Add branch-change article.

adds career-hpair

CNAME

@@ -1,2 +1 @@
-wona.co.in
-
+watchout.iitr.ac.in

_config.yml

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ defaults:
       layout: category
 
 name: Watch Out, IIT Roorkee
-url: http://wona.co.in
+url: http://watchout.iitr.ac.in
 gems: [jekyll-paginate]
 description: The official news magazine of IIT Roorkee.
 paginate: 10

_data/categories.yaml

@@ -1,10 +1,16 @@
 ---
+# - name: interiit
+#   title: Inter IIT Cult
+#   subcategories:
+- name: memoirs
+  title: Memoirs
+  subcategories:
 - name: academics
   title: Academics
   subcategories:
-- name: cultural
-  title: Cultural
-  subcategories:
+# - name: cultural
+#   title: Cultural
+#   subcategories:
 - name: columns
   title: Columns
   subcategories:
@@ -33,9 +39,9 @@
 - name: verbatim
   title: Verbatim
   subcategories:
-- name: sports
-  title: Sports
-  subcategories:
+# - name: sports
+#   title: Sports
+#   subcategories:
 - name: internblogs
   title: Intern Blogs
   subcategories:
@@ -43,3 +49,7 @@
       title: Summer 2016
     - name: summer2017
       title: Summer 2017
+    - name: summer2018
+      title: Summer 2018
+    - name: summer2019
+      title: Summer 2019

_data/categories_name.yaml

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 ---
+interiit: Inter IIT Cult
 academics: Academics
 cultural: Cultual
 columns: Columns
@@ -16,3 +17,6 @@ sports: Sports
 internblogs: Intern Blogs
 summer2016: Summer 2016
 summer2017: Summer 2017
+summer2018: Summer 2018
+summer2019: Summer 2019
+memoirs: Memoirs

_includes/footer.html

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
       <img class="logo" src="/images/logo-black.png">
       <div class="name-container">
         <div class="name">Watch Out!</div>
-        <div class="desc">Official News<br>Body of IITR</div>
+        <div class="desc">Student Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
       </div>
     </div>
     <div class="social pull-right">
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
       <a href="/about">About</a>
       <a href="/guide">Guide</a>
       <a href="/getinvolved">Get Involved</a>
-      <a  href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
+      <a href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
       <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCthZ7tKOzy4EJpuVxtdcp1A"><img src="/images/youtube-play.svg"></a>
       <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/13290672/"><img src="/images/linkedin.png"></a>
     </div>
@@ -20,6 +20,6 @@
 
 
   <div class="container copyright">
-    <p>&copy; Copyright 2016 &#8212; Watch Out! News Agency</p>
+    <p>&copy; Copyright 2018 &#8212; Watch Out! News Agency</p>
   </div>
 </footer>

_includes/head.html

@@ -47,6 +47,8 @@
   <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="/atom.xml" />
 
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/base.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />
+  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/table.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />
+  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/posts.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />
 
   <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery-2.1.3.min.js"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>

_includes/header.html

@@ -36,14 +36,18 @@
   <div class="container-title">New Articles</div>
   <section>
     <div class="row outer-row">
-      {% for post in site.posts limit: 5 %}
-
-      {% if forloop.index == 3 %}
-    </div>
-    <div class="row outer-row">
+      
+      {% assign counter = 0 %}  <!-- Count of articles rendered under new articles -->
+      
+      {% for post in site.posts limit: 10 %}
+      {% if post.category == "coverstory" %}
+        {% continue %}
       {% endif %}
-
-      <div class="col-sm-{% if forloop.index < 3 %}6{% else %}4{% endif %} article-col">
+      {% assign counter = counter | plus:1 %}
+      {% if counter > 5 %}
+        {% break %}
+      {% else %}
+      <div class="col-sm-{% if counter < 3 %}6{% else %}4{% endif %} article-col">
         <a href="{{ post.url }}">
           <div class="article">
             <div class="center-fill-container img-container tinted">
@@ -51,17 +55,18 @@
             </div>
             <div class="details">
               <div class="head">
-                <h3 class="title"><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a></h3>
+                <h3 class="title"><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title  }}</a></h3>
                 <div class="tag"><a href="/category/{{ post.category }}/">{{ site.data.categories_name[post.category] }}</a></div>
                 <span class="date">{{ post.date | date: "%b %e, %Y" | upcase }}</span>
               </div>
-              {% if forloop.index < 3 %}
+              {% if counter < 3 %}
               <div class="excerpt">{% if post.excerpt != null %}{{ post.excerpt | markdownify }}{% endif %}</div>
               {% endif %}
             </div> <!-- details -->
           </div>
         </a>
       </div>
+      {% endif %}
       {% endfor %}
     </div>
   </section>

_includes/navbar.html

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
       <img class="logo" src="/images/logo-black.png">
       <div class="name-container">
         <div class="name">Watch Out!</div>
-        <div class="desc">Official News<br>Body of IITR</div>
+        <div class="desc">Student Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
       </div>
     </div>
   </a>
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
     <a href="/about">About</a>
     <a href="/guide">Guide</a>
     <a href="/getinvolved">Get Involved</a>
-    <a  href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
+    <a href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
     <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCthZ7tKOzy4EJpuVxtdcp1A"><img src="/images/youtube-play.svg"></a>
     <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/13290672/"><img src="/images/linkedin.png"></a>
   </div>
@@ -21,33 +21,36 @@
 <nav class="navbar navbar-default" data-spy="affix" data-offset-top="110">
   <div class="container">
     <div class="navbar-header">
-      <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="navbar">
+      <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbar" aria-expanded="false"
+        aria-controls="navbar">
         <span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>
         <span class="icon-bar"></span>
         <span class="icon-bar"></span>
         <span class="icon-bar"></span>
       </button>
-      <a class="navbar-brand" href="/">Watch Out!</a>
+      <!-- <a class="navbar-brand" href="/">Watch Out!</a> -->
     </div>
     <div id="navbar" class="navbar-collapse collapse">
-      <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">
+      <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right hacky-css">
         {% for cat in site.data.categories %}
-          {% if cat.subcategories != nil %}
-          <li class = "dropdown">
-            <a class="hover-underline" href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">{{ cat.title }} <span class="caret"></span></a>
-            <ul class="dropdown-menu">
-              {% for subcat in cat.subcategories %}
-               {% if site.categories[subcat.name] != nil %}
-                <li><a class="hover-underline" href="/category/{{ subcat.name }}/">{{ subcat.title }}</a></li>
-                {% endif %}
-              {% endfor %}
-            </ul>
-          </li>
-          {% elsif  site.categories[cat.name] != nil%}
-          <li><a class="hover-underline" href="/category/{{ cat.name }}/">{{ cat.title }}</a></li>
-          {% endif %}
+        {% if cat.subcategories != nil %}
+        <li class="dropdown">
+          <a class="hover-underline" href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">{{ cat.title }} <span
+              class="caret"></span></a>
+          <ul class="dropdown-menu">
+            {% for subcat in cat.subcategories %}
+            {% if site.categories[subcat.name] != nil %}
+            <li><a class="hover-underline" href="/category/{{ subcat.name }}/">{{ subcat.title }}</a></li>
+            {% endif %}
+            {% endfor %}
+          </ul>
+        </li>
+        {% elsif site.categories[cat.name] != nil%}
+        <li><a class="hover-underline" href="/category/{{ cat.name }}/">{{ cat.title }}</a></li>
+        {% endif %}
         {% endfor %}
       </ul>
-    </div><!--/.nav-collapse -->
+    </div>
+    <!--/.nav-collapse -->
   </div>
 </nav>

_posts/2017-06-11-architecture-at-iit-roorkee.md

@@ -1,100 +0,0 @@
----
-layout: post
-title: "Architecture at IIT Roorkee"
-tags: [wona]
-category: academics
-image: archi-q2_p2.jpg
-excerpt: "What is architecture? This question shall haunt you like a stubborn ghost for the initial 3 semesters of study – asked by professors to gauge your understanding of it – so it pays to know."
-height: 540px
----
-
-### What is Architecture?
-<br>
-This question shall haunt you like a stubborn ghost for the initial 3 semesters of study – asked by professors to gauge your understanding of it – so it pays to know.
-
-The standard definition – offered by a number of dictionaries – proclaims architecture to be “the art and science of designing buildings, open spaces and physical structures”; however, to fully appreciate the definition, one needs to understand the keywords better.
- 
-**Art**: As most people reading this would expect, architecture has several aesthetic considerations, “space” being the central one. Space is perhaps a very abstract concept, but it can be understood as the enclosure within which one is positioned. Your bedroom, living room, the dormitories you will come to live in – all – are spaces, although of differing quality. This quality is ascertained by the way the light filters in, the way the wind blows across the room, the sounds and smells that can be heard or smelled within a space, and myriad other factors. An architect’s duty is to make them more liveable and enjoyable to offset the mundanity of everyday life, or to elevate its loftiness.
- 
-**Science**: The science component only slightly resembles the kind you have been exposed to thus far. In architecture, science is a combination of principles and quantitative problems (numericals), with the former predominating. Architecture has several logical considerations, some of which are climate, cost (of construction, of running), making sure the structure/ building does not collapse and actually constructing whatever has been designed. Details shall follow in the next question.
- 
-**Design**: Design consists of juggling aesthetic, practical and several other parallel considerations to arrive at the best possible solution. In the case of architecture, one has to consider the sequence of spaces/rooms (their connectivity with each other), the climate, the cost, the materials that ought to be employed, the aesthetics, etc. and produce a design that pacifies each need. It is best learnt by practice.
-
-![archi 0](/images/posts/archi-q1.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
- 
-### Architecture as a course
-<br>
-The study of architecture requires one to be a generalist rather than a specialist. The constituent courses of the bachelor degree, as ascribed by the Council of Architecture, are centred around “Architectural Design”, which will be found in all semesters except the first (1.1) and the last three (4.2, 5.1, 5.2). In the fifth year, one works on their Thesis, a culmination of all skills acquired during the last four years, where he/she designs a building from start to finish, just as one would for an actual project. Other courses impart necessary skills and information required in order to design and actually construct a building. These include climatology, structures, building construction, architectural graphics, visual art, building codes and regulations, etc. A full list of courses – and details about them – can be found <span style="color:#72C5EB">[here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwI7Ki_XnyhmcURVd3FULW10azg)</span>
- 
-Each year has its own studio, a large room where they do most of their drafting; it comes equipped with an anthropometrically sound furniture set comprising a drafting table and a stool. A standard set of equipment comprises a parallel bar (a 100-something cm long scale that draws parallel lines), an adjustable set square, a sheet holder, A1, A2 or A3 sized cartridge sheets, a great number of pencils, an eraser, a cutter (to sharpen pencils with; sharpeners are for amateurs), and a fine-liner, although only the first and third are exposed.
- 
-To evaluate designs, a jury is conducted, where professors – and sometimes peers – criticize each design while the designer attempts to justify his decisions. Juries may severely damage egos or ignorance, depending on how one takes the criticism. Nevertheless, juries are the primary means of progress for any architectural design course.
- 
-Contrary to popular belief, architecture is not all about drawing, painting, and the like; although these are helpful skills during the course, they play a very preliminary role in design, and can nevertheless be picked up after joining the course. One does not need to be creative in the visual sense to take up architecture as a profession.
- 
-The course as a whole is rather challenging. It involves the longest contact hours of all courses and a great load of assignments, both of which – thankfully – eventually decrease. Good grades call for a mastery of all courses and fields – most importantly architectural design, which has the highest number of credits in any given semester. Architecture involves solving the biggest problems as well as the most minute. All these manifest as a great degree of frustration and a considerable number of late nights. For people who have studied the sciences all their lives – presumably with much interest and love – this will be a very different ball game.
-
-![archi 2](/images/posts/archi-q2_p5.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
- 
-### Architecture @ IITR: Cons – where we lag behind other colleges
-<br>
-If architecture is what you are interested in, IITR is perhaps not the best place to pursue it. A list of reasons are given below:
- 
-1. **Lack of competition**: Out of the thirty-something classmates that will constitute your class (most colleges have at least 70), very few will actually be interested in architecture. A great number of them shall turn in a very poor quality of assignments – if they do – aiming at just keeping their heads above the water. There is a tendency for the “good students” to become too self-sure and swim in seas of mediocrity.
-
-2. **Focus of the professors**: Unlike other colleges of architecture, the primary focus of professors in IITR is their body of research. All professors are highly qualified (holding at least a M. Arch degree; most have a PhD), although in their specific fields of interest. Only a handful of professors actually put in effort to keep the class interesting and impart relevant and sufficient knowledge. At present, there are only two visiting professors (practicing architects), who are infrequent with their visits. At top architectural schools such as SPA Delhi, this ratio is almost reversed; the design studio and juries are held and evaluated by practicing architects, who have an idea of the real world, of what really works and what doesn’t.
-
-3. **Not enough emphasis on design** : Architectural design, as stated earlier, is central to the entire curriculum. However, there are only 9 hours allotted to it per week, far less than any other good architectural school in the country. Design is a reiterative process, and requires constant feedback and work to be done right; 9 hours a week hardly ensures that.
-
-4. **Lack of studio culture**: “Studio culture” is an important part of the architecture degree (to know more, watch <span style="color:#72C5EB">[this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62r3UPrOS9k&t=1294s) </span>). All schools (almost without exception, including our sister IIT Kharagpur) leave their studios open during the night in order for the students to work on their assignments. It keeps one away from all the distractions of the hostel and ensures that those willing to work get a conducive environment to do it in. However, IITR chooses to be different in this rather inconvenient way.
-
-5. **Skewed sex-ratio**: The sex-ratio varies across all years, depending on the collective luck of the incoming freshmen. However, it is much lower than other colleges, where the sex ratio is 1:1 or better (with girls predominating).
-
-![archi 3](/images/posts/archi-q3.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
-
-### Architecture @ IITR: Pros – how IIT is better/different from other colleges
-<br>
-You have now managed to read past all the faults and misdeeds of architecture, so pat yourself on the back for a bit.
- 
-Architecture at IITR has many unique advantages. These are:
- 
-1. **A chance to make another field/skill your profession**: Even if one discovers that architecture isn’t their cup of tea, there are many alternate options available, unlike any other college of architecture. Related fields such as product design, graphic design and industrial design exist. Fields bearing little resemblance to architecture include coding, finance, consultancy and start-ups, to name a few. Self-interest and effort are primary requirements in such an undertaking, but campus groups and seniors help greatly. One can build his CV by interning in capacities closely related to the profession he/she wishes to pursue. Interns are much easier to come by with the help of the IIT tag. This is a good point in time to reiterate that very few people in any given batch choose architecture as their profession; the rest go into non-core jobs. 
-
-2. **The “Family system”** : All first years are inducted into one or more families within the initial two weeks of joining IITR. A family may choose to adopt you based on any number of criteria, or even at random (by chit-picking). Once in the family, the very first responsibility is helping the fifth year with their thesis; here one picks up preliminary model-making skills, and even software skills, should their baap allow it. This duty is renewed every year, but its formal nature is not. In return, it is any baap’s duty to give chaapos and advice on how to weather the storm that is architecture.
-
-3. **Societies, groups and sports**: Although architecture constitutes a very small number of the total intake, archi wale log can be found in most groups on campus. The reasons behind joining societies and groups stand as two polar opposites: some see them as opportunities to counter frustration, while others see them as opportunities to learn relevant skills, having discovered their disinterest in architecture. Either way, the number of groups and societies on campus is astronomical, with new ones cropping up every year. Chances are there is a group for each interest or intrigue you possess (an exhaustive list with brief information can be found <span style="color:#72C5EB"> [here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/campus-groups)</span> ). Similarly, facilities for all major sports can be found here, with exceptional coaching staff that bring out the best in you. The standard of sports are much higher than one would expect for a sorry bunch of nerds. More information can be found <span style="color:#72C5EB">[here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/sports)</span>
-
-4. **Semester Exchange** : A semester exchange is available for students having a decent CGPA (>7.5); up to three students can be accepted as exchange students in Hochschule Luzern (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts), Switzerland, in their 7th semester (4.1). This is an opportunity to learn how our western counterparts perceive and approach architecture, as well as to travel Europe, experiencing all that it has to offer. Here is an account of the experience, as recalled by a senior who visited Hochschule Luzern this year:<span style="color:#72C5EB"> [exchange diary switzerland](http://wona.co.in/2017/03/exchange-diaries-switzerland)</span>
-
-5. **Research opportunities** : Perhaps one characteristic that sets IITR apart from all other colleges is the emphasis it lays on research. Any student interested in research may approach a professor, consult him/her about the area/matter he wishes to investigate – and once he/she has the blessing of the professor – pursue it. In addition to the above, a program called SURA (Summer Undergraduate Research Awards) is also in place. Here, however, the approval is given by the central administration (Dean, SRIC) following a detailed presentation explaining the area of study and specifying the deliverables each week. A student who is shown the green light stays back during the summer, and submits a report at the end, after which he is given a partial refund and a stipend. For students of architecture, an additional opportunity lies in the form of the CBRI (Central Building Research Institute), which, although an autonomous body, abuts our campus. The CBRI develops new materials and ways of building and assists with problems of planning, designing and disaster mitigation. The CBRI is very welcoming of IITR students wishing to research such areas; two seniors (to the author’s knowledge) have written research papers under the CBRI.
-
-6. **On-campus placements** : Reportedly (that is, with questionable certainty), other architectural colleges do not have placements, or any sort of arrangements wherein graduates can find firms to employ them. At IITR, such a system does exist, but the number of firms and companies that recruit architects are just sufficient. However, when it comes to other fields such as the ones mentioned earlier, it is a level playing field, and architecture graduates can get non-core jobs provided they are meritorious. More information can be found <span style="color:#72C5EB">[here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/placements)</span>
- 
-![archi 3](/images/posts/archi-q4.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
-
-### Terms and Conditions for doing well in architecture
-<br>
-If, after carefully considering all the above information, you still want to pursue architecture at IITR, here are a few pointers that might help you.
- 
-1. **Give architecture a fair chance**. A considerable number do, but their effort does not sustain, and their enthusiasm dampens within the first two months. Giving architecture a chance entails doing all assignments conscientiously, at least for the first semester (which, in itself, forms an image of architecture that is far from reality).
-
-2. **Read**. Whether its articles on archdaily, or books on architecture, the more information you accumulate, the better. Some of the knowledge thus collected will be employed in your designs at one point or another.
-
-3. **Work on improving your visual communication skills** , i.e. drafting and sketching. A good (technical) drawing or sketch is worth a thousand words. Competitions organised by NASA (National Association of Students of Architecture) are the best way to do this.
-
-4. **Learn to take criticism objectively**. Any professor criticising you or your design is only doing so for your benefit, not to make himself/ herself feel big.
-
-5. **Perseverance is key**. There will be classmates better than you at sketching and artistic pursuits, but the belief that hard work can at least equal talent needs to be cultivated and acted upon. Similarly, a lot of your initial work and ideas may be shot down in the jury. Push yourself to do better. Sadly, results are what finally matter, the effort that one puts in merely accounts for consolation.
- 
-### Contact details
-<br>
-In case you have any doubts regarding the course that you wish to get clarified, feel free to call any of the people listed below:
- 
-**Divyang Purrkayastha (2nd year)**: +91 9560588732<br>
-**Ramachandra Reddy (3rd year)**: +91 9557902784<br>
-**Lanka Adarsh (3rd year)**: +91 9410577752/ +91 8218618294<br>
-**Anshul Rathore (4th year)**: +91 9917026076<br>
-**Deovrat Dwivedi (5th year)**: +91 7895473473<br>
-**Kshitij Joshi (5th year)**: +91 7895475628
-
-Illustration Credits: Leewardists

_posts/2018-02-14-Entrepreneurship-at-R.md

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Entrepreneurship at R: In conversation with Azam Ali Khan (CEO, TIDES IIT Roorkee)"
+category: verbatim
+credits: "Dhruv Singh and Ekdeep Singh Lubana"
+image: entreatr.jpg
+excerpt: "It’s great to be back here, but I think being on the other side of the table brings with it tonnes of challenges. When I started my journey here in 1998, it was a completely different place. It wasn’t even an IIT"
+---
+
+### To begin with, welcome back to IIT Roorkee. How does it feel to be back as an alumnus and handle a job that might play a salient role in Roorkee’s prosperity as a top ranked institute?
+
+It’s great to be back here, but I think being on the other side of the table brings with it tonnes of challenges. When I started my journey here in 1998, it was a completely different place. It wasn’t even an IIT; however, by the time I graduated, the transition from UoR to IIT was in full swing.
+
+A plethora of things have changed; a plethora have not. I reckon we used to have much deeper interaction with seniors, back then. Probably the hostels’ condition and infrastructure has changed for better. In our case, they weren’t particularly apt for survival! Jokes apart, I think a lot of things have changed in regards to students and their perspective about college. Students have become far more ambitious and zealous. However, still, when I compare Roorkee with other major institutions, I think Roorkee is still lacking in growing out of its self-imposed shackles. I don't get the "we're still not a full fledged IIT" mindset and other sorts of frequent comments. These thoughts merely stop us from unleashing our full potential. Case in point, we had calls from IIMs, for the first time, in 2000 - one from Ahmedabad and two from Calcutta - but once we broke that glass ceiling, we started getting multiple calls from thereon. So, probably, all that was necessary was to let go of the self designed limitations and create some awareness.
+
+Thus, things have changed a lot over the last 15 years. I was surprised that this is the same Roorkee I left in 2002; however, if the change leads to progress, it is definitely welcome. For example, about the startup revolution, this is something which was lacking in Roorkee then. Now, with a place such as TIDES in motion, we can cater to and promote a lot more entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship enthusiasts. This will end up generating employment in and out of R.
+
+### Do you think that startups are a taboo at R? Unconventional paths, such as entrepreneurship, are considered alternatives than palpable career choices?
+
+I think taboo would be tad harsh a word; but, definitely, there is a limitation, and it is put by the society at large. Students, being at the receiving end of it, have just been following the unsaid laws. Parents uphold apprehensions and have a hard time accepting entrepreneurship as a way of life. Entrepreneurship is usually considered as akin to “Shylockism”, which is not at all the case You are convincing people to buy your products; not forcing them - it takes actual skills and efforts, and, alas, should be given its much deserved accreditation. However, I believe, with initiatives like "Startup India", this limitation is bound to change; and, more so, is something that has to change. Also, if we do not pass the message from the top-most branches of the chain, the message that students can - and should - take up their innovations and ideas as tangible career choices, not a lot will happen. While working for Scandinavian countries, which are known for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I saw some important traits. The difference, as I am very vividly witnessing, is that they embrace failures, rather than brush them under the carpet. This culture is missing in general in India and more so in Roorkee, I think. Coming back to your question of startups being a "taboo", I must admit that most of my interactions have been with people who said that they couldn’t get a job, and, thus, opted to start-up. This mindset is totally a put-down for me. Believe me, getting a job is far, far easier than doing a startup. We really need to appreciate people who are taking a plunge into entrepreneurships. This appreciation should come from both - the society and the management of the institute - who should promote entrepreneurship as a leading activity. We need to ensure that students understand, "if you fail early, you learn early".
+
+### Do you think that the entrepreneurial culture has changed since your time here as a student?
+
+To be very frank, in those days, there was no entrepreneurial culture. We used to think about jobs and companies' schedule, only. From day 1, we were acquainted with the fact that we, the Chemical and Metallurgy folks, are not going to get a job in core; of course, because of minimal "core" companies showing up for placements. So, everybody was programming in C, C++, Java.
+
+### So we have this thing happening since 20 years now?
+
+Yeah. Unfortunately, may be we haven’t changed this culture in 20 years now. Probably, even the books you are reading today would be the same as we had. I mean, the world has gone leaps and bounds. If we are not making you employment ready, we are not making you entrepreneurship ready. These go hand-in-hand.If we are not teaching you Machine Learning, AI, and all the latest technology - believe it or not - you are not ready for the world.
+
+So, we do have a long way to go. I still see students from circuital branches refraining from entrepreneurship as a career, for, probably, they are acquainted with the fact that they have a better chance at scoring a placement offer. It's the non-circuital branches' students who indulge in such ventures, mostly. These trends say lengths about how much needs to be done.
+The thing is, whenever you think there is a safe option, the urge to succeed dies out. The cultural mindset needs to change and we have the potential to do it. A new mentality of "learning from failures" needs to be promoted.
+
+### Talking about TIDES, where do you (or an incubation center, in general) receive your funding to support startups from?
+
+We get our funding from various government agencies, like Department of Science & Technology (DST), NSTEDB, DEITY, etc. IIT Roorkee has been gracious to support us in our ventures, too. They have provided us with infrastructure and access to all the labs and faculty for mentorship. Frankly, the only reason TIDES is working as an independent entity is because we want to make the process faster for our incubatees and deliver according to their needs. Time is viciously crucial for startups, for they are in a make or break situation. We are also in the process of undergoing tie-ups with a few corporates, so that we can jointly access startups via a co-investment model. Further, a few PSUs are being approached, so that we can have sector focused startups under TIDES.
+
+### Could you tell us about the startups budding at TIDES?
+
+We have 10 startups, as of now, which are incubated; around 6-7 are in the pre-incubation phase; and 10-12, which we still need to access. They are from a variety of sectors - from IoT to FinTech. Fintech is a sector which has been explored a lot over the years, and, thus, you have to come up with a really innovative product/service to be incubated anywhere. We are trying to come up with more sector specific startups, too. We have been in talks with a few PSUs for a startup on smart construction activities, for we have a strong civil department. Venturing into biotech is also on the cards.
+
+### How would you categorize the startups at TIDES - product based, service oriented, etc.?
+
+We have startups which are mainly product based, as of yet. We have been promoting B2B startups, recently. Students are easily swayed by B2C, app-based startups; however, that model has gotten quite obsolete in terms of innovation. Thus, we promote B2B startups, all the while welcoming B2C startups too. We have the tinkering lab now in the same premises and are coming up with an IoT lab.
+
+### A "junta wants to know" question - do you consider Roorkee’s location to be ideal, at all, for a startup?
+
+An ideal location is highly relative and people really need to understand this. A location might be ideal for one startup, whilst not at all ideal for another.
+
+For an agritech or pharmaceutical startup, Roorkee is a highly apt location; same goes for a biotech startup. However, if we talk about an FMCG startup, Roorkee might not be an ideal location. So, it sorta depends.
+
+I accept that we struggle a bit because of transportation and the unavailability of a nearby airport, though. Even the government agencies and corporates we approach, they have to travel from Delhi to Roorkee; the nearest airport is in Dehradun, which, again, is 2-3 hours from here.
+This is one of the reasons why we are planning to open an extension arm in Greater Noida. It will be a feed for this center at Roorkee and gives us a uniqueness amongst IITs too, for we will have presence in 3 cities after Roorkee and Saharanpur.
+
+### How do you think the current academic curriculum can be changed by the administration for getting students industry-ready?
+
+If you want to improve student employability, I believe we must make it easy for the industries so that they don’t  have to spend on training fresh recruits. I think summer and winter internships are helping to support this model well, but it has to be more interesting to the students and industries alike. Like, a crazy, yet sane, idea would be to rope in some well known corporates and teach their actual manuals to some specific machines. Industries, thereby, will recruit with a mindset that these students are already well acquainted with our products, machines, and designs, and, thus, almost good-to-go.
+
+![tides](/images/posts/tides.png)
+
+### How accessible and supportive has the administration been? How can they help further?
+
+Oh, they have been extremely accessible. I can talk to the Director whenever I want to; all the Deans respond on mail, too. Accessibility is not an issue, at all. We have a lot of support and resources.
+
+However, TIDES cannot function in a silo. Things need to work in tandem. It is the joint responsibility of TIDES and the institute management to create an ecosystem supporting entrepreneurial ventures for students. 
+
+I reckon a curriculum centered around entrepreneurship will help loads. Innovative thinking needs to be promoted, only then entrepreneurship will become sustainable. As per my knowledge, there is no dedicated place to guide the students about the design part of product development, etc. To run a company, an overall understanding needs to be inculcated. TIDES rests at the end of this pipeline; wherein, when a person is ready with an idea, we provide him/her the platform and mentorship for getting to the consumers. 
+
+I also believe that administration - especially, faculty - should look into the humongous communication gap amongst B.Tech, M.Tech., and Ph.D. students. Whilst B.Tech. students are full of energy and creativity, PhDs have actual experience with technology. Marry these two together, and you shall have fantastic startups in the campus. And only the faculty can do that, for they are the bridge. Alas, I reckon TIDES, indeed, is a synergistic initiative - both, for the management as well as the students.
+
+### Where do you see TIDES 3-4 years from now?
+
+We want to make TIDES one of the top 5 incubators in India, and, in this regard, we need to go very fast. We are looking for great startups from across the country, and are intent on providing a nurturing ground to the incubatees - where they can cultivate their ideas and think/target globally. Hopefully, in the time span of 3-4 years, we can have 10-15 good startups. One must understand that getting a couple of good startups from a bunch of 50-100 is an achievement of highest orders.

_posts/2018-02-22-unnat-bharat-abhiyan.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Unnat Bharat Abhiyan"
+category: verbatim
+image: unnatbharat.jpeg
+excerpt: "Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, a program running under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, was launched in November 2014 with an aim to use the skills of the students of the premier"
+---
+
+*Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, a program running under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, was launched in November 2014 with an aim to use the skills of the students of the premier colleges in the country for innovative ideas to tackle the problems at the grassroots and work towards other aspects of development in villages. Under the same, the student chapter of UBA IIT Roorkee has adopted 8 villages of Dehradun, and Haridwar district. We speak to Sagar Gupta, the Student Coordinator of UBA IIT Roorkee, to understand the mechanics behind this initiative.*
+
+### What is the major work that UBA targets?
+
+Over the course of three years that UBA has functioned, the work done has mostly contributed significantly to the socio-economic upliftment of the villages. Some of the other major initiatives have been the cleaning of a local pond, an attempt to tackle education problems and the reconstruction of a vital trade route bridge. 
+
+### How does your team structure look like currently?
+
+Our team structure has two levels, currently, a ‘village’ level and a central team.
+We have five teams working in eight villages, and each team has two village coordinators one documentation coordinator and a finance coordinator. In the central team, we have six members, one each for documentation and finance, and three theme leaders for ‘Technology Intervention’, ‘Education’, and ‘Outreach’, and one overall team leader.
+
+### Could you give us an example of any one of your important initiatives?
+
+An initiative that heavily changed the daily facets of the residents’ of village Meerpur was the Biogas initiative. To encourage the use of renewable energy amongst the villagers, an awareness and registration drive of Biogas plant was organised by UBA in the village Meerpur-Muwazarpur in October 2015. Almost every household here is involved in animal husbandry and farming, hence producing cow-dung and other wastes that rot in open. These then become breeding grounds for pathogens, and add to the waste disposal problem. With the help of the biogas plants, these wastes have now been turned into viable sources of renewable energy. I’m proud to mention that this event for registration witnessed amazing participation, resulting in the installation of 33 biogas plants over time.
+
+### What has been the overall impact of this initiative?
+
+The consumption of LPG has gone down to one-fourth of what was used earlier, and many houses have found a sustainable alternative to firewood. The slurry produced as a by-product is a nutritious manure for the farms. The money invested has been recovered, saving Rs. 4000 per month of each household, achieving the economic break-even point in less than 14 months. In addition to this, there have been many positive impacts on health and household economy.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/unnatbharat2.jpeg){: style="width:90%;height:auto"}
+
+### Couple of years ago, you also initiated the ‘Polyhouse’ initiative that has garnered a lot of praise, including a feature in recent headlines. Could you tell us about that?
+
+A polyhouse is a structure providing a protective environment for the crops to grow. It incorporates the modern farming ideas and uses the concept of varying heat and moisture input to control the crop production. The protective environment helps specific types of plants to grow faster and increase the yield. The farms have seen multi-fold rise in production. The lower requirement of labour, electricity and fertilizers has been observed. This has been one of the first steps for modernising the farming industry. The Uttarakhand state government encourages the use of Polyhouses by providing a high amount of subsidy to farmers for installation of Polyhouses. 
+
+On observing the interest of the farmers in polyhouses, an awareness campaign was organised somewhere in April 2016, which resulted in the installation of 3 polyhouses with 6 more in the pipeline in Meerpur village. The turnover has been Rs. 4 Lacs per annum per 1000 sq. feet. The farmers will be able to break-even in just 4 years!
+
+### What do you have in mind for the immediate future?
+
+We are focusing on the technical interventions that our students can take up, to solve the basic problems and needs of the people of the village. We are putting in work towards building a water filter for iron removal, and we have started the ecological restoration of a nearby pond. We’re also helping the village’s Pradhan to make an effective Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).

_posts/2018-02-25-spoilt-with-choice.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Spoilt with Choice
+category: editorial
+image: spoilt-choice.png
+author: "Sanjana Srivastava, Sanat Bhargava, Manan Jain, Utkarsh Mujumdar, Agrim Patodia"
+excerpt: "That classmate you have been crushing on for the longest of times has finally agreed to go out with you. You know you have one shot at this. You also know that they like Chinese food, but if you picked an Italian place, you wouldn’t have to risk embarrassing yourself by trying to use chopsticks. What would you do?"
+
+---
+
+While it might be impudent of us to declare that the control humans seem to hold over the ‘choices’ they face is more of a handicap than a power, our claim might not be completely unfounded. Our life is littered with choices, and while we don’t seem to mind some of them, a majority of these choices find a way to annoy us by creeping into our daily decision-making, just when they’re uncalled for. 
+
+Surely enough, all the choices you’re going to have to face won’t always be plagued by an inherent difficulty in judging the merits of the alternatives offered. For instance, it probably wouldn’t be a burden to choose between two not-so-equal alternatives, like if boiled eggs were pitted against a slice of pizza, or if you had to choose between an hour of reading your favourite book, or an hour of talking to one of your relatives about what you (don’t) have planned for your future. These choices don’t seem to demand a lot of attention from you, probably because they bring with them a more favourable and a more obvious selection. 
+
+However, consider these three cases.
+
+
+- It’s 8:00 a.m. You’ve pulled an all-nighter ~~studying for the big quiz you have in a couple of days~~ trying to finish that TV series everyone has been talking about so that you can fit in. Now that you’re done with the series finale, you can finally tend to your hunger, which you had been shrugging off as the plot thickened. Additionally, you’re too sleep-deprived to walk too far. Consequently, the only option you have left is to drag yourself to the mess and eat whatever is offered to you, or just go to bed hungry. _**What do you do?**_
+
+
+- That classmate you have been crushing on for the longest of times has finally agreed to go out with you. You know you have one shot at this. You also know that they like Chinese food, but if you picked an Italian place, you wouldn’t have to risk embarrassing yourself by trying to use chopsticks. _**What do you do?**_
+
+
+- You have to vote for one of the two students contesting for the college elections. One of them cut in front of you a month ago while you were obediently waiting in line for taking sweets in the mess. The other did not post a message on your timeline on your birthday. _**What do you do?**_
+
+
+While all three of the aforementioned hypotheticals represent a choice, they’re all not the same. The first is a classic case of what is referred to as a _Hobson’s Choice_. In this situation, you are in a ‘take it or leave it’ situation, where you either have to settle for the only alternative available, which, for all you know, is not worth taking a shot at; or just end up empty-handed. The latter two situations, on the other hand, are each an example of a _Morton’s Fork_. Often used interchangeably with the concept of a _dilemma_, a Morton’s Fork is a case where you have two or more equally appealing (or unappealing) choices to pick from, which is where it gets tricky. All of these situations highlight how perceived luxury of having choices becomes too rich for our blood. Weighing the pros and cons and delving into quick mental analyses for these choices in terms of the implications they may have is too tedious an exercise to consider, mostly because the circumstances are too trivial to demand your attention.
+
+But what if we raise the stakes here, just enough to make you worry? What if you were to choose between two college majors, or you were at the point in your life where you had to decide a career?
+
+Our brain tends to attach gravity to every choice it faces by ruminating on the possible repercussions of a bad choice. It plays out all the probable outcomes, considering them, and agonizing you enough to keep you up at night, maybe even frustrating you to a point where you resign yourself to a belief that you’d be better off constricted in an alternate dimension, devoid of choice. To add to our misery, our ever-so-sadistic brain appends some kind of responsibility with every choice it faces. It bestows upon us an authority to take a call, an authority that amplifies mutually with the perceived importance of a decision. 
+
+What is this authority, really? 
+
+Given that one doesn’t control the consequences in the aftermath of a decision, it would be safe to assume that the power we speak of is merely apparent, imminent to be rendered worthless in the grander scheme of things. You could never know what the other paths would have been like, because you didn’t get a chance to experience them. One of the physical models of the universe (or the multiverse, to be precise) makes an attempt at explaining this notion through the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. It proposes that every possible alternate timeline for the universe is real and they all happen in an ever-larger, ever-branching way. To put it in simpler words, it means that at whichever point we have to make a choice among the possible options, our life splits into multiple universes, entailing the path we choose. So theoretically, all the possible stories do take place, but we happen to experience only one of them. Life is the best simulation video game there is, where your choices form your story. No matter what you choose, the other options quickly evanesce as you don't know what they had to offer. Hence, there is no right or wrong in choice, and that explains the power we talked about earlier. The fact that you _have a_ choice, therein lies this apparent power.
+ 
+This romanticised delineation, however, pokes fun at the human emotion of regret. If no one knows where the other path would have taken oneself, then why does one lament his decision? Sure, the other path might have suited someone else, but that does not really mean that it would have turned out to be the same way for you. Maybe the outcome isn't what we thought it would be, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we made the inapt decision. Maybe the outcome in the other situation might have been worse. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, since now, it’s something that you just can't change. Every choice, whether tiny or huge, is immensely important at the moment you face it, and it loses all of its importance the second you make it. 
+
+The feigned presence of meaning to our decisions is perplexing enough to lead us to a futile search for a scapegoat, which finds its distressing comfort in regret. The powerlessness over the circumstances we might face unsettles us. And this, unfortunately, is enough to send us into a cycle of self-reproach and ‘what-ifs’.

_posts/2018-03-06-iitr-at-nasa.md

@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "IITR's Exploits at NASA"
+category: bigstory
+image: nasa-cover.jpg
+excerpt: "The National Association of Students of Architecture (abbreviated as NASA) is a student organization with over 200 member colleges from India and neighbouring countries."
+---
+
+The **National Association of Students of Architecture** (abbreviated as **NASA**) is a student organization with over 200 member colleges from India and neighbouring countries. It was established in 1957 by seven colleges (one of which was IIT Roorkee), with the “common aim and objective to provide the students a platform for interaction, a platform where students from varied cultural backgrounds would learn and share their knowledge”. 
+
+To this effect, NASA India holds the Annual NASA Convention where the work of the students is displayed and evaluated, mostly through the medium of competitions. This year, IIT Roorkee (with a team of 46 students) took part in 7 competitions:
+
+<ol start="1">
+<li> <b>The Louis I Kahn Trophy</b> : The LIK trophy aims to “improve the quality of architectural education in the context of the historic environment, and the legacy of knowledge, skills and training required to better protect and conserve this heritage”.</li>
+</ol>
+
+This year, IIT Roorkee documented the **District Collectorate, Nainital** for the same. They stood amongst the **Top 10** colleges within the competition.
+
+<ol start="2">
+<li> <b>HUDCO Trophy</b> : This trophy aims at “designing for the informal sector and give design alternatives for the issues pertaining to the solutions to Sustainable Urban Development”.</li>
+</ol>
+
+The brief called for “affordable housing using green and emerging technology” into an otherwise standard housing project (with a specified ratio of EWS/LIG/MIG). The IIT Roorkee team chose a site in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and proposed a design within the specified parameters. They finished in the **Top 4** colleges within the competition.
+
+![IITR's Showcase](/images/posts/nasa-showcase.jpg)
+
+<ol start="3">
+ <li> <b>Laurie Baker Trophy</b> : The trophy “gives attention towards the cost effective building techniques, materials and execution of the same”.</li>
+</ol>
+
+The problem posed in this years’ brief was to devise a Master Plan for a Government Primary School (meeting a list of certain specified criteria). The IIT Roorkee team chose a school in the nearby village of Safarpur, and – through a participatory process – synthesized a plan for a period of 10 years. The team finished in the **Top 11** out of 56 colleges.
+
+<ol start="4">
+<li> <b>Writing Architecture Trophy</b> : The aim of the trophy is to “inculcate the intrinsic observation capabilities of students to be aware of the real World around them, and make propositions and express their thoughts in the form of written matter in line with a particular theme”.</li>
+</ol>
+
+This year’s brief called for a revaluation of “heritage” (in light of the demolition of The Hall of Nations), and posed a few other pertinent questions regarding India’s “modern heritage”. The IIT Roorkee team finished **1<sup>st</sup>** in a pool of about 150 entries.
+
+<ol start="5">
+<li> <b>GRIHA Trophy</b> : The trophy is a collaborative initiative between NASA India and GRIHA, aiming “to expose students to Green and Sustainable Architecture.”</li>
+</ol>
+
+This year’s problem was to propose a design for the “Milestone Experion Centre” in Gurgaon, comprising an office complex, a banquet hall, and multi-cuisine restaurants, in line with the GRIHA rating system. The IIT Roorkee team could not, unfortunately, make the shortlist.
+
+<ol start="6">
+<li> <b>DesTech Challenge</b> : The trophy aims to be “a unique design competition that brings together creative thinking and digital advancements in the built environment sector. It challenges creative thinkers to explore opportunities within ‘Smart City’ systems, processes and engagement strategies.”</li>
+</ol>
+
+The brief encouraged the participants to envision a smart city which satisfied a set of “scenarios”, asking them, also, to explain their thought process behind this envisioned future. The team stood 1st in the competition.
+
+
+The team was also shortlisted **(Top 10)** for the **Le Corbusier Trophy**, awarded for overall performance across all trophies held by NASA India. This marks IIT Roorkee’s best ever performance in the Annual NASA Convention thus far, and is – in good hope – indicative of better things to come.

