Desi in Videsh – First glance at UK

Okay this post comes after a very very looong time. There has been so much on my mind and so much happening. Somehow just never got to it. Getting back to the observations of a desi in videsh.

Pursuing studies in a country which is not your home is a new experiences which both scares and fascinates you. I have been going through a similar experience myself. It is very often that what we read and expect is in fact very different from the reality.

In the east, a developed country is pictured as utopia which of course is far from the truth. They have many fallacies of their own. These countries may promise transport, health and other facilities around the clock but the quality suffers. Of course, when I talk about the quality I do not refer to the top-notch private health or transport services but those provided by the government.

The importance the British people give to issues relating to Health and Safety is commendable. Every building (at least those I visited)  have clear instructions and safety equipment installed and well maintained. Apart from the health and safety issues, the way historic buildings are maintained is something we need to learn. Another thing that took me by surprise was the number of people who read. It would be common to expect people indulging more in some games on their iGadgets which is clearly not the case.

Listing some of the first things I noticed:

People have a great taste in shoes. From boots to high heels everything is plain AWESOME!

Women wear makeup in excess! I was taken aback to see the amount of makeup women here wear on a daily basis. What a colossal waste of time and money. No, I am not anti-makeup but tonnes of it everyday is surely going overboard.

The number of RATS!!! : The London Underground is a living example of how well they treat their dear little friend.

The number of sorry’s and please’s people use : Append or prepend any sentence with Sorry and/or Please

Curry: It is actually a little amusing when you ask British people about their traditional food. After Fish and Chips you hear Curry… Curry? Really?? Makes me smile. To be fair, the curries here taste nothing like the real stuff back in the east. In fact, on several occasions I have noticed that most (if not all) curries may be called different but they taste the same. The only few things that differ are the amount and type of colouring used; the salad it is served with; and the veggies in the curry. Considering how popular curries are, London is rightly called the curry capital of the world.

To order a regular burger or sandwich can seem more like an interview. As soon as you are done with one question the next one comes straight at you. Would you like brown bread or white bread? What sauce? What salad? What meat? I think having some standard configurations would make the whole process of getting a burger much quicker. After answering all those questions you might just want to get a drink! Coming to think of it now, may be that is what the intention is…

Graceful Ageing doesn’t seem to be very popular. This is a guess I am making by the number of botox’ed faces I see.

Hopefully the next post wouldn’t be too long from now.

Hostel Life

Hostel life is a completely different world. You have substitutes for everything! Here is a list… Read and enjoy

Anyone has an exam or appointment which needs you to wake up early then it is Meena-’the alarm’ to work!

If anyone wants to know about some cricket matches or sports related event then Miss Parat comes to the rescue… Right from how much Ganguly scored to which over n what went wrong, a complete game analysis report would be given to us…

Anyone who needs to know the current affairs could run to Miss Hudson who was our newspaper. She will read anything that comes her way and I mean ANYTHING! From old lays packets to newspapers dating back to 2000 to old notebooks, this lady can read anything she can lay her hands upon!

The next is our movie reviews, we dont need sites like imbd.com or anything cause we have our own walking talking movie database and review center… None other than Divi…

Next is our To-Do list… It is about the stuff we need to do for college- assignments,seminars,tests,submissions,etc etc. For this Miss Vava came to the rescue! She knew exactly what we have to do for when etc etc.

The next thing you need is Jokes for recreation. We had a joke book (of extremely low standards ) in hostel. Yes, I am talking about Ansu! Quantity assured… sadly not the quality!  (Dont kill me for this! )

Next being the cook book. How to cook this n that… Someone who takes all the questions about cooking in our hostel Miss Gayathridevi…

Next coming to Nami- ‘the installer and uninstaller’… 24×7 Ma’am is either installing or uninstalling something… The funny part is that within hours she will uninstall the same softwares she took ages to get her hands on… One DIFFERENT person for sure!

In hostel we had substitutes on whom we relied wholly and solely upon to get through our college life. Looking back now I completely miss my substitutes. I am starting to loathe the normal way of being… I hate setting alarm clocks to wake up or having to go to a particular site for some reviews. So this post is in fond memory of my substitutes!

The luck game called ‘Campus Placements’

This post is here to question the credibility of the placement procedure. The common belief is that the last bunch of people to get recruited into a company are the ones who are least intelligent or least deserving or the scum of the class. But is it truely so?

