The "drive" to move

My resignation from N1 was approved last week.  I will be moving in December after finishing my semester responsibilities here.  So, from time to time, I will write about preparations for the upcoming move.

This week, I was back home for a few days to celebrate the festive season.  I met some friends and relatives, who are happy about the upcoming move to New1 city and have generously offered congratulatory best wishes and lots of well meant advice.  Most of what they say now is exactly what they said two years ago when I was moving to N1.  For example,

"You will enjoy the intellectual/cultural atmosphere at N1 city," 

"we will certainly visit you there," 

"the traffic is bad," 

"you should buy a car and learn driving"

and, of course, the classic

"We know so and so over there.  Here is their phone number.  You must get in touch with them.  They are verrrrrrry nice people."

None of the above, except the bad traffic, came to pass.  I never really got a chance to enjoy the cultural atmosphere of N1 city, my relatives never visited me, I did not buy a car and I certainly never bothered to contact the people whose phone numbers were given to me.  Not that I missed any of the above, but I do find it amusing that the above comments are being repeated verbatim!

But, one advice that I am taking very seriously this time is that of buying a car and learning to drive.

Ideally, I would love to just keep a bicycle and not have to worry about car maintenance, heavy traffic , parking etc.  I managed fairly well with a bicycle at my postdoc locations and at N1, but this does not seem feasible at New1 city.

Strictly speaking, one could manage without a car there, but having one does present many advantages.  For example, if needed, I can stay in the department till late to finish any important work without having to worry about safety issues and keeping a car does provide an extra degree of freedom for shopping, traveling etc.

I learnt driving as soon as I turned 18 and was very fond of it.  But, I lost touch after I went to North America.  This week, my father has been giving me lessons every morning.  It seems that just like cycling and swimming, one does not really forget driving.  However, my main challenge has been to overcome the initial hesitation.
As an 18 year old, I was indestructible - no amount of traffic and no fear of damaging my (father's) car bothered me.   But, I am paranoid right now [1].  The roads are practically empty in the morning, but it took me two days to even try driving at 3rd gear or above.  Also, I will need some serious practice before I can be confident about parking [in fact, I find parking much harder than driving properly].

My plan is to take some driving lessons again after I move to New1 city, even though my father feels it is not necessary.  Some of my colleagues  at New1 have suggested some reliable teachers.

The next question is to decide which model.  I am thinking of a Hyundai i10 sportz.
i10 seems to be a favourite with most of my colleagues and this model has an added advantage of automatic gears [2].  But, some of my friends think that once I overcome my initial fears and get more driving practice, I might not care so much for automatic gears.  So, I am still giving this more thought.

But, each time, I start to think about cars and driving, my first inclination is to think of reasons not to buy a car and strategies to manage comfortably without one.   Sadly, this time, I have no option but to overcome this fear!


Comments/tips/driving stories are most welcome!




[1] To begin with, this time, I am practicing on my brother's car, and not my father's good old Maruti 800.  That itself is a scary proposition!

[2] The other day, my sister-in-law joked that I need not fear driving as driving a car with automatic gears is as easy as driving a toy car at Appu Ghar.  

Clothes maketh the prof?

At first, I thought that this blog post might be a bit shallow, but realized that on the contrary, it is related to a topic that has been written about a lot in the academic blogosphere.  FSP has a series of posts related to academic dressing tagged under the label "What to wear".

It is a topic on which my father and I have a lot of argument.  My father is a retired army officer with a very sophisticated approach to dressing up.  He is almost always dressed up formally, for example, here's him making tea: (pardon the crease on his coat- he had just arrived at N1 after a long flight and a jittery road journey!)[1]

He has a lot of trouble accepting the casual and extremely informal manner in which academics dress (especially those in my STEM field!)

I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite.  I don't particularly try to dress formally and am fairly comfortable in a "casual dress" atmosphere. 

During one of my job talks two years ago, my father graciously agreed to give me a ride to the institute.  I thought it would also be good for him to experience the atmosphere at a research institute.  However, as we set out to leave, he was "very concerned" to see me dress up in jeans.  Despite his repeated remonstrances, I refused to change.  He was not too pleased, but relaxed a little after arriving at the institute and realizing that he was the only formally dressed up person in the whole building.

My father strongly believes that one must dress appropriately for all occasions and cannot imagine how a professor can teach wearing shorts/jeans and T-shirts and still earn the respect of his/her students [2].  I have tried hard to convince him that most students don't care about how their profs dress and are more concerned about how and what they teach, but to no avail.

Recently, Doordarshan aired a small documentary on N1.  I informed him about the timing and he sat down to watch it very eagerly.  Though it is not the best documentary ever made, I personally enjoyed watching my favourite colleagues talking about the academic programmes at N1, their research equipments and labs, performance of students, N1's place in the scientific landscape of India etc.  My father likes to read and talk about science and I expected that he might ask me more questions about these things when we talked later.

Later that evening, when I asked my father how he found the documentary, he said that although he found it very informative, he felt that it would have had a "higher impact" if the people shown in the documentary had dressed better.  I argued with him once again and said that the documentary served its purpose by showcasing honestly what a typically normal day at N1 is like.  Faculty members dressing up formally for one day just to shoot a documentary would have been superficial and unreal.   But, he emphasised that dressing up and presenting oneself appropriately for a programme shown on National TV was very important.  I tried very hard, but failed to convince him that "appropriate dressing" has different connotations in a military cantonment and an academic establishment.