_posts/2018-03-08-entrepreneurship-at-r.md

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Entrepreneurship at R: In conversation with EDC and Enactus"
+category: verbatim
+image: enactus.jpg
+excerpt: "Following up on our conversation with Azam Ali Khan, the CEO of TIDES business Incubator, we caught up with Ankit Bagaria, the head of Enactus, and Aayush Gupta, a member of the Entrepreneurship Development Cell of IIT Roorkee to chat about the role of student bodies in fostering and encouraging the entrepreneurial culture at R. Here are some excerpts from our conversation."
+---
+
+_Following up on our conversation with Mr. Azam Ali Khan, the CEO of TIDES business Incubator, we caught up with Ankit Bagaria, the head of Enactus, and Aayush Gupta, a member of the Entrepreneurship Development Cell of IIT Roorkee to chat about the role of student bodies in fostering and encouraging the entrepreneurial culture at R. Here are some excerpts from our conversation._
+
+### As students, what do you think the importance of a culture of entrepreneurship is at IIT Roorkee? 
+
+_**Aayush:**_ When it comes to students of an IIT, I have a belief that we are expected to generate jobs instead of following other people or joining other companies. We want to use this opportunity of studying at a premier institute to make lives easier by coming up with new and better products and services, and entrepreneurship is an exciting way of doing just that. The role of EDC, in any campus, is to generally promote entrepreneurship  and to make people aware of what entrepreneurship exactly is. In essence, we want to develop an environment where innovation and new ideas are celebrated.  
+
+### How exactly does EDC promote the ‘spirit of entrepreneurship’ as you say?
+
+_**Aayush:**_ So basically, we organise a couple of major events in the campus, like TEDx, or the upcoming eSummit; apart from which we have initiatives like the Startup Internship Program. I believe that bringing in more and more people working in startups to our campus to tell us how a startup actually works will encourage students here to start their own thing in the future. Apart from the events we are also working on a portal through which we want people to engage in fruitful networking. Through these events and initiatives we create a huge amount of resources for people to rely on. We have a huge network of experts, too, so that whenever a student needs any kind of help, you know, if he wants to connect to some alumni or someone else, to talk about his questions related to entrepreneurship, he can openly come to EDC, and we'll get him connected! 
+
+### So how does Enactus come into the picture?
+
+_**Ankit:**_ So basically when you talk about entrepreneurship in general, there is no set way of learning the concepts, you know? There has to be a certain practice, in a way, of dealing with and actually ‘doing’ what entrepreneurship entails. Enactus, which is short for ‘Entrepreneurial Action for Us’, is a global organization that promotes social entrepreneurship among students all over the world, by giving the students the opportunity to perform in live projects.  That, I believe, is where Enactus has a huge role to play. 
+
+### About that, how would you define social entrepreneurship?
+
+_**Ankit:**_ Social entrepreneurship, in a general sense, includes the business-oriented or entrepreneurial activities that focus on the impact on the sustainability of the commercial ecosystem, before revenues or profits. 
+
+_**Aayush:**_ One important example that comes to my mind is of Tesla. Tesla made its first car- an electric car- and they had this vision that they wanted more and electric cars in the world. Now they could've easily made a lot more money out of being a monopoly, but they openly shared their design so that they could have this ‘movement’ on a big scale so that people from other companies can also start building electric cars!
+
+_**Ankit:**_ Exactly! We don't want to compromise the chance of having a healthy competition for our own profits.
+
+### We recently had an interview with the CEO of TIDES and I understand that TIDES, EDC, Enactus and all of these similar campus organisations have to maintain a certain synergy for entrepreneurship to thrive in a campus like ours. As a student, how exactly do you think TIDES can help in this dynamic?
+
+_**Aayush:**_ Entrepreneurship, to be frank, is basically a journey. I think the role of EDC is to get a person from zero to one, and that of TIDES is to get him from one to a hundred! For example, if a person is interested in starting up but is, for the lack of a better word, clueless, EDC's role is to tell him about entrepreneurship, to help him realise his ideas, to connect him to potential mentors, and to help him build a team. Once he has an idea and wants to legitimately materialize it, he can then go to TIDES, because TIDES has a tremendous amount of resources. They can get funds, a great office space, and subsequent mentorship from TIDES, while we supplement their role by making the initial rudimentary steps a little easier. 
+
+_**Ankit:**_ In addition to what Aayush says, campus groups like ours are catering to a different idea altogether. Say I have an idea but I don't know how that idea needs to be developed, EDC needs to come into the picture when someone is trying to develop on that idea. In addition to this, even if students don’t have ideas, groups like Enactus, or even ShARE, for that matter, can help them by giving them live projects and case studies to try their hand at real life problems.
+
+### What kind of real-life problems?
+
+_**Ankit:**_ Currently, we at Enactus have a few live projects, one of which is to empower the farmers, another deals with waste paper management and creating employment out of it, yet another deals with the social inclusion of the specially-abled, and so on. So as you can see the horizon for a social entrepreneurship venture is huge and Enactus gives the students that horizon to explore, along with a chance to actually see how actual problems can be solved. Enactus also hosts a national and an international competition each year for its University chapters, giving students a chance to showcase their projects to business leaders and investors.
+
+### And about the working spaces, how big of an issue is it?
+
+_**Ankit:**_ Actually, very recently, while we were working for one of our flagship projects: ‘Kaagaz’, we faced the same issue. In the ideation phase and the prototyping phase, we had to do everything from our rooms and that creates a lot of mess because you cannot work with a huge team in small rooms. A coworking space definitely helps.
+
+_**Aayush:**_ Yeah, in the absence of good facilities, people generally work from their rooms or other random places they find, which is a huge reason why I really believe we need coworking spaces. We have a lot of spaces in terms of TV Rooms or Common Rooms in hostels which are heavily underutilised. Converting them to coworking spaces would certainly help our cause. Additionally, the highly diminished female involvement due to this dorm-room work culture is an issue that we really should be considering!
+
+### In order for you to thrive as a student body, how do you think EDC or Enactus needs to evolve, and where do you see yourselves fitting into the campus setups?
+
+_**Aayush:**_ We envision EDC turning into something like the eCells in our sister IITs. As an eCell, we could ensure our promotion among the faculty, too, since the name is actually very well known. We are merely a student group right now, and we are trying to be a ‘program’ or an ‘organisation’.
+
+_**Ankit:**_ On similar lines, Enactus is based on social entrepreneurship. We are not doing things for profit, and being a campus group and under the given organization guidelines, we have regulations that we need to follow. We cannot be a profitable venture inside the campus so we believe that the CSR funds that our institute and the alumni funds might have could help us in tremendous ways. Also, speaking of our global guidelines, we cannot be a part of any other group. Hence, wherever we come in, we must function independently and effectively.
+
+### Closing notes, then. I’m pretty sure that as parts of EDC and Enactus, you must have compared and contrasted the similar organizations in various other institutes. Where do you see a chance for us to grow?
+
+_**Aayush:**_ I have been talking to a couple of people on IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur, and the one thing I observed was that they have a more open culture for working on their initiatives. They have fifty-odd people from different years, and even from the M. Tech and PhD community, volunteering for their projects and initiatives. I really want IIT Roorkee to focus on this as well. We have this big event, eSummit, coming up, and organising eSummit only with a bunch of core team members from EDC is not possible. Apart from that IITs hold a responsibility of fostering entrepreneurship not only inside our own institutes but also in the state, and I look forward to taking up such mentoring initiatives as a part of IIT Roorkee!
+
+_**Ankit:**_ Enactus has got 1800 chapters around the world, and out of those 160 are in India. However, most of these chapters are in commerce colleges. One thing that we as a technical institute can bring in to Enactus is the technical penetration into a social venture. Until now, I believe that we’re on the right track, and we’re trying to go as deep as we can here. Another thing about which my views resonate with Aayush’s is that the number of students volunteering for such activities and ventures is quite high in other colleges and in other Enactus chapters. That, I guess, would be my appeal to the students at IIT Roorkee. We’re sure that through this, it’ll be easier for entrepreneurial culture to develop in our institute!

_posts/2018-03-09-funding-extracurriculars.md

@@ -0,0 +1,635 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Funding Your Extracurriculars
+category: bigstory
+image: funding.jpg
+author: "Uday Shinghal, Yash Singh, Muskaan Bhambri"
+excerpt: "Every semester, every student of IIT Roorkee each pays a certain amount towards the ‘Gymkhana Activities’ of the institute. This amount, which sums up to Rs. 6000 every academic year (Rs. 3000 every semester), is meant to cover the expenditure of all the extracurricular activities in the campus. With an approximate strength of students at IIT Roorkee being close to seven thousand, an amount of Rs. 6000 per student translates to an annual budget of over Rs. 4 crores."
+
+---
+Every semester, every student of IIT Roorkee each pays a certain amount towards the ‘Gymkhana Activities’ of the institute. This amount, which sums up to Rs. 6000 every academic year (Rs. 3000 every semester), is meant to cover the expenditure of all the extracurricular activities in the campus. With an approximate strength of students at IIT Roorkee being close to seven thousand, an amount of Rs. 6000 per student translates to an annual budget of over Rs. 4 crores. 
+
+As substantial as the amount might seem, a perfect testimony to the importance of such an extensive budget was given by the former Director of IIT Roorkee, Dr. Pradipta Banerjee. During the orientation ceremony of the batch of 2016-17, he said, “Students, when you go out in public, you wear a suit to create an impression. Similarly, your academics might be your trousers and your shirt, but your extracurriculars play the role of your blazer and your tie.” 
+
+With the dissolution of the Hobbies Club in the previous academic year, a Students’ Technical Council (organized along the lines of the Cultural Council and the Sports Council) emerged to cater to the demands of students involved in multiple technical clubs and groups. The Gymkhana fees, apart from the needs of the cultural, sports, and technical councils, also fulfils the requirements of various other campus activities that are pivotal to students’ everyday lives. For the very first time, a well-structured breakdown of the Gymkhana fees was released publicly last year by the former Convenor of SAC, Mr. Apurwa Sarwajit. While there have been some changes to the erstwhile allocation, the breakdown, in our belief, is still immensely convoluted and volatile in nature.
+
+<!--- graph 1-->
+<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/Chart.js/2.7.2/Chart.min.js"></script>
+
+
+<canvas id="myChart1" width="400" height="200"></canvas>
+<script>
+var ctx1 = document.getElementById("myChart1").getContext('2d');
+var myChart1 = new Chart(ctx1, {
+   	
+   		type: 'horizontalBar',
+        data: {
+        	
+        	labels: ["BRP", "DOSW (Misc. Students' Activities)", "Sports Council", "Students' Club", "Students' Technical Council (STC)", "Bhawan (Bachelor's/Married)","Cultural Council","Cinema Club","HEC","SPIC MACAY","SAC","ADOSW (Students' Wellness)", "ADOSW (Students' Activites","N.S.S"],
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+        	datasets: [{
+                label: '₹ per student',
+            	data: [1700,1200,850,450,400,400,350,150,150,100,90,80,50,30],
+            	backgroundColor:'#C4C4C4',
+               	hoverBackgroundColor:'#00CF21',
+            	borderWidth: 2,
+            	barThickness: .2
+        	}]
+    	},
+        options:{
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+            		left: 120,
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+           	},
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+            	}],
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+        				color:"white",	
+        			},
+                	ticks: {
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+                   		display: true,
+    					fontFamily: "Open Sans",
+    					fontStyle:"SemiBold",
+    					fontcolor:"#BDBDBD",
+                		
+                		callback: function(value, index, values) {
+                       	return '₹' + value;
+                        }
+                	}
+            	}]
+            }
+    }
+});
+</script>
+
+![pic1](/images/posts/gymkhana1.png){: style="width:45%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+###  Bhawans
+
+**Bhawan Replacement & Purchase (BRP): ₹1700/- per student per year**
+
+**All Bachelors’ Bhawans: ₹400/- per student per year**
+
+_Note: A majority of our gymkhana fees (28%) goes to the DOSW for Bhawan Replacement & Purchase (BRP) Fund. In addition to the BRP fund, an amount of ₹400/- is also paid to the respective bhawans for promoting cultural activities, paying salaries to temporary employees, and taking care of all miscellaneous activities in the bhawans._
+
+A conversation with Mr. Aniket Jaiswal, the Cultural Secretary of Rajiv Bhawan, brought to the forefront that a major chunk of the allocated fund is consistently spent on the salaries of the temporary staff, and hence, little is left for bhawan activities. In addition to this, exorbitant expenses were incurred for Rajiv Bhawan’s last bhawan day, with food costing ₹650/- per plate (paid through the CCB account) and approximately ₹1,00,000 spent on decorations, tents, etc. Apart from bhawan inmates, only deans, institute guests, and the student senators are invited to such days.
+
+Upon being asked about the significance of bhawan days, which usually prove to be quite an expense to the institute, Ms. Pragya Choudhary, the current Technical Secretary of Kasturba Bhawan, said, _“It is a way to make unresponsive people responsive and imbibe a sense of belongingness in the bhawan inmates.” She further termed the usage of the bhawan funds as “confidential”._
+
+When asked about the usage of the BRP fund, Mr. Sambhav Jain (GS: Hostel Affairs), responded, _“The BRP funds are being used judiciously—but not uniformly—by the various bhawans, because the funds are controlled centrally and are allocated to a particular bhawan only on the request of the concerned council. This, in a sense, means that if a bhawan council is sufficiently proactive, they can access a huge portion of the funds and use it as per the bhawan’s needs.”_
+
+<!--- graph 2-->
+<canvas id="myChart2" width="400" height="200"></canvas>
+<script>
+var ctx2 = document.getElementById("myChart2").getContext('2d');
+var myChart2 = new Chart(ctx2, {
+   	
+   		type: 'horizontalBar',
+    	data: {	
+        	labels: ["Sarojini", "Rajendra", "Jawahar", "Cautley", "Govind", "Azad","Ravindra","Kasturba","RKB","Ganga","Rajiv", "Others"],
+        	
+        	datasets: [{
+                label: '₹',
+            	data: [644918,562493,533725,526504,459337,448443,365540,235481,233481,200675,186588,250000],
+            	backgroundColor:'#C4C4C4',
+               	hoverBackgroundColor:'#00CF21',
+            	borderWidth: 2,
+            	barThickness: .2
+        	}]
+    	},
+        options: {
+   		 	layout: {
+        		padding: {
+                	left: 245,
+                	right: 0,
+                	top: 0,
+                	bottom: 0
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+        	},
+        	scales: {
+            	yAxes: [{
+            		gridLines: {
+        		  	   display:true,
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+					},
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+                        display: true,
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+    				    fontStyle:'SemiBold',
+    				    fontcolor:"#4F4F4F",
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+            	}],
+            		
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+                    	display: true,
+    					fontFamily: "Open Sans",
+    					fontStyle:"SemiBold",
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+                		
+            			callback: function(value, index, values) {
+                        	return '₹' + value;
+                        }
+                	}
+            	}]
+        	}
+    }
+});
+</script>
+
+![pic1](/images/posts/gymkhana2.png){: style="width:45%;height:auto"}
+
+
+On the condition of anonymity, one of the current senators clearly vouched for the need of an alternate channel for the distribution of BRP funds since the current mode (through the DOSW office) usually ‘causes delays’.
+<br>
+
+
+###  Students’ Activities
+
+**Misc. Students’ Activities (DOSW): ₹1200/- per student per year<br>
+Students’ Activities (ADOSW): ₹50/-  per student per year** 
+
+The funds act as buffer in cases where unanticipated disbursement has to be made. The activities falling under this section remain very motley and unpredictable. For instance, the fee for YourDost, the online counselling and emotional wellness platform, was paid from these funds. Also, in case a student seeks monetary help from college, if deemed worthy, these funds are used. If RFID-enabled cards, for example, are ever issued to the students, they shall be paid for through this channel.  
+<br>
+
+
+###  Sports Council
+
+**Sports Council: ₹850/- per student per year**
+
+While IITR boasts of one of the best sports facilities in the country, that there is a ‘preference’ for the NSO-registered students and those selected for institute teams is the complaint of a majority of the students. To counter this, Mr. Shubham Vij (GS: Sports Affairs) has promised the establishment of ‘beginners’ camps’ for every student, as each student pays the sports fee. He also urges students to participate in the intra-bhawan and inter-bhawan sports competitions and contribute to developing a healthy sporting culture at IITR. However, for students who want to try their hands at a new sport, lack of adequate equipment and support infrastructure still remain a major concern.
+
+
+_Note: The breakdown varies with time and from sport to sport; therefore, we were unable to get a more detailed deconstruction of the funds. This will be covered in greater detail in a Watch Out article in the works, which will assess the intricacies of the sports culture at IITR._
+<br>
+
+
+###  Students’ Club
+
+**Students’ Club: ₹450/- per student per year**
+
+The Students’ Club accounts for 7.5% of the gymkhana fees. This is used in its entirety for the functioning and maintenance of the three units of the Students’ Club, namely, the Main Unit, the Alaknanda Unit and the Jawahar Unit, (which is soon to be transferred under Jawahar Bhawan Council’s jurisdiction as per Mr. Arpit Agrawal, the current Technical Secretary of Jawahar Bhawan). It has ample infrastructure in all its units, with the maximum obviously being in the Main Unit.
+
+The Students’ Club has a total of 5 permanent employees, 6 temporary employees, and 1 part-time accountant. The permanent employees, of which 2 will be retiring soon, have _‘pretty high salaries’_, as stated by Mr. Suyash Vishnoi (Secretary: Students’ Club). The data obtained from the Annual Account Statement seems to support his claims, revealing that nearly 72% of the allocated funds go into paying salaries to the employees. Even after said retirement of personnel, this will remain the single largest guzzler of Students’ Club’s funds.
+                   
+The second largest chunk of the expenditure is on billiard games, comprising maintenance of the pool and snooker tables, and all other related equipment. It accounts for a mere 7.5%, however, in monetary terms, this translates to Rs. 3,17,000. At the same time, these games contribute to the income of the Students’ Club through the _‘coupons and bookings’_ which bring in about Rs. 3,75,000, and hence, they comfortably compensate for their expenditures.
+
+The previous year saw the first time that the Students’ Club ran in deficit. Therefore, corpus funds from the last ten years were used to compensate for the same. This put pressure on these coffers and in the words of the Secretary, they will soon be exhausted. Mr. Vishnoi adds that the Club has been advised by the SAC to exhaust these before an increase in the share of Students’ Club in the Gymkhana fees can be considered. Additionally, there has been a consistent decrease in the said share from Rs. 550 to Rs. 500, and finally to Rs. 450 in the past 3 years. With the Chess team now regularly representing (and bringing in laurels) in various competitions like the Inter-IIT Sports Meet, we believe that the reconsideration of this fund is imminent. 
+
+
+The Students’ Club has been proactive in increasing the usage of its paraphernalia by the student community. It has organised snooker workshops to increase participation by non-players as well as hired a chess coach to help the teams with their Inter-IIT sports meet preparations. The club also spends approximately Rs. 4,50,000 on the Annual Club Day and other activities, including the tournaments it holds round the year.
+
+<!--- graph 3-->
+<canvas id="myChart3" width="400" height="100"></canvas>
+<script>
+var ctx3 = document.getElementById("myChart3").getContext('2d');
+var myChart3 = new Chart(ctx3, {
+   	
+   		type: 'horizontalBar',
+    	data: {
+        	labels: ["Club Contribution (Gymkhana)", "Coupons Sales, Bookings etc.", "Interest by Bank", "Others"],
+        	
+        	datasets: [{
+                label: '₹',
+            	data: [3607000,375240,111690,6410],
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+               	hoverBackgroundColor:'#00CF21',
+            	borderWidth: 2,
+            	barThickness: .2
+        	}]
+    	},
+        options: {
+            title: {
+                display: true,
+                text: 'INFLOW'
+            },
+   		 	layout: {
+        	    padding: {
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+               		top: 0,
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+            	}],
+            		
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+                   		display: true,
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+    					fontStyle:"SemiBold",
+    					fontcolor:"#BDBDBD",
+                		
+               			callback: function(value, index, values) {
+                        	return '₹' + value;
+                            }
+                		}
+            		}]
+        	}
+        }
+});
+</script>
+
+<br>
+
+
+
+<canvas id="myChart3b" width="400" height="150"></canvas>
+<script>
+var ctx3b = document.getElementById("myChart3b").getContext('2d');
+var myChart3b = new Chart(ctx3b, {
+   	
+   		type: 'horizontalBar',
+    
+    	data: {
+        	
+        	labels: ["Establishment (Salaries etc.)", "Furniture & Electrical Items", "Indoor Game Items", "Billiard Game Items", "News Paper & Magazine", "Music & Gardening","Computer Peripherals","Club Day & Any other"],
+        	
+        	datasets: [{
+                label: '₹',
+            	data: [3061492,92573,162656,316986,18955,61750,37795,479546],
+            	backgroundColor:'#C4C4C4',
+               	hoverBackgroundColor:'#00CF21',
+            	borderWidth: 2,
+            	barThickness: .2
+        	}]
+    	},
+        options: {
+   		 	layout: {
+        		    padding: {
+                		left: 145,
+                		right: 0,
+                		top: 0,
+                		bottom: 0
+            		},
+            },
+            title: {
+                        display: true,
+                        text: 'EXPENDITURES',
+            },
+        	scales: {
+            		yAxes: [{
+            			gridLines: {
+        					display:true,
+        					color:"white",
+						},
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+            		}],
+            		
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+    						fontStyle:"SemiBold",
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+                		
+                			callback: function(value, index, values) {
+                        	return '₹' + value;
+                           	}
+                		}
+            		}]
+        	}
+        }
+});
+</script>
+<br>
+![pic3](/images/posts/gymkhana3.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+<br>
+
+###  Students’ Technical Council
+
+**Students’ Technical Council**: ₹400/- per student per year
+
+<!--- graph 4-->
+<canvas id="myChart4" width="400" height="150"></canvas>
+<script>
+var ctx4 = document.getElementById("myChart4").getContext('2d');
+var myChart4	 = new Chart(ctx4, {
+   	
+   		type: 'horizontalBar',   
+    	data: {
+        	labels: ["Software Development Section", "Models and Robotics Section", "Inter IIT Tech Meet", "Artificial Intelligence and Electronics Section", "Entrepreneurship Development Cell", "SAE","Astronomy and Physics Club","Design Studio","ShARE"],
+        	
+        	datasets: [{
+                label: '₹',
+            	data: [500000,417000,400000,355000,290000,220000,200000,125000,100000],
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+               	hoverBackgroundColor:'#00CF21',
+            	borderWidth: 2,
+            	barThickness: .2
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+                	}
+            	}],	
+            	xAxes: [{
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+        				display:true,
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+        				color:"white",
+                    },
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+                		display: true,
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+    					fontStyle:"SemiBold",
+						fontcolor:"#BDBDBD",
+
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+                        	return '₹' + value;
+                
+                        }
+                	}
+            	}]
+        	}
+    }
+});
+</script>
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/gymkhana4.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+
+_“STC currently gets Rs. 400 per student of the total gymkhana fees. In the past years, the Council has had a splendid record, winning national and international competitions, and organizing workshops/lectures which have been a great source of technical knowledge in the campus. Given the promising potential of the Council, there is still scope for more efficient usage of increased funds, if provided. Also, in an effort to make groups more open, and for students to be able to bear the fruits of their gymkhana fees, the STC [had] launched an initiative that [sic] all STC groups will be listing all the resources/equipment purchased by them through STC Funds publicly. Any student can issue that resource/equipment just by writing an application to the respective group's secretary [sic]. If available, that resource or equipment can be issued to her/him.”_
+
+**_-Mr. Punit Dhoot, (GS: Technical Affairs)_**
+
+(Footnote: <span style="color:#0645AD">[Resources of STC](https://www.facebook.com/stciitr/posts/1580009178747703)</span>)
+
+<br>
+While Tinkering Lab and TIDES do not receive finances from the Gymkhana fees, SAE—in addition to the funds allocated from the gymkhana fees—receives monetary help from the Director’s Endowment Funds. The funds (shown in the graph above) were allocated at the request of the respective groups based on their judgements and needs. The breakdown, clearly, does not represent the institute’s or SAC’s perspective on the requirement of council groups.
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+###  Cultural Council 
+
+**Cultural Council**: ₹350/- per student per year
+
+<br>
+
+<!--- graph 5-->
+<canvas id="myChart5" width="500" height="300"></canvas>
+
+
+<script>     
+var barChartData = {
+            labels: ['Music', 'Salary', 'Choreo', 'Audio', 'Office', 'Dramatics', 'Kshitij','Photog','CineSec','Promotions + Booking Venues','Last Semester Pending','Know-the-Cult Workshop','DebSoc','Fine Arts','Quizzing','Lights'],
+            datasets: [{
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+
+                ]
+            },]
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+    
+var ctx5 = document.getElementById('myChart5').getContext('2d');
+var myChart5 = new Chart(ctx5, {
+                type: 'horizontalBar',
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+                                fontFamily: "Open Sans",
+                                fontStyle:"SemiBold",
+                                fontcolor:"#BDBDBD",
+                        
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+</script>
+<br>
+![pic5](/images/posts/gymkhana5.png){: style="width:65%;height:auto"}
+
+
+_Note: Inter-IIT funds (₹8,50,000) have been removed from the complete budget to get a better visualisation of the graph._ 
+
+
+The debate of making groups under the Cultural Council open to the entire campus populace has gained much momentum since its initiation; and has been able to garner the SAC’s attention as well. This is meant to make the resources purchased by the Cultural Council available to every campus resident fair and square.
+
+This year, the SAC took multiple initiatives to increase the participation of the student community in cultural activities. All the groups came together to recruit again in the spring semester to provide another chance to students who might have missed it. The participation for the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet too was made open and transparent, and not limited to the respective groups. 
+
+Despite all the steps taken, the analysis made by Watch Out clearly shows that the money spent on open house activities remains a mere fraction (< 4%) of the total expenditure till date. Also, with over 30% of the fund being outlaid through disbursements for the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet, little is left for professional workshops and in-house events, says Mr. Prajwal Bhatt, (GS: Cultural Affairs). He added that in the autumn semester, a large share of the funds spent were spent on repairs and purchases as a lot of the requirements of the Music Section, in terms of instruments and others, had been pending for quite some time and were promptly approved in the previous semester. All leftover funds, for the spring semester, will be used on 50-50 basis for purchases/repairs and open house events.
+
+<br>
+_“Budget is not really the constraint behind organising workshops for helping people perform better in FoS; building a personal bond is something which is extremely important. Like, people who performed in FoS brought gifts for the people in choreo section who helped them. That was a beautiful gesture, and moreover, building a personal bond helps pull off a better performance.”_ <br>
+**_–Mr. Siddhant Bharadwaj, Dramatics Society_**  
+<br><br>
+
+Traditionally, the clubs/groups tend to spend a disproportionately large amount on in-house events but are reluctant to spend on open house events, such as the FoS, and this has continued into the current academic year. However, opening up of the sections’ resources to the campus junta was a bold move. Now, any student can use any resource of the Cultural Council by following the official channel and writing an application to the Faculty Advisor.
+
+
+<br>
+_“Music Section organised JAM-DAY a couple of weeks ago to see how many people actually show up; participation was approximately null. The issue being [that] on providing help and support, not everyone comes forward. When it comes to making instruments available to 8000 students, it’s a matter of concern when a student is a newbie. For example, repairing of a synthesizer key costs ₹3,000 approximately, so, at least some prior knowledge is extremely necessary. Maybe, the classes arranged by SAC will be useful. Also, IIT Bombay has got its own music room in every hostel—this is a great initiative which the bhawan councils should look forward to implementing.”_ <br>
+**_–Mr. Rutuj Bhayani, Ad. Secretary, Music Section_** 
+<br><br>
+
+The efforts of the current council should not go unrecognised as it has taken a number of initiatives to promote the “cult” in the campus, including initiation of music and dance classes; and due to significant participation, it seems that there is a requirement of additional instructors with the monthly salary of each being Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively. The groups have opened recruitments in both the semesters and resources have been made available to the masses. The open selections for the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet, we believe, was another bold move that was appreciated by the IITR community.
+<br><br>
+
+
+###  SAC
+
+**SAC: ₹90/- per student per year**
+
+The SAC fund is meant to pay for the celebrations of various festivals (Diwali, Holi, to name a few), as well as other activities under its prerogative—such as the organisation of the Freshers’ Week (and ensuing activities)—and the organisation of certain lectures by the SAC. Any added cost such as the publicity of the aforementioned activities through posters and flex printing is also included in this. Miscellaneous expenses under this comprise setting up water pots for the dogs in the campus to, in a way, avert them from drinking from water coolers meant for students. In simpler terms, it is upto the SAC to judiciously use the allocated funds as per their discretion.
+<br><br>
+
+
+###  Students’ Wellness
+
+**Students’ Wellness: ₹80/- per student per year**
+
+To ensure that the stay at IITR be a pleasant one, a specific office for issues related to the ‘wellness’ of students was established at the end of the last academic year. This, in essence, was a huge step taken to address issues of mental health at an institute like ours. SMP, SSP, and the Counselling Cell fall under the jurisdiction of this office, the one of ADOSW: Students’ Wellness. The office also takes care of the orientation ceremony of the freshman batch every year; and a separate budget for the ceremony is to be approved by an ‘adequate’ authority. With the establishment of this new office, we certainly expect some bold renovation and refinement of the existing system. 
+<br><br>
+
+
+###  Others
+
+**Cinema Club:** ₹150/- per student per year<br>
+**HEC:** ₹150/- per student per year<br>
+**SPIC MACAY:** ₹100/- per student per year<br>
+**NSS:** ₹30/- per student per year<br>
+
+Individual initiatives like these take up the leftover fraction of the gymkhana fund for their own activities. Cinema Club, for example, uses its fund to showcase movies in the convocation hall for the students, while SPIC MACAY uses the money to organise events like Virasat to promote classical performing arts. Mr. Adarsh Goyal, a member of SPIC MACAY, says that these funds help them invite with a minimum recognition of Sangeet Natak Academy Award, preferably recipients of Padma Awards, and various international awards, for periodic events and workshops in IIT Campus and nearby education centres. He adds, _“Most of our money goes in the arrangement of these events and workshops, like artist payments, travel, accommodation, logistics, venue setup and audience outreach. All this is done to make students more aware about Indian and world heritage. This initiative is making education more holistic and meaningful as it is highlighting all that is abstract, subtle, inspiring and mystical in the world teaching one to look within oneself.”_
+
+Speaking for the Himalayan Explorers’ Club, Mr. Manish Gupta, the secretary, says, _“HEC organises close to 30 short and long treks throughout the year with an average participation of 40 students. Registration of these treks is open-to-all, and a subsidy of around 500/- is given to each of the participants. Some expeditions are more extensive than the others, the recent one to Kalindikhal (at a height of 6000 metres) being an example, and take up more funds than the others. HEC also organises two skating camps in a year, along with a cycle-race, CAT (Confidence Assault Training) course, certain guest lectures and an annual Plantation Day. Winners of the cycle-race, the CAT course and for different adventurous categories are awarded during the Annual Club Day of the group. Funds are also used in buying and repairing the trekking equipments like tents, sleeping bags, mats, torches, cooking equipments, and skates. Other expenditures include refreshments for on-campus events, hospitality costs for the guests, and the printing costs of an annual magazine of the group. HEC also has three salaried-employees to look after the funds, the park, and the store of the club, and they are also being paid from the same funds.”_ He also cited the need for additional money, mentioning that HEC has taken a social initiative under rural development cell of ‘Mountain Cleaning Drive’, and it is looking for more funds to make this initiative successful.
+
+ As far as NSS is concerned, Mr. Tejas Khadilkar, the current Secretary, mentions that most of their budget goes into the organisation of events like National Social Summit and Blood Donation Camps. In addition to these, he says that initiatives like cloth distribution drives, cleanliness drives, teaching classes, and various guest lectures take up a major chunk of their budget. He further adds, _“The constraint of budget keeps us from inviting high profile guests as we are barely able to fund their correspondingly high travel and hospitality expenses.”_
+<br><br>
+
+
+###  Our Two Cents
+
+The gymkhana funds shape the direction in which our institute performs in the extracurricular vertical, and is a central piece in determining the overall character development and the completeness that the students graduating from here possess. With a few much-needed changes to the allocation of these funds, the gymkhana funds can adequately and appropriately address the needs of the upcoming batches of students. After careful consideration and elaborate conversations with a lot of people involved in the process, we’d humbly like to suggest the following improvements to the allocation.
+
+First things first, we all are living in an era where justifying a virtual platform would be nothing but naive, and the Institute Gymkhana should definitely have a website of its own where all the activities centric to campus should be updated. Also, to ensure accountability and credibility, a more ‘human friendly’ annual report should be published by the SAC every academic year. 
+
+Using the extracurricular fee to promote new technological advancements and a thriving culture of performing arts and fine arts should be the foremost priority of the institute. The current breakdown, however, does not reflect this notion. With 35% of the gymkhana fees being contributed to the repairs, purchases and operational activities of bhawan, aspiring for major reforms seems justified. Though a provision of making use of the cultural sections' resources is put into effect, the process seems latent because of the protocol involved. Also, with only handful students being the members of the performing sections, a large fraction of students who are willing to get involved in cultural activities is neglected; and to cater to their aspirations and interests, facilities shall (and need to) be setup in individual bhawans under the jurisdiction of the Cultural Secretary of that bhawan (Cautley Bhawan, for example, has set up their own Music Room recently).
+
+Another major issue was that 35% of the Cultural Council Budget and 14% of the Technical Council Budget went into reimbursements of respective Inter IIT Meets. While expenditures of this nature are extremely necessary, whether these be done at the expense of the gymkhana funds allocated to these societies is a question worth considering. The Inter IIT Sports Meet, in contrast, is funded by the MHRD completely. While it is still early days to expect the same for the former two, steps in this direction shall certainly free up funds for promotion of better facilities in-house for these councils.
+
+As a closing note, we also firmly believe that hiring an expert who could analyse the needs of the various sections and societies in the campus would help us allocate the extracurricular fees more effectively. Unarguably, this breakdown is extremely important to the student community, and a judicious use of this amount shall certainly help our cause.
+
+<br>
+_Notes:_ <br>
+1. _Watch Out gathered all the data and statements after meeting the respective secretaries of various bhawans or the councils involved. In case of any discrepancies, please reach out to us so that we can rectify the same._ <br>
+2. _The official notice for the gymkhana fee breakdown can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D3VWG2uFI7B6GwqIR9GCRukuFenuQxOY/view)</span>._
+
+

_posts/2018-03-12-span-meet-2.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: The 2nd IIT SPAN Meeting
+category: sac
+image: span-meet-2.jpg
+author: "Agrim Patodia, Uday Shinghal, Nikhil Arora"
+excerpt: "The second IIT SPAN meet of 2017-18 session was held at IIT Roorkee on 2nd-3rd March 2018 which was attended by the student senate representatives of IIT Roorkee, Bilai, BHU, Delhi, Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Palakkad, Patna, and Ropar. Watch Out covered the events that unfolded at the same."
+
+---
+
+The IIT SPAN, or Indian Institutes of Technology Students’ Presence Across Nation, is a self governed body composed of the elected student representatives of the respective IITs, with the intent to serve as an advisory body and as a platform to hear and address the various grievances of its members. The IIT SPAN constitution was adopted in April 2016, citing its various responsibilities, sub-committees and bylaws. The second IIT SPAN meet of 2017-18 session was held at IIT Roorkee on 2nd-3rd March 2018 which was attended by the student senate representatives of IIT Roorkee, Bilai, BHU, Delhi, Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Palakkad, Patna, and Ropar. Watch Out covered the events that unfolded at the same.
+<br><br>
+
+The agendas for the second IIT SPAN meet were decided beforehand and submitted by the member IITs’ representatives. The first few agendas looked at confirming and ratifying the resolutions passed in the first meet held at IIT Kanpur. These included resolutions passed for IIT BHU and IIT Indore after the IIT Kanpur SPAN meet vide proper channels. In IIT Indore, the Student Gymkhana was dissolved and disciplinary action taken against protesting students. In IIT BHU, several students faced harassment and threats. It was suggested that the IIT SPAN would forward a letter to the MHRD through the directors of the respective institutes, to address the issues.
+
+Another decision was made regarding the Inter IIT Cultural Meet. IIT Kanpur, the host of the 2017 Cultural Meet briefly summarised the happenings, the expenses incurred and suggestions for the future. This was followed by the house initiating a bid for deciding the next host. IIT Roorkee proposed holding the next Cultural Meet. According to Prajwal Bhatt (General Secretary: Cultural Affairs), since IIT Roorkee is trying to reduce its closed group culture, this will be a wonderful opportunity to encourage the students to participate in cultural activities. Moreover, with the construction of the new Students’ Activity Center, IITR has the required venues for hosting the events. 
+
+The penultimate agenda of the meet aimed at getting official recognition for the IIT SPAN organisation. Currently, it is not officially recognised by the MHRD or the IIT Council. Thus, it was suggested that the they send a letter to the MHRD and a short document on the functioning and scope of IIT SPAN through the directors of the respective institutes. It is important that the organisation receives formal recognition if its decisions are to be recognised across the pan IIT community.
+<br><br>
+
+In conclusion, it was decided that IIT Delhi will host the next IIT SPAN meet, with an overall consensus to increase the frequency of meetings to at least twice a year. 
+
+As we go forward, an increased interaction between the student communities of various IITs shall certainly go a long way. The IIT SPAN serves as an important platform to bring the issues of the student community forwards in a formal, democratically elected way.
+<br><br>
+
+_The detailed minutes of the meeting, as compiled by Watch Out, can be found on this <span style="color:#0645AD">[link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dQks8HCgGtiigDm1rYO6eVmkluzF-_04/view)</span>. You can also find the constitution of IIT SPAN <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TCU_ncbKKBQE83cY03aMtB3dvETWfgcO/view)</span>._
+

_posts/2018-03-26-students-senate-meet.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Highlights of the Students’ Senate Meeting (held on 17/3/18)
+category: sac
+image: students_senate_meet.jpg
+author: 
+excerpt: "The Students’ Senate is the most important instrument for the dissemination of students’ opinion to the administration and to allow the senators to collectively reach a consensus on essential developments affecting students’ campus experience. However, on March 17th 2018, a mockery of this entire system could be witnessed in the Senate Hall with ruckus and confusion ruling the hall."
+---
+
+The Students’ Senate is the most important instrument for the dissemination of students’ opinion to the administration and to allow the senators to collectively reach a consensus on essential developments affecting students’ campus experience. However, on March 17th 2018, a mockery of this entire system could be witnessed in the Senate Hall with ruckus and confusion ruling the hall. In the words of the DOSW himself, the senators were unable to maintain ‘decorum’, while the senators claimed that the SAC was trying to impose its agendas on the Senate, by resorting to ‘yelling into the mic’. The fact that things even got to this point explains the sheer absurdity with which the discussions were being conducted. 
+
+This particular Senate Meeting was conducted with the express purpose of discussing the regulations for the annual student elections for the 2018-19 session. The electoral procedure involved in the selection of the Students’ Affairs Council (SAC) is an extremely integral decision that the student community takes, and the state of the student-administration relations, along with the progress made by the institute depends heavily on this process. As you might have correctly inferred, all the agendas are potentially crucial changes to the election setup, and hence, invited a healthy discussion before being passed in the Students’ Senate. While there was a discussion alright, we would not, however, in any sense of the word, term it as ‘healthy’. 
+
+Prof. Joshi (the Dean of Students’ Welfare) emphasized multiple times in the Senate that as students, our main motive is to study here in college and not mimic the Indian democracy. Although Prof. Joshi is extremely right in his concerns and we respect his opinion, but if the changes that are going to impact the entire student community and their progress are being discussed, we expect at least a quorum to be present in the senate. Additionally, it was disheartening to witness arguments by the senators which were heavily injected with personal bias, and had no substantial arguments to back their stance in most cases.
+
+
+As attendees of the Senate Meeting, we made some observations and had some views on the agendas that we’d be remiss not to share with our audience. 
+
+_Note:_
+
+1. _The ‘SAC’ here means the General Secretaries._
+
+2. _The ‘Bench’ refers to the representatives of the Main Building, i.e. DOSW, ADOSW (B&M), ADOSW (SA) and ADOSW (International Relations)_
+
+3. _The Students’ Senate is attended by the elected representatives of every bhawan (referred henceforth as ‘senators’), along with the elected representatives of the SAC, among other people (as relevant)._
+
+4. _All the decisions have been passed by the Students’ Senate in the presence of the bench. However, final decisions will be incorporated in the regulations which shall be released soon, prior to the elections, post some more due diligence by relevant authorities._
+
+| Agenda                                                                                                                                                                    | Highlights                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                | Our Two Cents                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
+|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
+| A General Secretary shall resign from all other positions of responsibility once elected.                                                                                 | Questions raised regarding the vacuum that would be created by such resignation. GS Technical Affairs suggested that reappointments to those posts would be done post resignation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        | Watch Out suggests it be left at the discretion of the group/sections/clubs involved to decide judiciously and also, at the discretion of person who takes charge of the office. If, at all, there are any concerns with his performance in either of his capacities, decisions with respect to his leftover tenure can be taken up as the case may be.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
+| In case of a single candidate contesting for an institute level position, the candidate shall be voted for ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.                                                 | This was suggested as a validation by public vote so that in case of an undeserving candidate, an alternative could be chosen by nomination. On nominations being opposed by the senators, the SAC agreed to discuss re-elections. However, it was pointed out that this could be tedious and taxing. A ‘neutral’ option was suggested which could be used to demand more option for the post. Prof. Barua stated that they weren’t the election committee and shouldn’t overcomplicate procedures.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       | Watch Out agrees to the point, but doesn’t support re-elections over nominations, as conducting elections again would be tedious and taxing as mentioned in the highlights. If, however, there is a possibility of conducting elections for the unelected posts along with the bhawan level elections in the Autumn Semester (as discussed over Agenda 6), this can be thought of as an alternative.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
+| Any candidate for the position of General Secretary Cultural Affairs should be a part of Cultural Council.                                                                | The SAC wanted to institute this agenda so as to ensure a smoother transition to an open group culture which would be made possible by a representative who understands the ins and outs of the council. The senators were not in agreement as this would mean a loss of opportunity for a large number of students and they pointed out that managerial proficiency should not be confused with the possession of a particular skill set. The bench advised the senators to not to look at a post as an opportunity but a responsibility and a compromise was finally reached wherein the rule is applicable only for a certain period of time. There was also a parallel discussion initiated by the SAC about how the decision to have an elected GS Cultural Affairs was ‘unconstitutional’, as it wasn’t discussed in the appropriate channels last year. Hence, to actually make the prior decision, it would be necessary to first resolve this matter. No conclusion, however, was made about this particular point. Additionally, certain students vouched for the inclusion of the members of the team behind Thomso in the eligibility criteria, which was opposed by the SAC. | With over seven thousand students paying the Gymkhana Fees, out of which, only a fraction of students make into the Cultural Council including only a handful of PG students, limiting candidature to Council Members seems unjust to an extremely large section of the student community. Competency in a particular cultural section isn’t necessarily a proof of someone’s leadership and management skills which are the key requirements to represent the entire student populace. Watch Out suggests that the position of the GS be contested by anyone irrespective of his/her membership in the Cultural Council, and to facilitate the smooth functioning of the Cultural Council’s activities, the Deputy GS shall be nominated/elected from the council. Also, to cater the larger section of the student community, Bhawan Secy shall be given responsibility to promote cultural activities at Bhawan Level (as advocated by us in the earlier article, ‘Funding Your Extracurriculars’). GS Cultural Affairs shall have a council comprising of Bhawan Secy (Cultural Affairs) to ensure the same. |
+| Any candidate for the position of General Secretary Technical Affairs should be a part of Students’ Technical Council.                                                    | No discussion took place in this particular regard, since the debate was similar to that of the previous point.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           | Same as above.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+| The post ‘General Secretary Alumni Affairs’ shall be changed to ‘General Secretary Professional Development’, with modified roles and responsibilities for this position. | The point was put forward to ensure that the synergies of the TPO and the newly allotted post would match. The main responsibility of the elected representative would be to make sure that the students become technically competent to sit for placements, in a way helping in terms of career development. A large number of concerns regarding the minute details were raised, which the convenor assured would be raised and cleared in a later discussion after the establishment of the CDC. The CGPA criteria for this post is still unclear. The administration has, however, made it clear that they would vouch for a higher bar for this particular post, with Prof. Barua suggesting a CGPA cutoff of 8.5 for this post.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     | This agenda envisions a Career Development Cell, which shall act as an umbrella organisation for sections like a finance club, a consulting club, etc, and shall have a student representative at the helm. This, ideally, should give our campus a huge boost in terms of our placements. This idea is in an incredibly nascent stage, and invites lot of questions. For example: “Who is eligible to run for this post?”. Or: “What roles and responsibilities should be given to the person in this office?”. Or, most importantly: “Isn’t it very hasty to have such an office without a legitimate finance club or a consulting club even present in the campus?” The suggestions for this agenda from the senators were extremely sarcastic and borderline insincere. The stance of some of the senators compelled one of the members of the SAC to claim that an attempt was being made to make a mockery of the proceedings.                                                                                                                                                                             |
+| To report the senate that institute-level elections and bhawan-level election shall be conducted on different timelines this year.                                        | No discussion took place.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 | Conducting bhawan-level elections (start of the autumn semester) and institute-level elections (end of the spring semester) at two different times seems like the only way to address the fact that students in their first year, for example, find it difficult to contest the elections currently. Additionally, there still is a certain level of obscurity with the bhawan allotment policies, which shall only be resolved later in the semester. While we understand that elections at two different timelines are extremely necessary, we hope that IITR doesn’t get stuck in a vicious cycle of elections, which can prove to be extremely time-consuming.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
+| Only one position of Maintenance Secretary shall be elected, and the Bhawan Secretary shall now be a (separately) elected position.                                       | The discussion deviated entirely from the agenda and unrelated (albeit important) points such as the responsibilities of technical and cultural secretary (at the bhawan-level) were deliberated upon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    | There has been a question about the relevance of two maintenance secretaries for a bhawan, which, we believe, would be addressed to a great extent now that this decision has been taken. Additionally, nominating a Bhawan Secretary out of the elected 7 students merely meant that additional tasks were given on the nominated student. A separate Bhawan Secretary can now deal with administrative functions, while one Maintenance Secretary is more than sufficient to handle the tasks for one bhawan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
+| The three Deputy General Secretaries under GS Hostel Affairs shall now be elected instead of being nominated.                                                             | The SAC suggested that the three secretaries be divided as follows: UG Boys, PG Boys and Girls. This would ensure more PG representation and elimination of the communication discomfort between the General Secretary and the girl-community. The post for UG: Boys would be elected among UG students and similar eligibilities would be applicable for the other two posts. No prior experience would be required for this post. Upon being asked as to why the Deputy GSs were not being nominated from amongst the senators, it was clearly stated that multiple responsibilities would not be suitable for a single senator and elected representatives are more approachable than nominated ones. Mr. Karan Desai requested that it be ensured by the SAC that the position of the General Secretary is not diluted to which assurance of proper allocation of responsibilities was given.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         | The very idea of having Deputy General Secretary under any domain, is to offload the unmountable work from the shoulders of the General Secretary and to increase efficiency of outputs. To ensure the same, General Secretary, chooses people with whom he/she is compatible with and he relies on for getting the work done. Because of the aforementioned reason, Watch Out, with its unfortunate and humble lack of knowledge in this domain, believes that the mentioned posts should be nominated by the General Secretary himself.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
+| To relax the CGPA criteria to 6.5 for institute level position except General Secretary Academics (UG/PG both).                                                           | The senators as well as some members of SAC were in agreement that the CG criteria be relaxed to 6.5. Senators put up the reason that students are involved in multiple activities and CG isn’t an exhaustive measure to decide the calibre of a representative. This was further supported by the SAC which stated that in the transition phase, the criteria should be relaxed. While the bench agreed that imposing such a restriction on GS Tech, GS Cult and GS Sports was unnecessary, considering the pre-existing restrictions on eligible candidates, it found itself in a difficult position for GSHA. The amount of workload for this particular post was, in the view of the DOSW, too high to not affect a student’s grade adversely, which is a problem if they have someone with a low CGPA to begin with. Finally a compromise was reached wherein the criteria is applicable only for a period of 1 year. The bench strictly mentioned that if there is a further drop in the elected GSHA’s CGPA, this rule shall be reconsidered next year.                                                                                                                            | In an institute where CGPA is (fortunately or unfortunately) a measure of excellence, we firmly believe that the students who represent the institute and its students should have at least the grades offered at average scores (i.e. 7). Also, reiterating what the bench said in this matter, the workload shall certainly adversely affect the students’ grades, which is a concern of the administration. Additionally, the final conclusion, we believe, is in no way sustainable. We must mention here that there was an extremely indecent uproar when the rule to allow the students with a grade of more than 6.5 (and not only more than 7) to run for office. Students who wanted this agenda to be passed got up from the seats as soon as they had their way, and did not even wait for the Senate to be officially dispersed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
+{:.mbtablestyle}
+
+### Closing Notes 
+
+Please vote sincerely and seriously. The representatives you send, even through your bhawans, have a huge role to play in the Senate. Look at their credentials. Look at their manifestos. Look at how credible they seem. Take an informed decision. 
+
+Also, ‘hope’ is best of all the things. Imposing restrictions on candidatures is a mere proof of lack of hope among the senate that neither the voters, nor the contestants are wise enough to make an informed choice. Progress is gradual but it only happens when people trust in the system and try to change it by taking wise choices. These closing notes might seem utopian and extremely idealistic, but we believe moving in the right direction is extremely crucial for an institute like ours.
+