I too had this notion in my head until I witnessed the whole placement procedure unfold in front of my eyes!
One of the brightest brains got placed in the 10th company!!! I can now say for sure that the first nine were truely unlucky to not have him! He is one of the best logical thinkers we have around.
Another girl from my batch who has it all from sports to logic to all the credentials to get a job but somehow she got through her 11th company!What I do not understand is why everything is so unfair right from getting an admission in college to getting a job! I wish that no one is put through the kind of trauma these guys were put through. Doing everything right yet something going wrong. That something was LUCK! Not getting through the first bunch of companies cannot be attributed to lack of preparation, lack of logic or lack of soft skills. If these guys don’t have it then who does? This is my frustration and my happiness that makes me write this. Frustration that these guys were put through all this and happiness that this company got lucky by recruiting them! (Yes I do think that this company is lucky to get them and not vice versa! )

The placement procedure is really a gamble. It depends on a LOT of factors like whether your having a good or a bad day, whether you go into the rejection panel, whether your interviewer sees what other people see, what kind of a mood your interviewer is in etc etc. We have witnessed all these factors play a role one after another. The sad part of the story was that it always happened to the same people. Like I said earlier, these people had everything to grab that job except the luck which sadly never went their way! But like they ‘kahani baaki hai mere dost!’…. Finally a company came which got lucky to get them! A happy ending finally!

Note: I have not mentioned another bright n lovely girl above. This mention is for her (the share2 of my visual cryptography scheme! )

For all those times you held yourself from breaking down
For all those times there were unanswered questions swarming around
There are times like these that make you realize
That after every dusk there is a dawn

Visual Cryptography example

Here is something me and a friend of mine implemented. It is called Visual Cryptography.

Okay, now what is VC all about. Consider you have an image which you wish to have as a SECRET! The condition is you and your friend should have a part or ‘share’ of the image which individually will not make any sense but when the 2 shares overlap, you can discover your secret. This is an implementation of Shamir’s Secret Sharing techniques (Yes the same Shamir from the RSA algorithm).

If you want to learn more about Secret Sharing here are a few links:  1 and 2

The image we used was black and white or in other words only 0′s and 1′s. This means if you want to see a point when the 2 images overlap light should be blocked. There are three possibilities for that (1,1), (0,1) and (1,0). These can be chosen on the basis of the input image or the secret image(here sayCHEESE.bmp). The file uploaded is in jpg format as bmp format is not a supported file format for upload here.

The shares are :

Share 2

Share 1






















Okay, now getting on to how to actually split the image into 2 shares. When we have a binary image we can be sure that each pixel is 1 or 0. One decision you need to make is when it is a foreground pixel do you want to see it as white or black. We chose it to be black and the code written is keeping that in mind. Traverse each and every pixel in the image. If it is a foreground pixel then light should be blocked ie, the corresponding pixels so created should be (1,1) or (0,1) or (1,0).  Remember to achieve this each pixel is split into 2 pixels. Yes, size is doubled but thats the price you need to pay for secret sharing! (Thats the EXACT same line my project guide said! ). This can be easily done using MATLAB as there are read image functions defined. Reading the bmp file through C and creating 2 new images would definitely be a mammoth task if I were to stick to C.

The code is available for download on the box.net on the right.

Once you obtain the shares, take a printout on transparency sheets and witness Visual cryptography in action! It will look something like this:

For those of you who want to know more about this, I have uploaded a ppt on the right. Hoping you like it!

Higher Studies (MS) in US

As my earlier posts would give you an idea (assuming you follow my posts! ) about my GRE and TOEFL experiences. The next on the list definitely had to be the application procedure. As an international student, the application procedure is even more complex than the usual. A lot of hidden costs, tiresome procedures await you. These are things I have discovered down the lane and don’t want it to come as a shock to the rest of you.

Lets begin with the application package. Your application package would consist of your Gradesheets, 3 Recommendation Letters, SoP (Statement of purpose), Financial Document (For most US universities), GRE score and your TOEFL score.Lets look at each of them closely.

First in the list are your Gradesheets or Transcripts. These have to be ORIGINAL copies issued by the controller of examinations of the university. Attested photocopies are NOT considered to be valid.

Coming to the Letters of Recommendation or LoR. You will need three LoR’s from your college professors or someone working in the industry whom you have worked with as in done an internship with or something similar. While asking your professor ensure it is soemone who has taught you so that he knows more about you as it will be weighed more than a LoR issued by a faculty who has not taught you or guided you for any of your projects. Another thing you can keep in mind is that it is preferable to ask professors with a doctorate. Again it is NOT mandatory but surely will be an added advantage. Also, you need to get each copy signed and sealed in an envelope. (Again no photocopies!)

