websites and different student profiles is that everything, I repeat Everything counts! Before you know it is heavy to underscore it's importance.
2. A brief summary of your research interests. !!
I learnt the hard-way out that as a research candidate you have to have a good idea about your research interests and have it handy in your book. You gotta make your documents before.
It happened to me! I applied to one of the the universities in Canada. A very respected Professor from the university whose research areas matched that of mine wrote back to me. He asked me in one statement about my research interests. I think it is critical that you are ready with the documents before even you start sending out your emails introducing yourself.
Continued in next blog post! Stay tuned!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Country/Schools update - Singapore !!
In my journey of mailing and "reaching out" to the professors and schools of my interest, I traveled from the beautiful nation of New Zealand to this little Asian nation; all through the US Ip address! LOL! It is interesting to note this nation is the financial hub of the world. Wow!
Singapore (2) – NUS and NTU
It was relatively quickly I got used to this process of mailing and after being done with one country I was exhilarating with energy and thought may be if I get these two universities done, I would be able to get past two countries. Two down, two more to go!!
I mailed to these universities individually. Let me tell you both of them are good universities and require a very strong profile to get in. These were short listed by someone I know in Singapore and came highly recommended. At first, my research interest this time also landed up in College of business for NUS. I took time to investigate which professors were in Information Systems (IS) or Operations –Supply Chain (SC). I figured it would be easy task to do, but honestly it was harder than I thought.
I remember making rounds and rounds over the coffee pot that morning almost since 8 am. I almost freaked out by the end of afternoon and decided to take a power nap to get all energized. LoL. On a similar note, after a while of mails and applications procedure (call it torture), you will notice that there is a frustrating feeling with big universities especially with the kind of page arrangement they will have on their websites. For the most universities it is very hard to find the faculty page. Oh come on, you got to have bring that page up and bump it up. Faculty are your moon and stars, why not hype them up?
FYI - for NUS you will have to look up by program and then school and then faculty web pages. Phish!
For NTU, I had a tough time deciding what I am supposed to do. Honestly, having done with NUS, I was excited but tough call with NTU. Guess what, NTU doesn't support Information Systems research in Business School but it does in College of Computing!! Ball! I read the program, program structure, the course structure and courses and the profiles. You name it & I read it.
My eyes were already crying out loud for researching all day from 8 am, and it was already 4 pm in the afternoon. I decided to let NTU go for the moment. I made nuggets, waffles and some very veggie salad with Italian light fat dressing, I decided to take a power nap; after all I have a life for heaven's sake.Waking up around 7 I already had lost two hours to my favorite sport in the world - Sleeping!
By the time I started again, it was time for dinner. Luckily my roomate Peter had already made some dinner :) Hot dogs and again my favorite food Salad. I brought in a little something from the near 7/11 store to drink and there we were, having a good time after all this labor today at the computer. LOL
Even then I am a brave kid and I believe in the power of success and belief, I decided to give it a shot. So now, it is 9 pm and I am starting with NTU. Not a good decision in hindsight. I burnt myself with the frustration and did end up staying up late till 2 am in the night. Gosh! Coffee! This school has the Information systems department in the School of computing. More focussed on the computing side of Information systems and concentrated on solving problems computationally. Well that being said, it is not my favorite spot. So I had to look for alternatives. The very next second, I did two things. First wrote a note to the head of the dept of information systems at NTU and then browsed through MIS pages at NTU school of business. Yay! I am glad I did that.
Clock was ticking. It was already 15 up midnight and after burning myself up for another hour, I was done with the grunt work!
Advise for the intelligent and wise: Don't work up too much for day 1 and then rest day 2,3,4... LOL.. Take time but still stay edgy!
Singapore (2) – NUS and NTU
It was relatively quickly I got used to this process of mailing and after being done with one country I was exhilarating with energy and thought may be if I get these two universities done, I would be able to get past two countries. Two down, two more to go!!
I mailed to these universities individually. Let me tell you both of them are good universities and require a very strong profile to get in. These were short listed by someone I know in Singapore and came highly recommended. At first, my research interest this time also landed up in College of business for NUS. I took time to investigate which professors were in Information Systems (IS) or Operations –Supply Chain (SC). I figured it would be easy task to do, but honestly it was harder than I thought.