_posts/2018-03-28-phalbee.md

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: The Story of Phalbee
+category: career
+image: phalbee2.jpg
+author: "Dhawal Pagay"
+excerpt: "At Phalbee, we lay emphasis on the taste, cleanliness and the quality of smoothies and juices we put forward to our customers. We are trying to create a brand that specifically caters to providing smoothies and juices, effectively becoming household names in the market. We are not categorically seeking out to gain customers, rather, we are trying to introduce the culture of smoothies and juices into our society, thereby revolutionizing it"
+---
+
+### Before any further questions, can you tell us more about Phalbee and what drove you to its conceptualisation? 
+**Yashwant Singh**: At Phalbee, we are essentially trying to capture the culture of smoothies and juices that is already prevalent in the West, by adapting it to the Indian context. The shift in the mindsets of the society to adopt a healthier lifestyle is trying to be harnessed by the whole concept of Phalbee. <br>
+**Ashish Kaushik**: As a first yearite at college, I used to miss various meals which had repercussions like ill-health, fatigue and a drastic loss in weight. Since the canteens weren’t up to the mark, the only option I was left with was to head outside campus and eat at the roadside vendors. During this process, I realised that not only was it unhealthy, it was unhygienic as well, and that was the driving force behind Phalbee- to create a brand that catered healthy alternatives, particularly fruit smoothies and juices to the public.
+
+<br>
+
+###  Having measured the initial responses, what is going to be Phalbee’s further methodology of working? Is this venture going to be localised to Roorkee or will we see Phalbee branching out in the coming months?
+
+**Yashwant Singh**: The initial responses have been tremendous, surpassing everyone’s expectations. Initially, we will try to cater the students at IITR, and if everything pans out as per schedule, the first Phalbee outlet will be set up here in the campus itself in the following weeks and in the longer run, we hope to establish a chain of outlets pan-India. <br>
+**Ashish Kaushik**: Our major focus is to build the brand of Phalbee initially, so that it becomes a part of people’s daily life. Another aspect that we’re focusing on is that we want to ensure that quality is not compromised for quantity, which we lay emphasis on. Acting on this philosophy, we procure fruits from various fruit capitals of the country, so as to provide a wider array of the best products that are available from the different parts of the country. 
+
+![Phalbee2](/images/posts/phalbee1.png)
+
+<br>
+
+### What is the USP that sets Phalbee apart from its competitors?
+
+**Rajat Jain**: We are building the Café Coffee Day of fruit juices and smoothies, a brand which people can trust. Our USPs are freshly made juices and smoothies, sourcing fruits from fruit capitals of the country, and building the culture of juices and smoothies through hundreds of varieties. We are not categorically seeking out to gain customers, rather, we are trying to introduce the culture of smoothies and juices into our society, thereby revolutionizing it.   
+
+<br>
+
+### In this field, there are already various companies that have gained a lot of name and reputation. How do you plan to hold fort against these giants? 
+
+**Bibhudatta Sa**: Actually, there are only 3-4 startups in this fresh juices and smoothies industry. This industry is 75% unorganized and there lies huge potential of growth. India is a developing country and more and more people are becoming health conscious. So, there is need of a brand which can cater to the demand of these people, who would enjoy such smoothies and juices. 
+
+**Rajat Jain**: I personally think that the diversity and flexibility in the menu that we have to offer shall eventually be positively received by the customer, which in turn would stimulate the ingress of others into our doors. 
+
+![Phalbee3](/images/posts/phalbee3.jpg)
+
+<br>
+
+### What advice would you like to give other aspiring entrepreneurs on campus? 
+
+**Yashwant Singh**: I feel that as a student one should try and question everything, not only that, one should constantly try and come up with both rational and innovative solutions. Once this habit is developed, the student will naturally incline towards an analytical solution, ultimately reaching the ‘sweet spot’. <br>
+**Rajat Jain**: One misconception that I would like to clear is that the chances of the occurrence of an ‘Eureka’ moment are slim and as aspiring entrepreneurs, we should definitely refrain from indulging in such follies. The development of the idea is gradual, building upon continual trial and errors and input from real life scenarios. 
+Bibhudatta Sa: So to sum up, the student must not be disheartened by the initial failure of his idea and should keep in mind that the best startups arise from the most number of interventions and refining measures.
+
+<br>
+
+### How do you think that the administration can help promote entrepreneurship on campus?
+
+**Ashish Kaushik**: The major problem that we faced was to receive funding from the various business incubators on campus, particularly Tides, since it majorly supports startups that have their roots in the technological or software industry. However, student based communities like EDC helped us a lot in connecting to various people. We are now operational at Sattviko Idea Cafe only with the help of our alumni, Mr. Prasoon Gupta. <br>
+**Yashwant Singh**: A suggestion which I would like to pitch in is that there should be a central fund allocated towards startups of all kinds. The funds which are now reserved towards the development of technologies like the ‘Tinkering Lab’ or the 3-D printers, which aren’t excessively used by the students on campus, those can be redirected towards this cause and in the future I feel that this could benefit students who are aspiring entrepreneurs. 
+

_posts/2018-04-17-alumni-effect.md

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "The Alumni Effect"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Agrim Patodia, Manya Singh, Muskaan Bhambri, Jeyashree Venkatesan"
+image: alumni-effect-1.png 
+category: coverstory
+excerpt: " An institute’s alumni help shape the current students of an institute, nurturing their juniors towards even bigger dreams, and guiding them to reach greater heights. This is done via career counseling sessions, or via funds that they donate to the institute for the setting up of new labs and facilities."
+---
+
+It is no secret that an institute’s alumni are the key to its growth. They represent the guiding philosophies and mindset with which the institute’s founders intended their protegees to flourish. They raise the bar of the achievement with their extraordinary accomplishments, and with it the prestige of the institute. An institute’s alumni also help shape the current students of an institute, nurturing their juniors towards even bigger dreams, and guiding them to reach greater heights. This is done via career counseling sessions, or via funds that they donate to the institute for the setting up of new labs and facilities.
+
+The current state of the alumni relations at IIT Roorkee shows great scope for improvement.  A few of the issues that we will deliberate on in the following paragraphs are the limited transparency in the usage of the donations that various alumni have donated to our institute, and the arduous process one has to go through in order to connect with an alumnus. We will also cover recent developments, like the initiation of the student alumni mentorship program (SAMP) and the creation of an online portal, geared towards solving these problems.
+
+
+### MoUs
+
+Universities and educational institutions sign Memorandums of Understanding (or MoUs) with other universities in order to exchange students, ensure mutual curriculum development, as well as provide research grants. Having MoUs with reputed universities around the globe exposes students to a plethora of exclusive opportunities. In terms of quality and quantity of formalised MoUs, however, IIT Roorkee lags behind many other IITs.
+
+![Alumni-effect](/images/posts/alumni-effect-2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Most of IIT Roorkee’s MoUs are relatively new, since the earlier administrative setups did not prioritise maintaining university connects using alumni relations. The official procedure of establishing an MoU involves the presence of at least two nodal officers, one in each university. Any professor, dean, or even the director can act as a nodal officer. While it is easier to identify a nodal officer here, it is much more difficult to contact a professor who would be interested in being a nodal officer at the institute with which the MoU is to be signed. To overcome this problem, the Institute Alumni Relations Cell (IARC) is assimilating information from students who have gone for foreign internships under a professor as well as contacting Roorkee alumni currently studying in foreign universities. This will enable the DoRA office to establish contact with university professors who would be familiar with IITR and willing to become a nodal officer for that university. In this manner, IARC aims to become the missing channel between students and the administration. 
+
+Our current administration recognises these issues and is continuously working to improve IITR’s international image. According to the Dean of Resources and Alumni Affairs, Dr. B.R. Gurjar,  IIT Roorkee has many informal MoUs with international universities with an active exchange of students taking place, but these are not formalised yet. The documentation of these MoUs is in process. 
+
+### Alumni Donations
+
+Hitherto, there was an incomplete transparency in the usage and channelising of funds that were being donated by the alumni, due to improper documentation. In the view of dealing with this, initiatives such as an online payment gateway and crowdfunding platforms are in progress. Once the donations are made online, displaying the amount of money, mode of donations and utilization of the donated funds would be plain sailing. There also are plans to set up a committee in order to monitor the donations, and to ensure proper utilization. These initiatives also have the potential of resolving the difficulties faced by campus groups such as MARS/Robocon, etc., in obtaining these donations to represent IITR at competitions held worldwide. It seems that IITR is  witnessing burgeoning donations this year, including, Rs. 1.1 crore donated by the 1982 pass out batch in their recent silver jubilee meet. “Within the last six months, one huge individual donation came from an alumnus who donated USD 92,000. He would also be donating USD 8,000 this January. So, a sum total of USD 100,000 will have been donated by him alone,” quoted the Dean of Resources and Alumni Affairs.
+
+![Alumni-effect](/images/posts/alumni-effect-3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### External Alumni Bodies and Chapters
+
+IITR has many active national as well as international alumni chapters. These, in the past, have tended to perform activities only within themselves, and now have been trying contact with the current students in campus. They make donations to the institution, but do not have much knowledge about the happenings back at their alma mater. IARC, being a fairly recent student initiative, suffers from a different problem: the fact that it does not have sufficient data of the older alumni. On the other hand, IARC’s alumni counterpart, the IIT Roorkee Alumni Association, is an established body that includes many older alumni as its members, but have little or no active student involvement. The IIT Roorkee Alumni Association, in collaboration with the Dean of Resources and Alumni Affairs (DoRA), organises commemorative jubilee meets of batches and chapters. Apart from these bodies, an umbrella organisation called the Students’ Pan-IIT Alumni Relations Cell (SPARC) exists to keep track of the initiatives and accomplishments of the alumni relations bodies in different IITs. This body has a limited role, and it organises an annual meet for alumni as well as student representatives of the IITs. SPARC includes representatives from IIT Madras, Bombay, Kharagpur, and Guwahati, with IIT Roorkee and IIT BHU joining the cell in 2017.
+
+![Alumni-effect](/images/posts/alumni-effect-4.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+### IARC's Structure
+
+![Alumni-effect](/images/posts/alumni-effect-5.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+
+IARC, a student body under the Dean Of Resources and Alumni Affairs, has around thirty student members, with Manik Verma, (General Secretary, Alumni Affairs) as its student representative. The body is headed by its Secretary, Arpit Mishra. However, the role of both these positions seems consubstantial without any substratal difference. Owing to an inchoate IARC, the post of student secretary had to be appended to preside over the group activities alongside alumni activities and administration. Eventually, as IARC becomes entrenched, the post of GS Alumni Affairs would become superfluous. Manik, when asked for, regarding the same, remarked, _“In future it (the existence of both posts) is redundant. Only a person who has worked in IARC and who shares such a vision with all other members should lead IARC. GS Alumni Affairs serves as a point of contact for Alumni and the institute and therefore a new person can’t come and simply take over.” “However, in case the GS Alumni Affairs does not get removed, then whosoever gets nominated for GS Alumni Affairs should be a member of IARC or should have worked in coordination with IARC so as to have some prior experience,”_ added Arpit.
+
+### Our Two Cents
+
+IIT Roorkee has an honorable heritage, spanning almost 200 years, and we have come a long way since our establishment. Ranging from the times of Shri Ganga Ram, the founder of modern Lahore, to the more recent Amit Singhal, Jaiprakash Gaur, and Sanjiv Singh, our alumni have played a very important role in shaping our reputation. Having a strong alumni network does not only lead to the development of an institute in terms of donations and grants, but it also leads to the advancement of the students studying there. IIT Roorkee alumni are everywhere- managing senior roles of multinational companies, building successful startups, and even occupying the most exclusive positions in the Indian Government. 
+
+We have, however, realised how a strong and a positive relationship with alumni can benefit us socially, academically and professionally. Now, a cooperative administration, along with a hard-working student body are actively reaching out to alumni, contacting them for support as well as helping them with all their campus-related issues. Despite a few organisational flaws, failures, and setbacks, the overall impact is positive. We are seeing an unprecedented growth in alumni involvement. In the words of Dr. B.R. Gurjar, “Our condition is improving by leaps and bounds, and in the time to come, we will have more alumni involvement in campus activities, higher donations, and most importantly, better networking among all the IIT-R alumni in the world.”
+
+<hr>
+### In conversation with Dr. B.R. Gurjar
+
+Dr. Gurjar, Dean of Resources and Alumni Affairs, took out some time to talk to us about the state of alumni relations at our institute. Here is an excerpt of our interview with Dr. Gurjar.
+
+
+__Watch Out:__ Why is the number of MoUs that IIT Roorkee has much less in comparison to the other IITs?<br>
+__DoRA:__ There are many informal MoUs which aren’t signed yet. They are collaborations of the faculty members for supervision of PhD students, thesis studies, exchange of faculty and students. The only problem is that they haven’t been documented yet like the other IITs have.  The documentation is still in process, and it is being done with the help of IARC members and the other staff members hired for the same.  So, collaborations of IITR are no less than the other IITs. There is just a lack of proper documentation, which is under process.
+
+__Watch Out:__ Do you think there is a lack of transparency in alumni donations? Why is it difficult to get donations from the alumni?<br>
+__DoRA:__ The Online donation portal wasn’t present earlier but now it has been established. The alumni connections exist and they are coming forward to donate more and more. We are now accelerating the donation process, so more donations are coming up. Another issue is that the older Roorkee alumni are usually doing administrative jobs in the public or the private sectors and are not well-established industrialists. However, the recent graduates are more into entrepreneurship. So when they are financially strong themselves, only then they can afford to donate. Organisations like the IIT Roorkee Heritage foundation, situated in the USA, help us receive donations from international donors.
+
+__Watch Out:__ What are the connections we have established with the different alumni chapters? Also, what responsibilities and activities does the alumni association have that differentiates it from the IARC?<br>
+__DoRA:__ Basically, the IARC is not that well established as of now and they are trying to connect with the recent alumni, whereas, the IITR Alumni Association is very old and hence has a larger database of the older alumni. They keep on organizing various activities and jubilee meets for our older alumni. 
+
+__Watch Out:__ What are your views on the apparent redundancy of two separate posts, i.e. GS Alumni Affairs, and the head of the IARC? Aren’t their functions the same?<br>
+__DoRA:__ It is better if a member of the group itself takes the post of secretary. Having a nominated, competent final-year member of the IARC handling all the responsibilities of alumni relations will be much more conducive than having someone from open elections, since alumni connections is a specialized activity that needs years of experience. Doing justice to these responsibilities is not everyone’s cup of tea.
+<hr>

_posts/2018-04-20-Why-are-you?.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Why are you?"
+image: whyareyou.jpg 
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is”. The predominant intention behind writing this editorial was its being read; to gain appreciation from as many people as possible. Because that is what defines the success of an article."
+author: "Komal Maheshwari, Vishal Goddu"
+---
+
+#### **_“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.”_** - Albert Camus
+
+
+The predominant intention behind writing this editorial was its being read; to gain appreciation from as many people as possible. Because that is what defines the *“success”* of an article.
+
+Success: A rather familiar concept, isn’t it?
+
+But consider this: The average human being is a 1.75 m tall living organism with an expected life span of about 80 years, probably sitting on a chair somewhere on a planet that is over 4.6 billion years old and has a radius of approximately 6371 km in a “solar system”. This solar system is organized around the “sun” – an entity 1.3 million times larger than our planet – which is basically just an average sized star among more than a 100 billion stars in a galaxy that’s just one among 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
+
+Just the *observable* universe.
+
+In the (literally) larger picture, anyone – including you, dear reader – is just like a speck of dust that crosses one's path in life for but a fraction of  a second and doesn’t alter anything.
+
+*“How does this even matter?”* you may ask. It is here on earth that there is life. All life is tiny. All life is short-lived. Should being able to make a difference in the cosmic scheme of things really be our concern? Should we not aspire to create a more immediate, localized difference, which is far more plausible?
+
+Thousands of species have walked our planet through time; they have come and gone, in a manner similar to the passing of each day. We scarcely remember the people responsible for the progress of our civilization; fire is an indispensable phenomenon that sustains our civilization – electricity, a majority of chemical processes and vehicles, all involve the use of fire. But do we really care enough to enquire who discovered it?
+
+After – or perhaps even before – the human race is wiped out, no one will know about what you did, or how exceptionally talented you were. The chronicle of your life – however magnificent – will be lost in the sands of time.
+
+A billion years from now, the Earth may stay where it is, governed by another species, circling the sun in a galaxy among a lot of galaxies, and no one would care about how many Jews Hitler had killed.
+
+*Change is permanent*, they say; *transience, the unwritten law of the universe.* Why then, should we bother at all? Why should we even care to make a difference sitting on this tiny little rock in the universe? What does success come to mean, given that we know the entire logistics of how the world works may change a few hundred thousand years down the line?
+
+There are a lot of erroneous assumptions underlying these quiet musings, primarily that the question of life can be condensed and objectified into a given combination of words: It cannot be.
+
+What if one doesn’t mind the transience at all? What if they simply want to live in the now? And what if they don't?
+
+The answers to this eternal question of life can be many. They can all be correct and they can all be wrong. The relevance of the answers – and of the question itself – depends solely on your perspective. There can be as many perspectives as there have been humans; perhaps more.
+
+Figuring out yours is a battle that you have to fight alone.
+
+
+
+

_posts/2018-04-23-whither-do-we-go.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Whither Do We Go?"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Surya Raman, Sudhang Varshney"
+image: dowego.png 
+category: editorial
+excerpt: " In the dystopian world of George Orwell’s classic 1984, the readers are introduced to a fictitious language christened ‘Newspeak’, an ingenious mechanism to curb the proliferation of rebellious thought by meticulously eliminating the essence of language: words"
+---
+
+In the dystopian world of George Orwell’s classic 1984, the readers are introduced to a fictitious language christened ‘Newspeak’, an ingenious mechanism to curb the proliferation of rebellious thought by meticulously eliminating the essence of language: words; words that could potentially serve as petri dishes to culture and transmit/communicate mutinous thoughts.
+
+If thought about for a bit longer than usual, the effects of imposing such a curb on words are far-reaching and enormous; a world without words like “love” and “joy” would be incredibly sullen and morbid. Like the drowning man - hastily beating about, looking for a straw to clutch at - humans would flutter in vain. This gives birth to a bigger, more disturbing question: would people even be able to perceive a particular feeling as _jubilation_ or _grief_?
+
+Similarly, the people of Oceania couldn’t _feel_ mutinous, thus illustrating that limited resources lead to limited scope of thought. Aren’t we being exceedingly ambitious, then, when we attempt to comprehend the biggest infinities of all – the universe - with our limited scope of rational thought?
+ 
+In his short work on melancholia and philosophy -  A Confession - Tolstoy comes to the very same conclusion. Stricken by a deep existential crisis, he sought to answer the same question that this editorial poses: what do we do once we’ve discovered that there is no profound meaning to life? Why should we continue to live?  He found that people within his social circle dealt with this in one out of these four ways : 
+
+1. Choosing not to think about the question (ignorance)
+2. Choosing to enjoy the small things in life whilst acknowledging the absurdity of it all (epicureanism)
+3. Choosing to kill oneself (“strength”) - and 
+4. Choosing to labour on, petrified by the thought of death (“weakness”).
+
+After pacing up and down for a while (in a figurative sense), he realizes that he had unwittingly excluded another category of people: the ones who had faith. Despite being a staunch advocate of rational thought, Tolstoy realizes its confining nature.
+
+The question we have been dealing with is : what is the purpose of our finite existence in this ever expanding, infinite universe? Therein lies our mistake, Tolstoy says.
+
+To answer a question that deals with the infinite, one must have an answer armed with reasoning that encompasses the infinite. Rational thought is largely limited by factors like starvation and death; they are characteristics of the finite, mortal world we live in. Tolstoy admits that while faith is irrational, the answers it gives always possess the ability to connect the finite with the infinite - which is the essence of what we are looking for. No one captures this better than Tolstoy : _“For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.”_
+
+The pioneer of Absurdism, Albert Camus, was Epicurean at heart. In his masterpiece, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus discusses at length the underlying concepts of absurdism. Like Tolstoy, he acknowledges the insignificance of human life in the grander scheme of things, but unlike Tolstoy, doesn’t find solace in faith. He calls the act of giving into faith (i.e. ceasing to be skeptical) “philosophical suicide”. However, he does not disregard human life completely and submit to Nihilism; Camus presents us with a third option rooted in reality, which is largely Epicurean at heart. To illustrate his outlook on life, he mentions the mythological story of Sisyphus.
+
+Sisyphus was a king cursed by the Gods to roll a boulder on to the top of a mountain, only to watch it roll down again - in perpetuity. Camus draws a parallel between our finite, inconsequential existence and Sisyphus’ curse and asks us to “think of Sisyphus as happy”. Camus writes _“If there is a sin against this life, it consists perhaps not so much into sparing of life, as in hoping for another life and eluding the quiet grandeurs of this one”._
+
+Camus, as is clear, was an emphatic advocate of living in the moment and enjoying the everyday pleasures of life. It is these pleasures that Camus cites as reasons for enduring life.
+
+Over the years, countless philosophers have put forth innumerable theories trying to answer the same question that this editorial has been dealing with. It seems logical, then, to believe in the subjectivity of the meaning of life. A preordained meaning will perhaps never be found, but all of us may (or may not) have our own reasons for enduring life. Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss. Perhaps it is best to believe in these supposedly “inconsequential” perceptions of the meaning of human life.
+
+Or - perhaps - all life is inconsequential, much like this editorial.
+<br>
+
+Illustration Credits: <span style="color:#0645AD">[Kiril Gornishki](https://dribbble.com/KirilGornishki)</span>
+

_posts/2018-04-25-feedback-for-feedback-forms.md

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Feedback For Feedback Forms"
+tags: [wona]
+category: academics
+author: "Aman Nayak, Nikhil Arora, Sudhang Varshney"
+image: feedback.jpg
+excerpt: "For the average student, the course feedback form is something that connotes rapid, indiscriminate clicking of arbitrarily chosen checkboxes, arising out of the impending deadline that looms over a his/her head."
+---
+
+For the average student, the course feedback form is something that connotes rapid, indiscriminate clicking of arbitrarily chosen checkboxes, arising out of the impending deadline that looms over a his/her head. It gives rise to some creative patterns of filling in the MCQ reminiscent of an academically-broke student randomly attempting a subject he doesn’t know anything about. This casual attitude exhibited by a majority of the Roorkee populus is indicative of the ineffectiveness of the feedback system, and how it doesn’t have the required impact.
+ 
+Given how the system isn’t high on transparency and has a lot of uncertainties associated with it, we spoke to Professor B. K. Mishra, Dean of Faculty Affairs, to gain insight on how it functions and how its inadequacies can be rectified.
+
+### The current picture
+
+Before the existence of the college intranet, the feedback exercise was carried out by the professors in the class itself, at the end of the semester. Several years ago, the form moved online with a revised set of questions and categories. From the vantage point of a student, the feedback form consists of two parts: a course evaluation form and a professor/instructor evaluation form. The two sections contain a set of related statements with the student having to align with them, along various degrees, via selecting the appropriate response. An optional text box is provided for additional comments for the same. The format remains consistent across all courses and the respective professors. Submission of the form is mandatory as the subject registration portal becomes available only after its completion. While being an important mechanism for the professor to get the occasional, valuable feedback and ways in which he can improve, a cross sectional analysis of the system reveals several inadequacies and areas in which the process can improve in. 
+
+### Situation in other institutes
+
+From the information we could gather, the tedious nature of the feedback form in common in several other IITs. However, significant professor accountability is associated with the feedback. In IIT Delhi, the feedback form is very comprehensive and can take upto two hours to fill, for all courses. Some professors use a mid semester evaluation too. There have been cases in the past where a professor has been forced to drop a course as a result of negative feedback. This results in both the students and the professor taking the entire mechanism extremely seriously. In IIT Bombay too, the form is lengthy and time consuming. 
+
+_(Insight IITB, the student media body of IIT Bombay, wrote an article on the same issue, which can be found on this <span style="color:#72C5EB">[link](http://www.insightiitb.org/some-feedback-on-course-feedback/)</span>.)_
+
+### Where does the feedback go?
+
+Due to the absence of any information regarding the fate of these forms, the hazy situation poses a lot of questions. Where does the data end up? Who scrutinizes it? Are our feedbacks incognito? The answer to the question “What impact does my feedback have?” is the paramount metric governing the attitude of a student during the process. 
+
+Once the form is filled in by the students, it is sent to the professor teaching the course. The forms and reviews are also accessible by the HoD and the Dean of Academics, but the system is currently only intended as a means for the professor to assess themselves, which means that there is no carrot or stick involved in the process. Until last year, The Institute Best Teacher Award was given to the professor with the highest rating on these forms, but this practice has now been discontinued.
+
+Suggestions such as making the form responses public or having a minimum rating requirement to teach courses are unlikely to be accepted.
+
+> **It is worth emphasising that the anonymity of the forms is maintained throughout; no authority can find out who has filled any particular form.**
+
+After our conversation with Prof. Mishra, it was evident that without any ramifications of a positive or negative response of the process, the utility of the current structure is debatable. A concrete process to measure a professor’s teaching performance in some quantifiable way is non-existent, preventing them for being held accountable for their teaching. Any instructor is not accountable for overwhelmingly negative responses in the absence of any negative ramifications put in place by the administration. It is a common observance that many professors who are rated poorly year after year, continue teaching the course. This lack of incentivisation to improve performance anulls any significance of a student’s submission and practically renders the feedback system obsolete. 
+
+However, another aspect that needs to be addressed is the fact that students who don’t attend the classes are also compulsorily asked to fill the feedback forms. These responses, in all probability, do not hold the same merit as the ones which come from students who are fairly regular in their attendance, and might skew the results in an unfair manner. 
+
+### Ambit of the questions is questionable-
+
+The questionnaire itself has some inherent weaknesses and flaws, the most glaring of which is the complete omission of the evaluation of the practical labs and the lab instructors associated with a course. Practical aspects of a course are where a student exercises the knowledge they gain from it, and hence should be incorporated in the feedback mechanism. For example, in a course like Engineering Drawing, which is a compulsory course for most students, a majority of the contact hours are spent in the Drawing Hall. These omissions result in the stagnation of the course components which go unevaluated by the students in the feedback form. 
+
+The courses a student undertakes vary a lot, from the Communication Skills and department-specific Introductory courses in the first year to core departmental courses in later years. Yet the feedback form does not reflect this, instead barraging the student with the same questions for all courses. While it is necessary to keep some questions the same for the purpose of assessing different courses, and statistical analysis of all student responses; the current format induces a sense of monotony in a student who has to fill several such forms all at once.
+
+### Authenticity of data
+
+A major chunk of students delay the submission until the very last days of the deadline. In a majority of the cases, the response is a set of rapid clicks on a computer without any real thought on their part. This dwindles the credibility of their input and greatly decreases the overall validity of the data so collected. The anonymity of responses grant the student free will to approach the form without the trepidation of any backlash. Although this sounds reasonable, in principle, a sizeable number of responders take advantage of it to vent frustrations which pollute the database. The unreliable responses somewhat invalidate the entire dataset and it is difficult to evaluate the course or the professor on the basis of these responses. In view of this, professors not taking these comments seriously is not surprising.
+
+### Our two cents
+
+While the feedback form is certainly facing some issues, it is an irreplaceable asset to both the student community as well as the professors. With a few improvements to the form and the procedure, we are optimistic about the results this improved procedure brings about. 
+
+We hereby suggest the following changes towards helping these forms actualize their potential : 
+
+*	**Overhauling the form**
+
+	The first line of reform should be of the form itself. Omission of vague questions and admission of specific and clear questions would not only enhance the readability of the form, it would also be conducive to genuine responses. A collection of questions in different formats-some eliciting a score, some MCQ’s and some demanding subjective responses can contribute to the same. Analysis of these forms can unearth revealing data about the cause of negative feedback(if any): an ineffective teaching mechanism or a flawed course structure. 
+
+	While some common questions are required to grade the professor statistically, perhaps some personalised questions, specific to the course, need to be included. Not only will this elicit greater engagement from the student, it will also provide more effective feedback.
+
+*	**Statistically differentiating individual feedback** 
+
+	In our discussion we came up with a way to validate the authenticity of the feedback from different students, based on their GPA or attendance in the particular course. Although the formula for the same might involve whimsical approaches, this method or other statistical models could be used to weed out the extreme responses, both positive and negative.
+
+*	**Introducing a mid-semester feedback**
+
+	Apart from an End-Term feedback, a post mid-term feedback should also be introduced. Slightly less comprehensive than the final questionnaire, it can contain suggestions and criticisms of the flow of the course without any impact on the final score an instructor gets. What this would do is provide wiggle room to the professor to make amends if required and get critical information about how their delivery is perceived. Students would also be able to see tangible impacts of their submissions during the span of the course, indicating that their responses did indeed carry weight. Consequential increase in the authenticity of their replies and decrease in the volume of retorts would follow.
+
+*	**Making some feedback for elective courses public**
+
+	While making course feedback public is not considered appropriate, the institute may find it more palatable to make elective course feedback public. If this feedback is taken over several years, so that course feedback cannot be inferred from it. This will prove helpful to students making deciding which course to pick.
+
+
+### Epilogue
+
+There shall be a committee meeting in the Main Building soon to discuss the future of the response form and the appropriate way to select the ‘Best Teacher’ award. However, from our talk with Prof. B. K. Mishra, we realised that the best suggestions could only come from the student populace. We encourage the reader to send us their suggestions to <span style="color:#72C5EB">_watchout.iitr@gmail.com_</span> so we could forward the same to the concerned authorities. 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

_posts/2018-05-31-guide-to-branches.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Watch Out's Guide to the Branches at IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona]
+category: academics
+image: branch-guide.jpg
+---
+
+It is pretty difficult to choose a field of study that you might have to stick with for four (or five) years. We know because we've all been there. Hence, to make the process a little bit easier, we came up with this rather elaborate and painstakingly devised guide to the various branches at IIT Roorkee. With an analysis of the various specialisations available, including an overview of the syllabus, future prospects, and some inside information from IIT Roorkee, we hope to give you a perspective of what you might be getting into!
+
+<a href="/WatchOutsGuidetoBranches-IITR-18.pdf" style="text-align: center"><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-block btn-lg">Download the Guide Here!</button></a>

_posts/2018-06-06-architecture-at-iit-roorkee.md

@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Architecture at IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona]
+category: academics
+image: archi-q2_p2.jpg
+excerpt: "What is architecture? This question shall haunt you like a stubborn ghost for the initial 3 semesters of study – asked by professors to gauge your understanding of it – so it pays to know."
+height: 540px
+---
+
+# ARCHITECTURE @ IITR
+
+### THE OBJECTIVE
+<br>
+When each of us chose to pursue architecture at IITR, we lacked adequate information about all that the course would entail. This article is an attempt to consolidate and present relevant information in the interest of the incoming freshmen.
+
+This piece shall answer two important questions:
+
+How to get into the Bachelor of Architecture (B. Arch) program? <br>
+What to expect once you’re here?
+
+### GETTING IN
+<br>
+In order to be eligible for the B. Arch program, one has to <br>
+
+(i) Have obtained a rank in the JEE Advanced (no other rank is considered for admission).<br>
+(ii) Appear for the Architectural Aptitude Test (AAT).
+
+One may appear for the AAT at any of the 7 “zonal” IITs (Delhi, Kanpur, Bombay, Roorkee, Kharagpur, Madras or Guwahati). The test will be held on 14th June 2018. The syllabus can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Z09E3uiEIVi6Ilt8ImqIbT_hMyTP6uTU)</span>.
+
+**Things you need**: JEE Advanced Admit card, Pencils (2H, HB, 2B), Eraser, Pen, Colours (crayons, colour pencils).
+
+**Disclaimer**: Allotment of seats is done purely on the basis of one's AIR in the JEE Advanced; one is only required to “pass” the AAT. Your score in the AAT has no bearing whatsoever.
+<br>
+
+### WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?
+<br>
+The standard definition – offered by a number of dictionaries – proclaims architecture as “the art and science of designing buildings, open spaces and physical structures”; however, to fully appreciate the definition, one needs to understand the keywords better.
+
+**Art**: Space is the central aesthetic consideration in architecture. Although an abstract concept, it can be understood as the enclosure within which one is positioned. The architect’s duty is to design this void to make it beautiful (the best he/she can), for external beauty is the surest way of establishing a connect with the layman. 
+
+**Science**: The scientific component of architecture comprises a combination of principles and quantitative problems (numericals), with the former predominating. Architecture has several logical considerations, some of which are climate, cost (of construction, of running), making sure the structure/ building does not collapse and constructing whatever has been designed.
+ 
+**Design**: Design consists of juggling aesthetic, practical and several other parallel considerations to arrive at the best possible solution. To design is to solve a problem by reaching an optimum trade-off between conflicting factors.
+For example, in architecture, one has to consider the sequence of spaces/rooms (their connectivity with each other), the climate, the cost, the materials that ought to be employed, the quality of spaces, etc. and produce a design that pacifies each need sufficiently.
+
+Note: The question itself is subjective. Perhaps when you are further along in your journey of becoming an architect, you shall have formed your own unique opinions about it; the definition offered above is (intended to be) a very crude one.
+
+**MYTHBUSTER**
+<br>
+Contrary to popular belief, architecture is not all about drawing, painting, and the like; although these are helpful skills during the course, they play a very preliminary role in design, and can nevertheless be picked up after joining the course. One does not need to be creative in the visual sense to take up architecture as a profession.
+
+![archi 0](/images/posts/archi-q1.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+ 
+### ARCHITECTURE AS A COURSE
+<br>
+The study of architecture requires one to be a skilled generalist; a jack of all trades, who can combine knowledge from diverse fields and translate it into thoughtful spaces which speak to the people. The course is therefore designed in a manner to expose us to a vast variety of topics.
+ 
+The constituent courses of the bachelor degree (as ascribed by the Council of Architecture) are centred around “Architectural Design”, which will be found in all semesters except 1.1, 4.2 and 5.2. In the fifth year, one works on their Thesis, a culmination of all skills acquired during the last four years, where he/she designs a building from start to finish, just as one would for an actual project. Other courses impart necessary skills and information required in order to design and actually construct a building. A full list of courses – and details about them – can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwI7Ki_XnyhmcURVd3FULW10azg)</span>.
+
+Architectural Design has the highest number of credits in any given semester. Designing - in general - involves solving the biggest of problems while paying attention to the minutest of details. A design needs to work and serve its purpose, preferably having an edge over conventional designs. An attempt to arrive at such a solution entails a great deal of thought. While thinking, brainstorming and conceptualising are extremely pleasurable, there will often be problems in each design, resulting in patches of frustration; in architecture, passion and frustration are inseparable.
+
+Designs are evaluated through/by a jury, where professors – and sometimes peers – criticize each design while the designer attempts to justify his decisions. Juries may severely damage egos or ignorance, depending on how one takes the criticism. Juries are the primary means of progress for any architectural design course.
+ 
+The course as a whole is rather challenging. It involves the longest contact hours of all courses and a great load of assignments (resulting in a number of late nights), both of which eventually decrease. Good grades call for a great deal of consistency in submissions above anything else.
+
+For people who have studied the sciences all their lives – presumably with much interest and love – this shall be a very different ball game. While this transition may make for a refreshing change, it does pose its fair share of challenges in its initial stages.
+
+
+![archi 2](/images/posts/archi-q2_p5.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+
+### TRIVIA
+
+1. 	**The “Family” system:** All first years are inducted into one or more families within the initial two weeks of joining IITR. A family consists (mostly) of one student from each year. One can be adopted on any number of criteria, or even at random (by chit-picking). Your family is your first point of contact should you fall into any kind of trouble. It is a “baap’s” duty to give chaapos and advice on things from career options and dating tips to surviving architecture and life in general .
+ 
+2. 	**The Studio:** Each year has its own studio which is essentially a large room where they do their drafting and other classwork. This room (and the Department of Architecture and Planning) is open 24x7, and it steadily becomes a second home for the class. This where we host midnight birthday parties and work for hours at an end.
+ 
+3. 	**Curious Columns:** The spring semester of 2018 saw the birth of “Curious Columns”, a department group that aims to bring passionate students together for discussions and workshops, and aims to provide a platform to share knowledge, ideas and opportunities to work with each other. A detailed manifesto can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ika5se3POBtjh1uJgI57GetLqxOyLiVr)</span>.
+
+4.  **Togetherness:** Each batch is a closely knit unit. This can be attributed to their small size, as well as numerous, recurring group assignments. Archi waale are almost always seen together at different spots on the campus; by the end of the second year or so, one establishes a deep familiarity with the rest of the batch, something that is peculiar only to Architecture.
+
+### PROS: REASONS TO BE PROUD
+<br>
+Architecture at IITR has many unique advantages. These are:
+ 
+1. 	**A chance to make another field/skill your profession**: Even if one discovers that architecture isn’t their cup of tea, many alternate options present themselves. Related fields include product design, graphic design and industrial design exist; those bearing little resemblance to architecture include coding, finance, consultancy and start-ups, to name a few. Self-interest and effort are primary requirements in such an undertaking, but campus groups and seniors help greatly. One can build his CV by interning in capacities closely related to the profession he/she wishes to pursue. Interns are much easier to come by with the help of the IIT tag. This is a good point in time to reiterate that very few people in any given batch choose architecture as their profession; the rest go into non-core jobs (we even happen to know people who want to pursue filmmaking after they graduate).
+ 
+2. 	**Societies, groups and sports**: Although architecture constitutes a very small number of the total intake, archi waale log can be found in most groups on campus. The reasons behind joining societies and groups stand as two polar opposites: some see them as opportunities to counter frustration, while others see them as opportunities to learn relevant skills, having discovered their disinterest in architecture. Either way, the number of groups and societies on campus is astronomical, with new ones cropping up every year. Chances are there is a group for each interest or intrigue you possess (an exhaustive list with brief information can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/campus-groups)</span>). Similarly, facilities for all major sports are available, along with exceptional coaching staff that bring out the best in you. More information can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/sports)</span>.
+ 
+3.  **A diverse friend circle and chances to collaborate**: By virtue of having a wide array of departments, IITR will bestow upon you a phenomenally diverse set of friends and acquaintances over the course of five years, resulting in interesting, insightful conversations. One has the opportunity to meet and interact with people involved in pursuits ranging from artificial intelligence to music to research to finance to consultancy. There is, therefore, a chance to collaborate with any of the above people for interdisciplinary projects.
+ 
+4.  **Tinkering Lab**: The tinkering lab, as the name suggests, is a lab where students can work on projects. it is equipped with state of the art tools, for example, industrial 3d printers. More information is available <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](https://www.iitr.ac.in/tinkeringlab/#home)</span>.
+ 
+5.  **The TIDES Business Incubator**:  The tides business incubator aims to help young start-ups grow. If you have a business idea,  you can go to these guys and they’ll provide you with a workspace, mentorship and even help you get funds. More information is available <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://tides.iitr.ac.in/)</span>.
+ 
+6. 	**Semester Exchange**:  A semester exchange is available for students having a decent CGPA (>7.5) with Hochschule Luzern (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts), Switzerland, in their 7th semester (4.1). This is an opportunity to learn how our western counterparts perceive and approach architecture, as well as to travel Europe and experiencing what it has to offer. <span style="color:#0645AD">[Here](http://wona.co.in/2017/03/exchange-diaries-switzerland)</span> is an account of the experience, as recalled by a senior who visited Hochschule Luzern the year before last.
+ 
+7. 	**Research opportunities**: Perhaps one characteristic that sets IITR apart from all other colleges is the emphasis it lays on research. Any student interested in research may approach a professor, consult him/her about the area/matter he wishes to investigate (not necessarily architecture) – and once he/she has the blessing of the professor – pursue it. A program called SURA (Summer Undergraduate Research Awards) is also in place (which has a somewhat drawn-out application process). For students of architecture, an additional opportunity lies in the form of the CBRI (Central Building Research Institute), which, although an autonomous body, abuts our campus, and is very welcoming of IITR students wishing to undertake research; three seniors to our knowledge have written research papers under the CBRI.
+ 
+8. 	**On-campus placements**: Reportedly (that is, with questionable certainty), other architectural colleges do not have placements, or any sort of arrangements wherein graduates can find firms to employ them. At IITR, such a system does exist, but the number of firms and companies that recruit architects are just sufficient. However, when it comes to other fields such as the ones mentioned earlier, it is a level playing field, and architecture graduates can get non-core jobs provided they are meritorious. More information can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://guide.wona.co.in/section/placements)</span>.
+
+![archi 3](/images/posts/archi-q4.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+ 
+### CONS: WHY WE AREN’T ALL THAT PROUD
+<br>
+If pure, unadulterated architecture is what you are interested in, IITR is perhaps not the best place to pursue it. A list of reasons are given below:
+ 
+1. 	**Lack of competition**: Out of the thirty-something classmates that will constitute your class (most colleges have at least 70), very few will actually be interested in architecture. A great number of them shall turn in a very poor quality of assignments – if they do – aiming at just keeping their heads above the water. There is a tendency for the “good students” to become too self-sure and become mediocre.
+ 
+2. 	**Focus of the professors**: Unlike other colleges of architecture, the primary focus of professors in IITR is their body of research. All professors are highly qualified (holding at least a M. Arch degree; most have a PhD), albeit in their specific fields of interest. Only a handful of professors actually put in effort to keep the class interesting and impart relevant and sufficient knowledge. At present, there are only two visiting professors (practicing architects), who are infrequent with their visits. At top architecture schools such as SPA Delhi, this ratio is almost reversed; the design studio and juries are held and evaluated by practicing architects, who have an idea of the real world, of what really works and what doesn’t.
+  
+3. 	**Not enough emphasis on design**: Architectural design, as stated earlier, is central to the entire curriculum. However, there are only 9 hours allotted to it per week (less than any top architecture school in the country). Such a setup requires that the designing be done after class-hours, keeping the 9 hours only for discussions (on ongoing design iterations). This is hardly the case; most students procrastinate, resulting in collective underachievement.
+
+![archi 3](/images/posts/archi-q3.jpg){: style="width:60%;height:auto"}
+
+ 
+### CONTACT DETAILS
+<br>
+In case you have any doubts regarding the course that you wish to get clarified, feel free to call any of the people listed below:
+ 
+**Komal Maheshwari (2nd year)**: +91 9330949212<br>
+**Divyang Purrkayastha (3rd year)**: +91 9560588732<br>
+**Ramachandra Reddy (4th year)**: +91 9557902784<br>
+**Lanka Adarsh (4th year)**: +91 9410577752<br>
+**Anshul Rathore (5th year)**: +91 9917026076<br>
+
+Illustration Credits: Leewardists