Finally, to change the topic, he asked me why I was not in the documentary.  I am very glad that I was not in the documentary.  On the day it was being shot, I was very "inappropriately" dressed.  I am not sure how he would have reacted to see his daughter on National TV wearing a black T-shirt and blue capris!





[1] The reason he is in the kitchen making tea and not me is because he is also very particular about how he likes his evening tea.  
[2] I once introduced him to a colleague who was heading towards the institute one morning.  My father later asked me if this person was the PT instructor!

On strong PhD programmes

A few days ago, in response to this post, a commenter wondered if Indian institutes, including the new ones, are turning into factories to train students to go abroad.  I don't have the general statistics about students staying back in India vis-a-vis students going abroad.  But, from what I observe at N1, a good chunk of our faculty members have studied at institutes like IISc or other older institutes.  So, these institutes have not just trained people who leave the country, but have also trained a sufficient number of people who are doing excellent work at new institutes and are building them up.

But, to come back to the commenter's specific concern, can the new institutes do more to create a research environment that can motivate more students to stay back?  Well, for starters, we can have well designed and competitive PhD programmes which will inspire, attract and motivate interested students.

Scientists and educators  with more experience and accomplishments can of course offer much more carefully thought out views about this matter.  But, two recent incidents have motivated me to write and share some thoughts about it (for whatever they are worth).  I apologize in advance for my scattered thoughts and some "wild speculation" that follows.

Firstly, I have been spending a lot of time with a student in our Post BSc Integrated PhD (PBIP) programme.  In this programme, students finish course work (equivalent to MSc) in the first two years.  In addition, in their second year, they choose an area of interest in which they do a year-long project.  At the end of the second year, they take a comprehensive exam, and if successful, start working towards their PhD in the third year.  The primary advantage of this format is that in the first two years, we can give a rigorous training to students as per the standards and requirements of our PhD programme.  This gives them a stronger foundation to start their PhD at the beginning of the third year with a supervisor.  But, at the end of the second year, students also have the option of leaving with an MSc.

This student is doing her Master's project with me.  As I am leaving next term, we are trying to finish most of her project work while I am still here and she has easier access to me.  This student is very eager, motivated and hard working.  She is, in essence, the first student of our PBIP programme [1].  Her performance, so far, has been brilliant.  So, members of my department have been mulling a lot about how our PBIP programme can be strengthened so that students like her can get the most out of it and retain their motivation.  Moreover, how can we ensure that students like her stay back with us for a PhD and not move at the end of the second year?

Rephrase: How can we attract talented students like her to stay back with us?  [2]

Secondly, there has been some discussion at N1 recently about the underlying objective of the institute.  While some members of our institute primarily think of it as an undergraduate teaching institution and wish to mould it accordingly (with a vision of faculty members doing research in addition to their primary undergraduate teaching responsibilities), some other members see our institute as a research institution, which, equally importantly, teaches and trains students at all levels (undergraduate as well as post graduate) to do science [3].

Members of the latter group feel that to accomplish this vision, our PBIP programme, as well as our PhD programme, should be given  as much importance as the Integrated BS-MS programme.  In fact, it is felt that the PBIP programme should be considered as much a flagship programme of the N-type institutes as the BS-MS programme.

The programme, as it currently stands, may come across as a mere sidekick to the nationally recognized BS-MS programme.  For example, I am not sure about other N institutes, but at N1, we do not have separate courses for the PBIP programme.
Instead, we ask PBIP students to take courses in the higher levels of the BS-MS programme.  This is mainly because of (hopefully short-term) logistical issues, like non-availability of enough faculty to teach so many courses.  Thus, instead of designing courses specifically for the requirements of these students, we only adjust them into our existing courses, which were designed for a different programme.  This may not necessarily inspire the confidence of the students who pursue PBIP or train them in the best possible way [4].

Recognizing PBIP as a flagship programme will lead to proper planning of the course structure in keeping with its aims and very importantly, hiring of enough faculty  to keep the programme running independently.

Another very interesting idea that is being discussed among some faculty members is the possibility of a common national-level entrance procedure into PBIP for all the N-institutes akin to that of the BS-MS programme.  This might enable these institutes to publicize this programme more widely and tap into a bigger pool of talented and interested students.

Given the energy levels and the flowering research programmes of many faculty members at the N institutes, the PBIP programmes at these institutes certainly have a very bright future.

I hope to blog more about this issue as I understand it better.  Inputs/comments from readers will be highly appreciated.

I know that some of the readers of this blog are PBIP students at N-type institutes.
It would be great to hear back from them about their experience with this programme.



[1] Another student had been chosen in the batch before her.  But, he left the programme because he found the course work daunting.
[2] Somehow, "ensure" seems to have a very sinister and coercive implication.  A couple of years ago, a proposal was floated that we levy some kind of fee on students who want to leave with an MSc, but this was immediately shot down by the academic committees overlooking this issue.
[3] Whether these ways of thinking are fundamentally different or fundamentally the same could possibly form the subject of a future blog post!
[4] In my STEM field, this leads to some additional complications.  While, technically speaking, first year PBIP students are equivalent to fourth year MS students, most undergrad programmes in India do not cover the material that we cover in the third year of our BS-MS programme.