The next document is your Financial document. This is the one document that did not fall in place for me this year so I guess I will have to wait another year to apply. Anyway about the financial document, this has to be a letter from the bank stating that you (or your sponsor) have certain amount of “READILY AVAILABLE FUNDS” for your education. The amount will cover your first years tuition fee and living expenses. Most of us think that property &/or salary slips would suffice but sadly that is not how it works. There are FEW universities in US which do not require the Financial document at the application time.

As for GRE and TOEFL, ets.org is what you should be looking up. You can book your exam dates and everything through that site. It is more like the bible for GRE and TOEFL! Regarding the preparation and GRE experience here is a link. For TOEFL experience and exam details click here.

Next is your statement of purpose. This might seem like a cake walk but you actually realize that this is one of the most time consuming processes. To come up with the final draft you need to come up with atleast 10-15 versions of it! And sometimes in the process of writing one you realize how little you know about yourself! Funny as it may seem but some questions like ‘Tell me about yourself’ or ‘whats your motivation to study’ etc become extremely tough to answer. The challenge is to make your SoP unique. There are a lot of samples available on the internet. I would suggest you DONT read any of them before you do your SoP. Just get some guidelines. I think this link can be of some help. After you have come up with a draft probably you can read some other SoPs and compare and rethink. But make it a point to NOT copy paste any lines as that may lead to a direct rejection. I dont think my SoP is all that great but in sometime I shall surely upload it IF that can be of help to anyone.

So now we are done with the details of the application package. Next thing we need to deal with is the shortlisting of universities. For those of you who do not have much of an idea regarding the good universities or how to come up with your wishlist, you can begin by using some ranking sites like usnews.com for reference. But do not follow these rankings blindly! Go through the universities homepage, department homepage find out about the GRE score required and the financial document details. I would suggest you maintain an excel containing these details (something I forgot to do and was in great trouble! ).  This is again a time consuming procedure. You should come up with a list of universities to which you should send your GRE score depending on your score. For those of you who are not aware that as soon as your GRE exam ends you have to enter the college details of FOUR colleges to which your scores can be sent free of cost. So depending on your performance you need to enter your choice of universities. Have around 6 (minimum) universities in different score ranges. The choice has to be wise. Do NOT go for all ambitious universities. 2 in the high range, 2 medium and 2 sure shot universities. To come up  with the final list a lot of effort needs to go in.

Application to US universities is not only time intensive but also cost intensive. When the process begins you will not realize that the cost of applying to say 6 universities approximately comes around 1Lakh Indian rupees. This is an approximate amount and is on the upper side but includes your GRE , TOEFL registration fee, score card fee, university application fee (varies from one univ to another), your courier service charges and also other miscellaneous expenses like issuing of the consolidated gradesheets, coaching (if any),etc.

So you need to think real hard before you make any decisions. Apart from the monetary aspect do consider your reasons to study further. Doing an MS because your friends are doing it is definitely not a good enough reason.

Next assuming you have prepared all the documents. You need to visit the webpage of each of the universities you wish to apply to. There will be an online application form that you will need to fill.For Fall the deadlines for international students start from december mid. Make sure you start the online application also well in advance as you will need to grant your recommender s   ample time to submit the recommendation electronically also. After your application is complete you need to pay the application fee and send in the hard copy of your documents to the university. Within 2-3 months you will hear from the university. Cross your fingers and hope for the best!

If you have any questions you can feel free to ask. I’ll try and answer to the best of my knowledge! And I am hoping this post is helpful to you guys!

TOEFL experience

After I wrote the previous post I thought I should also publish one having about my TOEFL experience for those who will be taking up their TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language). Well, I think for those of you who can speak english it should be a cake-walk! This test is aimed to test all four parts of a language which are namely reading, writing, speaking and listening.

On the day of the test, make sure you carry your identity proof. Here in India, ONLY passport is considered as a valid ID proof. So do NOT forget to carry it.

As soon as you enter your examination center, you will be required to read, write and sign a confidentiality statement. Once that is done you will have to keep all your belongings including your pen, pencils etc in a locker. After which you will have your photograph taken by a webcam. Probably I wouldn’t recognize myself in that photograph! It came out THAT bad!!! After being handed a few sheets and 2 pencils I was directed to my seat.

My test center wasn’t the best of places. The seating was just not comfortable and too congested. After an attempt to settle down the reading section began and I before I could realize it was done. But yes, I did find I had to make a conscious effort towards managing my time as the passages were very lengthy.

After that came the listening section. Most people think it is very difficult to follow the American accent. I realized it wasn’t true at least when it came to the test as the speed of their speech was moderate and thus easily understandable. But I think for this section it is very important we take notes especially when listening to a lecture on art, psychology, literature etc of which we have no prior knowledge. I remember using 5sides of paper for this section.