_posts/2018-07-07-summer-diaries-technical-university-of-munich.md

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Technical University of Munich"
+image: arpitSummerDiaries1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Arpit Agrawal"
+excerpt: "The Technical University of Munich (TUM) combines top-class facilities for cutting-edge research with unique learning opportunities for students."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+To be frank, I was not sure about my area of interest until the start of the internship season, which typically happens at the start of the third year. Having secured a decent CGPA and gained some lab experience in my department, I planned to apply for a research internship. Although there are many programs for research internships and scholarships like DAAD, Mitacs, NTU-India Connect et cetera, I restricted myself to DAAD and Mitacs Program. However, the two scholarship/internship programs have a completely different application process. 
+
+In Mitacs, you are asked to select projects that are offered by different universities of Canada and assign them a priority number. You are also asked to submit transcripts, Curriculum Vitae and the Statement of Purpose. While there is ambiguity in the selection criteria, to the best of my understanding it all depends on the Professor who offered the project. Interviews are held in December and the final list of selected candidates is announced in January.
+
+DAAD chiefly is a scholarship program funded by the German government. Therefore you’ll need to get an offer letter from a German institute. The application requires you to upload your offer letter, the Statement of Purpose, transcripts, NOC from your parent institute along with general personal information. Selection is mostly on the basis of CGPA and your past projects. The most difficult part of DAAD application is to get an offer letter from a German institute. The result of this program is also announced in the month of January.
+
+With luck on my side, I got selected in both the programs. This, however, tossed me into a dilemma. It was tough, but I chose the German university, the Technical University of Munich, as it’s ranked among the best in the world. Moreover, the offered project suited me more.
+
+ 
+Few tips and tricks that I would like to share:
+
+
+1. The new semester usually starts from September in Germany so that’s when the professors are looking for kick-starting new and interesting research projects. Start mailing immediately so that you get time for replies and follow-ups.
+
+
+2. Avoid mailing more than two professors who are from the same chair or department as there are chair meetings fortnightly and they often discuss these things. 
+
+
+3. SOP (Statement of Purpose) is the most important part of the application. Make your SOP short and to the point i.e. related to your research area. Make it interesting but not dramatic.
+
+4. Cover letter (in case of DAAD) plays a crucial role in your selection process. Avoid spamming and always edit to be more professor interest specific while writing it. Mention your past projects and lab experience, preferably in one or two short paragraphs.
+
+5. Collect a few good SOPs and cover letters from your seniors for reference.
+
+6. Be careful while writing a CV, it is not a resume. Avoid mentioning extra-curricular activities and awards unrelated to academics.
+
+7. Prepare a few frequently asked HR questions (about your motivation for research, etc.) for your confidence.
+
+8. When applying for a foreign internship, always keep your passport ready. You need to apply for VISA after getting selected, which takes time.
+
+
+### Exploring the country(s)
+![pic3](/images/posts/arpitSummerDiaries3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+**Life in Munich**
+<br>
+Obviously, this is the most interesting part of a foreign internship. Talking particularly about Munich, it is the most expensive city in Germany and finding an affordable accommodation is almost impossible. There are some websites like WG.de, where you can search but you need to be cautious: frauds and scams are pretty common. A good way to stay away from such scams is to never pay anything in advance. The best accommodation there is studentenwerk hostels. Many students go on vacations during this period, so they sublet their rooms and luckily I found one. It was similar to a hostel and students from almost every part of the globe resided there. The initial days were troublesome as getting vegetarian food at cheap rates was a herculean task. So I resorted to cooking myself. There were a few Indian students who helped me with it. A piece of advice for all: carry Indian spices from home, it’s very expensive in Germany for obvious reasons. We used to have parties on weekends and looking at Chinese people dancing to Bollywood songs was so much fun. When you are in Europe, you can’t be untouched by football and especially when the World Cup is going on. I stayed at Olympiapark and it is considered the party destination of Munich. Unfortunately, Germany was eliminated at the first round of World Cup and the excitement ended in a few days and so did the parties.
+
+**Travelling around**
+<br>
+The best part of living in Europe is its free borders and you can visit most of the countries on a single visa. There was no work on weekends so it was the best time to explore a new world. Connectivity and public transport in Europe are second to none and you can easily move from one country to another by bus/train. Trekking in the Alps, drinking wine at the top of the Eiffel Tower and roaming in the streets of Amsterdam made some lifetime memories for me. You will see the effect of war if you visit Germany or Vienna whereas you will see an entirely different world in Prague. When you are in Europe, always try the local dishes, especially waffles in Brussels and chocolates in Switzerland. The only problem you will face there is drinking water. You need to fill bottles from bathrooms. Though the water is clean and potable but at times it’s weird to do so, yet way better than spend two euros for a half litre bottle of water. 
+![pic3](/images/posts/arpitSummerDiaries4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+**About the people**
+<br>
+People there are very polite and helpful. You will always find someone to help you to find ways or addresses. Walking through the streets of Paris (considered one of the least safe cities in western Europe) felt safer than walking in Delhi. Most of the time, you won’t face any language problem as people living in the cities can speak or understand English but if you are living far from the city center, where you’d find cheaper apartments, communication becomes difficult. However, Google translate will help you a lot there. Always keep an offline version of a German and French dictionary in your phones and buy a local sim as soon as you settle there. 
+Another common problem for interns is about bank accounts. You will need a German account to get your stipend and most of the banks there don’t open accounts for such a short period. Around 5-6 banks refused to open an account for me. Eventually, I had to lie to open an account: I told the bank that I was considering pursuing a masters there. Overall, it was a great experience for me and I would definitely like to revisit.
+
+
+ 
+### Work
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/arpitSummerDiaries2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+The work culture in Germany is remarkably different from that in India. 
+People there take research professionally, and readily detest any childish behaviour during the working hours. The attitude is quite the opposite on weekends when they have parties and night outs. Since I was in a university as an intern, there were no fixed work hours. I worked variably, ranging from 6 to 10 hours. TUM is one of the best universities for research because of the fantastic work culture there. There was no work pressure, and I was primarily observed and graded on the level of dedication and enthusiasm for the work I did. One thing that I liked the most about the place was the interaction between students and professors. I used to have lunch with my guide who also took me to bars and restaurants. These type of informal meetings ultimately helped me in getting familiar with the system, and had a good impact on my work. They also organise biweekly chair meetings, where every professor, lecturer, and research scholar meet and discuss their ongoing work. In short, it was a pleasant and comfortable environment to work in.
+My project was a part of the HiOS project of TUM, which is related to the flood modeling of southern Germany. I was asked to prepare a model to correlate the surface run-off with different factors like roughness, slope, elevation etc. First, I had to collect all the data and prepare maps and land use charts for the cities involved and then use python programming in ArcGIS to automate the entire process and run it for 2-D Dynamic wave model. Although I was not expected to run the model but seeing my progress at work, they upgraded my work. Collectively it was a great learning experience. I had to give a presentation at the end which got approved by the chair of TUM. 
+
+
+
+
+ 
+### Summing up and Key Takeaways
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/arpitSummerDiaries5.jpeg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+So if you are interested in research and want to go for a fully paid foreign internship, start mailing right after mid-term examinations of the autumn semester and be ready with all documents like NOC, SOP etc. Put maximum effort into writing the SOP and cover letter. Refrain from mass mailing and always send edited and personalised cover letters to different professors. It is a great experience to improve yourself academically and develop a better personality. You will witness a new culture, meet new people and learn a lot. These programs also help you obtain scholarships for masters or Ph.D. in future, so don’t miss the chance. The last piece of advice, if you are selected, remember that when you visit a foreign land, you are not only representing your institute but also your country. Always keep a balance between amusement and work, and while you are there get praise for yourself and for India.

_posts/2018-07-10-summer-diaries-schlumberger.md

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Schlumberger Asia Services Ltd."
+image: PrateekJha1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Prateek Jha"
+excerpt: "Schlumberger is the world’s largest oilfield service company. It is spread all over the world, with employees representing more than 140 nationalities working in more than 85 countries. Today Schlumberger provides services to the petroleum industry, such as seismic acquisition and processing, formation evaluation, drilling, cementing, well completions, and software and information management."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+Schlumberger selects interns annually through on-campus recruitments. The recruitment process for my batch ended up getting delayed due to some technical difficulties, following which the process was reduced to only two rounds. The first round was that of resume shortlisting. Students from the Earth Science department (Geophysical Technology and Geological Technology) are eligible for the Petro-Technical Engineer (PTE) profile and are shortlisted based on their resume. The second round was that of Personal Interview which was held later in the month of January. 
+
+The interview is quite rigorous and tests your subject knowledge as well as who you are as an individual. The questions asked are very specific so one should not beat around the bush with the answers. I was asked numerous questions to test my understanding of the subject and each of these questions, although simple, was extremely concept based and required in-depth knowledge of the subject. 
+If your previous internships are relevant to the profile you are applying for, you must be completely thorough with the entire work which you had done over there otherwise it could reflect poorly on you.
+
+A lot of questions were also asked about my activities around the campus, my roles of responsibility and my general daily lifestyle. Apart from these, one should be prepared with the classic interview questions (‘about yourself’, ‘strengths and weaknesses’, ‘why should we choose you?’, ‘why Schlumberger?’).
+
+
+
+ 
+### Workplace
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/PrateekJha3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+All interns are introduced to the company, its policies and safety measures through a 3-days induction program after which each intern is sent to their allotted locations and segments. I was allotted segment Data Services (DS) Hub at Schlumberger’s Nerul base in Navi Mumbai. DS Hub is further divided into teams such as Geophysics, Petrophysics, Geology, Production and Reservoir. I was introduced to my team which was Petrophysics, met with my mentor and was briefed about my project.
+
+DS Hub Navi Mumbai serves as the headquarters of data servicing for Schlumberger and hence receives data from all across the globe. For Earth Science enthusiasts, my project was focused around NMR Logging data. To interpret NMR data, an accurate T2 cutoff is required to be obtained from core but in my case, core was not present and I was to devise a method and verify whether an accurate T2 cutoff could be obtained through it, without core. 
+
+My project was planned very efficiently through discussions with my mentor as we decided on short goals for each day of the entire internship period, in the beginning itself. This allowed me to keep a good pace and complete my project on time in a period of 3 weeks. In the final week, I was to present my work through a presentation in front of all of the managers and my colleagues, where I was assessed on my presentation skills as well as my work. 
+
+### Work culture
+
+
+Schlumberger functions like a relentless well-oiled machine. The job is not restricted to a traditional 9 to 5 scenario and employees work around the clock as and when a task is assigned. There is little room for slack and error. However, the entire segment working as a whole gives a very positive vibe to the workplace. The atmosphere is very collaborative where everyone takes care and guides each fellow employee. The teams also go out regularly for meals and parties which is always a fun experience!
+
+Apart from work, there are ample facilities for leisure activities such as table tennis, gym, video games or just bean bags for those like me who are willing to relax! Accommodation, meals and travel are all taken care of very efficiently and as per requirements. Navi Mumbai has a pleasant weather at all times and makes for a good stay.
+
+
+
+
+
+ 
+### Key Takeaways
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/PrateekJha2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+My experience remained amazing throughout. I was especially excited to be surrounded by people who were actually working on techniques and concepts I had only studied on paper in classrooms. As an intern, I was guided at each step and I gained further confidence when I realized that my project was not going to be restricted to my internship but would be beneficial to the company in the future.
+
+Despite the seemingly short duration of a one-month internship, it is an intensive learning process. It gives interns a lot of scope for professional and personal growth as it demands work at a regular pace along with excellent communication skills. Getting here is tough and persisting here is tougher but making the ride fun is all up to you. 
+
+For interviews, my only advice is that you be thorough with the subject matter and your resume. Be calm and confident and always remember that it is you who drives the interview and not the interviewer. 
+Feel free to contact me for any further questions!
+

_posts/2018-07-11-summer-diaries-sorbonne-university-paris.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Sorbonne University, Paris"
+image: yash1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Yash Trivedi"
+excerpt: "The intern season is definitely not something to be scared of. In fact, it is a rather enjoyable experience and a good precursor to the placement season. I’ll try to share my experience in the best way I can and I hope that you take something away from this."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+The intern season is definitely not something to be scared of. In fact, it is a rather enjoyable experience and a good precursor to the placement season. I’ll try to share my experience in the best way I can and I hope that you take something away from this.
+
+### Making it there
+
+Like many others, I too didn’t have any specific job profile in mind. I was sure of one thing though - not wanting a coding-related intern, in part because I didn’t like it but also because the scope of my coding knowledge was restricted to a “Hello World” only. Hence, I was looking for an intern related to a core subject - either in an industry or a research intern. 
+
+I applied for almost all the core companies for my branch (Mechanical) that visited our campus - ITC, Bajaj, Tata Steel, Jindal. Most companies have a test, followed by GDs and interviews. I reached the interview stage of ITC and Tata but didn’t get selected. And all this while, I had also been trying to land a research intern abroad. I didn’t try for DAAD (my CG didn’t allow me to). I tried for other research programs - MITACS (Canada), NTU India-Connect (Singapore), CHARPAK (France) and NUS. I even had the audacity to apply for an internship in the R&D cell of Boeing and Airbus, only to be rejected later. I didn’t have any luck here either - I got only 4 replies from professors out of the 35-odd mails I sent - all in the negative. The perfect time to start mailing depends on the deadlines of the respective programs. If you are aiming for DAAD, you will have to start pretty soon - I think around August-September should be good. For Charpak, you can start mailing professors by November-December. There is no limit to the number of mails you can send. I have known friends who have sent more than a hundred before getting a positive response.Care must be taken to not spam each and every professor you find out about with the same mail. Take some time to select a professor and write him a personalised mail.
+
+The generally accepted format for your mails is something like this - your cover letter (the mail you write), and with it attached your resume (with a detailed description of your projects), a report on the project(s) you have done (this really increases your chances), and a letter of recommendation (optional). No need to use your IITR resume. You can easily create one on LaTeX. 
+
+I finally had my breakthrough when Reliance visited our campus in March. It recruited solely on the basis of my test performance (core + aptitude). I was happy. I gave chapos. And exactly 9 days later, one of the professors I had mailed, replied - offering me an internship at Sorbonne University, Paris. This was my 37th mail. Although I had missed the deadline for Charpak (hence, start mailing early!), the professor agreed to fund my intern almost completely (thanks to the labour laws in France). I spent the next three weeks deciding whether or not to leave Reliance. Eventually, I did leave Reliance and decided to go to Paris. (and thank God I did!)
+
+### WORK
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/yash3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+#### What I had to do
+My internship lasted for about two and a half months. I was to work on the experimental (and subsequent analysis) part of a project related to fracture mechanics. After the first day, they gave me complete freedom to carry out the work in whichever way I deemed fit. I didn’t have any fixed work hours as such. But usually, I used to come at 10 in the morning and leave at 6:30-7 in the evening. I was expected to report to my professor and his PhD student with the summaries of my experiments. There was lots of work to be done, and lots for me to learn. Thankfully, the work was interesting and it felt good to collaborate with someone on a thesis. 
+
+#### What I learned there
+
+Over the course of the internship, I realized the importance of coding in research. I ended up learning a lot of Python (the kind that is useful in research). Now, after the internship, I know exactly how the field of  research functions, what it takes to complete a thesis, how professors collaborate with other professors and why experiments are so tough to perform, amongst other things. It is a daunting task! I have realized that 3D printers are so much more than the toy-printing machines we know them to be, and I saw (first hand) what sort of problems they pose when used for scientific research. I also had to read a lot of literature related to fracture mechanics & fractography, since it was not a part of my curriculum. I learnt to use fancy machines like the 3D printer, UTM and profilometer. My professor and his PhD students were very cooperative and helpful throughout. I also got lots of guidance with regards to pursuing a Masters degree abroad. All-in-all, I would say I have come back with a significant enhancement of my knowledge. Not to mention I got the chance to live in Paris and see Europe for 2.5 months (Oh! I will miss the greenery).
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/yash4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+#### Culture
+
+In France, a so-called “lab” culture  exists. So I was not part of the university as such, but the laboratory where I was working. Hence, I couldn't interact  with many undergrad students but only the PhDs working in the same lab. I was really inspired by the research culture there - which I found very different from ours. People seemed to take research much more seriously. The topics people there were working on were also extremely interesting. At least in the lab I worked in, the topics were all related to pure science, as opposed to industrial applications of research - another aspect where IITR differs from them, I think.
+
+Coming to the location - no words are enough to describe the beauty! Paris is definitely one of those cities that is always on the run, and summers is the perfect time to enjoy Paris. There is lots to do and see in Paris. But, it is an expensive city to live in. So be prepared to shell out some money from your pocket too. Since we(two others from Roorkee) were here for two and a half months, we could explore Paris thoroughly, perhaps in a way no other tourist can. France gives amazing benefits to students - reduced fares for every attraction, free entry at museums, a part of your travel expenses are covered, and much more. It is very easy to visit nearby countries (one Visa works for almost all countries in the EU) and there are plenty of deals you get for Bus/Train journeys. Apart from the usual things/places one visits in and around France, I went to see Roland Garros, attended a concert, visited the winery of the world's most famous champagne and of course, tasted it. Like any other European nation, the French are really passionate about football and living in Paris during the World Cup, with France now in the finals - you can only imagine what it would have been like. French people are quite lazy and they love partying, so weekends in Paris are literally lit, with plenty of party places around. The city of lights, love, art - Paris is definitely a dream destination.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/yash2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### TAKEAWAYS
+
+As I end this, I would like to say that if you ever have to choose between a core intern like Reliance and a research intern in Paris - don’t hesitate for a second. Just choose the latter. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity. You will definitely learn a lot and also get good recommendations if you wish to apply for Masters. Keeping aside the immense amount of knowledge you will gain from the experience, how often does one get to live for 2 months in Europe, that too off of someone else’s money?
+
+For any queries or additional information regarding how to apply, feel free to contact me! All the Best!!!
+
+P.S : Your CGPA does matter, so take care of it.
+

_posts/2018-07-13-summer-diaries-JP-morgan-chase.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: J.P Morgan Chase"
+image: rajendra1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Rajendra Thottempudi"
+excerpt: "J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. is a leading global financial services firm and one of the largest banking institutions in the United States with operations spread over 60 countries."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. is a leading global financial services firm and one of the largest banking institutions in the United States with operations spread over 60 countries.
+
+### Making it There :
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/rajendra2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+<br>
+
+This was the first time JPMC visited our campus for recruitment. Their recruitment process is pretty similar to that of other tech firms.The first step is the shortlisting of resumes, for which a minimum CG criterion is specified. It then consists of a preliminary round followed by two interviews.
+<br>
+
+1. The preliminary test consists of two sections, aptitude and programming. Make sure you give importance to aptitude as well.
+2. __Interviews:__ There are two rounds of technical interviews, followed by an HR round. Standard questions of Data Structures and Algorithms are asked in the technical round so go through them, preferably from geeksforgeeks. Apart from DS, JPMC is keen on various concepts of Object Oriented Programming, so you can expect a few questions based on OOP in interviews. Finally, they ask specifics of some of the projects from your resume. 
+The HR interview is pretty easy as they just try to know you better. Communication skills play a key role in this round. Express yourself clearly and that’s pretty much all it takes to get into JPMC.
+
+<br>
+
+### Life At JPMC :
+
+The initial days consisted of an induction programme, where they give you a brief introduction of the organisation, which frankly gets a bit boring after a while. At the end of the induction, every intern is assigned a Manager and a Buddy, who helps you with most of the things in the beginning. 
+
+Speaking of myself, I was a part of the Performance and Monitoring team, which monitors various services and continuously strives to improve the performance of the applications so as to make them easier for the end customer to use. The best thing about the culture here is that once you are in a team, there is no difference between an intern and an employee. In fact my team members (other than my manager) didn’t know that I was an intern until I mentioned it to them. I was given two projects primarily, one of which was related to research wherein I had to understand several concepts of machine learning and their use cases for the organisation through a tool named Splunk, which is basically used for log monitoring. The second project comprised of creating an interactive chatbot for a specific purpose (now this is confidential :) ).
+
+Coming to the culture at the organisation, the people around are extremely friendly, and there are several activities which the employees can be a part of. These include sports, representing the organisation at an NGO etc. Regular hackathons are also conducted to harvest new ideas, and the project can be related to any area of your interest. The work hours vary from team to team, but from what I observed they are very flexible and all that matters is getting the job done on time. The manager guides us a lot throughout the tenure, not just technically but in a career perspective as well. My stay was in Hyderabad and it’s a beautiful city to live in. 
+
+<br>
+![pic3](/images/posts/rajendra3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+### Summing it Up! 
+
+The two month experience in JPMC has taught me a ton of things. I used to think that life at a corporate organisation would get monotonous with time, but now after interacting with a lot of people I believe that it gets monotonous only if we stop taking the impetus to make things interesting. So, if you keep yourselves motivated and enthusiastic, it’s fun to be at JPMC!
+
+Your summer internship has the potential to give you a lot of exposure related to various things in the industry, so interact with as many people as possible, know the way they have structured their careers and ensure that you have a vivid path in front of you.
+
+Finally, I believe that every one of us has got the skills that are required to get an internship in the fields of our interest, we just have to work to hone our skills and make them better. All the best!

_posts/2018-07-16-summer-diaries-Pepsico.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Global Value Innovation Centre, PepsiCo"
+image: anant1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Anant Vashistha"
+excerpt: "PepsiCo is one of the leading American multinational fast moving consumer goods companies which has interests in the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of snacks and beverages"
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+PepsiCo is one of the leading American multinational fast moving consumer goods companies which has interests in the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of snacks and beverages
+
+### Making It There:
+I began searching for a summer internship around mid-July. Initially, I was more inclined towards research internships at some esteemed foreign university. I started by preparing a cover letter, CV/Resume, Statement of Purpose and an excel sheet tabulating all the details of the professors related to my field of research. I finally received a confirmation letter from a professor by August end after sending over 50 mails. Unfortunately, my application didn’t get financial support through the DAAD-WISE scholarship.
+
+In between this internship search process, I decided to apply to companies in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector to get a feel of what a  corporate internship would be like. 
+
+I chalked out a list of companies, prepared an excel sheet and sent over 40 mails. I started applying for the corporate internship from early October through the career portal on the website for any internship program, through LinkedIn connections and through mailing. Most of the companies also release a problem statement to offer an internship to the pre-final year students. After the completion of all the formalities including resume shortlisting, telephonic discussion and the in-person meeting, my dream came true and I ended up getting an internship confirmation mail from PepsiCo by march end. My grade point average along with an experience as an intern in Defence Research and Development Organization, Ashok Leyland, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow and the Robotics Tech startup gave a huge boost to my application.
+
+Meanwhile, I also got selected to the Summer Research Fellowship Program (SRFP) and got an opportunity to work as a research assistant at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/anant2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Life at Pepsico:
+In PepsiCo, I worked in the Global Value Innovation Centre which works on disruptive innovations and carries out research studies on recent technological advancements. My project work was focussed on developing a solution for the consumers based on IoT concepts. It included the patents study, research on filtration and network technologies, conduction of failure mode and effect analysis. I also designed a process flow and suggested solutions to meet challenges that we faced. Competitor analysis, market study, deducing inferences from the data, consumer behavior, and the suppliers shortlisting was a small segment of my project.  Discussions with the suppliers and stakeholders, presentations and internal meetings became a part of my 8 weeks internship.
+
+Interestingly, I was not only limited to the Global Value Innovation Centre. PepsiCo provided me with a number of opportunities and organized induction programs with the operations team, supply chain team, R&D team, digital marketing team and many more. Moreover, I also got an opportunity to visit two manufacturing locations including the bottling plant and the snacks plant. This internship also enabled me to meet Arjun Vajpai, the third youngest Indian to scale Mount Everest, for having a discussion on one of my ongoing projects. Along with sharp mentoring from higher management authorities, PepsiCo also enabled me to visit to two to three product design shows and exhibitions.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/anant3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+I had a number of light moments, fun parties and get togethers with people at high positions in PepsiCo, which made my internship a cake walk. 
+
+### Summing It Up
+
+There is a lot you gain working in the FMCG sector, namely: the scope to make and broaden your networks, an understanding of market behavior, and exposure to management internships.
+
+PS: The art of writing a cover letter, presentation of resume, projects done and the CGPA plays a vital role in shortlisting procedure. Skills, company related information, and communication skills are the deciding parameter in an interview round. While preparing a cover letter for mailing, one must be precise and mention the achievements of the person/company for whom you apply. Rather than writing too much about yourself, one paragraph must be dedicated to the work/study carried out by the professor/company. Resume is enough to showcase your skills and the capability. Timely follow ups are an integral part of the mailing. 
+
+Wish you all the very best!

_posts/2018-07-17-summer-diaries-ntu-singapore.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: NTU Singapore"
+image: kalp1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Kalp Garg"
+excerpt: "At the start of internship season, which generally kicks off as soon as summer vacation ends, I was pretty sure that I will not be going to any coding companies and was unsure about spending my next summers in some core company or in some university"
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+At the start of internship season, which generally kicks off as soon as summer vacation ends, I was pretty sure that I will not be going to any coding companies and was unsure about spending my next summers in some core company or in some university.  Keeping that in mind, I start preparing for two main core companies which came to our college i.e Texas Instruments and Qualcomm. I got selected for interview round for both companies but finally didn't make it up to any of them either. I can write a separate blog post regarding that context but it is better if you heard/read from the guy who got selected because I am here to tell an altogether different story of a 'research internship'.
+
+There are many different foreign internship programs that provide funding and research opportunities in different universities across the world. Some of them are Mitacs, DAAD, SN Bose, Viterbi, NTU India Connect, RISS, Charpak, SURF, etc. Discussion with seniors and friends let me acquaint with their procedure and selection criteria. This is a list of only common and usually known programs. Many universities have their own programs for summer research internships. Generally, there are two ways of getting an internship, one to apply through the program and other to directly mail professor. Latter one is tedious and becomes more time consuming if you want funds from the professor for your internship. How to decide whether you directly mail professor or apply through the program? Some program like DAAD have minimum CGPA criteria of 8.5, so they gave you the direct answer but almost in every program selection, 'CGPA' is an important criterion for selection. So if you have an average or low CGPA, start working on your SOP, CV, cover email right from the start of August or even start of your 3-1 semester. It will give you a head start and obviously more time. Also, there are great chances of a professor of reading and accepting your proposal as the year progresses, their inbox is filled with such emails and they fed up with them.
+
+The procedure of NTU India Connect is pretty simple and straight-forward. You will require Recommendation Letter from two professors of the home university, passport scanned copy, Curriculum Vitae, NOC from home university, transcripts. There are no minimum CGPA criteria in this program. Your selection in the program mainly depends upon your previous project/experience and its relevance in your applied project. After getting selected, you don't need to go anywhere for your VISA. Instead for the 3-month stay in Singapore, you can apply for the TEP (Training Employment Pass). You need to submit an application for TEP to NTU office which they will forward to the Ministry of Manpower (MoM). After visiting at NTU, however, you need to visit Employment Pass Service centre to complete the process.
+
+Everyone who applied through program receive accommodation in the same hostel/hall. Moreover, you will easily find Indian food and Indian people everywhere inside or outside the campus.  I have many pure vegetarian friends there who ate outside almost every day. Since there is no mess system inside NTU, but there is pantry room with Induction and Microwaves in every block of Hall, so you can cook your own food. I did carry frying pan and some other utensils, along with pulses, rice, and some ready to eat packaged food.
+Also, it is better if you take some cash currency and rest currency in your forex card as some online private forex companies like buyforex, bookmyforex etc. give better options and services as well as competitive exchange rates. You don't need bank account there as all reimbursements and stipend are given into cheque can be directly converted to cash through "FRANK by OCBC" located into North Spine, NTU. The language here isn't a barrier, as every people here talks and understand English. Since Singapore has 4-5 official languages so if you're Tamil speaker, even then you will be able to perform your official tasks since it is also one of the official languages, that's how secular 
+this country is.
+
+### Work
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/kalp2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+My research work is in the field of robotics and vision. A USV (unmanned surface vehicle) is being developed by the team led by my Prof for the Maritime RobotX Challenge which held after every 2 years and is a joint project by NTU and Rolls Royce Lab. Initially, I was told by my Prof to study and analyze the work that has been done in the vessel.  My work is related to its vision and I have assigned the task of developing vision modules in ROS (Robot Operating System) according to the need of competition. During that time, an enhanced visual sense for colour learning and recognition is being developed by me and Prof and I implemented this algorithm as a separate ROS node so that it is modular and others can also easily use this to develop their own robotics project.  To properly analyze its functionality, an interactive GUI is also being made in ROS itself. As per the number of interns under prof is concerned, two is from NTU India connect program (including me) and two are from GRI (Global Research Internship) program. All of us are working on the same vehicle with different work assigned to each of us.
+<br>
+The work culture here is completely different from India. Students and professors are dedicated to work and research, self-study is the main focus of students. The study and research go side by side and there are many places to go and do your work quietly and peacefully. Apart from work, NTU has a very beautiful, dynamic and evergreen campus as its also among the 10 most photogenic universities in the world according to QS (Quacquarelli Symonds). 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/kalp3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Apart from hostel room, there are many places to work and sit quietly at NTU, one such was iconic building “The Hive” as shown in above figure.
+
+### Exploring Country
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/kalp4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+To travel and explore new things, these are perks that a foreign intern gets and usually, it becomes the most interesting part during his/her tenure. When I landed on the first time in Singapore, my first stop is Changi Airport and I'm awestruck after seeing the interior of the airport. It is so beautiful and well maintained as per its reputation as the best airport in the world. The country is impressively clean, the environment is fresh and information boards are placed everywhere so you don't require to ask for small things. Even if you ask directions from someone, the people here are so friendly and humble that you will feel good after talking to them for sometime. Every service counter has a candy box before them and person sitting there greets you with “Hey!! Good morning/afternoon” and then they converse politely and are avidly ready to help you out. Saying "thanks" after getting help/service from someone is in their culture that can lift a melancholic person’s spirits. Male Singaporean/Permanent Residents (second generation) here have to do 2 years of compulsory service in the army/police after the age of 18. So this makes them disciplined and at the same time fit. In my two months, I could barely see an obese Singaporean. Office hours here are from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, which they follow diligently and they used to eat dinner early and sleep early, which is the thing that I don't like personally as you will not be able to find any late night food court inside the campus. Also, they don't work on weekends and spend quality time with the families and friends in the garden/beach, do shopping, and other recreational activities. I got to learn so much from them.
+
+![pic5](/images/posts/kalp5.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Since Singapore is an island state, there are many things to watch and explore there. Some of them like Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sands, Sentosa Island, Pulau Ubin, Macritchie trail walk are must-see places in Singapore. Universal Studios is also present at Sentosa which is the most attractive place to visit. Since it is not able to completely explore it in a single day, we take 6-month student pass and visited Universal Studios for 4 different days. Since Singapore has a very well connected network of metros and buses, you can reach anywhere using them and the good part is that total travelling cost from one place to another remains same irrespective of you taking the bus or the metro or a combination of both. Talking about buses and trains, they are as good as one thought it could be. They are completely clean, fully air-conditioned. In fact, many buses are double-decker so it feels different sitting on the second deck at front of the bus. Generally, public transport isn't filled with people talking to loudly, creating a conducive environment to work to take a nap.
+
+If you're done up with travel in Singapore then you can go to nearby countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines etc. Since most near is Malaysia and Indonesia, you can travel without having to spend too much.
+<br>
+We used to travel during weekends as you don't have to worry about work.
+<br>
+Although you will find Indian food there, it's  taste is not up to the mark as in India. I did really miss this very much from back home. And you can't eat their food as it is tasteless. Only thing I like about their food is fruits, juices and milo. Since agriculture in Singapore is completely absent, all fruits and vegetables are imported. You get to taste fruit from different countries. I ate Egypt's honey mangoes, blueberries, red grapes of Australia, New Zealand's kiwis, Philippines's and Thailand's Bananas, USA's strawberries, cherries etc. Also "Durian" which is south-east Asia grown fruit also known as "king of fruits" and has a very potent smell.
+<br>
+Usually, rain occurs almost after 2-3 days, so the weather is very pleasant. The frightening part of rain is lightning which sounds very harsh and strong. The average temperature is around 25-30 degree Celsius. There is no need to carry warm wear.
+
+![pic6](/images/posts/kalp6.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Summing Up
+If you're interested in a research internship, strike first and strike hard. Start preparing your CVs, LORs, SOPs, etc. and start mailing professors at mid or end of August. Put effort into writing your SOP and cover email. Keep your passport ready.
+This was my first-hand experience of foreign travel and research internship. You will learn a completely different perspective on the level of research going on across the world. As a foreign intern, you will see the culture of different people, see their working environment. Their facility and infrastructure are that you have never seen before.
+ 
+
+

_posts/2018-07-19-summer-diaries-accenture.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Accenture"
+image: archie1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Archie Mehta"
+excerpt: "Accenture is a global management consulting and professional services firm started in 1989. It provides strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations services."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+Accenture is a global management consulting and professional services firm started in 1989. It provides strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations services. Accenture derived from “Accent to the future”, today, employs more than 425,000 employees from all across the globe generating a net revenue greater than $34.9 billion.
+
+### Making it there:
+
+Accenture generally comes in the month of August fairly early during the internship season for their presentation, where they elaborate on their selection process. The company invites applications only from Integrated MSc. Applied Mathematics and Msc. Economics/Mathematics. There are 2 rounds an aspirant has to go through before he/she can grab an accenture intern.
+
+
+* **Resume shortlisting:** The first round is basically resume based shortlisting. The chances of making it to the list increase for people ofcourse who have high C.G.P.A but also for the people who have done projects or interned in machine learning/Data science.
+
+* **Interview:** Next in line are three rounds of interview, the first two are technical with the other being HR. The technical interview is to check your conceptual understanding of the subject and how strong you are with your basics(Machine learning/ Data science).  Prepare your resume thoroughly and it is advisable to only mention projects about which you are confident. Be prepared to answer questions about your most recent internship/ project.
+
+
+### Life at Accenture:
+
+All interns are introduced to the company, its policies and safety measures through induction program after which each intern is sent to their allotted team. I was allotted Marketing team which is one of the largest team at Accenture comprising of 100 people, then met with my mentor and buddies and was briefed about my project.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/archie2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+The Projects assigned are from different disciplines ranging from Video analytics, sentiment analysis, Autoencoders, Image Processing and Optimization but almost always have machine learning linked to them. I was given a project on optimization i.e Cannibalization Analytics. The overall objective was to create the integer solution based optimization model that can be used in optimization situations where, creating all possible solution scenarios is computationally difficult and time inefficient. My project was planned very efficiently through discussions with my mentor and buddies in the beginning itself. This allowed me to complete my project within the time period. Reviews were held after every 20 days with the manager and mentors.  On the whole, Internship is divided into three stages. Understanding the problem, finding a solution and the final presentation.  Even if you know stuff, there is a lot more to learn out there, so keep gaining!
+
+As far as the workload is concerned, it is not really taxing. The work hours usually depend on the team you have been assigned to. For me, I worked from 9-6 on regular days. The company requires you to wear formals at work except on fridays. Apart from work, the company has a cafeteria and breakout area on each floor where we used to chill out and a CCD coffee/tea vending machine and a TT table was also available  there. 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/archie3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Summing up:
+
+It was a wonderful experience! Internships are a great opportunity for networking and getting to know people who will inspire you throughout your life. My previous two being research interns, I always wanted to do an Industry intern. To conclude, I would like to say that my internship has definitely given me a better understanding of my skill set . I learnt much about how the corporate world works.  Don’t just sit at one place and work, talk to your team mates, try to know their perspective, these things matter a lot. Accenture is a pretty good company to do an intern. A balanced resume with a decent C.G.P.A, past experiences(projects/internships) and good communication skills will surely help you in bagging the internship.
+
+The overall experience of the internship was very rewarding and one that I will always remember.

_posts/2018-07-19-summer-diaries-nthu-taiwan.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: NTHU, Taiwan"
+image: abhishek1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Abhishek Gupta"
+excerpt: "One of the most hospitable countries in the world, Taiwan is a place everyone should visit at least once in their lifetime.   "
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+One of the most hospitable countries in the world, Taiwan is a place everyone should visit at least once in their lifetime. Being determined to get a PhD and pursue a career in research, I didn’t apply for internships on-campus. With a CGPA of 9.01, I was quite confident of being able to bag internship offers from some good universities as long as I kept faith in my abilities and kept applying. I applied extensively for various programs in different universities across the globe and sent nearly 400 emails to various professors of reputed universities and research scientists of different research labs and organisations. 
+
+I had prepared my CV in a google doc format in my second year and I used to update it regularly. You should not use IITR format resume for research Internship application purposes. Instead, you can take a look at the resume of the professors in your department (available on their corresponding webpages) and prepare yours in a similar way. As for emails, write a personalized email to every professor you contact and make sure that you've been through his most cited papers as well as his recent papers to understand about his research before you send an email and then write your email accordingly. Do not restrict yourself to only one research field instead consider applying in other fields as well. Your interest will be generated as you proceed to work in that field. Do not use email IDs like smartyabhishek@, luckygupta@ etc to send emails. Instead, use IITR webmail to send emails. I used to attach the reports of my previously done work with the emails, which is helpful or you can  hyperlink the documents within your CV as well. Do not attach any recommendation letter with your email as recommendation letters are confidential and should be sent directly from your professor to the professor with whom you are applying for an internship.
+
+There are various other research internship programs in India as well like (IAS) Indian academy of science, TIFR, IISER, BARC, AIR-India etc which allow you to do high quality research work while keeping you within the  geographical boundaries of India. However, I recommend going to a foreign country. You will learn that small countries like Taiwan  have people with big hearts.
+
+I got rejected from various programs like DAAD-WISE, Mitacs globalink, SN bose scholars program, LIGO, CERN etc. I really faced a very tough time when I had to deal with so many rejections and funding related issues. Rejections are inevitable hurdles in your path of getting an internship. These rejections test your determination. Every rejection indicates that some big opportunity is waiting for you. I too kept applying and finally hard work paid off. I got an offer from university of Paris in the laboratory of processes and materials science (LSPM) and an offer for summer Internship in microtechnology laboratory in National Tsing hua university Taiwan through their COEIA summer Internship program. Apart from this I also got an offer to work in ISRO and an internship offer from IIT Kanpur through their SURGE program. Considering the future opportunities for masters and PhD and reputation of laboratory, I chose NTHU taiwan for my summers. Having high CGPA is not a mandatory criteria for getting summer internship in NTHU but you must have a decent CGPA and some previous research work experience.
+
+### Work
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/abhishek2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Doing summer Internship in NTHU has been a memorable experience for me. While working on a research project I have learned a lot which, I'm sure, will definitely help me in my future endeavours. With  great research facilities and highly advanced lab equipped with a lot of scientific instruments,  working in the micro-technology laboratory was a really enjoyable experience. While working day and night on my project, I also learnt a lot of things from my Lab co-members. With the great support of my guide, I was able to successfully complete an appreciable and unique work which got publishable as well. The campus life was also truly amazing, with the presence of 7-11 (24 hours convenience store) nearby you don't need to roam outside the campus in search of food when hunger pangs strike you while working late into the night . The weather at Taiwan used to be moderate generally, the place where I interned is quite a windy place with mild showers occasionally . I also visited some nearby places and tasted different taiwanese delicacies.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/abhishek3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+While working in the microtechnology laboratory, I learned using thermal electrical module of Ansys workbench and fortran programming. I also got used to various laboratory instruments including various multimeters, lasers and other optical devices. I used to work on weekends as well to deliver as much as output as I could within these two months. There were no restrictions on the timings, so I used to wake up a little late and then spend the whole night working in the lab. Since I had the key to access the lab anytime so I used to spent most of time in the laboratory. My guide was very generous and helpful in nature but was also very strict with deadlines. However, I never gave him a chance to complain, he was so impressed with my work that he invited me to pursue my masters under his guidance.
+
+“ **अतिथिदेवो भव:** (Atithi devo bhava)"  is a famous verse in Sanskrit, which means that a guest is equivalent to god. While living in Taiwan I felt that Taiwanese people also have similar values. Taiwanese people are very kind, generous and helpful with a very sweet nature. They are also very sensible people and a combination of these qualities truly makes them great. 
+
+Now talking about my research project, Terahertz radiations has been used in various applications including communications, space applications, Infrared imaging etc. due to its non ionizing properties and the fact that it cannot penetrate the human skin. Uncooled microbolometers have been a topic of immense research to develop lightweight and portable imaging devices for various purposes. My work was related to the development of infrared thermal imaging focal plane array employing various metamaterial structures to enhance the responsivity of thermoresistive sensor. I performed thermal electric simulations of various geometries to find out the best responsivity in terms of geometrical shape and created a mathematical model to find out the optimum dimensions of sensing element geometry with respect to applied constraints of fabrication capabilities and thermal boundary conditions. I  also designed a read out multiplexing circuit based on monolithic structures to create the thermal image and  to detect the direction of motion of the heat source.
+
+### Summing up
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/abhishek4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Unlike corporate internship,  a research internship offers more flexibility because you are not confined to a schedule. The  only thing is that you have to work with passion and good results are obvious. You are also allowed to think openly without any domination of what others think. The level of knowledge along with new life experiences that you will gain from a research internship is undoubtedly incomparable.
+

_posts/2018-07-21-summer-diaries-kanvic-consulting.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Kanvic Consulting Ltd"
+image: kanvic3.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Benison Joseph"
+excerpt: "Kanvic Consulting Ltd is a boutique firm in the field of management and strategy consulting. A boutique is a classification of the firms based on their scale of operations, as they focus on a limited number of services and have a strength of less than 100 and minimum administrative staff."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+Kanvic Consulting Ltd is a boutique firm in the field of management and strategy consulting. A boutique is a classification of the firms based on their scale of operations, as they focus on a limited number of services and have a strength of less than 100 and minimum administrative staff. A consulting firm typically advises C-level executives (CEO, COO etc) on how to tackle their strategic issues, be it improving profitability, entering a new market or accelerating growth or dealing with digital disruption.
+
+### Making it There 
+
+It was clear to me from the start of the year that I didn’t want an internship in coding nor data science. My priorities were consultancy, followed by product management and I was also aware of the need to apply off campus for the same, as a majority of the companies visiting campus for internship don’t offer roles in these profiles. Being a part of campus groups which deal with consulting, and plenty of networking and interaction with alumni over the years, did help me to get a fair idea of the challenges and opportunities the field offers, and hence consulting was easily the top priority for me. Based on some extensive search online I had around 15 consulting firms which I shortlisted for applying via their portal or mailing and requesting referrals through LinkedIn.
+
+
+For Kanvic I applied in the month of March on the careers  portal on their website. This round was basically uploading the resume and filling out a basic questionnaire. Following the shortlisting of resumes was the telephonic interview round which went over half an hour in my case. This was followed by the final round of Skype-Interview with the director of the firm. There’s high competition for the limited number of positions in the firm and hence having highly relevant things on your resume or at least ones that can be leveraged for similarities with the kind of work expected at the firm are a big positive. For the same role, a fellow Italian intern at Kanvic, who is an MBA student from ESCP Paris had a previous internship in consulting, while I had done a research analysis project for EY (Ernst & Young), have a POR (Chapter Head, CRY), and also I’m part of the consulting club in campus (ShARE). The telephonic interview was about getting into depth about things on my resume, my rationale behind my choice for consulting, convincing about my interest and why I would be a good fit, them clearly discussing what my role would be like and answering some HR questions. The third and final round was more technical with a case interview and a guesstimate involved, where they look for how you think and develop a structured approach to solving the problem.
+
+<br>
+![pic1](/images/posts/kanvic1.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+### Workplace 
+
+The office is based out in Gurgaon. Unlike typical corporate firms, Kanvic has a flat organizational structure and works with a startup-like ambience with a small team of diverse and well-skilled professionals who work to deliver top quality output. The major industries in which Kanvic specialises are Industrial goods, consumer goods, retail, and healthcare. The cultural mix was a standout as the firm has a presence in top cities in Europe and also my office in Gurgaon had an intern who is Italian, while one of the firm’s partner is British. Working hours are from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm, 5 days a week and due to the demanding nature of consulting, work usually goes beyond the working hours and sometimes working on the weekends becomes inevitable.
+
+<br>
+![pic2](/images/posts/kanvic2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+### Work
+
+My internship profile was that of a “Summer Associate”, wherein I worked directly under the senior consultants and the director of the firm, spending most of my time on primary and secondary research, conducting industry and company-specific analysis, making reports etc. The fundamental approach to work was to build a hypothesis for the specific task and then do the research to validate it. Many a time, finding data becomes difficult due to partial unavailability, or it may not be anywhere close to the desired form, so that’s where a consultant has to make judgement calls, use guesstimates for validations etc. and hence there is a need for all those skills from the candidate. There were reviews and discussion on my outputs on a daily basis, while I was mentored and provided valuable exposure to more challenging and intricate aspects of consulting and working on client projects.
+
+The primary task assigned for my tenure at Kanvic, was to take lead and drive forward the in-house analysis on the Indian cement industry, with certain targets and timelines laid out. A lot of consulting frameworks which I have only read about previously were used along with issue trees and MECE approach as I did various types of analysis like PESTEL (Macro-environment), Porter’s five forces(Industry level analyses), strategic positioning, production forecasting, market competitive dynamics, pricing analysis, company wise financial analysis etc. All the analyses and industry research culminated in me co-authoring an article with other senior members in our team on the Indian cement industry, where we identified the changing dynamics happening in the industry and also the areas that should be targeted to drive up profits. The article was published on the firm’s website and also got media coverage in The Economic Times.
+
+### Key Takeaways
+
+The flat organizational structure in Kanvic made working at the firm enjoyable, as you could easily approach anyone for discussions or help. We had weekly training sessions where one of us from the strategy, analytics or marketing team comes forward to present their work that gave us some useful basic exposure to the kind of industry and work challenges that they are dealing with. Having European colleagues meant a lot of cultural exchanges happened over interactions on life and work cultures, companies and business environments etc. and of course, football. We did have some fun team outings, and the Italian friend even cooked some Italian food for us.
+
+Over the two months, I worked at Kanvic, the amount of learning and experience I gained was tremendous. This definitely had to do with the unique organizational structure and entrepreneurial work environment at Kanvic. Just as how internships are meant to be, I could find where I fit in the field of consultancy and what future growth prospects lie ahead, if I choose to continue within this field.
+
+<br>
+![pic3](/images/posts/kanvic4.jpg){: style="width:40%;height:auto"}
+<br>
+
+### Advice for those gunning an internship
+
+Although consulting is one of the most challenging and rewarding job profiles that need problem-solving, analytical skills, coachability, great communication and teamwork (where IITians can definitely fill in), the opportunities for an internship in this field for an engineering graduate is relatively low due to abundance in the supply of MBA candidates. Thinking from the firm’s perspective it becomes easier for them to hire a current MBA student than invest time training a graduate for business awareness, understanding of basic micro and macroeconomics etc. This makes getting selected for an internship highly competitive. The key to overcome this is to start early in improving your business understanding on how companies and industries run, some basic understanding of economics and most importantly having a basic understanding of the importance and contributions of consulting firms in the broad domain of business.
+
+Guesstimates and case interviews will become necessary in the further rounds of application and can be practiced with resources and help that can easily be found online. The most valuable form of help I got was from interacting with people working in consulting (Mostly alumni), as I could build a fairly decent idea about the field, how the work typically goes by, and qualities the firms look for in a consultant etc. All this not only helps in having clarity while applying but also helped me to mentally align my expectation and then incorporate all the learning and experience to make the best of the internship. Networking is very important just like in any professional field. One can easily search for alumni on LinkedIn who are working in various consulting firms and then approach them for guidance and even referrals while applying and they will be there to help.
+
+For those of you gunning for an internship in consulting, feel free to contact me for any additional queries or guidance