I remember making rounds and rounds over the coffee pot that morning almost since 8 am. I almost freaked out by the end of afternoon and decided to take a power nap to get all energized. LoL. On a similar note, after a while of mails and applications procedure (call it torture), you will notice that there is a frustrating feeling with big universities especially with the kind of page arrangement they will have on their websites. For the most universities it is very hard to find the faculty page. Oh come on, you got to have bring that page up and bump it up. Faculty are your moon and stars, why not hype them up?
FYI - for NUS you will have to look up by program and then school and then faculty web pages. Phish!
For NTU, I had a tough time deciding what I am supposed to do. Honestly, having done with NUS, I was excited but tough call with NTU. Guess what, NTU doesn't support Information Systems research in Business School but it does in College of Computing!! Ball! I read the program, program structure, the course structure and courses and the profiles. You name it & I read it.
My eyes were already crying out loud for researching all day from 8 am, and it was already 4 pm in the afternoon. I decided to let NTU go for the moment. I made nuggets, waffles and some very veggie salad with Italian light fat dressing, I decided to take a power nap; after all I have a life for heaven's sake.Waking up around 7 I already had lost two hours to my favorite sport in the world - Sleeping!
By the time I started again, it was time for dinner. Luckily my roomate Peter had already made some dinner :) Hot dogs and again my favorite food Salad. I brought in a little something from the near 7/11 store to drink and there we were, having a good time after all this labor today at the computer. LOL
Even then I am a brave kid and I believe in the power of success and belief, I decided to give it a shot. So now, it is 9 pm and I am starting with NTU. Not a good decision in hindsight. I burnt myself with the frustration and did end up staying up late till 2 am in the night. Gosh! Coffee! This school has the Information systems department in the School of computing. More focussed on the computing side of Information systems and concentrated on solving problems computationally. Well that being said, it is not my favorite spot. So I had to look for alternatives. The very next second, I did two things. First wrote a note to the head of the dept of information systems at NTU and then browsed through MIS pages at NTU school of business. Yay! I am glad I did that.
Clock was ticking. It was already 15 up midnight and after burning myself up for another hour, I was done with the grunt work!
Advise for the intelligent and wise: Don't work up too much for day 1 and then rest day 2,3,4... LOL.. Take time but still stay edgy!
Country/Schools update - New Zealand first
Fair day people! In last two weeks or so, I have applied to various universities around the world ( See my previous blog on which countries I applied). Even though I started and spent most of my learning (how to approach professors and schools) time for US schools such as Cornell and Yale, I am glad to inform that I have completed my first round of phd e-mails to
Remember my last post about countries short-listing, for the most part University of Auckland at New Zealand (Business School) ranks low on the catch part for me. As you know I want to research in the field of “the strategic implementation and supply chain integration of information systems”. I applied to the head of the Department since I was unable to find/locate any relevant and descriptive research interests for any of the faculty members. (Tip#1)
On the other note, there are some schools that you think are easy for you and some are tough. This is the easy one. I am sure that my profile makes it very competitive for them to not select them. This is a good thing, as I see for now.
The information systems department is associated with the department of business at UoA and I approached one of the ranked professors at this school. Simple method! Show your interest in the program and professor’s research. Don’t forget to send your latest updated academic resume attached!
Note: Please remember faking your research interest won’t take you anywhere. You are going to be out even before you got in to the school. Since Phd is a very serious affair, do what you really like. It is okay to be confused (for now) however, but liking for the sake of liking will not go very far. Take time to explore Professor’s latest papers and his research interests. In my exploration experience ( as I say it), for ninety percent of the professor’s, their homepage or faculty page will have a separate section called Research Interests which will clearly say what his/her interests are. Now, all you have to do is to figure out if your research interests match upto his/ her research interests. I think even if it is remotely similar, you stand a shot of getting a good reply. So don’t worry if that is not exactly what you are willing to do, just go ahead and write a note to the professor asking for details on his research interests and also don’t forget to write your interests!
Stay tuned for more schools/countries update next!
Dig it or just like it. We love to hear back from you! Just hit comment and that’s it.
New Zealand - (1) – University of Auckland
Remember my last post about countries short-listing, for the most part University of Auckland at New Zealand (Business School) ranks low on the catch part for me. As you know I want to research in the field of “the strategic implementation and supply chain integration of information systems”. I applied to the head of the Department since I was unable to find/locate any relevant and descriptive research interests for any of the faculty members. (Tip#1)
On the other note, there are some schools that you think are easy for you and some are tough. This is the easy one. I am sure that my profile makes it very competitive for them to not select them. This is a good thing, as I see for now.