Anyway after this there was a break. Walked around a little and was back for the speaking section. This is the one section you should NOT be nervous else you might stammer and stutter which obviously is killer for the speaking section! There are 6 questions in this section. Anyway, easy stuff I am sure everyone can sail through this.

The last section was writing. Just 2 questions and more than enough time even for those who do not have great typing speed. One of the questions is to express your views on a topic while the other is write about a topic after reading a paragraph on it and also listening to a lecture. All of this is easy and I am sure that no one would find this exam challenging IF you consider your english skills average. This cannot be compared with the GRE test which is a nightmare!

Your score’s will be available after 2 weeks and when they say two weeks they mean EXACTLY 2weeks!

For those who will be taking the test I would suggest you go through the sample questions, here is a link to it. Also, try speaking and recording your responses to judge yourself before you go in for the test.

The GRE Experience

FINALLY I am done with my GRE! What a relief! It has been a journey filled with tension, frustration and anxiety but now when I look back it seems amusing!

Three months of cramming words learning roots, similar words and a little bit of history here and there. Initially I used to despise the idea of mugging up words but a while later it was different. But it is not only the effort that goes in that makes it harder but also the tension of how my scores would be that would make the situation worse. Anxiety is a killer and I realized it very well this time. There would be times when I would be desperate to remember words and I knew it but just couldn’t get it! Thats the time you feel all your effort is down the drain as you can’t recollect when you need to. Thankfully I had a friend who had already been through the same process and helped me out through out!

Slowly but surely I was feeling better about it and FINALLY on the eve of D Day I had to travel for 5hours to get to my test center and No tickets available! Got really jittery and was just thinking of the horrible start I had to the GRE trip! Finally I had to travel in an unreserved compartment which meant standing for hours together in an extreeemeellyyy crowded train! Hmpf! Anyway to compensate for this disaster I ate good food as it always makes me feel better and brings a smile in every situation and this was no different…

Anyway the moment I entered the test center, my passport felt more like my alter ego. I had to keep it with me even when i went to the restroom! Anyway after I entered I had to sign a confidentiality statement and wait till we were called in to our alloted seats after having our photograph taken in a webcam (which as usual was BAD! ).

I was shaking when I walked in. As i entered there was a loooong weird tutorial containing the instructions for the exam. Though I had read it a million times before I did not have the courage to just dismiss it. I read half of it patiently and then got reeaaally bored and dismissed it.

Okay, now my test begins with the writing section. I think having the writing section in the beginning is a great way to relieve your tension as it not only helps you to just relax but also prepares you mentally for what awaits you.

Writing section I think is one of the sections we can sail through as you just need to think critically and be sure about your writing. Well like they say Analyse, Construct ideas and thoughts, Organize and Pay attention to your language. This is it!

After a 10min break it was time to get back to the REALL stuff! Thankfully I got the quantitative section first. I was gained my confidence after doing the math part of it and before I realized it was over. Managing your time for GRE quantitative is not an issue at all. It matters mainly for the most dreaded section which ofcourse is the VERBAL.

After another 60second break I started with verbal. The 2 pattern of questions I was scared about were Reading Comprehension (RC) and Antonyms. To my surprise all the Antonyms were cake walk but RC was awful! Having 3 RC’s itself is bad and 2 of them were more than 140lines! :-/ :-/ I knew the instant I saw the second RC that I was running out of time and so I chose options that looked “NICE” for the questions related to the second RC. The third thankfully was relatively shorter in length. Many times your actions defy logic in there. Logic says if you do not know the answer dont take a blind guess but eliminate a few options and guess wisely but what you do in there is a different story all together.

Some how was done with the test and it the next question was if I wanted to cancel the scores. Why on earth would I do that??? I cant go through the whole process again and decided to “View Scores” and I was relieved to see that the real score was much better than that I obtained in the Diagnostic Tests. And more than that I was glad that it was OVER…

The last step was choosing the universities based on which state it was in. Then it was THE END of the GRE episode in my life… And I sure was glad it is done! All in the quest of graduation!

For those of you who are yet to take up your GRE, you shouldn’t make the mistakes I made which are:
taking wild guess on certain questions
thinking your LIFE depends on this exam and stressing out yourself

Also that your scores depend a LOT on luck as it is a computer ADAPTIVE test (Assuming you know the difference between a CAT and a computer based test). So keep your cool and hope for the best!

When I was working on this post I realized a friend also has a similar post here is a link to it.