_posts/2018-07-23-summer-diaries-arctic-norway.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: University of Arctic Norway (UiT)"
+image: ritvik1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Ritvik Raj"
+excerpt: "Having a low cgpa, you would not expect anyone to get (even apply for) a foreign research internship but this didn’t deter me down."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+Having a low cgpa, you would not expect anyone to get (even apply for) a foreign research internship but this didn’t deter me down. After receiving decent responses based on my profile from the professors, my confidence kept on rising. However, most of them turned out to be unpaid internship responses. Still, I kept on applying for like ten days. I started applying on 22nd March (which is too late to even think of applying for research internships but I knew that I had a decent resume which boosted my confidence in doing so) and got few responses which were positive and had funding opportunities. I finally settled for the internship at UiT Norway amongst the three interviews which I had with different university professors. I researched about it online that the Norwegian universities pay a good amount of money to their employees and interns. Also, the topic which I would get as an intern was a very fundamental topic in visual attention and symmetry (computer vision). I saw this as a very good opportunity to learn new things and experience new culture and hence grabbed this opportunity. Finally, I got the acceptance from the professor on 2nd April (took me ten days to get the internship) but I advise you to apply from September to November (professor don’t have holidays in this period) and January to March.
+<br>
+I took help from my senior to make a cover letter which was short but at the same time had all the important information. I’d suggest you to read some recent project of the professor under whom you have your internship and mention it in the mail because that helped me in pursuing this. Make a one-page resume and keep only the important information which makes it easier for anyone to read at one glance.
+<br>
+After getting the acceptance letter, I took my visa appointment on 22nd April which is a bit late. It took me one week to collect all the documents. I got my visa on 10th May and flew to Tromso, Norway on 15th May. Travel was well covered in the stipend. I recommend you to take layover between flights so that you can see around. Some countries have visa on arrival for Indians. The accommodation provided by the college was a single room along with kitchen shared amongst 6 people (co-ed hostel :P Seems pretty fun for IIT student, huh?)  
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/ritvik2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Life at UiT
+My area of the internship was in visual attention and symmetry. My work, initially, was mostly to code the research paper from scratch in python. Then, I had to investigate whether Symmetry or Asymmetry is important for visual saliency in an image based on MIT and several other freely available datasets. The work timing was from 8 AM to 2 PM which gave me a lot of time in the evening to study on my own. The best part was when I used to meet my supervisor. Try to have several meetings with your supervisor even if you have not completed the work. This would make you learn more and complete the work faster.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/ritvik3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Culture
+Everything about the place was quite new since this was my first time in Europe. I liked the social and gender equality in Norway which is one of the best takeaways. I loved the mountains (obvious, if you know me), fjords, islands, oceans and the beaches. I was actually living on an island named Trosmø . You get to see the Midnight sun (summer) and Northern lights (winter) which are great natural wonders.I even managed to save some money and travelled around Norway and some nearby places in Finland, Sweden, Paris and Amsterdam. I took car trips and tried kayaking, skiing and even hiking to some mountain peaks. I’d suggest you to plan the days intelligently!
+<br>
+I took a week off and travelled to Paris and Amsterdam. Try to go to Paris on their National (Bastille) day which is on 14th July. I was there that night and had an amazing chance to see the Eiffel tower lit up by fireworks. These great megacities are famous for its art, culture and history. Overall, it was a great experience visiting several countries in just three months.
+<br>
+Weather in Europe is the best in summers. The temperature in most of the places is between 10 to 30 degree Celsius. Walking on the streets is the best thing you can do in this temperature. I even learned to cook food during my stay there. I tried some different cuisines but Indian food still stands my favorite.
+
+	
+### Summing it up
+
+Try to be brave in taking chances and risks. While it might seem tempting to just shy away from challenges, don’t! If you are working with someone in your lab or travelling somewhere, try to make new friends and contacts. You can get some help from your fellow interns to find something that will meet your needs for a future internship. Internships are all about learning. So, if you really want to have an experience which is a mixture of travel and work, I’d suggest you to go for a foreign internship.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/ritvik4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}

_posts/2018-07-24-summer-diaries-nutanix.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Nutanix"
+image: ajayRahul1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Ajay Rahul"
+excerpt: "Nutanix solutions are built on Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) technology, delivering a full infrastructure stack that integrates compute, virtualization, storage, networking and security to power any application, at any scale. The company was founded in 2009 by Mr. Dheeraj Pandey of IIT-Kanpur. It grew as a startup and now is a full-fledged company with just more than billion dollar valuation. 
+"
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+Nutanix comes early during the internship season, usually the first day or second.
+The selection process involved 3 stages:
+	1. Technical round : Nutanix conducted an online coding test. We were given two questions and about an hour to solve them. The advice here is pretty much the usual - Geeksforgeeks, InterviewBit, Hackerrank etc, and your fundamentals.
+	2. Debugging round : Students who got through the technical round, are called for the 2nd round. In this round, you will be handed a piece of paper with a snippet of code, mostly in either C or C++, and you will have to find all kinds of errors and correct them. Your fundamentals and ability to analyse information quickly are going to help you get through this round.
+	3. Interview : This round can’t be generalized, depends from person to person, and their interests. Of course, they will ask you a few questions related to data structures and algorithms. Nutanix doesn’t conduct a separate HR round. The general advice is to be curious, have a decent interaction with the panel, and make a good impression. 
+	4. If you make it past this round, hurray! You are officially a Nutant !
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/ajayRahul2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+
+### Work and Culture
+The primary motto of Nutanix is “Hungry. Humble. Honest”, a motto that is reflected in the kind of output generated by the firm. Nutanix ,I believe is somewhere between a startup and a corporate, i.e although it is a corporate in formal terms, but the work-environment is undoubtedly more like a startup. During my internship period, I for once did not feel the corporate vibe at Nutanix. 
+![pic3](/images/posts/ajayRahul3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+<br>
+The interns are randomly placed in different teams, (Yes, I know it’s a tiny drawback, but the point is that the interns might not be mature enough at such an early stage to choose their own team.) I was placed in Nutanix Calm. Calm stands for Cloud Application Lifecycle Management, and was a startup acquired by Nutanix two years ago. My work was to develop a task for a cloud microservice running on Calm. I spent my first two weeks setting up my Dev VMs, working environment, and understanding how the product functions. I primarily worked on Go and Python, but at a later stage I had to work on the UI as well using ReactJS. So basically I had a full stack experience. The work assigned will not be some sort of training for interns, i.e the interns directly contribute to the ongoing projects of the team. I should mention that there were certain R&D projects based on Blockchain and Machine Learning as well in other teams. Interns have a boot camp during the first or second week, where all Nutanix products are explained, and I bet you’ll doze off just like you do in our campus lectures :P (just kidding, try not to: some of them are really interesting)
+<br>
+Since my team was earlier a startup, our work environment was really relaxed, and I believe that other teams at Nutanix also resonate the same work culture vibe. I did not have any fixed work hours. I used to arrive at 10 am, and leave by sometime around 12 a.m in the night. No, no, I did not work for the entire duration. We spent the evening playing TT, foosball, pool, FIFA 18 (PS4 basically), hit the gym, watched IPL and FIFA etc. Nutanix provided us with all three meals and a pantry in the office with “infinite” stock of beverages, snacks, juice and chocolates. The best part of the internship was working on a Macbook Pro. I still miss it, and it has made typing on my own laptop very tedious. At Nutanix we have a “Interns day out” with outdoor and fun activities at a place called Area83 in Bangalore. Other than that there are frequent team outings, be it a movie or a restaurant or (most often) a pub.
+<br>
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/ajayRahul4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Although I was assigned a mentor, he was not the only one who solved my problems. When you face a bug, try to debug it yourself for sometime, and then go bug other people to help you debug. Since most of the members were in the age group of 23-40, the nineties’ kids aura was maintained throughout the office. The work environment was non-stressful even though the coding standards were high.
+<br>
+Other than that you will have a jolly good time in Bangalore. It is a wonderful city, (obviously barring the traffic), with good weather, and a lot of tourist spots nearby. I personally love Church Street (M.G road) in Bangalore : It has got a bunch of good restaurants, shopping complexes, two bookstores and an entertainment/comic store. (What a nerd, eh!). We were lucky to have the FIFA world cup this year, we spent the weekends watching matches in restaurants in Koramangala. 
+<br>
+Given all these perks, it definitely doesn’t mean “life chill hai”. Work with fervour, be curious, show a lot of enthusiasm and finish your tasks time to time for a (any) successful internship.
+
+	
+### Summing it up
+
+A significant portion of our IITR junta is involved in ML,DL,Data science these days, if you too are a person who is *really* into Machine Learning or Data Science and wants to pursue it in the future, Nutanix might not be your best option. Although there are a few projects related to forecasting and machine learning, they are not the conventional stuff that one expects. Whereas, if you are interested in Cloud computing, OS, Networks and related areas, you should definitely give Nutanix a shot. I had a steep learning curve at Nutanix and fruitful work experience. Working in a city like Bangalore was a huge add-on. If you really like the company’s profile, and given that you have a strong resume, you can try for an off-campus internship as well (via Linkedin or any other connections). I believe more people will be familiar with the name Nutanix in the coming years. If you need more details, please feel free to ping me.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/ajayRahul5.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}

_posts/2018-07-26-summer-diaries-bnp-paribas.md

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: BNP Paribas"
+image: ram1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Ram Bansal"
+excerpt: "BNP Paribas is a French international banking group which currently stands as the world's 8th largest bank by total assets and operates in 75 countries"
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+BNP Paribas is a French international banking group which currently stands as the world's 8th largest bank by total assets and operates in 75 countries. In India, it offers sophisticated solutions in three of its core businesses: Corporate and Institutional Banking, Investment Solutions and Retail Banking. The BNP PARIBAS GROUP has been named as the “World's best bank for sustainable finance 2018.”
+
+### Making it there
+Having gained experience in a startup for eight months in my second year, I made up my mind to pursue a summer internship in the field which would intrigue me the most. And it was during the last two weeks of the subsequent summer internship when I found myself deep into financial markets. 
+
+Everyone talks about following your passion, but very few people are actually able to see the view on the other side, and the internship season is a live spectacle of the same. You’ll spot knots of students who won’t be putting in any efforts to know their area of interest, and who will get indulged in coding, data analytics etc and join the race of bagging a tag, irrespective of what they really want to learn. Seldom did I see anyone following their interests in unconventional fields like finance, design or digital marketing etc. I, not bothering about what others were targeting, learned the basic concepts of the stock market by joining a remote internship offered by ‘Trader for Tomorrow’ in the campus. 
+
+I continued following my ever growing interest in financial markets and shortly came across a senior who was studying finance religiously.  He showed an immense interest in guiding me through my journey of exploring the very field that had now made me enjoy the work I do. The semester was nearly ending, and I had no idea if I was ready to start applying for a finance-oriented internship as I was still ambiguous about spending my summers at a financial firm. 
+ 
+Finally, the internship deciding semester came up and I was supposed to make the inflexible decision of finalising an internship profile of my choice. I decided to take the road less travelled and kept studying finance further until I was able to make an irrevocable decision. It’s said that the best of the decisions are the most difficult to make, and honestly, I am really satisfied with mine. 
+
+In the first week of January, I made up my mind to follow finance with full determination and dedication, giving up on everything else. One of the best possible ways to develop a good understanding of Finance is to devote your time to gaining knowledge of the CFA Level 1 syllabus. The CFA® Program is a globally-recognized graduate-level curriculum that provides a strong foundation for real-world investment analysis and portfolio management skills combined with the practical knowledge that you will need in today’s investment industry.
+   
+After the first eight months of the junior year, I realized that I didn't even get my resume verified as I was busy seeking my passion. I was too full of myself to bother what others were striving for and quite obviously, experienced a downfall in my social life. All said, I really don’t have any regrets about the way I used my time as the rigorous and fixed schedule turned out to be very fruitful, I’d finally developed a keen interest in ‘Valuation and Equity Research’. 
+
+It was the first week of March when I started looking out for an internship in Qualitative Finance with full focus and devotion. And right before the end semester examination, I had the following internship offers, and I got all of these via Linkedin. 
+
+1. BNP Paribas, Mumbai - Investment Banking Analyst
+2. Kotak Securities, Mumbai - Client Relationship Associate 
+3. Wealthmills Securities Private Ltd., Navi Mumbai - Research Analyst
+4. Sharekhan, Mumbai - Product Manager
+You can bag any internship via Linkedin, provided you follow a set of guidelines for its optimal use.  In the next section, I am writing the steps to get an internship aligning with your area of interest using Linkedin.
+
+**Tips for applying off-campus via LinkedIn**
+ 
+1. Attractive Linkedin Profile - The primary focus should be on building an attractive Linkedin profile. A good profile includes a short and crispy introduction about oneself, and the past experiences with detailed explained of the role a person was engaged in. I would recommend taking a reference of the profile of Shubham Vij, a 2018 batch pass out. Refer to this link to redirect to his profile - (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubham-vij-317322b4/ )
+2. Neat CV/Resume - The second step which is the most crucial requires you to making a good-looking Curriculum Vitae/ one-page Resume including as much content as it could contain. I would suggest against using the IITR resume template, especially when applying off campus. I referred to the CV layout formats used by business school students. 
+3. Appealing Cover Letter - A lot of creativity is required while drafting an impressive cover letter. A convincing cover letter comprises of three segments, the first part briefing about yourself and the role you are applying for, the middle portion describing the skills you developed through explaining your past experiences, and the last section emphasizing on how your experiences and skills make you suitable for the asked role. 
+4. You are all set to sail once you have prepared a CV, a cover letter and a Linkedin profile. Next step is to make an excel sheet containing the name of the companies you want to work at during your internship period. 
+5. Now, take up any company from the excel sheet, and search it on Linkedin. Open the page holding the profiles of all the employees working there. Beginning with the top of the hierarchy of their designations, start sending requests to HRs, Presidents, Vice Presidents and others through putting a crisp and an impressive content in the 'add note' option. And you have to send the same to at least 25 profiles per company. The conversion rate of getting your request accepted is 40%, only if you have a pretty good profile. And the chances of getting a reply back from a new connection is 30%. In a nutshell, approximately twelve professionals will respond out of a hundred persons approached. This route is not as simple as it may look initially, but I guarantee if you do it honestly the chances of getting a favourable outcome would increase much fold. I have mentioned below what I used to write in 'add note' button, <br>
+ *Hello Sir,
+I'm currently a 3rd-year undergrad at IIT Roorkee. I have a deep interest in Equity research and valuations. I am looking for a summer internship in the same. Could you please guide me in the right direction?*
+6. Once you get a reply, try not to miss the opportunity and keep him/her engaged in the conversation smartly. You need to get their business mail id so that you can send the cover letter you have prepared, and don't forget to attach your resume in .pdf format. 
+You will be informed of an interview if that person considers your resume for the internship. The number of interview rounds you face would depend upon the company you apply in.
+7. A tip on increasing the chances of getting a positive reply - I used to get very disappointed by a low rate of getting a response. So, I tried putting another convincing text trying to persuade them to reply, and I turned out to be lucky as I witnessed an exponential growth in the number of replies. So you can always shoot them one more text. You can write it in the way you want, but for your reference, I am writing down my original message here. <br>
+ *I am searching for the right opportunity, and I know your mentorship can provide me with what I am seeking. Could you please tell me how I should proceed further? I have developed a deep interest in the financial markets, valuations, and equity research and I have decided to pursue a career in the same. I am also looking for a summer internship in the same. May I please know if there is any suitable opportunity for me?*
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/ram2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Work
+Unlike my friends, I didn't get my internship through a well-carved process, so I had an entirely different internship experience in the investment banking field. I didn’t even have to complete the training webinar sessions unlike most of the on-campus recruited interns. 
+
+It took me by surprise when I realised that I was the only intern to be hired in their headquarters, i.e., BNP Paribas, Mumbai, where I got the project falling under "Sustainable Finance." Officially I was assigned to do the credit analysis of a project which had been seeking to raise funds to carry forward their program through innovative financial instruments like sustainability bonds (Green Bonds and Social Bonds) and Social Impact Bond. As the deal between the bank and its client took more time than was expected, my project pivoted more towards the research side. The revamped project was to design the bond framework, a technical guide to be followed while issuing the Social Impact Bond (SIB), and also perform extensive research on the scope of raising funds through SIB with the bank acting as the middleman between a social investor and the client. 
+
+I chanced upon working on a couple of real ongoing pitches where I got the opportunity to study various sectors like Online Travel, Irrigation, Airline, Cement Industry, etc. The culture was pretty smooth, and my mentor was very friendly and supportive. It's right what we have heard about the working hours of an Investment Banker. Their work schedules are always tight. Their number of working hours fall somewhere between 11 to 14. The people I met, perhaps were the smartest ones I have ever seen in my life. Having impressive interpersonal skills, Ivy League and IIM A/B/C MBA degrees and financial consultancy skills just put them in a completely different league. 
+
+
+### Summing it up
+In a nutshell, you can get an internship of your choice, but you need to keep yourself motivated throughout the whole process. No doubt you will be facing some obstacles, but that will make you stronger and different from the ones following the crowd. You will feel a sense of satisfaction which is the hardest thing to achieve.   
+
+
+
+

_posts/2018-07-26-summer-diaries-uber.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Uber Technologies"
+image: sajal1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Sajal Sourav"
+excerpt: "Uber Technologies Inc  is a peer-to-peer ridesharing, taxi cab, food delivery, and transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with operations in 633 cities worldwide."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+**Uber Technologies Inc** is a peer-to-peer ridesharing, taxi cab, food delivery, and transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with operations in 633 cities worldwide. 
+
+### Making it there:
+
+Uber visited our campus for recruiting interns. The process commenced with the company presentation and was followed by the display of the list of shortlisted candidates. An online coding round was held on the platform HackerRank similar to the monthly contests on codechef ,codeforces , hackerearth , etc . To prepare for this round, I would suggest practicing questions and participating in such monthly contests. 
+This coding round had three questions based on algorithms and data structure . Only those candidates who were able to solve all three questions were shortlisted for the interview round . Three rounds of interviews were held, two of which were technical and one was the HR round. In the first technical round, questions asked were mainly from the topic algorithms , data structure ,operating system and networking . In the second round questions were asked from the projects mentioned in the resume.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/sajal2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Work:
+
+In Uber,  interns are treated at the same level as the employees and granted all the privileges . 
+The work environment is good and all the employees and staff are very friendly and always ready to help. The working hours are very flexible and we worked according to our convenience. A mentor was assigned to every intern who supervised all the work done by the intern . The projects assigned were interesting, challenging and impactful. I was in the Risk team and my project was to build a service that would help agents in the investigation of fraudulent trips. Inspite of being an intern, I was given full freedom to take design decisions of the service. Reviews were held at regular interval to track an intern’s progress and useful feedbacks were given after the review by the team members.Towards the end of internship a final presentation and demo was held in which all teams were invited.
+
+### Location:
+I was assigned to Uber Hyderabad Office. In Hyderabad accommodation is easily available at very cheap rates. I chose  to live in the vicinity of my office. Food in hyderabad was also quite good. 
+
+### Summary:
+
+The internship offered me a good opportunity to expand my technical knowledge. I got to learn how an industry works and how employees manage their jobs in the corporate world. I realized that building something really useful in life is the real challenge. Internship gives you a great opportunity to figure out what you really want to do for the rest of your life. 
+

_posts/2018-08-01-summer-diaries-cmu.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: CMU, Pittsburgh"
+image: sumit1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Sumit Kumar Yadav"
+excerpt: "I didn’t sit for campus internships so there’s that. Starting by improving on the resume and cover letter from my previous intern at IIT Bombay, I mailed a few professors in Germany for DAAD."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making It There
+
+I didn’t sit for campus internships so there’s that. Starting by improving on the resume and cover letter from my previous intern at IIT Bombay, I mailed a few professors in Germany for DAAD. Two professors in Germany consented. I was in a dilemma because the choice was between professor’s citations and how interesting the problem statement sounded. So, I mailed a few (around 5) professors in the US with aligned interests. Two of them replied with one of them from Carnegie Mellon University saying YES. In the meantime, out of the two Germany offers, I chose the one with interesting work and applied to DAAD for funding. I got DAAD funding. But Carnegie Mellon University is among the top 5 in ECE and the group I was going to work with was very reputed. So I didn’t accept DAAD and went along with CMU. I made sure that the professors I email had aligned interests and discussed about my previous internships at IITB, IITG and IITR. I emphasized on skills I have from my experiences and the part of their recent work which I liked (this is quite important I guess to show your seriousness and get the conversation started). Feel free to contact me for help with this. I exchanged a few mails with the professor at CMU clearly mentioning that I would need funding before a call on Skype. This was not like an interview and was more of me telling about my experiences and skills and he talking about the current projects in his group to reach a befitting problem statement. I was forwarded by the professor to ECE Summer Undergraduate Internship Program at CMU which actually straightened out logistics. He agreed to pay me a handsome hourly stipend for my stay at CMU and so, I went on to plan my travel and stay.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/sumit2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Work
+
+Carnegie Mellon University located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is among the best universities all over the world with a beautiful campus and state-of-the-art infrastructure. I subleased an apartment near CMU and the CMU ID-card is(I’m still in Pittsburgh!) a free travel pass for buses, trains, trams and inclines(yes, and they are beautiful!). The working hours are 37.5 per week on paper but are flexible and are never actually counted! I am working on investigating new DRAM memory access scheduling policies for reducing power consumption in modern DDRx memories. DRAM(or main memory) accounts for 40-50% of the total power consumption of modern systems and thus the project is going to have a wide impact. The work consists of reading research papers(about 20 of 'em already), writing C++ code, python and shell scripts, using FPGA board, current probes etc. The work culture is quite open with my professor’s cubicle next to mine. I usually stop by his cubicle once a day and we have 2 weekly meeting of the whole group. The post doc and PhDs of the professor are also involved in the project and contribute in many ways to the project. The group is deeply bonded by chit-chats, meetings and group dinners. 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/sumit3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Location
+
+Talking of Pittsburgh, it's one of the most livable cities in the United States. Another fact worth mentioning is that it’s the most bike-able city in the US and luckily my landlord let me use his bike for my stay. Situated on the conflux of Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, Pittsburgh has a rich history including revolutions, steel-making, historical bike trails and the famous man Andrew Carnegie himself. The Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History in Pittsburgh is a block down the road from my office and has one of the biggest collection of dinosaur fossils which made my day. The Phipps Conservatory houses local flora and the Zoo houses fauna, both being amazing places to visit. The Point State Park at the conflux is a delight to spend evenings. CMU recently organized our trip to PNC Park for a game of baseball which is another craze of Pittsburgh. The Inclines on Mt. Washington provide a great view of the city's skyline and the conflux and was an amazing place to be on the 4th of July to watch Independence Day fireworks. We(a group of interns) visited Washington D.C. over a weekend recently and it was a delight. The White House, Lincoln Memorial, National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of American History, World War II memorial, blah blah blah! I'm planning to visit New York before coming back. 
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/sumit4.JPG){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Summary
+
+So the thing is, if you like to work things out in your own way, want your work to be a mix of all rather than monotonous, want to be paid handsomely, like research, like travelling around the world - a foreign research intern is just the thing for you. Contact your seniors for help, don't get demotivated when not getting e-mail replies, don't get demotivated when all your friends scored an internship already because boy you are going to have a lot more fun than your friend X interning in Bangalore.

_posts/2018-08-03-summer-diaries-edelweiss.md

@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Edelweiss Group"
+image: aditya1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Aditya Chaturvedi"
+excerpt: "At the end of 3rd semester, I didn’t really know where I was heading in life as my grades were messed up and my self-confidence was at an all-time low. Deep down I knew I had potential and with the support of a friend, I decided to bring a change in my life."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+At the end of 3rd semester, I didn’t really know where I was heading in life as my grades were messed up and my self-confidence was at an all-time low. Deep down I knew I had potential and with the support of a friend, I decided to bring a change in my life.
+
+Sometime around January 2017, I came across a competition organized by a hedge fund called WorldQuant LLC on Channel-I where the task was to make quantitative trading models and they were offering summer internships for the very first time in India in their Mumbai office through it. I knew that this was my opportunity. I left a couple of groups on campus and dedicated my entire time in learning finance and statistics. I aced this competition in March and finished 2nd in India. All this happened in less than 4 months. I was really mesmerized by the dependency of mathematics in finance, and by then, I realised where my interest was. This was how I stepped into quantitative finance.
+At the end of the internship at WorldQuant, I was offered the research consultant contract to work part-time with the firm. I have now completed more than a year working with the firm and ended up becoming one of their top consultants in India.
+
+The 5th semester end-terms were over and I started to wonder where I should apply for the pre-final year summer internship. I didn’t apply at a well known trading firm which hired interns from our campus because I was sure I didn’t want to work as a day-trader/technical analyst but rather wanted to contribute somewhere in quantitative finance.
+I spent the December winter vacations strengthening my concepts in statistics and finance.
+
+On coming back to campus, I was pretty chilled out and was quite confident that I would get an offer sometime soon. I focused entirely on my part-time work with WorldQaunt, made some money and just applied at 2-3 companies in Jan-Feb via LinkedIn where I got the response at the end of Feb stating they have already hired interns during December. This proved to be a big blunder from my end. Thus, if you are targeting a big hedge fund or one of the prestigious banks, start messaging their employees on LinkedIn during mid-October.
+
+Now March was here and I started sending messages on LinkedIn to anyone working in quant finance. I knew that my chances of getting into a top-tier firm were low but even then I was confident of converting if I got an interview because I knew my stuff and had devoted an entire month of December working on it.
+
+Thus I would advise those interested in quant finance to spend the winter vacations wisely learning new things and applying for internships instead of filling your resume doing random internships. Trust me, those internships never help.
+
+After applying for the entire month of March, I got responses from a lot of places to reach out to them next year for a job but only a couple of them were hiring interns. One of them was Edelweiss Group and I knew that this could be my best shot. My interview was scheduled 2 weeks after I got the response and during this time I interviewed for the other hedge fund B&B Analytics whose CEO is an IITR alum. I converted this one and took a sigh of relief that I finally have an internship in hand. But I still kept preparing for the Edelweiss interview. To my surprise, they called me before the scheduled date and told me that the interview was being conducted then.
+
+The interview lasted a little longer than an hour and was taken by 4 people asking questions from different domains: Finance, Statistics (Mainly Time-Series Analysis and some basic concepts), Puzzles, 2 Questions on Expected values and some resume based questions mainly quant trading strategies. I received the final offer a week later.
+
+My internship period was from 10th May to 30th July. 2 weeks after the start of my internship at Edelweiss, I received a call from a major hedge fund based in Gurgaon completely out of the blue. I didn’t even remember applying there and they took my interview and offered me the internship. But by then, I had built a great rapport with my mentor and senior colleagues at Edelweiss and was enjoying learning new things in Fixed Income Products under their guidance. Hence, I refused that offer.
+
+This interview too was on similar lines as Edelweiss but they asked the logic behind atleast 5 completely different strategies I had made.
+
+- Some tips and suggestions if applying for a quant role:
+
+  1.  Start applying to those big banks and hedge funds during mid-October.
+  2.  Learn advanced statistics especially time-series analysis and develop an intuition on how market works. Try to make some innovative trading strategies which are unique using OHLC data (Open-High-Low-Close), volume, fundamental and sentimental datasets and explain this in the interview. Talk all numbers during the interview mentioning how the strategy outperformed the indexes with lesser risks. Be ready with the numbers for Sharpe Ratio, Returns and Drawdowns. If you do this well, trust me you’ll be hired!
+  3.  Participate in competitions from quant firms like WorldQuant, TrexQuant, Auquan or make strategies on Quantopian, this gives a big boost to your profile and increases your chance for getting an interview. The research consultant opportunity with WorldQuant is now pretty easy to get into if you understand markets and know 2-3 basic trading strategies which work well in Stat-Arb eg. mean reversion, asset efficiency ratios, capturing Earnings Announcements Trends etc.
+  4.  For Stats, Schweser’s FRM L-1 Book 2(Quantitative Analysis) is good way to learn and ace the interview and then you can take it forward on your end doing some advance courses on Coursera like MITOpenCourseware.
Note: Basics of Statistics are very important and are always asked in the interview. Eg. Assumptions of Linear Regression
+  5.  For Finance, you should know the basics of all asset classes: Equity, Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities. Derivative products of these asset classes are very important.
+
+      You should know the pricing of Options, Forwards and other derivatives. For this, Schweser’s FRM L-1 Book 3(Financial Markets & Products) is more than enough.
+
+      Black-Scholes Equation is always asked in any quant finance interview. I gave 3 interviews and it was asked in all of them. You should be able to derive the equation and know its assumptions.
+
+  6.  Be ready for puzzles during the interview. I was asked in 2 out of the 3 interviews.
+  7.  Know either Python or R. They mostly don’t ask questions on these, but better safe than sorry.
+  8.  Make a different resume for different quant roles: For hedge funds, mention the numbers (profits you made from your strategy) in the work description and the datasets you used. For trading desk quant roles, mention how you made your own features using stock data and how it correctly predicts the price movements. Make use of commonly used financial jargons a lot along with the names of the models you used.
+  9.  Start reading The Economic Times, The Economist and stay up-to-date with the recent macroeconomic news. This will definitely help if you go and work in Fixed Income Quant Funds or Trading Desks.
+  10. Look at how to apply via LinkedIn on Ram Bansal’s Internship Diaries post.
+
+### Work
+
+Edelweiss is a traditional Indian company and the work environment was completely different from my previous summer internship at WorldQuant. Only after working here, I realized the difference between working for a FinTech company and a core finance company. The work culture at Edelweiss is very demanding and the capacity to work hard is the most important trait acknowledged by the company and its employees. The place is full of IITians and they are very friendly to work with. I was one amongst 3 Interns in Treasury Management. The other 2 were from IIT Kharagpur.
+
+Edelweiss hires on-campus interns only from IIT Bombay in Global Markets Division and MBA students for Wealth Management. So you can apply in other divisions like Treasury Management off-campus
+
+I worked on 3 projects during my internship.
+
+The first two were in Fixed Income and the 3rd in FX Options. I was given a 60 page research paper covering everything about Credit Default Swaps(CDS) on Day 1 to know about it in depth.
+
+In my 1st project, my responsibility was to get daily and weekly bond axes cover and send my analysis of the daily market movement to the Fixed Income traders in India and Singapore. In this project, I got the opportunity to work extensively on the Bloomberg Terminal which is a dream come true for any Market Data Analyst.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/aditya2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+> The Bloomberg Terminal
+
+In the 2nd project, I made trading strategies on CDX IG, HY, EM and iTraxx Asia ex-JP CDS Indexes and for Sovereign bonds, CDS of 5 countries using Open Interest(OI) and historical spread. The previous quant experience helped a lot.
+
+In the 3rd project, I had to make mean reverting strategies on G20 currencies in the FX Spot market. This was very interesting and I would be continuing this even after the end of my internship, collaborating with one of my senior colleague at Edelweiss.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/aditya3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Working till late and on weekends was very common during the first half of my internship but I finished most of the work because of it. Dominos, McDonald’s and live screening of FIFA WC matches in amazing restaurants was very common and fully sponsored by the employees.
+
+### Summing up and key takeaways:
+
+The best aspect of the internship was working and interacting with amazing people who knew their stuff. I was given many research papers to study and had a lot of discussions on macro-economics, markets and statistics with the employees.
+
+During one of these discussions, I came to know the harsh realities of trading and how difficult it is to sustain a long term career in it. Most of the people working in trading are trying to shift to quant finance. Therefore, this experience gave me a good understanding of what I want to do ahead.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/aditya4.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+> (The research papers I had with me during the end of the internship. They are the best out there. If anyone wishes to read them, reach out to me I can share them with you guys.)
+
+In a nutshell, there are hardly any companies hiring on campus interns for quant finance. You need to keep applying as much as possible and keep learning on the way.
+
+As said by someone,“You don’t do incredible things by just having passion, you need obsession”.You need to have faith that hard work would be eventually rewarded and one should keep doing what he/she is good at irrespective of what others are doing. Sending innumerable LinkedIn messages and not getting a response is definitely painful but you never know when you’d strike gold!

_posts/2018-08-04-summer-diaries-hci.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Srishti Institute of Design"
+image: anchit1.jpeg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Anchit Shukla"
+excerpt: "As soon as a second-year student is back to college after summer vacations, he/she gets exposed to an enormous amount of heat that surrounds the phenomenon of getting an on-campus internship."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+As soon as a second-year student is back to college after summer vacations, he/she gets exposed to an enormous amount of heat that surrounds the phenomenon of getting an on-campus internship. Some amongst them already have an internship experience and some have just heard about the great GS and Schlumberger stories from their seniors. I also felt the same heat when I was back after completing my 2 months internship in a fintech startup and gaining some corporate world experience as a UI/UX Designer. In spite of so many people giving gyan about following one's passion, there are,in reality, very few who actually follow their passion. You can easily observe students doing their research on some fat-cash paying companies and blindly learning what is necessary to crack their tests. This is mainly because most students are confused about their area of interest and this is very natural. 
+
+Being actively involved in the design teams of some campus groups for 2 years helped me in figuring out that Design was the field that I wanted to be in but since design was such a vast field, I was really confused about what I actually wanted to do and on top of that having a decent CGPA tempted me to apply for some companies which were offering internships in management profiles but I failed and thanks to that failure, I realised the fact that it was time I started eliminating things that I didn't want to do. When I started doing this, I went through various design profiles that people had and discussed them with my seniors and finally I was able to decide 2–3 profiles that I should try getting an internship in. Unfortunately, there are not many companies which offer on-campus internships for designers (last year it was only one). So, the way out was to apply off-campus and I started doing that. I was more keen on doing a research internship in a field called Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), which is very less explored in India and has a very small community of professionals practicing it. One of my senior who has an experience in HCI research suggested that I apply to the design institutes in India, so I started mailing in January after failing to get through Mitacs to which I had applied earlier for some HCI related projects that were available. 
+
+When you are mailing for research internships, one thing that you should always do is keeping a track of your emails. Set reminders for one week, two weeks and a month after the mailing date for follow-ups according to your order of preference for the project type. I used Google calendar for this. Use your resume wisely and the cover letter should be according to the project and the professor you are mailing to. Do proper 'stalking' and use relevant information from professors' profiles in the cover letters that you send in your emails. I was also applying simultaneously for UX Designer and Product Manager profiles in renowned startups which had a good product team and were reviewed well based on the work environment and culture. After one month of serious mailing and follow-ups, I was able to bag interviews with three startups and managed to get through two of them. But I waited for a response from the professors whom I had mailed, especially the ones from Srishti and IIT Guwahati because these institutes had good projects in HCI and bagging an internship opportunity there would help me, especially with respect to my future prospects in research. Then on April 26th, during my end-semester exams, I received an email from one of the professor who turned out to be the course leader of Human Centred Design (HCD) department at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore but I was surprised as I had not mailed him for an internship opportunity. In fact, I had written an email to another professor in the same institute for internship and luckily the professor to whom I wrote the email forwarded it directly to him and he was working on a project which was relevant to my skill set and experience. This was a great opportunity for me, so I declined the two startup offers that I had and confirmed the internship offer from Srishti and it turned out to be a great decision for me.
+
+### Work
+Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology (Srishti) is one of the top-notch design institutes in India amongst NID, IDC-IIT Bombay and IIT Guwahati Design Department to name a few. The institute has been working closely in collaboration with organizations, both industrial and academical on some very interesting projects and that gives you a great exposure to understand the actual life cycle of a product designed and developed, right from the ideation stage to go into the hands of users.
+
+My area of research was HCI integrated with Healthcare and Personal Informatics. The project is called ReRide. ReRide is a platform to explore the interaction of a bike rider with the bike. The platform does real-time posture estimation and gives the rider a feedback for preventive self-care during the bike commute. When I joined, the team who was working on ReRide before had developed an early prototype for demonstrating it in a conference and had done a feedback analysis by consulting a physiotherapist. Based on the prototype testing and extensive design research done to solve the problems faced with the earlier prototype, the new objectives were set and we had to come up with an improved and stable prototype which would be easily mountable on most bikes and would be more modular. It was an exploratory research project which means that we were trying to solve a problem starting with specific use cases and not working on all of them. It was more of an open-ended research problem. The motive was to build a prototype which can be used for extensive user testing and ultimately feed that data into certain ML (Machine Learning) models which eventually would help us in building a prototype that would suggest the posture of the rider to a maximum precision.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/anchit2.jpeg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+I got to learn many new concepts and tools which I had never worked with before and because I was the only student in the project team with the other three members being faculty cum researches, I got involved in a lot of conversations with them on a plethora of topics and it gave me a better insight into the world of engineering and design. There was no such obligation of specific work hours and I usually worked from 10 in the morning and often worked till late in the evening and tried to be on course with the weekly plan that we had prepared.
+Faculty at Srishti are from so many diverse fields that you can’t refrain yourself from talking to them and discussing the kind of projects they were working on and the way they teach is totally different from the traditional methods used in engineering colleges. They believe in getting their hands dirty and building, and not just spending their time in speculating about a theory on a whiteboard. The faculty is extremely approachable and helpful. The conversations with all the HCD faculty on the lunch table ranging from Asimov’s writings to cracking a lame and ‘punny’ joke makes you feel good about the place. Sitting with creative people around you forces your creative juices to flow and get struck by ideas that you couldn't even think of getting stuck by otherwise and the Bangalore weather adds to it by being the catalyst in making your mind feel more rejuvenated than ever. 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/anchit3.jpeg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+The city is beautiful (barring the traffic, of course) and there are so many places to visit in and around Bangalore which you could easily find on the internet.
+
+
+### Key Takeaways
+I got to learn a lot in these two months which were very overwhelming for me. I have also learned about the gap that is present between engineering and design which we need to bridge in the coming future. The experience has been amazing and satisfying. I also got a chance to be at the annual grad show- The Srishti Collective 2018 in which the graduating students exhibit their final projects and I would recommend everyone present in Bangalore at this time(mostly around mid-June) to visit this grand exhibition which had around three hundred unique ideas this year from all the design disciplines and going through those projects took me an entire day and even then I was not able to see all of them.  
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/anchit4.jpeg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+Since there are not many people in our college who have some kind of experience in HCI research projects, the important part is to contact the right person and take their opinion and suggestion while applying for these internships. Design research is surely a thing for you if you are a person who loves to identify and solve problems around you. An internship at a design institute would surely give you a perspective that you always wanted to have.
+
+The only thing that I would suggest to the present third-year students is to try to come out of your comfort zone and not follow a defined path. Instead work on your interests and talk about them to as many creative people around you as you can.
+PS: Feel free to contact me if you have any query related to design research fields or anything that is bothering you.

_posts/2018-08-08-summer-diaries-paytm.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Paytm"
+image: paytm1.jpeg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Vivek Anand"
+excerpt: "Pursuing a design internship is not the same as pursuing an internship in your core subject. I'm a civil engineering student, so no companies are going to hire me as a design intern just on the basis of a test. So, for a design intern there's no test but it's all about your portfolio and the amount of work you have done previously to make that portfolio worth it."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+### Making it there
+
+Step 1: Maintained a low CGPA by choice. <br>
+Step 2: Got frustrated seeing others’ summer sorted posts. <br>
+Step 3: Mailed, mailed and mailed my portfolio to almost a ton of companies <br>
+Step 4: An interview call from paytm and boom! Here I am. <br>
+Seems easy ?
+
+Here's the elaborate version. 
+
+Pursuing a design internship is not the same as pursuing an internship in your core subject. I'm a civil engineering student, so no companies are going to hire me as a design intern just on the basis of a test. So, for a design intern there's no test but it's all about your portfolio and the amount of work you have done previously to make that portfolio worth it. Mailing to right companies is another important thing, once you have made your portfolio. It's like fishing, you have to wait patiently to get into a good company. There might be a lot of fishes in the pond, but your patience and hardwork drive the right fish to you. 
+It was by April when I was prepared with my online portfolio and then  I started mailing to the right companies. Using LinkedIn I first found out the right person's email address and then mailed my portfolio. Sometimes people reverted, sometimes they didn't. When they did, it was all about how they don't require a design intern. Later, I somehow managed to get mail Ids of different startups and their product manager and HR. Friends are always a saviour and started rigorous mailing. Here the response was better than before. Yes, there were still some disappointing emails but it was a better scenario than before. I was happy as they were actually reverting back now.  
+
+There were some companies where my portfolio was selected and I was called for an interview but couldn't make it. 
+Amidst all this I remember it was by the end of this month that I got selected in 17seven, a design studio in Mumbai. I was happy that I finally made it. I was so content, that I forgot to confirm from my side and send the required signed documents. They sent another mail stating that they have cancelled my intern. Oh, I was moved. By this time, almost all of my batchmates were celebrating their intern offers and all those summer sorted things. Nevertheless, I started mailing again and made it in Crowdfire, a social media management company in Mumbai. This time I confirmed everything with no delay, got my tickets and departed for Mumbai. I was waiting for my train, which was late at Delhi station when I got a mail from Paytm. Paytm was always my dream. Putting my senses to work, I opened the mail which stated that my portfolio was selected and I was selected for an on-call interview.  
+
+I was in a dilemma. I was always told that a bird in hand is better than two in the bush. So the train was there and I departed for Mumbai and joined Crowdfire. The interview for paytm was the next day. I decided not to go to the office and stay at my place and prepare. The interview went fine and I was selected. Oh damn. Like all my hardwork, all those sleepless nights paid off. I resigned from Crowdfire and departed for the two months long journey at paytm in Noida.
+
+
+### Life at Paytm
+
+Now  Paytm is India's  well known e-commerce payment platform and digital wallet company  that offers comprehensive payment services for customer and merchants.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/paytm2.jpeg){: style="width:40%;height:auto"}
+
+I was appointed as a UX design intern. Here interns were normally given projects that could have been given to other employees. I was assigned a mentor to whom I had to submit the daily work progress at the end of the day.  The mentors were quite friendly and eager to help and made sure I didn't feel like a fish out of water. I was assigned a project  for Paytm bank section in which I had to work on the problem statement which was to understand the user expectation with Bank App and find out if landing page of bank section of Paytm App met these expectations or not.
+
+Under the guidance of my mentor, first I started my work with analysis of the current product. Later, I discussed the product with the seniors responsible and my mentor regarding the technical issues and business goals of the current product. After analysing all data, I decided to conduct user research to understand the target user in a better way. For this, I decided the goals of my user research. At last I analysed all my research data and suggested a new layout of Paytm Payment Bank. After approval of new layout of Paytm Payment Bank by my mentor, I also worked on UI Design and Interaction design of new layout.
+
+The working hours were 10 am to 6.00 pm, but I generally went before time to interact better with my seniors and build better corporate relations. The work began at 10am with a break at 1pm and generally some or the other senior gave treats which was another perk. 
+
+<br>
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/paytm3.jpeg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+The seniors there were quite friendly and were always ready to lend a helping hand in whatever I needed. Be it from home cooked food, to design problems they were always there and made my journey so memorable. The frequent discussions with higher management and the regular inspiration was another boon. Overall, the work culture was quite friendly and motivating. I could have not asked for anything better. Paytm gave me the best experience.
+
+Moving to the description about the place. Noida. Probably you know better than I do. We are all familiar with the place the weather or the scorching heat the north faces.
+
+
+### Summing it up
+
+The experience given by paytm was worth all the wait.  My journey was full of failure but it's all about luck and hard work. Hard work never goes waste. Paytm is a brilliant company to work for. From the money, to the work, and the people, everything was perfect. The corporate experience I gained truly brushed me up and will of course help me in making future choices. There was a lot to learn in these two months. 
+
+Some key advices to make your internship worth it. 
+
+• Make as many connections as possible. 
+
+• Interact as much as you can. Discuss your project with seniors and take their valuable input form them.
+
+• Hard work is always irreplaceable. 
+
+So never give up till you get what you aspire for. The process might be slow, but if you are on the correct path accompanied with enough hard work, one day you'll get there and everything will be worth it.