The information systems department is associated with the department of business at UoA and I approached one of the ranked professors at this school. Simple method! Show your interest in the program and professor’s research. Don’t forget to send your latest updated academic resume attached!
Note: Please remember faking your research interest won’t take you anywhere. You are going to be out even before you got in to the school. Since Phd is a very serious affair, do what you really like. It is okay to be confused (for now) however, but liking for the sake of liking will not go very far. Take time to explore Professor’s latest papers and his research interests. In my exploration experience ( as I say it), for ninety percent of the professor’s, their homepage or faculty page will have a separate section called Research Interests which will clearly say what his/her interests are. Now, all you have to do is to figure out if your research interests match upto his/ her research interests. I think even if it is remotely similar, you stand a shot of getting a good reply. So don’t worry if that is not exactly what you are willing to do, just go ahead and write a note to the professor asking for details on his research interests and also don’t forget to write your interests!
Stay tuned for more schools/countries update next!
Dig it or just like it. We love to hear back from you! Just hit comment and that’s it.
Follow this blog today!
Friday, July 3, 2009
The beginning - How it started?
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
--- Carl Sagan
It was late in the day and early evening in August of 2005 when sun was about to go for the day and there was absolutely no hope of winds in the air. Entering from outside was my own barely seen shadow passing by the first gate. On the left I saw our dogs Bruno and Tommy. Bruno was young and sturdy. He liked to play with me all the time and Tommy was fragile and weak. Playing with Tommy was not my fun time ever.
As I entered our own house complex from outside after the first black gate, I saw KJ aka Mr.Tenant. He is one of brothers of our tenants. Over the last ten years, they have enjoyed living here and as much we have enjoyed having them here. Even though they have moved out in late 2008, I wander myself with them. He works at a deluxe group of hotels in New Delhi, near to the north campus Delhi University.
He as I walked to the main entrance of our house was standing and he looked into my eyes and said “What’s up?”
I replied “Hello! Nice weather outside! I was just coming from my private tuition classes. How are you doing?”
He looked calm and said “How is your application process coming along? So are you still applying for the schools in the US and New Zealand?” He looked intrigued.
I looked perplexed clearly. I was befuddled to decide to lend my voice to which of my thoughts? Agreeably, I had so many of them and all of them crushed my sanity to death every second in my mind. Going into the whirlwind of thoughts and the actions all around those thoughts, I got even more confused..what should I say, yes to US, maybe to New Zealand schools..! Which schools? New York, Missouri or Auckland or Christchurch!! What should I say? Which of the countries I should go to?
He looked at me and I looked back at him and said “Honestly I have been thinking what to do. I have this imbroglio of choosing the right university and country in the background. I am young in my education and I think it would be a decent decision to choose US for obvious reasons.”
I stared right into his eyes and wandered away immediately after that. In the backdrop, I realized that it was hard for me to capture my thoughts in totality and let myself be sure of one definite thought.
I continued saying “I am actually a little inclined to go to New Zealand. I got family there. It might of some assistance when I am alone and may need something. This country is growing and life standards are equally good. May be if I stay over a little longer, I can stay because New Zealand is happy to have educated people on their land.” He looked to the tree to his left in our garden and then he looked at me. He said something that I haven’t forgotten till day.
He said “Look. No matter what comes by your way and what options you have, always try for the first best. If you do not have the option of trying for the first best, then settle for the second best. But never ever settle for the second best!”
Startled I looked at him.
I said to one own-self in my mind “Yeah, this is something concrete. But I still don’t know what option is the right one.”
Again, I looked at him and said “Uh, yeah. You know what, it helps. May be, it’s a little easier with that thought in my head now”. He looked at me & smiled.
“You’re welcome”, he said.
And it was in one moment, it was so clear to me what I was missing. And in one moment I knew what I was supposed to do. No confusion any more grip my mind and I was already ware what kind of school I was going to try.
This is nothing more than a regular short small talk type of conversation. But if you read between the lines, it is easier to see and you will see that the message is a lot bigger. Never try for the second best. Just aim for the first best always. First best!! Just the very first best, always!
Thought I would share with you guys how my journey to achieve the very best started. On another note, my journey to achieve the very best has started on a good note, but it is long way from halting now.
Fair day people!
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