_posts/2018-08-23-summer-diaries-paris-observatory.md

@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Paris Observatory"
+image: mohan_paris.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Mohan Agrawal"
+excerpt: "I spent 10 weeks with the Cosmology group at the Paris Observatory, सौजन्य Charpak (pronounced IPA: [ʃaʁpak] or शाह्पाक) Research Scholarship, and, I was there, right at the centre of Champs Elysees, when France won the World Cup."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+Quick context -- I spent 10 weeks with the Cosmology group at the Paris Observatory, सौजन्य Charpak (pronounced IPA: [ʃaʁpak] or शाह्पाक) Research Scholarship, and, I was there, right at the centre of Champs Elysees, when France won the World Cup.
+
+I will stick to the guidelines on this.
+
+
+## Making it there
+
+My research intern tale is mostly similar to what have already been told, except for the fact that I was (and still am) inclined to work in a niche area of theoretical physics which is Cosmology. Cosmology is a fairly recent field, gaining popularity only in the ‘60s , and seeing a burst of research only 28 years ago.. Further, it is also a predominantly  post-graduate field of study. That is to say, you spend a year learning it, before you can actually get down to working on small, but independent projects. To give you a scale, there is no undergraduate elective course on Cosmology in any of the IITs, except IIT KGP (that too in 5th year, for Integrated MSc. Physics students), because they have Dr. Somnath Bhardwaj, who has worked extensively in the field. Over the past one and a half-year, working on small projects in Astronomy, Nuclear Astrophysics (in the campus, under Dr. Rajdeep Chatterjee), and now Cosmology, I have formed some opinions for the uninitiated in the field of scientific research,  that I cannot help but share. I will state them matter of factly, as a prelude. First, you don’t need to be a gifted genius in order to get into pure science research. Excelling at the scientific method requires, what I call, “The Three Ps” -- Practice, Perseverance, Patience. Second, a good academic background is a prerequisite. There is no substitute for that. Watching popular science videos on YouTube might be a good hobby, but do not mistake that for a proper training in the field. Third, and foremost, Physics is not Philosophy. There is nothing wrong in wondering about the grand truths and nature of the Universe, and contemplating about fancy propositions and spirituality on a late Saturday evening, but that is not what the modern day Science is all about. It is a quantitative field where everything has a definite, and (almost always) a rigorous mathematical basis. Basically, if you want to learn Quantum Mechanics, go, pick up J.J. Sakurai. If that is too much at once, fall back to more introductory texts, and so on.
+
+I was focused on getting an internship in Europe, because recently, it has become a hub for Cosmological research with big money missions like Planck and Euclid based there. I started the groundwork and e-mailing in late July. Also, I wanted to get for myself one of the 4 flagship scholarships for financial support. Theoretical research groups are generally very small, and more often than not,  part of a research institute (not a University). Thus, the scientists heading these groups are short on both -- time and money, most of which is spent on supporting the PhDs and postdoctoral researchers. It is extremely difficult to shell out cash for an undergraduate with minuscule experience in the field; a hard truth I learnt later on. Yes, I had a decent background in Astronomy and Physics, but that does not make me good at Astrophysics. So, broadly speaking, I concentrated on getting an offer letter for DAAD-WISE in the Autumn Semester, and for Charpak in the Spring. In between, I applied to several University specific scholarships, and Undergraduate Research programs. For what the efforts in the Autumn were worth, I did get an offer letter from Germany, from Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (which, for me, is the best out there). Hence, I was bordering all my hopes on DAAD, because I figured: I had a detailed research plan, good SOP, past IAS fellowship in Astronomy, and good recommendations. Why wouldn’t I get it? But as fate would have it, I did not get the scholarship. Therefore, something was definitely not as “good” as I had assumed it to be. Similar was the result for Globalink (where, again, I was already in contact with the professor), S.N. Bose scholarship, CERN, and at least 5 more program rejections. I believe that with every failure I learnt something. Few made me realize that I could have done better with the SOP, for a few others my CGPA at the time was not enough to survive the competition, and for some I was simply not knowledgeable enough in the field I was applying in. A lot of the times it was also just pure, dumb luck.
+
+With the beginning of the Spring semester, I started scouting France, in order to get an offer letter for the Charpak Scholarship. My preliminary targets were LUTH (at Paris Observatory) and IAP (Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris). My inclination was more towards LUTH as it dealt with computational cosmology, my primary interest. This time, I was fortunate enough to get both, the offer letter and the scholarship. The wording of this article here does not reflect the state of mind I was in at the time, after innumerable failures over 8 months, despite seemingly having everything good on paper; unable to figure out where I was going wrong. That was absolutely nerve-wrecking. But again, that is not the point. The point is, I did not give up, and I had backup in case I had to face the worst-case scenario. (I kept applying in India too, and was accepted in the Summer Research Program of IIA, Bangalore, and had an offer from IUCAA, Pune).
+
+My mailing advice would be: do not send generic emails. Invest a lot of time in exploring the field that you want to work in, and what the target professor’s/scientist’s work is all about. Specificity should be the aim, and it takes time to draft a professor-specific email. Also, first get a conversation going about the probable project, before bringing up stipend etc. in the discussion. Depending on what field you’re working in; where you’re working; and what you’ll be working on; a professor might agree to give you a stipend; or a travel stipend; or provide accommodation; or any combination of these.
+
+Even though I missed out on an opportunity to be at MPA (which does not support undergraduates), I stayed in contact with my guide there, till the very end, till the time I got accepted for Charpak . He was kind enough to advise me about the field of work throughout this time, and invited me to work next year. This is what building good conversations can do.
+
+It is only human to (subconsciously) try to project ourselves in the positive light, justify the mistakes, and overlook our own shortcomings by finding something to blame. Hence, whatever it is that you do, make sure that it is you, who has made that decision, and that you stick to it. In this way,  however that decision turns out, it is you, who will be responsible for the consequences. That is to say, if it does not go as planned, the only way to move on would be to learn from the experience. I did not always know that I would end up doing Physical research. For a few months in 2016, when I was working with ZeroMQ at SDSLabs, I thought that Distributed Computing was ‘it’ for me. Couple of months later, I too made a decision; and at least for now, I am sticking to it.
+
+Look, if you can summarize the evolution of the Universe in a couple of equations on one sheet of paper, I would say that’s pretty darn cool.
+
+
+## Charpak Research Internship
+
+France has, historically, been a heavyweight in the fields of Science and Mathematics; at the very core of the scientific revolution in the 17th and 18th century. These were the times when the science arena had names like Descartes, Curie, Fourier, Laplace, Poisson, Coulomb, Fresnel, Poincaré, Mandelbrot, Cassini, and Becquerel, just to mention a few. I mention this to show that the research culture and support system in the country is very well nurtured, and is what draws people to carry out their research in France. The Charpak Scholarship is funded by the French Embassy in India, in association with Campus France (under French Ministry of External Affairs). The application process is similar to DAAD, except for the fact that there is no CGPA criteria. The selection relies heavily on your past experience, your ability to demonstrate its worth in the SOP, the academic background (maybe you had a slightly low CGPA, but you performed brilliantly in the courses that matter), and the recommendation. However, from what I have read, and heard from fellow Charpak interns, the unofficial cut-off generally fluctuates around 8.5. The selection process itself is extremely competitive, like any other program. This year only 13 students were selected from all over India. 
+
+The perks of the scholarship include a visa fee waiver, medical insurance, assistance to find a cheap accommodation (extremely necessary if you’re in Paris, the second costliest city in the world), and of course, a stipend (of EUR 795). The stipend was revised this year, effectuating a raise of more than 2.5 times. Further, given that France is one of the most productive economies in the world, it has workforce friendly labor laws. It is illegal to not pay any intern working for 8 weeks or more. Hence, apart from the scholarship stipend, anyone interning in France also receives a salary from the respective institute of about EUR 560. And like most countries in the EU, students receive benefits like food and public transport subsidies. All of this was enough to cover all my living and travel expenses, and leave quite a bit for leisure.
+
+## WORK
+
+### The Institute
+
+Observatoire de Paris happens to be one of the oldest astronomical research institute (older than the Greenwich Observatory). Although, it has retained the historical name of ‘Observatory’, not much observational work goes on there. Stargazing is a little troublesome when you’re literally in the ‘City of Lights’. The modern day institute is at the centre of the astrophysics scene in France, and is a collaborator in all major multinational Astronomy projects. It has several labs covering fields like Space Physics, Planetary Physics, Cosmology, Plasma physics, Galactic, Stellar and ISM physics, Astronomical instrumentation etc. Further, it is also a founding member of the PSL Research University, which comprises of the top French institutes in the fields of Arts, Engineering, and Science.
+<br>
+
+### The Domain of work
+
+I had been wanting to explore Cosmology for a long time, and this internship gave me the chance. As I mentioned, I was working in a lab called LUTH (Laboratoire Univers et Theories), under the guidance of Dr. Pier Stefano Corasaniti. Cosmology has a fairly simple sounding objective: to study the evolution of the Universe. However, in practice, it is a very diverse field. Major portion of the ongoing research is focused on studying several competing models for Dark Energy (called Quintessence models), and trying to incorporate them in the standard model of cosmology, called the Lambda-CDM model. In order to test any physical theory, one needs to apply it to the observables. The two major observables used by Cosmologists, which lead to two major pathways of study are: (1) mapping the distribution and properties of galaxies across the sky, which leads to the field of studying cosmic structure formation, and (2) analysing the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation which leads to the field of CMB Physics. For 10 weeks, I studied the latter. One of the reasons that attract me towards this field is that it demands a good command over several subjects. You’ll need to know some Classical Physics, Statistical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and General Relativity, in order to understand how the primordial plasma gave rise to the large scale structure we observe today. 
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/mohan_paris1.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto"}
+<div style="text-align: center;"> The project was, in principle, related to this “map of the early Universe”, that one must have come across. </div>
+<br>
+
+For almost a month I learnt the basics of Cosmology, as this was my first introduction to the field. Then I ventured into more advanced topics like Cosmological Perturbation Theory, that are required to work on the problem I was given. My work started off by completing simple tasks like doing consistency checks on theoretical formulas that predict the location of the peaks of the Angular CMB Power Spectrum. Then it slowly got more involved. I had to implement a general Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) engine that would estimate the constraints on the cosmological parameters for the LCDM model using the locations of the above mentioned peaks (obtained from Planck satellite data); also incorporating priors for these parameters obtained from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) estimates and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) observations. Then, I had to use the obtained results to quantify what is called, ‘The Early ISW effect’, an important effect that occurred about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when the photons decoupled from the matter. Yet another part of my project involved studying about what is called the Distance-Duality violation, and how that is implemented numerically, through the perturbation theory. These problems were pedagogical in nature, and small enough to be completed in about 6 weeks (after 4 weeks of study). Thus, I got a good flavor of the ongoing research in the field.
+<br>
+<br>
+
+### Work Culture 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/mohan_paris2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+The work environment in the lab was very accommodating. The offices were open for 24 hours during the working days, and there were no fixed working hours. Researchers could work as they found suitable. My team was quite multicultural, having a French-Colombian, a French-Italian, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish researchers. This made the lunch conversations rather interesting. Not only this, but the physical working environment was serene too. Paris Observatory, being as old as it is, owns a large estate in the suburbs. The campus in Meudon, where the offices are situated, is located in a forested park known as Parc de l’Observatoire -- part of a large 340 acre forested, hilly land maintained by the Observatory. The campus even had a lake that often made for an ideal post-lunch fish-feeding relaxation break. One other thing that stoked me was the Institute’s library. It is definitely one of the most beautiful astronomy-astrophysics libraries in the world, having a 350 year old heritage. The collection is stupendous, more comprehensive than I had thought, and fully dedicated to research. Their archives have preserved the original works of, and correspondence between French luminaries of the time, including famous astronomers like Messier, Cassini, and Delaunay.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/mohan_paris3.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+<div style="text-align: center;"> What do you say about lakeside lunch, huh? </div>
+<br>
+
+## What's to love about the place
+
+Paris is a beautiful city, and my limited vocabulary cannot do justice to its grandeur. I used to live in a suburb of Paris called Meudon (also where the Observatory campus is), right near the 15th arrondissement, with the bustling metropolis only 10 minutes away. Paris is perhaps the most culturally significant city in the western Europe. No single place has had as much impact in shaping modern culture, and in fostering art and science, as Paris. From Voltaire and Rousseau, to Sartre and Camus; and from Renoir and Monet, to Matisse and Picasso; the city houses treasures of generations of philosophers and artists who spent their lives there, creating masterpieces, and shaping the legacy of the city as we know it. I have a thing for art, not just paintings, but art. It is not quantitative. It relies heavily on your experiences, is fueled by imagination, driven by emotions, and perfected by practice. Nothing expresses the ‘human element’ better. Going from knowing hardly anything about Western Art History to gazing at Vermeer and Rembrandt is a big deal, at least for my tiny brain. Learning some Art Appreciation, History, and Evolution, has been a very satisfactory addition to my knowledge base. I also picked up a thing or two about Champagne manufacturing whilst touring the cellars of the House of Moet & Chandon in Champagne. One other fine Sunday morning, I treated myself to a concerto by the Paris Opera Orchestra in the Palais Garnier, arguably the most beautiful opera house in the world. Every wall of the gigantic facade, every flight of stairs, every corridor, a treat for the eyes. I was often accompanied by two of my friends from Roorkee, Yash and Mihir, who were also on an intern there. And for the latter part of my intern, I was also joined by WatchOut’s own Shirsendu Halder, who is on a Research Assistantship at INRIA.
+
+
+When I think about “What’s to love about the place”, the one fact I cannot comprehend is how, for decades, the city has managed to be such a perfect blend of glamour, heritage, and progressiveness. This is easily discernible in the architecture of the city. The city core is deeply reminiscent of the middle ages, and is comprised mostly of Renaissance era gothic architecture. Every other building, even if it’s a two floor McDonald’s today, is embellished with a variety of Christian sculptures, rich in details. When going around the city it is also fairly easy to spot Baroque -- monumental exhibition palaces (Grand Palais), museums, hotels, and other buildings that are now used for regular city purposes. In the more commercial places that developed in the mid 20th century, around the river, there is the art-deco style on display, prime example of which is The Grand Rex. As one moves farther from the Seine, modern parisian housings (where even the windows have wooden facades) become apparent. Interestingly, the authorities there maintain a count of two places that are essential requirements of a Parisian’s life -- Boulangeries (bakeries) and Cafes. They are in such abundance that your favourite baguette and cocktail is never more than a couple of hundred meters away. So, if you ever happen to visit Paris, better hike your ‘Food and Drinks’ budget; because ‘chic’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.
+
+“You can never be done with Paris”, were the words of a good friend (who probably said that while sipping Diet Coke at Times Square). And true he was. On weekday evenings, when the work has drained you, just catch a metro to St. Michel. Once there, buy a bottle a wine from Monoprix and ham sandwich from a local shop; walk down the steps to the banks of Seine, find a place to sit, and let the City do its job. As the sun sets behind the Eiffel, giving Notre Dame a golden red hue, you will start hearing a street performer somewhere, violin, or probably an accordion. Around this time the iconic bridges, Pont Neuf and Pont des Arts will light up, and so will the entire St. Michel; bright orange at first, but slowly dwindling. It is then that you pull the cork. 
+
+The premise of the following day will be exactly what is was today, but you will feel rejuvenated, and more importantly, you will be happy. I was. 
+
+![pic5](/images/posts/mohan_paris4.jpg){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}
+
+Describing the Bastille Day, or the World Cup moments in this article itself might require the use of a few fleeting expletives, which I think is against the guidelines. Besides, I was given a word limit of 700-infinity, which I have already exceeded. I will be more than happy to talk all about it, in person.
+
+My experience with the French (and Parisians) can be summed up nicely by the following pieces conversation between Dave Chappelle and Jerry Seinfeld (on the latter’s show Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee), who also happen to be some of my favorite comedians.
+
+**Jerry**: You know the French. They don’t care about anybody else.
+
+**Dave** (laughing): Right!
+
+**Dave**: Notoriously selfish people, the French.
+
+**Jerry** (referring to the ‘73 Citroen Maserati SM): Yes, right. But sometimes that leads to interesting work.
+
+(Later in a Coffee bar)
+
+**Dave**: Paris, I don’t know if I can live there.
+
+**Jerry**: Why?
+
+**Dave**: Something about the culture of the city makes me feel foreign.
+
+**Jerry**: Well, you are.
+
+**Jerry**: They are not welcoming you.
+
+**Dave**: Yeah, there’s no welcome mat.
+
+**Jerry**: That doesn’t bother me.
+
+**Jerry**: If I had what they have, I’d be the same way.
+
+**Jerry**: If I could bake bread like that, have women like that, I would look down on everybody. Their condescension to me, is earned.
+
+**Dave** (laughing): Fair enough!
+
+There were times when Dave would be too relatable, but as always, Jerry has a point!
+

_posts/2018-08-28-summer-diaries-schlumberger-software.md

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Schlumberger Software"
+image: kshitija1.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Kshitija Saharan"
+excerpt: "Pune Technology Center (PuTC) of Schlumberger hires interns through on-campus recruitments. The profile offered is of a Software Technical Engineer(STE). Students from CSE, ECE, EE , Geological Technology, Geophysical Technology were eligible to apply for this internship. This was the first time a software profile was opened for earth science students."
+category: summer2018
+---
+
+> Schlumberger is leading a digital transformation in the oil and gas industry to enhance real-time global collaboration, operational efficiency, and the integration of data, expertise, and technology information. Their refreshing approach to information technology offers enormous opportunities to enhance efficiency and productivity in our industry.
+>
+> Currently, Schlumberger has the fifth largest supercomputer infrastructure in the world, comprising of more than 65 petaflops of processing power. Keeping pace with and applying the latest digital technology trends in the oil and gas industry is the main focus of PuTC (Pune Technology Center).
+
+## Making it there
+
+Pune Technology Center (PuTC) of Schlumberger hires interns through on-campus recruitments. The profile offered is of a Software Technical Engineer(STE). Students from CSE, ECE, EE , Geological Technology, Geophysical Technology were eligible to apply for this internship. This was the first time a software profile was opened for earth science students. The recruitment procedure consisted of 3 rounds. First was the resume shortlisting (C.G.P.A. > 7.5) followed by a group discussion round and a personal interview.
+
+All these processes ended in one day. Around 45 students were shortlisted for the GD round from all branches. The topics of GD round revolved around the greater trends in technologies (majorly software). It is very important in the group discussion to listen and respect everyone’s views. Fighting over a topic incessantly in a group discussion often ends in loss of points.
+
+9 students were able to make it to the last round which was a personal interview round that combined Technical+HR. The interview revolved majorly around my resume and the projects I did in the past. Also, being a software profile, basic questions on data structures and algorithms were asked. Moreover, my projects were on robotics and control, which is what I focused on. As I was from a geophysics background, they asked me basic questions about seismics.
+
+A lot of questions were asked about my extracurriculars and responsibilities on-campus. They look for genuine people who can fit in their company, so it’s advisable to be honest in your interview. This was my mantra. If you don’t know anything, just deny politely and don’t argue.
+
+## Work
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/kshitija2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+> Schlumberger is leading a digital transformation in the oil and gas industry to enhance real-time global collaboration, operational efficiency, and the integration of data, expertise, and technology information. Their refreshing approach to information technology offers enormous opportunities to enhance efficiency and productivity in our industry.
+
+The center (PuTC) is focussed on key services like cloud platforms, analytics and digital solutions, mobility solution and user experience.
+
+Projects were given in teams of two. My project was on computer vision (on seismic images) where we used Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN) and Capsule networks (a new research in Deep Learning by Hinton in Oct 2017). Although I had no experience in Deep learning, it was a great opportunity for me to learn and explore this field.
+
+We were allocated a mentor from the data science team, without whom this project would not have been possible. The data science team was helpful and their support made it easy for me to learn data analytics.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/kshitija3.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+### Data Science Team - Big Supporters
+
+My project was on google cloud platform which was an added skillet to access the Google Virtual machines.The first week was all about setting up our virtual machines. Then we studied CNNs and some visualisation utilities for the team to improve the existing networks. In week 4 to 7 we studied and implemented capsule networks. The last week was focused on documentation and deliverables.
+
+The best part was the people I met during my internship. The accomodation and travel was provided by Schlumberger for 2 months so all of us (interns) stayed together and had a great bonding. We learnt a lot from each other and also partied a lot. As everyone says, work hard but party harder.
+
+Work-life balance at schlumberger is perfect as they value their people the most. We used to come to office around 9 a.m. and leave by 6:30 p.m. This was never strict from schlumberger’s side but it depended on the deadlines and assigned work. Another takeaway for me was the Table Tennis that we played for almost 1-2 hrs daily. This kept me going as sitting for long hours is simply not for me.
+
+Talking of Pune, the weather was awesome and also there were so many places around for trekking (Vetal Tekdi, Devkund waterfalls), imagica and the nightlife of Pune. No weekend went boring for us as their was always something on our list.
+
+My overall experience was full of learning and meeting new people. For any internship, just expect to learn something new and challenging as this would always broaden your horizon.
+
+Anyone aiming for Schlumberger should be definitely be good with basics of coding and the technical skills you have. Because at the end it’s all about your desire to learn something.
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/kshitija4.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}

_posts/2018-09-23-inaugration-of-DIC.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Inauguration of the Design Innovation Center at IITR"
+tags: [wona, tech]
+image: dic.jpg
+category: tech
+excerpt: "The Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated on Monday by Prof. Ajit Chaturvedi"
+---
+
+The Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated on Monday by Prof. Ajit Chaturvedi, Director IITR, along with Prof. M Parida, Dean SRIC IITR, Prof. PVM Rao from IIT Delhi and Prof. Praduman Vyas, Director NID Ahmedabad (connecting to the event via skype) as Chief Guests. The DIC, or Navonmesh, was recently been approved by the MHRD with a budget outlay of Rs. 10 crore.
+
+The DIC will function under a “hub and spoke” model, wherein IIT Roorkee will act as the “hub”, and the “spokes” i.e. IIM Kashipur, NIT Uttarakhand and CoT, GBPUAT, Pantnagar will be having their own proposals mostly to address local problems. The DIC basically would be inviting proposals for innovative solutions that address issues of the Himalayan region, followed by awarding financial support to the most promising designs to help them yield marketable products or technologies. These proposals will then be considered for registration under Intellectual Property Rights and for commercialization. Some examples of projects might include optimizing agricultural tools such as crop harvester for hilly terrain, and developing assistive devices for those with mobility impairment.
+
+According to Prof. Apurbba Kumar Sharma, Coordinator & Principal Investigator(PI), the activities of DIC will be carried out under 3 major categories:
+
+1. Supporting innovative prospects and projects of faculty members and students of the institute through financial support,
+
+2. Academic activities under which there are plans to introduce 2 academic courses of Masters of industrial design (MDes.) and Masters of Innovation Management (MIM) and organisation of workshops and crash courses for modular designs and innovations. Some laboratory facilities will be developed to compliment the facilities in the institute. Apart from this internships to students from IIT roorkee as well as from outside the institute will be awarded for short terms.
+
+3. Outreach Programs like P2P (Prayogshala to Prayogshetra), U2U (Udbhavan to Utpadan) and COMAL (COmmon MAn to Laboratory), under which innovations at the laboratory scale will be taken to the common man. Apart from these, any members of the public who have innovative ideas can get mentorships and follow ups at the DIC.
+
+The Design Innovations Center’s scheme was rolled out in 2014 by the MHRD along with open design school and National Design Innovation network. It started with setting up of 4 DICs across india of which IIT Delhi and IIT BHU were a member. Prof. PVM Rao and Prof. Praduman Vyas who contributed very significantly in formulating these schemes were present in the event.
+
+A core team of 5 faculty members of IITR was formed under the leadership of Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Dean SRIC when they received a letter regarding MHRD’s plans for setting up a DIC here in 2017. The three associated institutes joined subsequently.

_posts/2018-10-01-chess-at-iitr.md

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Chess at IITR"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: chess-club.png
+excerpt: "At the 3rd Inter-IIT Chess Meet conducted in IIT Madras during December 2017, IIT Roorkee finished as runners up, out of a total of seventeen participating teams."
+---
+
+At the 3rd Inter-IIT Chess Meet conducted in IIT Madras during December 2017, IIT Roorkee finished as runners up, out of a total of seventeen participating teams. After years of functioning under an unorganized impoverished structure, this success has motivated the institute to form a proper group, the IITR Chess Club under the Institute Sports Council (ISC). Despite having some excellent chess players and an enthusiastic culture for the game that has been hosted by the Students Club for some time now, the recognition of its potential has come about after a bout of struggle, determination and patience. We had a chat with Viraj Tamhankar, one of the pioneers in the development of the club which opened back in March of this year. Here is a summary of our interview with him.
+
+In the days before Inter-IIT ‘17, chess was limited to the Students Club with a tiny designated area right next to its entrance. Enthusiasts who frequented this space had to make do with sub-par equipment, including old chess-boards and pieces as well as outdated clocks which lacked important features used in professional competitions. These trivial difficulties aside, the students’ club was always crowded in the evenings, which made it hard for them to concentrate in a cauldron of music, noise and TV sound.
+
+The competitive side of the game could be observed during the Students’ Club Open, Intra-Bhawan or Inter-Bhawan competitions, and departmental events. However, these events tended to be improperly arranged and unfairly adjudicated, because of insufficient knowledge about the methods of the game and fairness criteria about pairing of two contestants. These deficiencies also affected proceedings during Sangram, IITR’s sports fest, where the need for additional funds was acutely felt.
+Funding was also a core issue when the IITR chess contingent wished to participate in tournaments outside the institute, such as Udghosh at IIT Kanpur, Sportech at IIT Delhi and the Inter-IIT Chess Meets. This issue was not just hindering participation, but practice too. According to Viraj, proper preparation for Inter-IIT requires dedicated practice sessions with a professional coach for a month before the event, much like the organised sports camps that are held before Inter-IIT Sports Meets. Minimal financial support was being provided by the Students Club but it wasn’t near enough to provide for everything.
+
+Above all, there was no official forum for chess enthusiasts to gather and meet. The Institute Sports Council had always been reluctant to take chess under its umbrella, citing fairly debatable reasons for its stance on the game in the institute. A similar rationale was resonated by the different Inter-IIT Sports Meet associations of other IITs, explaining the absence of chess from the Meet until 2014.
+
+A group of chess aficionados, including Viraj, had actively been lobbying the institute, seeking official representation for chess. In 2015, they managed to obtain sufficient funding from the Students Club for Udghosh ‘15 with the help of Rohit Jain (GPT Batch of 2018), who was a member of the Students’ Club Council and would later lead the IITR chess contingent to a bronze medal. After the unfortunate floods in Chennai led to the untimely cancellation of the Inter-IIT meet, meetings were held with the Sangram committee, resulting in the successful inclusion of chess as a sport in the fest for the very first time. This proved to be an important breakthrough.
+
+Following Sangram and into the new session, Chess got an independent expense column in the Students Club thanks to the then Secretary of the Students Club, Suyash Vishnoi and Additional Secretary V. Kalyan, ensuring financial support for the team to participate in Udghosh ‘16 and Inter-IIT. The lack of proper coaching and learning resources was felt by the team, as the performances at the competitions were not up to the mark. This affected the state of the discussions with the ISC, which stalled as a result.
+
+The team worked hard for Udghosh ‘17 and was duly rewarded with the gold medal, with Viraj winning the award for Best Player. By a stroke of good luck, Prof. G.D. Ransinchung, the faculty advisor for the ISC, also became the faculty advisor for the Students Club. He was very supportive of the chess culture, and provided funds for a temporary coach for Inter-IIT Chess Meet ‘17. Viraj’s former coach from Mumbai, FIDE Master Sajandas Joshi joined the team for a 15-day training camp for the Meet, which culminated in a silver medal as already mentioned. This result proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as soon afterwards in February 2018 Prof Ransinchung, along with the entire Sports Council unanimously took the decision to include Chess under the ISC.
+
+Now that an official Chess Club has been set up, it is hoped that students don’t face myriad inconveniences and can instead focus on playing chess and representing IITR in different competitions. With a new core team coming in for the upcoming session, the Club plans to take up regular practice sessions, training camps, tournaments and quizzes for chess enthusiasts and promote a healthy chess culture at IITR.
+
+With regards to future engagements as part of the club, there are plans for workshops intended for beginners as well as themed workshops covering tactics, middlegames, endgames among other strategic intricacies. There was an online event conducted in the month of September, an attempt to include more people and with the expectation of another to take place this semester. Rapid tournaments have started taking place on the weekends, with a growing focus on the upcoming fests like Udghosh and Thomso.
+
+Viraj gives a word of advice to anyone looking to learn chess: start with basic queen and rook mates, of which there are plenty of good videos on Youtube. The club regularly conducts events, which provide a great learning experience along with a platform for interaction with really good players. For updates on the same, follow IIT Roorkee Chess on Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/iitroorkeechess/](https://www.facebook.com/iitroorkeechess/).

_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-dr-subra-suresh.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with Dr. Subra Suresh"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: dr_subra_suresh.jpg
+excerpt: "Dr. Subra Suresh is the president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He has served as the Director of the US government's National Science Foundation, Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT and President of Carnegie Mellon University."
+---
+
+_Dr. Subra Suresh is the president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He has served as the Director of the US government's National Science Foundation, Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT and President of Carnegie Mellon University. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
+
+**While you majored in Mechanical Engineering as an undergraduate, you went ahead to specialize in Material Sciences and Metallurgy. Could you highlight some of the barriers in multidisciplinary higher education system in India? What could be done to remove these?**
+
+The barriers between Mechanical Engineering and Metallurgy are very small. I did not have a degree in material sciences, but my work naturally went in that direction. Eventually, I was made the head of the material science department at MIT for 6 years.
+
+However, transitioning between any two other disciplines might not be as easy. I also tried going towards bioengineering, and that was more difficult. The coursework in my time was great in all respects, except that they didn’t have any biology, which made getting into it a little harder.
+
+On the contrary, if you consider thermodynamic machines and cycles, we are looking at liquid-vapor systems, while in material sciences we usually look at solid-liquid systems. The basic underlying thermodynamic principles are the same, so it’s not that difficult to move around.
+
+These problems exist in the United States too. If you are a mechanical engineering student, it is somewhat difficult to move to Material Sciences, either at the undergraduate ot the masters’ level.
+
+**While it might be tougher for the undergraduates in the US colleges to change their disciplines, don’t the students get 1-2 semesters to decide their major?**
+
+This does not happen in all universities. At MIT, the first year is common for everybody. So, you can decide between engineering or neuroscience or business after your first year. But there are still a lot of universities in the US wherein you get into engineering like mechanical engineering, like at the IITs, and there is a provision to switch your major like I did, from Electrical to Mechanical.
+
+**Recently we did an article on professor evaluation forms (the mechanic by which students assess the professors after every semester through a feedback form). We saw that a lot of professors were getting negative responses from the students, and yet, no action was taken, which was (naturally) a great cause of frustration among students. We tried to identify the issues leading to this, and we saw that there were mainly two primary issues: firstly that a lot of professors prefer research over teaching and secondly that often they are forced to teach courses that are not a part of their own field of research. How do universities in Singapore deal with this issue?**
+
+There’s been a shift, at least in the US system and also in NTU, Singapore that I have been emphasizing. In a top research university, you cannot have a divide between teaching and research. Teaching and research have to go hand in hand. So, in some of the top universities in the US, some of the most accomplished researchers also teach freshmen. I think it takes a lot of commitment and passion.
+
+Perhaps in some of the US universities 40 years back, it was that if you were a great researcher but had no interest in teaching, you could go about it without any problem. But today teaching has become one of the criteria, even though it might not be the only criterion, and the institute should emphasise that. At NTU, one thing that I have done as a president is offered the deans lecture opportunities. I am also teaching a masters’ level program voluntarily. I think one of the appealing things about being at a university is the interaction with the young minds and that’s the exciting part.
+
+**You have played an important role in increasing the representation of minorities and women in education in the US. What suggestions would you give to the institutes in India, considering the ongoing debate regarding affirmative action to increase female representation in IITs?**
+
+I don’t know about the Indian Government’s rules, but I can only speak from the US perspective. The motivation behind this is the following. In most of the countries women occupy 50% of the population and hence 50% of the talent pool. The proportion of women in the population might be less for some countries because of the government policies, but mostly they occupy roughly half the population. In the US about 70% of the top ranking students in high school are girls, and both in public and private schools, and they also do well in mathematics and science and so forth. If they are not represented in engineering, then we are losing out on the top talent. Areas like computer science, mechanical engineering are in need of representation of women. In areas like computer science, 18% of the first year students across the country are girls. Women play such an important role in the 21st century, and we cannot have such a small representation. So we did some experiments at MIT, and I think the key things are, at least from our perspective, that we try not to do it through quotas, but instead through something more sustainable in the long term. You need role models; you need professors for women who are good role models for students. Secondly, you have to do extra work to attract talent. When we admit students, they get offers from many different universities. I would offer to make personally call and talk to students whom the departments felt would be a good fit for the university, and it worked. It worked for both genders, but it worked better for women. So, I think there are things we can do, scholarships are one way, and role models and mentoring are very important too.
+
+**In the media, we often hear about how there’s a lot of aspects in which IITs have yet to catch up with foreign institutes, given that IITs are not really well placed in terms of the rankings- let’s say things like the research culture and flexibility of the curriculum. But, from your own experience at IIT Madras, do you think that there’s some ‘USP’ of IITs that differentiates it from foreign universities?**
+
+I graduated a long time ago. IITs today are very different from the IITs back then. At that time, there were only a small number of students, and we pretty much got to know most of them. Besides, our course was for 5 years, so that’s one extra year we had of living together in the hostels. All of them are the top students from the country, and you develop an amazing bond with them. There’s nothing like the bond you develop essentially throughout the 5 years of growing together. At that time, there was not a lot of research being done at the IITs compared to today. The research culture wasn’t developed. We did a lot of projects but they weren’t research projects. And there weren’t a lot of startups like we have today. There was no internet either, it was a completely different world.
+
+One of the reasons why IITs are not amongst the top ranked universities globally is that most of them are mostly based on research metrics. IITs are best known for attracting top students to get a degree who then they go on to do whatever they want. But, I feel it’s going to take time. It requires research support from the government. It requires young faculty members. It’s going to take some time to catch up with the world rankings (and there is a lot to catch up on). It is based on research, how many papers you publish, who reads them, how many patents you make, etc. It depends on the faculty, so if the faculty doesn’t travel abroad nobody is going to know about them. Another matrix is internationalisation of the campus, how many foreign students are there at the campus, how many foreign faculty is there on the campus. In NTU, for example, we have 1500 faculty, of which 70% are non Singaporeans. We have 10,000 postgraduate students, two- thirds of them are non singaporeans. So it’s mostly foreign talent. So we have 55 Germans doing full time PhD at  NTU. Germany has a lot of good universities so I think that’s another factor. The IITs are making an effort but it’s going to take some time and that has nothing to do with the quality of the institution.
+
+**Most of the young professors have done their doctorates and post- doctorates abroad and have been largely successful. In your opinion, should students look to complete their higher education in India itself, or should they look towards foreign universities?**
+
+I think it is very healthy if students do their PhDs elsewhere. Even if they are of Indian-origin and want to come back here for patriotic reasons or family reasons, India has to make it attractive for them by giving them competitive offers, because if they are really good, they will get better offers elsewhere.
+
+**Is there any way in which we can promote collaborations between the industry and the researchers, at least in India?**
+
+In NTU, on campus there is this concept of corporate labs. We have companies like Rolls-Royce, BMW, Alibaba which come on campus to do research with us. Students get to work with them. Something like that can be implemented in India as well. If not in a town like Roorkee, it can be done in the bigger cities. In NTU, we have 23000 students across the 4 years, and we send 80% of them abroad for a semester, to get foreign exposure. We also want foreign students to come. As we speak, there are 250 students from Sweden on our campus and almost an equal number of students from NTU are in Sweden.
+
+**The National Science Foundation which you were heading in the US, has no comparable analogue in India. However, there are a plethora of research funds funded by different ministries/institutes. Which model do you think is better?**
+
+The US model is pretty remarkable. It all started after the second world war. There isn’t a single agency. There are many agencies. So there’s the National Institutes of Health, whose mission is to address diseases. So half of the research is done internally and its organised by disease classes, like National Institute of Cancer, National Institute of Mental Health etc. Then you have NASA for air and space, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), the US Geological Survey and so on.
+
+But what was missing in all of this is the inherent curiosity in research. These were all applications of science. It was argued in the 1950’s that the economy depends on fundamental research and that basic research is best done at universities, where you have the luxury of thinking long-term. Not only are you training young minds for the future, you’re tapping into their enthusiasm to create new ideas. These universities would work closely with the industry and the government, and that it was the government’s responsibility to fund them. This is what created the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s mission is to fund the best people on the best ideas. Leave them alone, so they can develop their ideas. Since 1950, 240 American Nobel Prize winners have had some portion of their Nobel Prize winning work funded by the NSF. That’s the return. We don’t ask them whats the commercial value of their research.
+
+**On a closing note, you’ve mentored a lot of students over the years. Is there any advice you would like to give to the students of IITR, more specifically to the students who’re getting convocated?**
+
+When there is so much societal pressure, people look at getting a degree from an IIT, or any university as a piece of paper which helps you get a job, hopefully a very high paying job. If that’s the reason all of us are striving for a university education, I think we’re missing the point. It is something much grander than this. It's not just about going to classes and getting a diploma, it’s much more than this. And now you guys have many more opportunities than I did through technology. You have access to so much more information, from anywhere in the world. Besides, the IIT brand carries a lot of weight, and not just in India. I would advise you to make the most of that.

_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with Mr. R C Bhargava"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: suzuki_amped.jpg
+excerpt: "Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the Uttar Pradesh cadre."
+---
+
+_Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He later joined Maruti in its nascency as its third employee, and subsequently led the company to its position as the number one automobile company in India. He has been conferred with prestigious civilian awards by both the Indian and Japanese governments. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
+
+**You were an IAS officer who later switched to Maruti in its formative years. This is an unconventional career path, people generally don’t do this.**
+
+Yes, at the time there weren’t many examples of people leaving the IAS and joining the Public Sector because rules had changed. You could only go for deputation for 2 years. After that, you had to either come back to the cadre or take absorption in the public sector. I was one of the first few who did this.
+
+**Any reasons why you chose to switch to the private sector?**
+
+It wasn’t private sector then.  Initially, the Suzuki stake was only 26% so the company remained a public sector company. That was in 1982. In 1992, it became 50% Suzuki and 50% government. So legally it changed its character and did not remain a public sector company. But with 50% stake of the government, it almost worked like a PSU. The company got listed in 2003 which is when it became a private company.
+
+**Why do you think this career path is so uncommon (going from the civil services to a corporation). Is it because the skill set required is different?**
+
+I’m not sure but I think that one of the factors is that going from the Civil Services to an industry carries a certain element of risk. You are secure with Civil Services, your career path is known to you and your future is virtually mapped out, not much can change. At that time, Maruti was not considered as a normal public sector industry, it was looked upon as a highly political project. Also, not many people expected it to last too many years. So, it was somehow a little more risky than the others. But, I wasn’t particularly enamored by spending my 10 years with the government. I didn’t see any future after those 10 years either because those days are not like today. In 1982, there were very few job opportunities in the private sector as there was virtually no private sector. So there were no job opportunities after retirement. Looking at all of this, I thought to take a risk as it can’t get too much worse than it would be otherwise.
+
+**Were the UPSC examinations as competitive back then as they are now? Nowadays we hear of cases where people spending years and years of their lives trying to crack the Civil Services?**
+
+There weren’t as many tutorials and coaching centres at that time as there are now. The exam was in some way harder because for the IAS, one had to give the three lower papers (three subjects) and then if one wanted to be an IAS or the foreign services, he had to appear for two more papers of higher standards. Whereas, for the other Civil Services, it was just the three lower papers. That has certainly changed now. The exam has become easier but the number of people appearing for it is much larger now. The attraction of the services is still there but actually now the competition to the IAS is much larger from the private sector. Creating things and doing things yourself are much larger outside the government. The government still needs good administration but not beyond the actual areas of admin.
+
+**Maruti has become a household name just like IKEA in Sweden or Samsung in Korea. So your main flagship project throughout all these years must have been the Maruti 800? Do you think that the Maruti 800 started an era of car ownership in urban middle class homes?**
+
+800 is what we started with and it became an enormously popular car at that time. It was almost a status symbol in the first few years, because there was a scarcity and it wasn’t easily available. Later on with the advent of new models, everything became different.
+
+And absolutely! It was the first time that people got a low cost modern car in terms of technology, which drove very well, which had all features that people had not looked at earlier, high degrees of reliability. All of that came for the first time in India. That is why it became so popular, because people were used to Ambassador, Fiat etc. and compared to that it was several levels above in technology. Cars in India had not changed technology since the 50’s. Till the 80’s, it was the same basic technology of cars. And the quality and reliability of cars had only gone down, it hadn’t improved. Then suddenly people got a car which could perform so much better, it had to become popular.
+
+**In the automobile industry nowadays, especially in the US, there is a lot of talk about the self-driving cars and followed by Tesla, even Ford and other big companies are making their own tests. So do you think this has any medium to long term scope in India?**
+
+Well, you have to consider two or three factors in India. First,  there is a huge need for creating employment in India and every year several hundred thousand jobs for drivers are created. For every four or five cars sold, there is one driver. Think of the number of people who rely on driving as their source of employment. When will we be able to afford not having these jobs so that people find alternative employment is a big question mark. The second thing is that if you want to have driverless cars, then the software is based on a certain degree of predictability so as to what people might do in different situations. The behaviour of drivers in India is the most unpredictable. So, I am not quite sure how will we build a software system which could cater to the erratic and unpredictable behaviour of drivers in India. Cutting lanes, people randomly stopping their vehicles on the highways would only create chaos in the system.
+
+**You were involved a lot with Suzuki and Maruti, especially a lot in the formative years at the time when they acquired their stakes and all. So you have seen the automobile industry up close both here and in Japan. Any major differences you see now or you saw back then?**
+
+Not only in the automobile industry, Japan also became a highly competitive nation. It is the most competitive country in the world in terms of its manufacturing industry. Japan has no natural resources (energy, raw materials) and still their products are competitive in the global market. They can ship their products to the US or Europe and they can still beat the local ones. They are able to overcome the cost barrier of import, export, transport etc. Japanese industries manage to do this through human resources working as a single team.The Japanese industry is based totally on team work. Not only with the employees in the company, or labour or management,be it anybody; other associates such as vendors, dealers; industry and the government; industry and the political parties, they all work as one team to promote Japanese industry. None of them believe that the industry is a thief which wants to take out their money, as it happens in India. This is because the industrialists in Japan live a much low-key lifestyle. Their salaries are less, they don’t accumulate wealth as people do in India. They have realised that you can’t take your money with you when you go; it stays behind. And if at all it stays behind, we should think what good can that money do to our children. They have worked these things out very well. The Japanese industry stands very different from the world because of the constant need to be meticulous.
+
+**Do you think it is down to their ethos as a culture or as people to some extent?**
+
+It has become a culture because the people felt the need to become competitive since Japan was totally ruined after the war. Japanese people have a great amount of self-respect. They are very patriotic. They commit ‘harakiri’ which is a ritual in which they kill themselves if they seem to lose faith. After the war, the Japanese actually lost faith and had no other way to regain it. The only way to become competitive again was through economic activities. They decided that if they become the most powerful economy, then they could regain faith which is actually what happened. Japan is a highly respected country not because of their military might, but their economic might. If India wants to grow faster, we’ve got to stop distrusting each other and start to work as a team.
+
+
+**Research in Indian institutes, including the IITs, has been improving a lot in the last decade or so, but yet there remains this perception that research is this thing that academicians pursue in their ivory towers, you know, that it's often unrelated to required real world or commercial applications. The idea of industry-oriented research, the way it happens in the US or in European countries is kind of lacking?**
+
+You want to do research because you want to develop new and better products and technologies, which give customers a better experience. If you do that, then you expect that your company will grow and become more profitable.
+
+In India till 2014 conditions for Industries to grow and be competitive were really quite inadequate. You know if you study our system, industries are the lowest priority of the politicians. Input costs electricity for industry is priced higher than for any other activities. Industry pays the highest, yet gets the last priority.
+
+Things are changing now in certain sectors, it has become competitive with Mr. Modi. The taboo of industry is growing and prospering as gone. He wants industry to grow.
+This is the first time somebody has said that they want the manufacturing sector to grow. The first time that there isn’t any rhetoric against the private sector
+
+**Do you think there is anyway, in which companies like lets say maruti could somehow collaborate with these institutes for research?**
+
+Certainly. Absolutely that’s it there has to be more interaction between the institute's and companies and research has to be taken up.
+
+Apart from the existing theoretical research there should also be more research which is industry oriented.
+
+Here last night, we were discussing that you create patents in the IIT, professors do their research a lot and fight for patent, how many of those patents have become commercial?
+All the research you have done and caught something that you patent, but if it doesn't get used by anybody, then what have you done useful resulted in wastage of your time.
+So that thinking has to change. Academics often don’t think highly of commercial business , instead pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can't be the only thing which you push. There has to be some kind of a mix between the knowledge creation and commercialization of knowledge
+
+**What do you think is the most stark difference between India now and India in the eighties?**
+
+Those were the days of control, and the license raj.
+
+So that time you couldn’t do anything without government permission. Imports were not allowed. Today you can import what you want. Those days everything had to be cleared by what is known as director general of technical development. Foreign exchange a huge constraint. And the private sector and money making and becoming rich and all those things were absolutely frowned upon.
+
+Technology of course has made a lot of difference to India that you know things like this.
+
+Everything was in short supply. If you wanted a phone connection you had to wait for years to get a phone. Wanted to buy a car you had to be in for years to buy a car.
+
+When I got to Delhi in 1973, I was in UP and then – mobile for five years, even to buy milk you had to get a permit to get your milk supply. Everything was in short supply. Railway wagons were not available. Telephone calls could not be put through: you had to book a call and wait for your turn before you were connected from Delhi to Kanpur.
+
+These changes are almost unbelievable. One now wonders, how did one manage In those days. This whole computer business didn't exist, internet didn't exist.
+
+**On a closing note, any general advice you would have for students here, especially the graduating students who you will be addressing?**
+
+I think you people here are the elite of India's intelligentsia. by you people I mean in the IITs, and IIMs. You can't leave the task of India's development only to the government. Over many years people in India have built up this attitude. That _ye kaam to sarkaar hai_. Even if it's something to be cleaned ~ _Sarkar karegi_, if there is something not working ~ _Sarkar mein kharaabi hai._
+
+It can’t work that way. If you want this country to become a better country for yourself- and you guys have got 70 years to go- Who will do it for you?
+
+Believe me, the political system won’t. You don't expect things from the government. You have to do it yourself. You have to get involved.
+
+Don't distance yourself.
+
+That is when things will happen.

_posts/2018-10-19-tinkering-lab.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Rethink! The Tinkering Lab, IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: rethink1.png
+excerpt: "The Tinkering Lab, also known as the “no curriculum lab”, was inaugurated in March 2016 with the vision to be at the forefront of technological advancements in IIT Roorkee."
+---
+
+The Tinkering Lab, also known as the “no curriculum lab”, was inaugurated in March 2016 with the vision to be at the forefront of technological advancements in IIT Roorkee. To know more about how the last two years have been, we spoke to Prof. Inderdeep Singh, who is the Faculty Lab coordinator, and Anant Vashistha, the Secretary of the newly formed Students’ Body of Tinkering Lab.
+<br><br>
+**After coming into the college, everyone gets briefed about all sorts of labs present in the campus, but the Tinkering lab often remains a mystery. So, to start off, it would be great if you could give us some insight into the tinkering lab.**
+ 
+**Anant:** The Tinkering lab was set up in mid-2016 to serve as a platform to generate innovative ideas. The lab is equipped with several advanced technologies to foster learning and creation. Several types of machinery, tools and facilities have been introduced since then. Currently, we are working on a few new technologies. One is the use of rapid prototyping, which we believe will give birth to new ideas and products.
+All we want is to make the lab equipped enough for young thinkers and innovators to come, tinker and innovate.
+<br><br>
+**Most students are unaware of lab timings and its facilities. Continuing on the same note, when can a student enter and perform projects in the lab?**
+ 
+**Anant:** The lab is operational from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM during the weekdays. We realise that the timing of the lab is inconvenient for the IITR junta, so we are trying hard for an extended timing, mostly to make the lab operational during the weekends. But as of now, any student can visit and perform projects during the above-mentioned hours.
+ 
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** To open the lab 24X7 has been our primary goal, and with the formation of the Students' Body, this goal is almost achieved. It is quite difficult for us to put in staff members for 24 hours to manage the working of the lab, thus we needed the support of the students. We have planned to hand over the keys to a students' volunteer team, who would make sure that the lab stays functional even during the off hours (when staff isn’t available).
+<br><br>
+**What, if any, technological advancements have taken place in the lab?** 
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** The core idea behind starting up such a facility was to give a complementary benefit to what the students were already learning in the classes. At IIT Roorkee, we have a highly structured way of teaching; with a fixed number of tutorials and practicals. At times there are some topics that pique the interest of the students, and one may stumble upon an idea which isn’t a part of the academic curriculum. When you are self-driven towards working on such an idea and building up a product of your own, you would need a place that would provide you with the means to do so and The Tinkering Lab is one such hub at IIT Roorkee.
+
+Campus groups such as Team Robocon, Model and Robotics Section, IITR Motorsports, etc. are fairly active users of the lab. One can gauge the utility of the lab from the fact that when IIT Roorkee secured the second position in the Inter IIT Technical Meet, the Student Technical Council acknowledged the support that was offered by the Tinkering Lab. These are a few contributions of the lab in terms of provision of facilities to the campus groups. We may have not launched a product which can be branded as a product of IIT Roorkee, but the foundation for the same has already been laid. In the due course of time, we may be able to come up with some market-ready products with the help of the TIDES business incubator.
+ 
+We also flagged off the ‘Design Innovation Centre’ recently, with the aim to turn ideas into reality, and create products which could be used by everyone. Apart from this, The Tinkering Lab was chosen as the model centre for the ‘Smart India Hackathon’ because of the facilities available here.
+<br><br>  
+**What role does the Tinkering Lab play in the life of UG/PG students? How has the lab supported the student community of the institute?**
+ 
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** Recently, we have observed many PG/PhD students using the facilities of the Tinkering lab to create products or perform tests and experiments besides their regular research. In other words, they are beginning to think out of the box, trying to develop a certain thought process which would enable them to build products of their own.
+
+The Tinkering Lab is always available to the Students Technical Council. We have supported their projects, be it personal or group, by providing them with the means and tools available in the lab. The lab acts as a wall for the students to rely on, to pursue and build on their ideas.
+
+**Anant:** As of now, more than 60 projects have been supported, and there are around 6 ongoing projects in the lab. These projects include personal projects, projects conducted under the guidance of a professor and Technical Section group projects.
+<br><br>   
+**What are the facilities accessible to the campus junta? Is there any restriction imposed on their use?**
+ 
+**Anant:** There isn’t any restriction on the use of tools and machines in the lab. If someone is interested to work on their product idea, the lab will provide all the tools that they may require to perform their project.
+The lab is equipped with numerous machines and hand-tools. 3D Printers, 3D Scanners, CNC Machine, VMC Machine, are some of the commonly used machines by the students. Other than that, the lab has various computational and electronic facilities, chemicals and a huge workspace.
+<br><br> 
+**There were grievances posted by the student’s community on the SAC IITR Discussion Forum on Facebook about the ill-working of the various types of machinery available in the lab. Why is the maintenance of these facilities poor?**
+ 
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** Up till now, there has been a non-uniform workload distribution on the machines present in the lab. We have a chemical room and a tools room, but they have merely been an exhibition throughout the year. Rapid Prototyping 3D Printing machines are used extensively by almost everyone, thereby leaving less maintenance time.
+
+We have 18 Rapid Prototyping 3D printing machine out of which a few have turned non-functional due to its extensive use. The reason for the machines remaining non-functional is that these machines have been imported, therefore the functional parts that get damaged need to be imported as well and importing such parts take around 15-20 days. In order to tackle the problem of faulty machines, where the students may suffer, we have scheduled the ongoing projects in such a way that the students would always find one idle functional machine out of the available 18. In the Tinkering Lab, we’ve never failed to provide the facilities to anyone who has asked.
+ 
+Purchasing the components of the faulty machines in the market isn’t possible, so whenever we face such a situation we make sure to order the component in a stack so that if some other machine faces the same problem, we wouldn’t have to wait for a long time to get the component replaced. The only downside of ordering components in a stack is the longer time it takes to reach us.
+ 
+Apart from these, the financial model of the Tinkering Lab is not yet fully matured. If we have a complete model of money flow and appropriate resources, then we can easily plan the activities down the year. We are in a process of creating a financial model which would address to all of these issues.
+<br><br> 
+**A new Students' Body has been formed for The Tinkering lab. How will this body be organised, and what are their responsibilities and functions in the lab?**
+ 
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** The organisational structure of the Tinkering lab comprises a Faculty Coordinator, an Assistant Workshop Superintendent, two Project Associates and the Students' Body. The main aim of the body is to act as a link between the student community and the administration of the Tinkering lab. All the problems faced by the students are first addressed to the students’ body before being taken to the administration. They basically are our eyes and ears, staying active on social media to answer the queries of the students and also present in the lab to assist the students in the machine work of the labs. They give feedback to the lab administration about the usability of the equipment present along with the account of the difficulties faced by every visitor.
+ 
+The Students' Body is also responsible to disseminate the information about the labs to the students of the campus. One of the major responsibilities of the body is to know the demands of the students. There might be a group of students who need a new set of machines in the lab to further fine-tune their ideas; in such cases, the Students' Body has to step in and let us know about the requirements of the students.
+<br><br> 
+**As you have stated that the student participation in the tinkering lab is pretty low; what outreach initiative has the Students' Body taken?**
+ 
+**Anant:** Higher student participation has been our primary objective since the inception of the Students' Body. For the same, intro talks and lab visits for all the students have been conducted and a healthy participation was witnessed as well. Moreover, we’ve also conducted a 5 Day workshop (Open to all) on 3D Printing, 3D Scanning, Laser Etching and Wood Milling. We are increasing our team strength for proper execution and organisation for the various events being conducted by the lab. To display everything available in the lab, we wish to fully digitise the Tinkering lab. The first step towards digitisation is the induction of a website, which we will launch soon. We plan to showcase the operation of every machine on our YouTube Channel. LinkedIn and Facebook promotions remain our priority. Other than that, we have planned to conduct Guest lectures, from both academicians and industry experts, organise semesterly competitions and workshops. We would also try to participate in national and international level competitions.  
+<br><br> 
+**Running this place must be a very difficult job, and you would need to have a strong team to pull it through. What sort of challenges are you currently facing? Moreover, what changes have been made after the appointment of the new Students' Body?**
+ 
+**Anant:** The major challenge that the students here face is the time restriction. Lack of student participation is another issue. The maintenance of machines is also a huge concern. 
+After the appointment of the Students' Body in November last year, we have been working on policies to improve the lab. We have started right from the scratch, scheduling events, activities, competitions, keeping our primary objective of more student participation on our minds. We have already supported more than 60 projects with very few people within the restricted time slot and with the increase in participation, we believe the tinkering lab can do wonders with the number of facilities available. 
+<br><br> 
+**You’ve mentioned about launching your website. Could you elaborate on the functions and facilities of the website?**
+ 
+**Anant:** Launching a website will be our first step towards digitisation of the lab. It will contain information on all the machines, tools and facilities available in the lab. Few functions like Digital Inventory column to check the availability of inventory items, Student Portal where students can put up project request, submit reports, etc, Feedback form, Query management system, Idea sharing forum, have already been incorporated into the website. To promote industrial collaboration, we have planned to create a portal for industry experts and companies. All the completed and ongoing projects would be displayed on the website. Anyone who finds interest in any of the projects is welcome to collaborate through the Idea sharing forum.
+We believe that we will be able to launch a fully functional website before the end of this semester, fostering outreach and transparency.
+<br><br>
+**What are your expectation from the Tinkering Lab and the future plans to expand the functioning and facilities inside the lab?**
+ 
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** I believe that there is huge scope in product development in India these days. In my experience, I’ve seen that students create ‘something’ during their B. Tech. years, but that ‘something’ never gets to the real market. I believe with the help of Tides Business Incubator and the Design Innovation Centre (DIC), the students would be able to take their product to the real market. Such projects would be funded by the DIC so that the students are able to make working prototypes and field test the same. Also, the link between the conceptualization of ideas and making it a market product has been missing till now, and this link needs to be bridged with the help of the Tinkering Lab, the DIC and the TIDES.
+My future vision is to make at least 5 different products in the next 2 years, developed in IIT Roorkee, fabricated in the lab, available to the market. I am confident that the students of IIT Roorkee are highly capable of doing so.
+<br><br> 
+**Are there any plans for making the lab self-sustainable? If so, what are the initiatives that you’ve planned to make this happen?**
+ 
+**Anant:** Making the lab self-sustainable is one of our objectives as well. Although we aren’t rushing with it, we would push for industrial collaboration. LinkedIn connections with industry experts and collaboration with groups like CIG will be our first step. Before that, we have several other challenges that we have to work on. A website and an active LinkedIn profile are prerequisites in making the lab self-sustainable.

_posts/2018-11-28-conversation-with-kalpana-saroj.md

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "In conversation with Ms. Kalpana Saroj"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: kalpana_saroj_1.jpg
+excerpt: "Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the J&K cadre."
+---
+
+*(Before the interview, Watch Out had the opportunity to meet up with Aayush Gupta, the secretary of E-Cell IIT Roorkee. A brief about the initiative taken by E-Cell is as follows)*
+
+*The Entrepreneur Lecture Series is a joint endeavour by TIDES Business Incubator and E-Cell IIT Roorkee to motivate students to pursue their dreams, take risks and explore the opportunities the world has to offer via candid talks from the selected lot of seasoned experts pioneering the core qualities of risk-taking, persistence and a never ending passion to reach their ambitions.*
+
+*The Entrepreneur Series aims at organising talks by various eminent entrepreneurs and distinguished alumni from IITR. The vision behind this series, as stated by the director, is to "stir the minds of the student citizenry of IIT Roorkee and come up with miraculous innovations in varied technical domains. Therefore, in an attempt to upgrade the scope, scalability and innovation of their ideas, I have conceptualised this series to equip the students with the knowledge, industry expertise and experiential inferences of pioneers in the field of entrepreneurship, leadership and other related domains."*
+
+The inaugural speaker of this series was Ms. Kalpana Saroj. Christened the “Original Slumdog Millionaire”, she was born in a destitute locality in Maharashtra and now is the Chairperson of Kamani Tubes in Mumbai, India. Commanding a fortune in excess of 120 millions U.S.D, she is a parable of relentless perseverance overcoming all odds.
+
+Having been appointed as the Board Member of IIM Bangalore recently, she also met with the Director IIT Roorkee Dr. Ajit K. Chaturvedi in the Director’s office. The following are some excerpts from our illuminating interaction with her.
+
+![pic_with_director](/images/posts/kalpana_saroj_2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+**On campus, students get a plethora of opportunities in a variety of fields that they are free to explore. However, this choice often creates problems where students feel disheartened and confused, and quit when their efforts don’t yield results as soon as they hoped they would. How can  students learn to be more patient and perseverant in their endeavours?**
+
+I have seen this problem prevalent among the youth of the country. But they need to understand that constant hard-work, patience and self belief is the only way to make your dreams come true. Life will always have problems to face and issues to be resolved. Some obstacles require incessant toil over long periods of time to overcome and understand. Giving up is a guaranteed road to failure while putting time into something, with or without quick results, creates chances for success. There will come times where your hopes become bleak and you see nothing but the darkness of failure shroud your life but standing strong and having faith in yourself will lead you towards the right direction.
+
+**You have traversed multiple hurdles and problems in your life that we can’t begin to fathom the severity of. Could you tell us more about the struggles you had to face in reaching your current stature?**
+
+I was born in Roparkheda (a village in Maharashtra) to an impoverished family of 3 sisters and 2 brothers, of whom I was the eldest. Under the then existing societal norms, I was married off at the tender age of 12.As a result, I was vindicated of my right to get educated and had to drop out of school in the 7th standard. I was recognised as a bright student and this violent uprooting from school was a harrowing experience. I moved to a slum in Mumbai with my in-laws but suffered abuse and neglect there. Eventually, my father became aware of this trauma and rescued me from those inhumane conditions. I was ostracized by the society for my unsuccessful marriage and even attempted suicide but fortunately, I was rescued.
+
+Determined to work and earn a living for myself, I relocated to Mumbai at the age of 16. The wide streets of a metropolitan cement jungle like Mumbai was daunting for a young, inexperienced girl like me. Rambling in a state of complete helplessness my only aim was to secure a government job but due to my lack of a formal education, inexperience and age I couldn’t make it and had to sustain myself by working as a tailor. This was the first time when I started thinking of a business model. Sewing and working with clothes gave me an avenue where I could earn and bring food to my family’s table.
+
+**You mentioned the roadblocks that the lack of education created in your life. In Spite of this massive disadvantage, you were able to develop a refined arsenal of business acumen and entrepreneurial skills . What enabled you to keep learning?**
+
+तूच आहेस तुझ्या जीवनाचा शिल्पकार
+
+(You are the architect of your life)
+
+Life is full of events and situations which an act as sources of infinite wisdom. Having to find ways out of the multitude of adversities I had to face taught me invaluable lessons on the importance of will power and hard work. I utilised this knowledge in my business dealings and life decisions which eventually lead to good results.
+
+**The  problems you faced are enough to deter even the most inspired of people in the pursuit of their dreams. However you faced them with your head held high and were awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2013. What was the journey from earning a bare sustenance a day to earning one of the most prestigious awards that a citizen can be bestowed with?**
+
+After sewing blouses as a job, I utilized governmental schemes that benefited the marginalized to take a loan of Rs. 50,000 and start my own business. I used to put in 16-17 hours of work everyday, working through each day only on a cup of tea and a single roti. I had lost my sister to a curable disease because my family couldn’t afford the treatment. This taught me the importance of money and also made me empathetic to people who were undergoing similar ordeals. When I gained relative financial stability, I felt deeply moved by the deplorable conditions of those who were unemployed and suffered due to shortage of funds. I took it upon myself to create an organisation - Sushikshit Berozgar Yuvak Sanghatana, that would cater to the needs of these unemployed people. I brought together collectors, bank managers and officials associated with welfare schemes under an umbrella who educated the youth about these schemes via the channel of this organisation; they were educated on how to solicit as well as how to repay loans. As this organization’s influence increased, I was approached by a group of workers from Kamani Tubes who wanted assistance to prevent the business from a total collapse.The government had transferred the ownership of the company to these workers but due to a lack of managerial experience, they were struggling. Many voices told me that it was suicide to put money in such a failing enterprise After all, many industrialists and big firms had capital but no one was willing to invest. After assuming a leadership role in the company, I brought it out of a debt of Rs. 116 crore as well as over 140 litigations at a fraction of the time predicted. The workers who were on the brink of getting their livelihood stolen were given back their money with the company becoming a booming success. As a symbol of gratitude they entitled me with the tag of “Maa Bhawani”.
+
+The government took cognizance of my efforts and toil by honouring me with a Padma Shri, for Trade and Industry in 2013. I became the first member of my community to reach this pinnacle. It was at that moment when I could feel my shackles break and wanted to spread my wings to fly free above the clouds.
+
+**Even after your life was riddled with hardships and problems, you still took definitive steps to improve the condition of the people who are often neglected by society. How do you think society can become more selfless and collectivistic? Also, what are some future plans you have in mind?**
+
+Everyone indulging in business activities works on the incentive of profit. This is how businesses have always worked and will always work. However, my approach to business has an added dimension of philanthropy and humanism. I try look out for ways of how I can improve the world around not only for me, but for everyone else as well. I have undertaken some projects with the same philosophy in mind.
+
+One of my initiatives is to build a well equipped aviation school in the country.On observing the issues that my son faced during his training as a pilot, I decided to work towards addressing this problem. India severely lacks in the equipment and technology that realises the training of aviation students forcing them to enter overseas flight schools. This costs heavy expenditure and leads to the draining of our country's economy. Our vision is to ensure that every student gets quality education in India itself. We are working with the government and various airlines firms to systemize the resources and strategies.I have also been involved in creating shelters(Nandini apartments) for women that are shunned and ostracized by society into a dark corner, with the aim of providing them a means to rebuild their lives. We provide community housing to these suffering women where they live without rent, provisions of food and healthcare and an environment to bring them out of the trauma and helplessness they faced.
+
+In my new capacity as the Board Member of IIM Bangalore, I look forward to facilitate fruitful collaboration between various industries.
+
+**Given the intensive nature of your undertakings, how do you unwind after a hard day at work?**
+
+When you have to work throughout the day and at times, even through the night, you rarely have time for leisure. I find pleasure in my work and am always on the prowl to get more documents ratified, more meetings concluded etc. I do like to listen to music and when I feel dejected and upset, uplifting melodies remind me to keep moving forward.
+
+When I was in school as a child, my classroom walls bore quotes and aphorisms that catalysed optimism and motivation in me. I still recall them fondly.
+
+**On a closing note, Is there any advice you would like to give to the students of IIT Roorkee?**
+
+All students of the IIT must realise that they are at the cusp of doing brilliant and impactful things. They should realise that they belong to a progressed era, they have access to the best resources and the society encourages them to learn and do wonders. I faced a time when the society was always pushing us down, parents didn't want to educate us and poverty wrapped its arm around me tightly. Now, the internet is full of information for anyone to grow and blossom new talents and ideas. If a person who has faced hardships like me can create a positive impact on society, any person with a firm resolve and intention of making a change can do so. What one needs, is the will to change, the will to do something and the guts to walk on the chosen path despite the obstacles.
+
+The only thing that holds us back are our apprehensions of what might go wrong and the fear of failure. This apprehension is what prevents us from putting ourselves wholly into the task at hand. I used to detest nightfall as it meant the day had ended and I couldn’t get more work done.This is the kind of unflinching devotion that culminates in the fulfilment of a dream
+
+This is the kind of fire you need to kindle within yourself.
+
+*\*\*The interview was conducted in Hindi. The above is a translated dialogue.*

_posts/2018-12-07-anushruti.md

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Anushruti"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: bigstory
+image: anushruti4.jpg
+excerpt: Nestled in a silent corner right at the entrance of IIT Roorkee, Anushruti - Academy for the Deaf was established on November 11, 1989 at IIT Roorkee (the erstwhile University of Roorkee).
+---
+
+Nestled in a silent corner right at the entrance of IIT Roorkee, Anushruti - Academy for the Deaf was established on November 11, 1989 at IIT Roorkee (the erstwhile University of Roorkee). Originally founded as the Roorkee School for the Deaf by Prof. S. C. Handa, a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, it was later renamed to Anushruti.  The word ‘Anushruti’ is an amalgamation of ‘anu’(small) and ‘shruti’(sound), and throughout its altruistic journey of 29 years, Anushruti has been actively engaged in the nurturance of children with hearing impairments. It started operations with Mrs. Handa being the first president and their son being the first student.
+ 
+One of the primest and noblest social initiatives of IIT Roorkee, it is the first such organisation catering to the hearing-impaired to be based within an institute of national importance.
+
+Watch Out spoke to Mrs. Parvati Pandey and Dr. Tashi Nautiyal about the philosophy behind the school, its functioning and about help it could use from students of the institute.
+
+![pic](/images/posts/anushruti1.jpg){: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
+
+## The philosophy behind anushruti
+
+Formed with the motivation to help children born with aural impediments adjust and rejoin mainstream society, the school is dedicated to bringing such people under its ambit.
+
+For an unattended hearing impaired child, the process of learning and comprehending unfamiliar concepts is a daunting task. Having their faculty to hear and articulate words underwhelmed leads to a multitude of cognitive barriers, ranging from limited vocabularies to an inability to grasp complicated sentences. Another pressing concern is the prevalent lack of understanding and diagnosis of these problems by parents. Because hearing issues aren’t obvious and readily identifiable, they often go unnoticed and ignored until it’s too late, exacerbating them. These issues necessitate interventionist measures to adapt and change educational techniques so that the development of these children is ensured to be at par with the mainstream. This is where specialised schools come into the picture.
+
+Anushruti has taken up the initiative of providing free assistance to these children at the tender avenue of pre-primary school, where the impact of adaptive education is most profound. The school provides full fledged education, ranging from pre-nursery to class 8, upto which it is registered. Due to the students’ unique requirements, they are also supported through class X and XII if the institution is approached. The school also functions to provide a moral and emotional support system to its beneficiaries, catering also to the students who have graduated from the school for their professional and personal needs.
+
+Anushruti is also engaged in providing free diagnostic, audiometric and speech therapy facilities to the community. The intention is to develop a centre which may provide free diagnostic and therapeutic consultancy regarding aural and oral problems to the proximate demographic of people residing in nearby areas. The audiologist-cum-speech therapists associated with Anushruti, working in tandem with interns from the Himalayan Hospital, Jolly Grant, are agents that actuate this humanitarian vision.
+
+## Methodology
+
+![pic](/images/posts/anushruti5.jpg){: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
+
+### A) Admission process
+
+The process begins with the filling of an application form, made available free-of-cost at the school’s office. Awareness for the same is generated by educational drives, visits to areas to make people cognizant and by personal reference of students who might benefit from the architecture of the system put in place by the school. In supplement to these awareness drives, volunteers from NSS, IIT Roorkee also intimate the school’s authorities about students which can be helped by the school. Prospective students and their kin then have a direct interaction with the school’s team, intended for comprehensive evaluation of the prospectus and informing their parents about Anushruti’s philosophy and methodology. As these students are primarily from impoverished and destitute backgrounds, the team tries to make hesitant parents assured and comprehensive of the holistic development actuated by the school . Their apprehension regarding transport, funds, future scope etc. are accommodated and placated via intensive counselling sessions to ensure that support and help reaches those who direly need it.
+
+### B) Integration into the school 
+
+Grade-appropriate knowledge of subjects are tested via standard tests, whereas short selection tests are deployed for audiological and psychological evaluation, according to which classes are allotted temporarily. The student’s dexterity, adaptability and comfort in the classes’ environment are assessed before their teaching scheme is finalised.
+
+### C) Teaching scheme
+
+![pic](/images/posts/anushruti2.jpg){: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
+
+The institution relies on modern technology and methods to help these children learn better. Standard speech and auditory equipment is complimented by computer-aided speech development systems. (Loop Induction System, Electronic Learning Wheel to name a few.) Communication is built on oral-aural techniques with supplementary usage of sign language. These techniques are used with the aim of holistically developing the student by providing mediums to engage in multifarious activities like art, craft and poetry parallel to routine education. These efforts are realised by skill and vocational development workshops covering dramatics, choreography, computer education, apparel designing, accessory designing and miming among other fields. 
+
+Primary education follows a specifically crafted syllabus tailored to the esoteric requirements of the students. The rest of the school’s curriculum is based on NCERT guidelines.
+
+## Milestones
+
+At the time of writing, 88 students are enrolled in the school, coming from nearby localities such as Deoband, Roorkee, Saharanpur, Shamli and Muzaffarnagar. The farthest serviced location is 120 KM from the school, with the child using public transport to travel the distance with their parent as an escort. So far, a total of 286 students have registered in the institution, whereas the efforts to provide audiometric evaluations and counselling have benefitted 4940 individuals.
+
+Students have participated in a multitude of sports events including The Regional Abilympics (Organized by the  National Abilympic Association of India, New Delhi), and have showcased commendable talent in regional and district cultural competitions, with participation in national events as well.
+
+## Community based- financial model
+
+The school is structured as a community based establishment, with most of its finances being sourced from donations.Though it began as a social initiative of IIT Roorkee, the institute doesn’t have formal financial obligations to the school. In their stead, IIT-R facilitates these benefactions by making them 100% tax-free (under Section 80-G) if made through the Institute Registrar. Anyone can contribute financially to the school’s cause via this channel.
+
+Companies,industrialists and enterprises that visit Roorkee during Thomso and Cognizance also often donate to the school as a part of different fundraising initiatives. 
+
+Rallies and deaf-awareness events bring to focus the requirements of hearing impaired children and encourage the community to contribute in some way to the upheaval of these children so that they can have a shot at a luminous future.
+
+Being independent from the governmental machinery enables efficient utilisation of collected funds and ensures that they are wholly channeled to the students in need.
+
+![pic](/images/posts/anushruti3.jpg){: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
+
+## Administrative structure
+A team of dedicated teachers and educators trained and specialised in interacting with hearing impaired children are involved in Anushruti’s endeavours. The teachers don’t function on a fixed time table as the curriculum of primary education for these students varies and is different from regular students. 
+On the administrative front, the Director, IIT Roorkee is a patron while the Vice-President, Manager, Joint-Manager and Treasurer are faculty members of the institute. The constitution of Anushruti has been drafted by personnel from IITR and was ratified by the Board of Governors. The Managerial Committee is required to submit the the annual reports and audited balance sheets to IITR.
+
+## Relations with IIT-R
+The community of IIT is also actively engaged with the school’s working. Certain faculty members have ‘adopted’ students; the expenses incurred as part of the child’s education are borne by them. Coaches from the institute also interact and guide students having a penchant for sports. As mentioned previously, students from NSS contribute by intimating the school about students that can be helped. Moreover, the Department of Management Studies organizes the annual  ‘Deaf Awareness Week-BHOR’ every September. On one occasion, students from the Architecture Department visited the school interacted with the pupils who had a gala time forging new friendships.
+
+The school motivates IIT Roorkee students / faculty to undertake research on the development of latest technologies to develop assertive devices and other educational teaching aids, various software's, teaching learning material and appliances to help educate and train hearing impaired children.
+
+Through an in-school gift shop, the school also engages in selling a variety of artistic creations from its students such  greeting cards, dolls, toys and a whole paraphernalia of gorgeous objects. These works are available for purchase by anyone who wants to contribute, they need only reach the school via the designated contact number.
+
+The school will greatly benefit from technical inputs from IIT-R’s community, which include volunteerism to take these children under tutelage and assist the school in its endeavours. The school is always on the lookout for such people, and anyone who wants to lend a helping hand towards making the world a brighter and more jubilant place for these children just have to bring their motivations to the notice of the school .
+
+_The official website of anushruti: <span style="color:#0645AD">[iitr.ac.in/RSD/]( https://www.iitr.ac.in/RSD/)</span>._

_posts/2018-12-24-choreo-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Choreography and Dance Section"
+image: choreo2.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**Give an insight into your performance and the practise sessions.**
+
+The majority of our routine is what we performed in Thomso, along with new impressive additions like ‘Stomping’, in which there is no music and we create our own beats with claps and taps. We have used interesting props which will add sensation to our performance.
+We have a team of 28 people, each performing 7-8 songs on an average. We started our practices from August-September. Initially sessions lasted 3-4 hours but they now stretch to 9-10 hours or even more.
+
+**How do you manage your contingent dynamics and keep your team motivated?**
+
+Our team has members from all the years. We all love dancing and revel in it. We live for that moment when we perform on stage and it is very special for us. Talking about the bigger picture, there is no personal benefit from cultural activities but we do it for our respect of the art and our passion constantly drives us.
+
+**What do you feel is the difference between the Cult in other IITs and IITR?**
+
+I believe that in Roorkee, the junta is more career oriented. If you look at Bombay, Delhi etc they are more zealous and comprehensive. I have been involved in Cult for the past three years now, and I see students drifting away and it is getting weaker. Quality has definitely improved but comprehensiveness and enthusiasm are decreasing.
+
+**How does a platform like inter IIT affects the growth of your section?**
+
+We always existed as a group and used to perform in Thomso and Jashn but Inter-IIT has pushed us to become performers and work towards improving the levels of our dancing. It has incorporated professionalism with dancing we get a competitive environment and an exhibit of the Culture in our sister IITs which compels us to better and match their levels.
+
+**What are your expectations from the competition this year?**
+
+As we are the host IIT, we definitely want to win. We are experimenting with new things, pushing our limits and working hard. From our last performance, we have set a benchmark that we have to surpass. We have great competitors. So it's definitely challenging, a mix of nervousness and enthusiasm.
+
+**So out of all the events that are under your section, which one is the most challenging to prepare for?**
+
+We have Group Dance, Duet and Street Battle. The group dance is the most challenging one because we have to coordinate between a large no of people and it yields the maximum points.
+
+**What support have you received from the institute, for the inter IIT?**
+
+The institute has been supportive. They have provided us with the props, good quality costumes, money and everything. We are not restricted from trying new things.
+
+**As far as the Choreography and Dance Section is concerned, do you think our institute is infrastructurally and technically equipped to host an inter IIT event?**
+
+Well yes, we do lack in infrastructure. Our section performs in the Convocation Hall which has a marble stage. It is not meant for dancing and it is scientifically flawed from the audience point of view as well. The Mac Audi has a smaller stage with less sitting capacity.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/choreo1.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**Give us some insights into the fun that you guys have in the long practice sessions.**
+
+There are a lot of interesting personalities in our group who are fun to be with.The dance room is full of laughter, jokes. When we get tired of our routines we dance off-beat on random songs which is really tough and fun.
+
+**So any ending remarks and message for the incoming teams?**
+
+Roorkee hosting the Inter-IIT has been instrumental in improving our section’s quality in terms of resources as well as performance. We are excited to see what happens this year. We are working hard and well prepared. We're really looking forward to seeing our competitors, knowing they'll come with all guns blazing but yeah Beware!

_posts/2018-12-24-culinary-council.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Culinary Club"
+image: culinary1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**Tell us about the events under your section in Inter IIT.**
+
+We have two events. The first is the Tag Team Challenge. Each team will comprise of two members. During the hour-long cooking challenge, the team members will have to switch in every 15 mins. The second event is making a complete 3-course meal (starters, main course and dessert) within a time limit of 2 hrs. The list of ingredients will be same for both the events. The teams are allowed to bring their own equipments if they require but the list of ingredients is fixed.
+
+**This is Culinary Club’s debut in the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet. How has the response been so far?**
+
+None of the other IITs has a culinary club. So it was a challenge to encourage them to participate since they lack proper teams and resources. But now many teams are up for it and they are excited to try this for the first time.
+
+**What was your motive behind introducing cooking to Inter-IIT platform?**
+
+We want every IIT to have its own Culinary Club. Food is an integral part of any culture. So a Cultural Meet without the element of food is sketchy. The inter-IIT platform is likely compel other IITs to kickstart their own culinary clubs. This will flourish the culture of food and it will be taken more seriously.
+
+**How are you sourcing the ingredients and other essential equipments for your events?**
+
+Everything is being arranged by the Inter-IIT core team. We have sent them the list of all the ingredients, pots and pans, knives, spoons and chopping boards that we’ll be needing. The vegetables and fruits will probably come from the campus messes.
+
+**Give us an insight into your practice sessions.**
+
+We recently got the canteen space in the new SAC building to practice and set up our instruments and ingredients. We practise for 4-5 hours daily. It involves a lot of discussion as to what should be cooked, which flavours to work on, what should be the sequence of our dishes etc. We have selected dishes that are less risky since there are high chances of screwing up under the pressure during competitions.
+
+**Who will be judging these events?**
+
+Jayanandan Bhaskar, MasterChef Season-1 runner-up is one of the judges. He came to judge in Thomso as well.
+
+**What were the challenges you faced during Thomso?**
+
+It was a test run to see what problems can arise while organising a cooking competition. There was some miscommunication with caterers so at the last hour we had to arrange everything from the induction cooktops to the venue at LHC (about which the professor wasn’t too happy. )
+
+**Cooking competitions involve many contingencies, say the dish gets burnt. What are your emergency plans for dealing with it?**
+
+We have selected dishes with minimum risk, less cooking time and can be prepared in bulk. So, we’ll be making, say 3 batches in one go and then serve the best one. Also, we have the arrangements of basic first aid for burns, cuts etc.
+
+**How has been the support of SAC, the Inter-IIT core team and the administration?**
+
+Ours is an equipment-intensive group. Financially, the administration hasn’t been very helpful. SAC has been more supportive. We got initial funding of 50,000 for our café and all our things have been purchased from it. The funds are sufficient for our event.The contractors will be providing the stoves for the flame-based cooking and we have 7-8 induction-cooktops as a backup.
+
+**Your club is still in its nascent stage. How an event like Inter-IIT helpful for the growth of your group?**
+
+Many students on the campus are still unaware of the existence of our group.Through, Inter-IIT they’ll get to know more the section.Cooking is an essential part of our life. At some point in life, you have to cook and it’s good that students learn it during their college years.
+
+**Tell us about your plans for the student-run café.**
+
+It will open every Saturday and Sunday and students will cook a single dish on a particular day. Cleanliness will be our topmost priority. We want to be responsible about what we serve. Also, at least once a month, we’ll cook especially for the Africans. Africans in our campus struggle a lot with the food. The species, the kind of rice, the vegetables etc doesn’t suit them. We’ll try to cook Tapioca and plantains which can be procured from Delhi.
+
+**What are your expectations for the inter-IIT events?**
+
+The participating teams are all charged up. Every other day, we receive their messages asking doubts which shows they are prepping well. I feel elated about putting in the efforts. It will be fun!
+
+**Any message to your competitors?**
+
+It’s a Food War. Let’s gear up and give our best!

_posts/2018-12-24-dramatics-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Dramatics Section"
+image: drams1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**Tell us what are the events are under your section?**
+
+Under the category of dramatic arts we have 3 kinds of events- stage play& street play, these are group competitions where we participate in teams of 20-30 and monologue where a single person performs.
+
+**Give us an insight into your practices for the cultural meet.**
+
+For the street play, we are continuing over our semester play. We are already prepared for it and just improving on places where we lacked, how it was perceived by the audience and other minor details.For the stage play, we have selected an entirely new script. Practise for stage play goes on from morning till 12 at night. It involves a lot of work, choosing the scripts, writing dialogues, working on the characters, music selection, setup etc. For the street play, we practise from morning to evening, before the sun sets, in the ABN ground. After this, the street play members work as the non-cast for the stage practice in OP Jain Auditorium.
+
+**Are only original plays are allowed or adaptations can be performed?**
+
+Both adaptations and original plays are allowed but they do not have any marks for the script. Marking will be on acting and direction, creativity and overall impact through music, lights, costumes and stage.
+
+**In the process of preparing the play which is the most challenging and difficult task?**
+
+Everything requires a lot of hard work but I would say it’s in terms of direction and acting where all the IITs would be at par. So, to be a step ahead we are experimenting with our creativity, music and light. Execution of the idea is the most important task.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/drams2.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**Being the host contingent the advantages and disadvantages that you face.**
+
+Advantages as a host contingent are that you have a very good idea of the stage, the props, furniture etc. We are getting good resources, we have bought a new xylophone, the OP Jain stage is getting revamped and the lights are also improved. The disadvantage is that you lose a part of the team who are are helping with the organising of the cultural meet and that we are not getting to go to another place (laughs).
+
+**So, is it a pressure or an excitement to be the host?**
+
+I wouldn’t say it’s any extra pressure. If we were going to any other IIT we would have put in the same amount of effort that we are putting in now.
+
+**Till now how has been the support of the administration and the Inter IIT core team and what are the problems you faced?**
+
+Regarding the rules and resources we got a good amount of support but infrastructurally one of the biggest problems is that we have to practise besides the Choreography Section and they play loud music which causes a lot of inconveniences. Also, another problem we face being in Roorkee is that it is difficult to arrange the costumes and props. We try to arrange it locally or get it stitched from the tailor. Similarly, it is difficult to get a wig so we even ask people to shave their head off.
+
+**Comparing to the previous editions, what challenges you faced that you are trying to overcome in this performance?**
+
+We haven’t won any place in the street play yet, so of course, we are collecting everything from the winning teams that we missed and combine all of those to execute our idea.
+We won the second position in the stage play last year and we went to the judges who told us the places where we lagged like a few costumes didn’t go well, a few places where acting could have been better etc. So have all the points in our mind and trying our best to execute them.
+
+**How does an inter-IIT platform aids in the improvement of your section?**
+
+We have always been performing semester plays which are for the campus Janta, an audience which does not know much about dramatics and nobody to judge. But Inter-IIT is a competition and it comes with pressure. We tend to act differently under pressure and try to be the best version of ourselves. There are professional Judges who will observe the details and technicalities and there are teams who are also part of dramatics section of their college.We get an opportunity to see where we stand, where we lag, where we are good and this overall helps in our growth.
+
+**In previous versions, you have faced problems in the management, so what do you think that Roorkee must improve on?**
+
+Last year in the event there was no coordinator from The Dramatics Section during the dramatics events. When we had issues with the lights we needed someone from the section who knows about the technical details to help. This created a big problem and so we are trying to ensure this does not happen here.
+
+![The team fun](/images/posts/drams3.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**You might have good days and bad days, so how do you deal with the bad days?**
+
+Well, we laugh at mistakes. I think that any of the cult activity has a lot of energy associated with it. When something is not going good in a stage play then we go and see the practice of the street play where they will be singing the chorus and so you get the energy from people around you Any kind of blunder becomes a joke. For example, if there is an intimate scene between two characters it’s usually funny to see the actors getting awkward and laughing but we have to maintain professionalism.
+
+**Any ending remarks?**
+
+Go for Gold ! We will give our best.

_posts/2018-12-24-music-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Music Section"
+image: music1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**How have been your practices for the Inter-IIT so far?**
+
+We practice from the afternoon all the way till midnight or sometimes even later.. It’s Inter-IIT so we are targeting higher, beyond what we do regularly in our shows. So yeah, it’s strenuous and it is demanding a lot from us.
+
+**What are the events that come under the music section in Inter-IIT?**
+
+There are three events. First is solo singing – two participants from each IIT. And there’s “Pair on Stage’.The team consists of a pair and they can do anything, like they can sing, loop, play the guitar etc and be as creative as possible.The last is our Band Performance which is most challenging as there are a lot of people and it's difficult to maintain synchronisation.
+
+**So what do you think about your competition? Is it tough this time around?**
+
+It is extremely tough this time. Madras and Kharagpur are both extremely intimidating and strong teams. And we hope we beat them this time.In both the previous editions, we have been second. We will be trying our best to change that this time for the better.
+
+![The team ](/images/posts/music2.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**What problems have you faced, especially with respect to for Inter-IIT, considering you have only one room and so many different events?**
+
+The number of rooms is not really a constraint. The solo singing is something which we can practice at our own rooms also. We just need a tabla and a vocalist. So the room is not a constraint.
+
+**How has been the infrastructural and the technical support from the institute and Inter-IIT team?**
+
+Our chief advisor has been quite supportive. And in terms of equipment, we can’t ask for more. We just purchased a guitar and drum set. It’s very crucial for this event. We requested some special audio setup for the event as well, hoping that we will get it. Inter IIT team too is quite co-operative as well.
+
+**What were the challenges that you faced previously, that you are hoping to overcome or avoid this time?**
+
+We haven’t always found any new challenge. The challenges have remained same; getting a good mix and completing everything under a time constraint. If that doesn’t come right, the event doesn’t go well.
+
+**So who are the judges this time?**
+
+I don’t think it has been revealed yet. We have just given our proposal to the core team for the judges.
+
+**You have long practice hours. So how do you maintain the contingent dynamics among yourselves?**
+
+Everyone is quite motivated by themselves. We don’t have a lot of other things to do during vacations so we devote our time to the section and work towards putting an electrifying performance.

_posts/2018-12-26-audio-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Audio Section"
+image: audio1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**What are the events under your section in the cult meet?**
+
+The only event that the audio section is managing is the DJ Battle which is introduced for the first time in the cultural meet.
+
+**What is a DJ battle?**
+
+Basically,the job of a DJ is to play music according to the mood of the crowd,There are a lot of techniques to accomplish this and different DJs use different ones. For example, club DJs try to stick to the mood of the public and raise the tempo of the songs being played. Then there are turn tabelists, radio DJs who play theme specific songs or a playlist. Since this is a competition, the participants will be judged on several criteria like scratching, faders, the techniques we use, and so on. The interaction with the crowd would be a major factor in judging.
+
+**Will the competition have a crowd dancing to your beats?**
+
+Basically we’ll be facing a crowd and their reactions will be the basis of the points that we get.
+
+**Will the crowd will be casual or staged?**
+
+The crowd will be the general populace from all of the IITs. We expect a heterogeneous public since the competition will be on the UG floor.
+
+**Tell us about your practice sessions for DJ battle.**
+
+We are preparing specific mixes that we’ll be performing there. I, for example, will be using a launchpad in my performance. It helps in building a drop or mixing songs and it gives a beat to the music.
+
+**What goes behind all the preparations for the competition?**
+
+First, we decide what type of songs we want. Some attention also needs to be paid to the beats-per-minute (BPM) of the songs. You cannot mix any two songs randomly. They must have the same BPMs. There has to be a connection between the songs that we are mixing, and the list is prepared accordingly. We can also arrange songs in a way so that the public can feel the tempo rising, having it start off slowly and then pacing till the major drop comes. Then, we also have to take care of the mood. We have to give time to the crowd to relax, so the songs cannot be too fast and there have to be moments in the mixes where we can actually interact with the crowd. So, these are things we try to manage behind the walls.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/audio2.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**What is the contingent size?**
+
+There can be at most two members in a team, and two teams from each IIT are allowed.
+
+**You need a lot of instruments for DJing. What was the technical support you received from the inter IIT team and the administration?**
+
+We have a controller which is similar to the DJ system that will be provided in the competition. We give commands, and the system performs actions accordingly. However, it will be a challenge in switching to the actual system from the controller.
+
+**What were the challenges you faced while practicing?**
+
+The actual DJ setup is quite expensive so we won’t be provided with that. We will be given a specific instrument a day before the actual competition and 1 hour practice slot is allotted for every team. So, we’ll only have that time for practice on the actual system we will be using.
+
+**What are your expectations from the competition?**
+
+We are expecting a boost in the section name after the competition. It’ll also be a great experience for us, along with providing a much needed exposure.
+
+**How is the DJ culture in other IITs?**
+
+Since the setup is really expensive, it is not very popular. However, most people are really into DJing on an individual level.
+
+**Any ending remarks or message to the incoming teams?**
+
+I would like to wish them luck. Although we are suffering from a lack of technical support, but we certainly hope to give them the time of their lives.

_posts/2018-12-26-cinematic-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Cinematic Section"
+image: cinesec1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**What are the events that come under your section and give a brief detail about it.**
+
+We have two events, one is the online short film making competition and other is the offline short film making competition. In the online competition the topic is given one month prior and in the offline competition the topic is given on spot on which the movie is to be made in 48 hours. Everything needs to be done in those 48 hours starting from the story, scripting, shooting and the editing. This year we have a screenwriting competition as well which is right after the offline film making competition. We are supposed to write a 3 minute screenplay on the given topic.
+
+**Talking about the online short film making competition have you guys prepared the movie?**
+
+Yeah, we have submitted our movie. This year the theme was ‘The show must go on’. The theme was given on 7th November and after our end sems we started developing the story and the script. We prepared 3 to 4 scripts and then picked the best one. The shooting was mainly done in the campus and some shots were taken outside. We got help from Jha sir . We used his apartment for one of our scenes. Our movie is around 13 minutes. The shooting was completed around 14th December and it took us one week for the editing.
+
+**How long were the shooting hours and how big is the contingent?**
+
+Actually, the pre-production part is more than the shooting. So, the most important part of film making process is the scripting and the actors. We first prepared the script and chose the actors from the dramatics section and our section
+
+**So, what does the platform of Inter IIT mean to your section in terms of growth and exposure?**
+
+In the first Inter IIT cultural meet at Bombay we won the Film and Media Category. From there on, being the first winners, we have always been excited about the event and we always look forward to it. Moreover it’s much better than what we do during the course of year. It’s Inter IIT, it‘s competitive, we try to outperform other IIT’s and it brings the best out of us.
+
+**You might have had good and bad days. How did you guys manage the bad days and what were the team dynamics throughout the process?**
+
+Most of the problems were before we started shooting, because it is very difficult to choose 1 script from 3-4 scripts that members come up with. Whoever has made the script fights for it and lots of discussions happen. And after that the pre-production because before we shoot everything has to be decided. Ideally the shoot must take the least time as everything is pre planned. With some many ideas it’s difficult to incorporate all and make the best out of it.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/cinesec2.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**How was the support from the administration and the Inter IIT cultural team?**
+
+We wanted an apartment to shoot. Jha Sir is the first person we go to in such cases. He readily agreed and in fact he even prepared lunch for the entire team. We were there for around four hours in his apartment and after the shoot he prepared lunch and that was fun. But we lack a dedicated room for our section where we can store our equipments and work together. It would have helped us a great deal if we had one.
+
+**What are the preparations for the offline completion?**
+
+There’s nothing much to prepare as such because we are given the topic on the spot and unless we know the topic we can’t really do anything. We have participated in the 48-hour filmmaking before so we know what goes into it and the kind of mindset required. I think all of us are ready for it. There are 15 people in the team and all of them have been to at least one such competition.
+
+**Compared to previous Inter IIT meets how do you think this will be different?**
+
+It’s definitely better, partly because this is the third time and also because it is our home campus. So it’s much simplified and we know what to do regarding administrative roadblocks and getting the things we want. In 48-hour film making we definitely have an advantage as we know the locations pretty well and we can shoot easily, because in previous editions we had to scout for locations as well in the given time. We can definitely sense some home advantage but the rest is pretty even.
+
+**So being the host is an advantage rather than extra pressure to perform.**
+
+There is pressure and it‘s fun, after all it is competitive and we definitely want to outperform when we are the hosts.
+
+**Do you think that IITR is infrastructurally adept to host such an event on this scale.**
+
+Yes, I have been a part of planning since August -September. We do have enough places and auditoriums. I don’t think there should be any infrastructural problem or administrative. I am assuming everything would be sorted out by the time meet starts.
+
+**Any ending remarks?**
+
+We are eagerly looking forward to it. Especially after our good performance in Tech and Sports meets, we feel the pressure to perform well in Cult plus we are the host institute. We wish the entire IITR contingent all the best!
+
+**Any message to the incoming teams?**
+
+(Laughing) We are ready! Are you?

_posts/2018-12-26-debating-society.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Debating Society"
+image: debsoc2.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**What is the debating format in the inter IIT Cultural Meet?**
+
+The debating format followed in the Cultural Meet is Asian Parliamentary Debating with 19 teams registered. There are prizes for the top 3 teams, best speaker and best adjudicator. A debate is competitive in two ways- speaker team against another speaker team and the people who judge the debates. The speaking team also score the adjudicator (or judge) on the basis of how well they understood the debate, the arguments, pitched them against each other and consequently came up with a fair verdict. This year in inter IIT we have a 70-30 point split for the speaker team and the adjudicators.
+
+**Tell us about your practice sessions for the inter IIT meet.**
+
+The practice for inter IIT is just like we have had for other parliamentary debates conducted throughout the year. Firstly there are knowledge sessions which are organized by the members of the debating society on a variety of topics like economics, geopolitics, history, feminism etc., These topics pop up frequently in the debates so we need to have awareness and general insights about these domains. With regards to preparation, we are often up against teams studying Arts and Liberal Arts who have a more extensive knowledge base because many of the topics we discuss are a part of their curriculum, implying that we have to put in extra efforts. Hence, we try to include as much knowledge sessions as possible and in general try to accrue more and more information actuating a competent performance on these platforms. This time, we are against IIT’s so the tournament will be more equal-footed and involved. Preparation for debates is not like studying for an exam. We cannot prepare or study a week before a tournament by binging on the material. It’s the effort that you put in consistently over the course of a year which involves several things like expanding your knowledge base, learning to speak fluently and fast along with keeping your words comprehensive. Therefore, even if there is no tournament we meet at least 3-4 times a week to conduct debates which usually last for a couple of hours and during tournaments, we ramp up the frequency. We also participate in tournaments throughout the year through which we get a lot of exposure.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/debsoc1.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**On the basis of your previous experience, what are your expectations from the meet?**
+
+Some of the IIT’s like IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur have well established Debating Societies, whereas our Society is relatively new. We expect good competition from them but we can not underestimate the newer IIT’s as well.
+
+**What were the major challenges you faced while practising and organizing the debating event?**
+
+For every debating tournament, there are a certain number of core adjudicators who are meant to be the core organizers of the tournament and they are not competing with the general adjudicators. The core adjudicators are usually people who have a lot of experience in debating and have a really good idea about how tournaments are conducted. Given that the inter IIT is scheduled in the Christmas season, a lot of people are busy with their vacations and a lot of law colleges have their exams at this time as well. As a result, inviting the core adjudicators had many hassles and we had to make a lot of extraordinary efforts.
+
+**Tell us about the fun that you have during your practice sessions?**
+
+Debating practices are a healthy mixture of fun and serious work. Working your way through an argument, trying to convince the adjudicator (who happens to be a friend), while at the same time coming up with counters to the opposing side (who are friends as well) adds a lot of adrenaline rush to these debates. No doubt, these discussions sometimes turn passionate with loud-mouthing involved (all in good humour) and both sides trying to convince each other way past the actual debate.
+
+**What were the challenges you faced in the previous editions and you are trying to overcome this time?**
+
+Last year, a major problem was that the IITR Debsoc was formed 6 months prior to the inter IIT. Due to this our core team didn’t have as many people as we would’ve liked (that’s changed now though). There were also administrative issues, but the administration has by and large been very helpful to us, in particular, our faculty advisor Dr. P K Jha.
+
+**So are you better equipped and prepared this time?**
+
+Considering the still nascent stage of our Debsoc, we have tried to prepare well. We practised throughout the semester and went to different tournaments to learn and understand what efficacious debating entails.
+
+**Any note for the incoming teams?**
+
+The main reason we participate in any tournament, especially in debating, is to learn and to be better as we have fun in engaging with a myriad of people with a vast span of ideas and debating styles. We have invited esteemed core adjudicators and tried to make this tournament a great learning experience for all the participating teams. In the end, we wish all the teams luck and hope for great debates ahead.

_posts/2018-12-26-fine-arts.md

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Fine Arts"
+image: finearts.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**Tell us about the events which come under the Fine Arts section in Inter IIT.**
+
+There are 4 events which come under the fine arts. Actually the heads name is fine arts and design but there are only four events which are under the fine arts. Two events are under design. Our events are namely – costume design, live sketching, charcoal art and canvas painting.
+
+**So how is your preparation different for all four?**
+
+Costume design is a team event and a team of 6 will be participating in this event, so coordination is very important. That’s why, we called the team members to the campus 15 days before the Inter-IIT
+
+**The topic was given beforehand?**
+
+Yeah! Theme was decided a month prior to event and the theme was conveyed to the respective IITs. For charcoal art, theme is on the spot, and for that our strategy to practice is different. For example, in last Inter-IIT the theme was ‘Happiness’. We pick different words daily like afraid, fast, escape etc. and practise. We prepping so that the participants may not be ambushed by the theme on the spot. And for live sketching, we are most confident because our sketchers are really really good. We are expecting gold in live sketching.The theme of the costume design is futurism as in what the events in the future will be like. The practice is going really really well. See it’s not a team event, it’s an individual event. So our members have already started practicing for it way before Inter-IIT. And the last one is canvas painting for which the theme was decided a week before the event.
+
+**So do you guys practice together or do you practice in your rooms?**
+
+No, we practice together, at the section. We get the feeling of unity. In room everybody gets lazy. Seeing everybody is practice, keeps you motivated and charged up.
+
+**So how are the contingent dynamics among the fine arts members? How do you guys deal with the bad days?**
+
+We just deal with it. We don’t experience bad days too often. Whenever we are practicing, we are also playing some music that keeps our mood light.
+
+**So what are your expectations from the competition?**
+
+From the competition, we are expecting to learn a lot. When you are practicing alone, you don’t know what your scope of improvements are. When you participate in the competition, you see others’ skills and figure out the places where you lack. So we are expecting to improve a lot from this competition and hopefully, we’ll win too.
+
+**In what ways is this Inter-IIT cultural meet platform important for you section, in terms of growth and exposure?**
+
+This is just the second edition, and before this fine arts didn’t participate in any competitions. We just went to Rendezvous or Kashi Yatra, the other cultural fests of different IITs. Seeing different IITs come together and compete with one another, is a different kind of atmosphere. You get so much exposure and learn a lot from it.
+
+**Among your events which is the most challenging for your section to tackle?**
+
+I think that charcoal art is most challenging because the theme will be given on the spot. We will have to think of something to draw and execute it in four hours. So that’s difficult.
+
+**So how was the support from the administration and the Inter-IIT cultural team?**
+
+The support was really good and I think it was the best. All the material requirements were fulfilled by the team and they been supportive. All the queries have been clarified.
+
+**For the incoming teams, will you be providing material or is it the rule that you have to bring your own?**
+
+It’s different according to different events. For canvas painting, the paints have to be brought by the teams. In live sketching and charcoal, we’ll be providing the pencils. In costume design, we’ll provide the sheets but they can bring it along if they want to.
+
+**What was your flow of tackling these events?**
+
+We researched a lot. The initial seven or eight days were spent in researching as to what could be done to represent the theme and impress the judges.
+
+**Do you think our institute is infrastructurally well adapt to host such an event as Inter-IIT cultural meet?**
+
+Yeah I think it is. It’s quite spacious and fine arts events can be hosted really well.
+
+**What is the most fun and interesting part about the Inter-IIT?**
+
+Our contingent size is fifteen and when we are in a section there is a lot of brainstorming with people working passionately . To see all your juniors, seniors and colleagues tackle a problem and revel in the same art is what makes us elated.
+
+**Any funny incident that you want to share?**
+
+In costume design, fun incidents happen almost daily. Actually we have to decorate a person. Our team consists of 4 males and 2 females. And when the girls are not available, we try to experiment the dresses on the boys. And that is totally hilarious!
+
+**Any notes for the incoming teams?**
+
+We are expecting a really healthy competition and we are conducting it for the first time. So if there are any mistakes from our side, please overlook them. We are trying are best to avoid any errors or loopholes.

_posts/2018-12-26-kshitij.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Kshitij"
+image: kshitij.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**What are the events under your purview how are the practices for them?**
+
+Under Kshitj, we have 4 events- English Slam Poetry and Kavyanjali Hindi Slam poetry, creative writing (hindi and english). For English slam, there is not much to practise so we 1-2 hours daily. It starts with the writing sessions. We brainstorm ideas, write the content and edit the pieces in multiple rounds. There are points for poetic language, clarity of message and vocabulary. Then we start working on voice modulation, emotions, body language, posture etc which determine the major impact of our performance.
+
+**Can you brief about the culture of slam poetry in IIT Roorkee?**
+
+Slam poetry is something very new to our campus. It was introduced 2 years back and from then Kshitij is trying to propagate it through various workshops, annual slam poetry fest where members of our section perform and friends of section (FOS) in which non-kshitij members can learn and perform on stage.
+
+**How an inter IIT platform will impact the culture of Slam Poetry?**
+
+Slam poetry is very new art in our campus and it’s something that we do for leisure. So when we will get a competitive platform like inter IIT, more people will get to know what the art is about. Writing is something that we do for leisure, it's our hobby. But when we get a competitive platform we tend to work on the technicalities, put solid efforts, get to know where we stand, analyse where we lack which leads to our personal growth as well as improve the culture in our campus.
+
+**How has been the support of inter IIT core team for your event?**
+
+The interIIT team has been very supportive. All our demands have fulfilled and we have got very good judges. Our institute have a lot of auditoriums but not every stage is suitable for a spoken word event. So they arranged the biotech audi and provided us a spotlight.
+
+**What are your expectations from other IITs?**
+
+Most of the IITs don’t have a slam poetry group. As far as we know, people who are participating are doing by themselves. Slam poetry is something that does not take place on a competitive level. There are no rules or a fixed format for a slam. We can write about anything- a story, a social issue, any emotion or incidence. So it will be good opportunity to see what our sister IITs will present.
+
+**Any ending remarks?**
+
+We are looking forward for good exposure, and I think we’ll definitely get that. Also we are the defending champions so there is a positive pressure on us. Good luck to the incoming teams. We are ready!

_posts/2018-12-26-quizzing-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Quizzing Section"
+image: quizzing.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**What are the events under quizzing section?**
+
+There are 6 quizzes- India,Sports,SciTech,Business,MELA and General under our purview.Along with these, members of the section will also be partaking in the Word Games as we don’t have a separate club for the same.
+
+**What were your practise sessions like?**
+
+Our practises last throughout the semester as quizzing isn't something you can practise for just one event. We had an increased frequency of regular quizzes on various genres throughout the semester, we also conducted various practise quizzes of other quizzing circles like KQA and K-Circle. Apart from these we travelled to three outstation quizzes to strengthen our preparations for Inter IIT.
+
+**How do you compare the quizzes of Inter IIT with other quizzing events on a competitive level?**
+
+So this year, the Inter IIT Team has managed to get hold of some of the best quizmasters, who’ve conducted quizzes in Nihilanth, which is the Inter IIT-IIM Quizzing Meet and that has made this years event a great challenge for us. Competitively,Inter IIT is an easier platform than other quizzes we’ve taken part in this year as some of them were open quizzes and had much more experienced quizzers. But from our standings in those quizzes, we’re confident of a good performance this year.
+
+**What are your expectations from the incoming teams this year?**
+
+Quizzing has always has had a cut throat competition and we don’t expect anything less this year. There is the added pressure of being the host contingent. But we hope to perform well and get at least a stage final presence in most of the quizzes. At this point, it is anybody’s game.
+
+**Can you briefly explain what goes in one of your practise quiz?**
+
+We have pre decided teams for every genre based on every member’s trong suit and in practise quizzes we work on building up team dynamics amongst us. Working out an answer as a team is crucial for our performance. Quizzing isn’t just about remembering a set of random trivia, it’s that and much more.
+
+**How does an Inter IIT platform impact your section?**
+
+The Inter IIT is a great reality check platform for us. The high level of competition and exposure help us pinpoint exactly on the areas we are lacking in and problems we need to iron out. It also helps immensely in our preparation for Nihilanth, which takes place in January every year.
+
+**Were the venues sufficient for the number of practice quizzes you conducted?**
+
+So this year we faced a slight difficulty with regards to booking of venues.Last year the process was smooth. But this year we had problems as the venues weren’t booked for us on time and we had to cancel or reschedule our quizzes at the very last minute. This affected our practises but then we took over the Ravindra Bhawan common room and conducted all our quizzes informally there without booking other venues.
+
+**Ending Remarks.**
+
+We’re ready with all guns blazing and confident of a good performance this year.

_posts/2018-12-26-standup-club.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Know Your Cult: Standup Club"
+image: standup1.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: interiit
+---
+
+_With the Inter-IIT Cultural Meet being just a few days away, all cult sections are busy practising away. Watch Out dropped by each section of the Cultsoc to get a sneak peek into their practise regime and to find out their expectations from the meet._
+
+**Tell us about your practice sessions and preparations for the inter IIT meet.**
+
+Unlike other contingents, we cannot have fixed practise sessions. We need to rack our brains and brood to come up with good jokes. Sometimes it takes us days to build a decent joke while someday we prepare the entire script in one go. It takes a lot of brainstorming, research, voice modulations, hand and body gestures to make a complete standup piece.
+
+**What goes behind writing a comedy piece?**
+
+We either build imaginary scenarios or talk about real life incidents. Comedy is more about being observant and picking up tiny details of common day situations and characters. Our pieces should be written according to the target audience. For example, in the inter IIT meet, according to our audience our content can include jokes on Indian society, college students, engineers, IITians, exams, JEE preparation, teenage romance etc.
+
+**Based on your previous experience, what are your expectations from this meet?**
+
+Last year, quite a few stand-ups involved vulgarity and obscenity which caused heckling in the audience. Though we have the freedom to do include anything in our performance, we expect a healthy competition and that people come up with good jokes keeping vulgarity at bay.
+
+**The stand-up club is in a very nascent stage in our campus. How the inter IIT platform will affect its growth?**
+
+Since there was a standup competition in the previous cultural meet, I was motivated to start a formal stand-up club in IITR. It is a different form of art and should be given a space to flourish. Competition is usually helpful in bringing out the best in us. Therefore, through this platform, we will grow as individual comedians as well as a team.
+
+![The team](/images/posts/standup2.png){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+**How has been the support from the institute and the inter IIT core team?**
+
+When we pitched our idea to start an official club we knew that we will have minimal requirements and the administration showed full support. Unlike metro cities like Bombay and Delhi, which have various comedy circuits around the city, Roorkee needed an independent club to bring like-minded people under one umbrella and practise comedy in a professional way. The administration has constantly helped in our promotions and encouraged us to try new things.
+
+**There are times when you don’t get the expected reaction on a joke and have to face awkward silences. How do you deal with it?**
+
+One important thing about this art of standup comedy is that the entire authority of your performance is in your hand. We face negative comments, booing and awkward silences quite often but a good comedian always has a way out. It takes a lot of guts and confidence to be a stand-up comedian along with good portions of humour of course.
+
+**Who is judging the event?**
+
+Shashwat Maheshwari will be judging our event in the inter IIT meet. He started out on youtube but now he is a writer in Filtercopy and works with Scoop-Whoop and Being Indian. He was a contestant in Comicstaan which earned him popularity.
+
+**Any ending remarks?**
+
+We do sense some home advantage because there are points for the crowd. We are geared up and look forward to a good competition.

_posts/2019-01-11-rfid-inaugration.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Inauguration of the RFID cards"
+tags: [wona, tech]
+image: rfid-inauguration1.jpg
+category: tech
+excerpt: "The process to issue RFID (RF for Radio Frequency) cards to students started off in 2011, and has finally borne fruit."
+---
+
+The process to issue RFID (RF for Radio Frequency) cards to students started off in 2011, and has finally borne fruit. Thanks to the efforts put in by current and past technical teams along with a conducive administration, RFID cards have been produced and are in possession of the institute. The idea behind RFID cards is that they can be used as a unified ID card for a variety of purposes - entry/exit from the campus, access to the library, payment of fines/purchase of coupons, and so on. Some of these initiatives will be under way soon, while other might take more time as the required infrastructural changes are made.
+
+Watch Out spoke to some of the concerned persons at the inauguration about the cards, how they will be rolled out, and what effect they will have on campus life.
+
+**Prof. A. K. Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee,** stressed the need for information dissemination about the newer initiatives being undertaken at IITR. RFID cards are a major component in his vision of having a 24x7 campus, and he urged students to take advantage of round-the-clock access to the library and departments. He also echoed a message of optimism at the positive changes taking place at IITR.
+
+**Prof. M K Barua, ADOSW Student Activities:**
+
+_“This particular proposal was started about 18 months ago under the tenure of the previous General Secretary Technical Affairs, and today RFID cards have become a reality. The point of these cards is to facilitate students to have smooth entry into different labs, student activities, technical and cultural festivals. Students in foreign universities make extensive use of such cards, using them to enter hostels, labs and even messes._
+
+_A lot of students have not provided their data for the RFID cards. They have not uploaded photos, signatures and so on. This was the major reason for the delay. We cannot print the cards unless we have everyone’s data.”_
+
+**The General Secretary of Technical Affairs, Mr. Ankit Alok Bagaria, along with Mr. Divyansh Jain from his technical team\*, explained the RFID card rollout plan:**
+
+_“Students will be required to collect their cards as per their Department’s notification after submitting their current IDs. In case a student doesn't have their current ID card, he/she need not go through the whole procedure of creating another one but some alternative provision will be made to facilitate this process of distribution._
+
+_While these RFID cards were made two months ago but were delayed because RFID scanners were not installed in the required areas, and a lot of students had not provided the relevant details. While most cards have been issued, if some are still found missing, students would have the facility of filling up the details on-the-spot using a QR code._
+
+_The RFID cards are to be implemented in three phases._
+
+_The first phase would involve the cards being used to track entry and the exit from the campus area, specifically after 11 PM, which was being handled manually until now. This would also aid in improving the security of the student populace on the campus, since previously the guards only asked entering students their bhawan name. The second phase might facilitate the cashless campus initiative by using Paytm (if we get a positive response from them), with a Payment Gateway integrated into these ID cards for payments  for institute expenditures like mess coupons, library fines, snooker table fees etc. The third phase would involve infrastructural changes like changing the entrance doors of departmental laboratories to make sure they are RFID activated ones._
+
+_In the coming few months, it is expected that the first phase will be complete. Since a lot of the work in the second two phases is infrastructural, or depends on how our payment partners respond, it may or may not be completed within my tenure. But the necessary paperwork for them will be completed._
+
+_Major focus will be paid to make sure this becomes a sustainable system such that in case a student loses his RFID card, certain provisions shall be established for continuing the regular activities unhindered until a newer one is made._
+
+_As far as restricting entry of outsiders is concerned, we have observed that it is generally students who create problems when asked to fill in their details. Outsiders don’t create this issue. Outsiders will still fill their details, only now, the students will be asked to scan their RFID cards at entry and exit points.”_
+
+**Watch Out’s Two Cents**
+
+![RFID](/images/posts/rfid-inauguration2.jpg){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+Finally, this is a positive step taken towards a better R-Land, but there still lie some issues which need to be taken care of. While the cards have been finalised from the side of the administration, they are yet to be delivered to the students. We cannot comment on the efficacy of these cards and whether infrastructural changes will follow until they are actually distributed among the students.
+
+The Director has rightly pointed out that the paramount issue facing us currently concerns awareness and the dissemination of information. This holds true especially in the case of RFID cards. A number of people have yet to fill in their data for the IDs. We urge anyone who hasn’t to fill the form at the earliest. They can find the form at [http://bit.ly/RFIDiitr2](http://bit.ly/RFIDiitr2). We sincerely hope that this endeavor reduces the porosity of the campus and makes it a more secure place.
+
+
+_\* The technical team assisting Gensec. Tech. consisted of Anunay Joshi, Chandra Pratap Singh, Divyansh Jain and Vipul Ghate_

_posts/2019-02-11-e-summit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "E-Summit"
+tags: [wona, tech]
+image: e-summit2.jpg
+category: tech
+excerpt: "The first weekend of February saw the arrival of almost 900 students and almost 60 speakers and guests as part of the E-Summit, organised by the E- Cell."
+---
+
+The first weekend of February saw the arrival of almost 900 students and almost 60 speakers and guests as part of the E-Summit, organised by the E- Cell. The two day event was packed to the brim with talks by top business leaders and policy makers, workshops, competitions and networking events. The theme for this year’s event was, “Building for the Billion”. 
+
+The first day saw the inauguration by the Director of the institute who indicated the event as an opportunity to showcase the innovations made in technology to the guests. He stressed the importance of the startup culture, saying that the establishment of more successful startups has the potential to bring the country out of the tag of developing countries. This was followed by the speech by Mr. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, the current Secretary to the Government of India - Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Mr. Sawhney is a 1984 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre. His work on the National Policy on electronics was a starting stone for Electronics reforms in this sector. 
+
+![Mr. Sawhney ](/images/posts/e-summit1.jpg){: style="width: 100%;"}
+
+Mr. Sawhney started with an unusual remark that If he could rewind back and restart his career probably would be an entrepreneur. He was encouraged by the growth of startups in India and mentioned that India comes 3rd, only behind the USA and China when it comes to number of Unicorns (Startups with a valuation of over $1 billion). He went on to say that connectivity has reached almost the entire nation via the Digital India initiative, with an apparent 1.2 billion people being digitally connected. He also stressed the importance of emerging technologies like the Internet of things (IoT), Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning.
+
+
+This was followed by a visit to the new SAC building, the Tinkering Lab, Design Innovation Centre and the Business Incubator.
+
+Watch Out got a unique opportunity for a short interview Mr. Sawhney, in which we gained insight into his beliefs and vision. The transcript of the same is given below:
+
+***Watch Out***: Sir, how was your experience here at the E-summit organised by the E-cell?
+
+***Mr. Ajay Sawhney***:  I’m quite delighted to come to Roorkee. This had been an extremely well regarded university earlier and is now an IIT with an amazing presence of an alumni base in all domains across the country as well as abroad. IIT-Roorkee has already made its presence felt in the start-up ecosystem but I believe that it is extraordinarily important that IIT-Roorkee register a much larger presence at a much larger scale across the world through its start-ups. Through the foundation courses such as computer science, electronics, nanotechnology, materials, biotechnology and the presence of tinkering labs, 3D printing, additive manufacturing as well as the strength of the core fields such as civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering we have abundant sources of knowledge at our hands but technology will only be able to generate wealth and solve problems once we as engineers begin to apply it at something useful.
+
+***Watch Out***: A lot of start ups are coming up in the electronics and IT fields, also IIT-Hyderabad recently launched a course in Artificial Intelligence. So what according to you are the steps that the IITs should take in order to incorporate all these changes and to produce better results?
+
+***Mr. Ajay Sawhney***: The area of Data Analytics is going to be extremely important. India is endowed with a massive data pools, large amounts of data being generated at any giving point of time. Some of this data is systematically harnessed while most of it is left to waste. Most of the data collected with regards to a specific purpose, say for example Kisaan Soil Cards, is often used for that purpose only but not combined with any other sorts of data. What we don’t realise is that when the same data is combined with the data of irrigation, weather, land holding, post harvest loss, market prices etc. the value of the same data increases manifold.
+
+Data is the fuel for anything in artificial intelligence, so first it is important to get our act together in how this data is to be harnessed and secondly, whenever you start looking at data, there are concerns about privacy. So coming out with a personal data protection bill on the lines of what other countries in Europe and what California has done and in fact improving on these international models is imperative to ensure development along those lines. Building expertise in areas of Machine Learning and Deep Learning and further expertise in the areas of cyber security to ensure that whatever we do with in the country and the industry, the security remains paramount. I think as we move closer to the area of A.I. we need to ramp up our capacities to handle the ecosystems. Having startups in areas such as these would be a step in the right direction. But then again, it’s not just A.I. either, it may be robotics, but it is also using sensors and internet of things, analytics of data etc. So it is a combination most of the times. In the case of additive manufacturing our labs have finally started to use the 3D printers. So now I ask you this. In today’s world, why shouldn’t we be manufacturing our own 3D printers and the materials that go into it. It is known that this is going to be very big business. Are we going to continue to import such things forever? When it is known that it’s a near certainty that we are going to move toward additive manufacturing from the traditional methods of manufacturing, then why is it that we don’t take the initiative. 
+
+These are the thoughts I ponder upon. Whatever we start using, we must think about producing it on our own rather that looking for outside help. The R&D of such things along with the core elements and patents coming from within the country. A grip on all of those key technologies is extremely important and that is the message that I’ll like to leave.
+
+***Watch Out***: Thank you Sir. 

_posts/2019-02-14-on-love.md

@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "On Love"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Surya Raman, Lanka Adarsh"
+image: love1.png 
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "It is not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you"
+---
+
+Disclaimers/ Assumptions central to the hypothesis presented under:
+
+1. True love does exist (why else would we write this?).
+2. *“It is not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you”* - Rachel Dawes, Batman Begins (i.e. actions take precedence over emotions and intentions).
+3. This is an idealized overview of a rather complex emotion, written by two authors who have **_never_** been in a relationship themselves. They have, however, been accommodating of contradicting and diverse viewpoints while concocting this checklist.
+
+Follow it at your own peril.
+
+
+*He sees her at work every day; her low, mellifluous voice soothes him over the cacophony of ringing phones. He watches, gasping, enthralled by her bewitching smile. She gracefully tucks her straight, auburn hair behind her ears. A sigh escapes his lips; he’s new to the place, and she feels awfully familiar.*
+
+*She catches him looking at her. He quickly looks away, blushing.*
+
+*He tries to think of the last time someone made him blush. He marvels at her perfection. There couldn’t possibly be anything he’d want to change about her.*
+
+Is *this* love?
+
+If you’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies, perhaps it is.
+
+If you prefer Bollywood, a buffet of stalkerish tendencies, threats to slit wrists, letters written in blood, and an undying enthusiasm can be said to constitute this emotion.
+
+If you’ve grown up in an orthodox Indian household, love is embodied in the act of the patriarch bringing home the bread, or the act of chiding children when they do something “wrong”, never being openly expressed.
+
+If you’ve been particularly unlucky, continuous emotional and physical abuse can also seem to be manifestations of a deeply-rooted love.
+
+![On-love](/images/posts/love2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+But none of us have a singular, isolated mode of existence; we are a part of many miscible worlds, armed with a power to introspect, retrospect, and theorize. Our conceptions of love are shaped by the many relationships we observe, as well as external sources (movies, books and music). There are potentially infinite ideas emanating from these sources; it is only upon introspection - upon evaluating each idea against the filter of our intuition - that additions or amendments are made. These, in turn, influence the way we express love.
+
+It becomes important, at this point, to expose a rather troublesome impostor: *Infatuation*.
+
+The narrative in the opening paragraphs encapsulates the illusion of love. The rather unthinking and indiscriminate overuse of the word ‘love’ has rendered people’s ability to tell apart ‘infatuation’ from ‘love’, useless. Perhaps infatuation is love in its infancy -  but that’s where the overlap ends.
+
+Infatuation can best be described as being in love with either
+
+(i) The idea of someone: ill-informed conceptions we associate with their personality
+
+(ii) The idea of being in love: wanting to be in love - either to tell every living soul about your predicament, or to enjoy the benefits you think it carries.
+
+It is infatuation that is blind; love is a high-resolution image that captures a person in their entirety. It is (characterised by):
+
+To begin with, love is **rooted in irrationality<sup>1</sup>**. What is meant by this is that one crosses the tipping point (i.e. the point at which one is said to have “fallen in love”) due to factors beyond their control. Thereafter, love becomes at least a partly conscious act.
+Giving one the freedom to act on their dreams and desires without being bogged down by obligations that are part of standardized contracts (i.e. of marriage, committed relationships, etc.) is the second characteristic of love – **sans possessiveness**.
+
+Another less accepted feature of love is the **conscious ignorance of flaws<sup>2</sup>**. When one is in love, one does acknowledge the shortcomings of the other person, but chooses to overlook them.
+
+Perhaps the best attribute of love is its **unconditional nature**. Although the expectation of a “reward” might exist, the person is okay with his/her love not being reciprocated; sadness may be the eventual outcome, but it is deemed to be worth it (i.e. the person continues to act on their love - refer assumption no. 1).
+
+And lastly, the **self-sacrificial** nature of love. Doing things that are inconvenient or avoidable just because it means something to the other person/ benefits them in some way is a particularly irrational characteristic of love
+
+*The duration of love is not always indicative of its “trueness”; i.e. true love and lasting love are discernibly different. Lasting love can only be cultured when true love is supplemented by compatibility.*
+
+What, then, is compatibility? Two models come to mind:
+
+(i) The MBTI model: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a “psychometric instrument” that draws on the theories of Carl Jung (but has faced flak for being pseudo-scientific, having poor reliability and poor validity). Various parties have drawn on the theory to propose “ideal pairings”, the basic principle of which is stated under:
+
+*“The partner that we choose for ourselves will have a very different approach to dealing with the world. If we are laid-back and indecisive, our partner will be structured and decisive. If we are reserved, our partner will be outgoing. For all of our apparent differences, we will share a common vision of what's truly important in life.”* - The Personality Page
+
+(ii) *Games People Play*: Eric Berne’s book analyses how two people in a relationship “transact”, drawing on the theories of Sigmund Freud. Given below is an extract from a popular tabloid:
+
+“His theory argued that every person has three “ego states”:
+
+- The parent: What you've been taught
+
+- The child: What you have felt
+
+- The adult: What you have learned
+
+When two people are really compatible, they connect along each tier. Pearson [a Couples Therapist] gave us a few questions for figuring out compatibility at each level: 
+
+- The parent: Do you have similar values and beliefs about the world? 
+
+- The child: Do you have fun together? Can you be spontaneous? Do you think your partner's attractive? Do you like to travel together? 
+
+- The adult: Does each person think the other is bright? Are you good at solving problems together?” 
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Independent
+
+Both models stress on having outward differences (a response to our desire for completion, also adding an element of excitement) while having deeply-rooted similarities (i.e. values) and shared long-term goals (which keep them together).
+
+
+> *“In this terrifying world, all we have are the connections we make.”*
+> 
+> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*BoJack Horseman*
+
+Perhaps love (the way we have defined it) does not exist.
+Perhaps love is incredibly selfish, egotistical, and extremely conditional. The thought that humans are incapable of this idealistic model of love is equal parts reassuring and saddening.
+
+Or, perhaps, “true love” does exist - only, it comes with swords sheathed in scabbards of red and gold. People shy away from relationships that might cause them pain; it is this very fear that keeps them from experiencing the sort of pain that might ultimately give way to the spring of love. Kahlil Gibran captures it best :
+
+*“When **love** beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.”*
+
+<hr>
+
+##### <sup>1</sup>In this context, a rational act is one which has a reason stateable explicitly in objective terms. Irrationality, therefore, implies that - although a reason might exist - it is not known well enough to be put into words
+
+##### <sup>2</sup>Flaws can be taken to mean any mixture of the following:
+
+##### (i) Idiosyncrasies/characteristics that you can live without
+
+##### (ii) Idiosyncrasies/characteristics that the world finds irksome, but are accepted by the person in question
+
+##### (iii) Idiosyncrasies/characteristics that when found in other people may prove irksome, but are acceptable when found in this person

_posts/2019-03-20-highlights-of-senate.md

@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Highlights from the Institute Student Academic Meet"
+image: image2.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+category: sac
+author: ""
+excerpt: "This meeting was mainly called to give an update on the changes made to the academic structure and make student body of the DAPCs (Departmental Academic Program Committees) aware of their duties and responsibilities. It was convened by Sarim Khan, General Secretary Academic Affairs, UG."
+---
+
+This meeting was mainly called to give an update on the changes made to the academic structure and make student body of the DAPCs (Departmental Academic Program Committees) aware of their duties and responsibilities. It was convened by Sarim Khan, General Secretary Academic Affairs, UG.
+<br><br>
+
+A. The Dean of Academic Affairs sent out the following directives to all departments:<br>
+  &emsp;  1) The departments are to ensure that the professors show the answer scripts of the MTEs before the last date of course withdrawal.<br>
+  &emsp;  2)  The breakdown of aggregate marks is to be given to students via the academic portal (acad.iitr.ac.in).<br>
+  &emsp;  3)  The departments are to ensure that professors follow the class schedule. This includes the courses for which an insufficient number of classes are being taken, classes being taken on weekends etc. The branch CRs are expected to get in touch with the student body of DAPC in case a professor is not following the class schedule.
+<br><br>
+
+B. The student body of the DAPC is expected to keep themselves updated with the latest department policies and convey any change to the relevant authorities(DAPC/HOD). They are also expected to ensure that the changes are being implemented in the respective departments.
+<br><br>
+
+C. __NPTEL courses__: If a student wants to take up a course offered by NPTEL, the channel to be followed is as follows:<br>
+  &emsp;  1) The student has to go to the DAPC of his/her own department with a request to pursue the course.<br>
+  &emsp;  2) Once the student gets the request approved, he/she is to go to the department which offers the course. The DAPC of that department will review the syllabus to ascertain that the course meets the standard of teaching of IIT Roorkee.<br>
+  &emsp;  3) The student can ordinarily not pursue a course which is already being offered in the institute, unless the student has been detained in the course and is already in the final semester.<br>
+  &emsp;  4) PhD students can take up ONE course related to their area of research from NPTEL.<br>
+  &emsp;  5) The student might have to travel out of Roorkee if the evaluation of the course can not be done in Roorkee. The grades assigned in such courses is dependent on all students enrolled in that course, even those who are not from IIT Roorkee.
+<br><br>
+
+D. The monetary allowance for research has been shifted to Non-Planned Grant (NPG) with    effect from last year. However, the students need to get clearance from the department to avail benefits of the NPGs. The DAPCs are expected to increase awareness about the sort of things students can get NPGs approved for.
+<br><br>
+
+E. The SMP plans to start a research mentorship programme for undergraduate students, where the post-grad and PhD students educate the undergrads on what research is, how to go about building a career in research, how to write a research paper and get it published. The undergraduate students will be able to collaborate with the PG/PhDs on their projects if they have the required skill set. The plan is to implement this via a two-month long “orientation”, where PG/PhD students interact with the undergraduate students. This programme is aimed for the second year and third-year students. SMP hopes to inculcate a research culture on campus through this programme.
+<br><br>
+
+F. There have been steps taken to digitize the process of obtaining NOCs from the respective department. A drop down for the same is expected to roll out on the academic portal (acad.iitr.ac.in) by April. It is claimed that students will be able to obtain their NOC within 4-5 days once the website is updated. The student body is expected to raise awareness about the website among professors.
+<br><br>
+
+G. __Redressal System__: The proper channel for students to go is via the ombudsperson, Himanshu Joshi, from the Hydrology department. Once a complaint has been lodged with him he sends the complaint ahead to the Deans/Director, as deemed necessary and they issue directives to the people concerned. 
+All department level conflicts are to be resolved by a three-member committee (HOD, DRC (Department Research Committee) and a volunteer nominated by the HOD).
+<br><br>
+
+H. To raise awareness about the changes in the IITR academic system, the administration plans to send each subtopic of the Academic Booklet published in collaboration with Watch Out to the students’ GSuite ID.
+<br><br>
+
+### A Note on the Departmental/Centre’s Academic Programme Committees (DAPC/ CAPC) 
+
+<span style="color:#0645AD">[_The Senate Manual_]( https://www.iitr.ac.in/Main/uploads/File/RTI/2016/senate%20manual(17092015).pdf )</span> &nbsp;lists the composition and functions of the DAPC as follows:
+(A list of members of the DAPC of each department is not easily accessible, but can usually be found on the site of each department).
+
+![pic](/images/posts/image1.png){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}

_posts/2019-03-23-srishti19.md

@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Srishti'19"
+tags: [wona, tech]
+image: srishti19.jpg
+category: tech
+excerpt: "An Overview, and an Interview with the Chief Guest, Mr Sanjay Peshin"
+---
+
+Srishti, the Annual Technical Exhibition of IIT Roorkee, held on 9th-10th March 2019 marked its Diamond Jubilee this year. The students of our campus showcased their talents and prowess in a plethora of avocations of technology such as Modelling & Robotics, Motion Gaming, Artificial Intelligence, Quadcopters, Electronics, Astronomy etc. This year Srishti instituted corporate and industrial relations and invited various dignitaries as Honorary Guests. Sanjay Peshin, Asia-Pacific Head of Tata Consultancy Services was the Chief Guest and Madhukar Sharma, Pan-India Chairman of American Society for Mechanical Engineering, was the Guest of Honour for the inaugural ceremony. The Director, IIT Roorkee, was also present at the ceremony. 
+
+The Inauguration ceremony, held at the New SAC building, began with the felicitation of the invited guests followed by the lamp lighting ceremony. Ankit Alok Bagaria, GS Technical Affairs, addressed the gathering and invited the Director for his keynote. In his speech, he stressed the need for evolution of Srishti's vision and said that the primary metric to judge an individual project is innovation. He also motivated the crowd to build projects that can secure business incubation through TIDES IIT Roorkee, thus setting a higher benchmark for upcoming editions.
+The Director’s address was followed by keynotes from the invited Chief Guests.
+
+Mr Madhukar Sharma encouraged the students to gear up for the fourth Industrial revolution and made the audience realise how Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will be equivalent to the Oil Industry in the coming years. He also mentioned various research fellowship programs under the ASME and motivated the students to pursue those.
+
+Mr Sanjay Peshin shared the experiences of his long career and expressed his concern on the declining relationship between academia and Industry. He introduced students to the industrial applications of Machine Learning and AI through practical problems which form a major part in the R&D sector. He also talked about the business aspects of industrial innovation. Watch Out got a chance to interview Mr Peshin who further expressed the need to bring the innovation to industry and make it available to consumers.
+
+**Watch Out**: Greetings Sir! How has your experience been with the exhibition and projects so far?
+
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: It’s an excellent exhibition! I saw a variety of interesting projects that the kids came up with and in many cases, I realised that they were actually at par with what the industry is looking for. The challenge we face from the perspective of the industry is that the academia is still working on very theoretical projects. To convert them into business opportunities seems like a distant task but the projects that the students displayed have immediate business applications. I highly appreciate it!
+
+
+_Srishti’19 witnessed the exhibition of over 100 projects under STC, 10 projects from different campus groups and 4 self-made projects with a rise of about 50 percent in the number of projects from the last edition. This year, two projects, named Laser Harp from ArIES and AR-based map projector from MaRS, received a cash prize of Rs 5000 for the best innovation from the Design Innovation Center of IIT Roorkee._
+
+
+
+**Watch Out**: In your address, you talked a lot about the relevance of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in the fourth industrial revolution. Do you think an undergraduate degree from IIT in a stream such as AI would be useful? 
+
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: I believe that an undergrad degree should help a child to build his breadth of knowledge rather than going into a specific domain or subject. I don’t think a second or a third-year student has really understood what he actually wants to pursue. A specialised degree seems a little premature at this point of time. When I look at engineers, I look at them being able to solve a breadth of problems. Specialisation happens over a period of time, it is not what I would want students to start with. From an engineering industry perspective, an engineer has the knowledge of product design which includes both mechanics, mechatronics, electronics and software. Masters programme comes into play where we say okay I have a fundamental ground knowledge of what all is happening and then go into the specialisation.
+ 
+**Watch Out**: With ever increasing automation in today’s industries and at the same time increased generation of skilled labour, what are your predictions for job opportunities in the future? 
+ 
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: I think job opportunities for skilled labour will keep on increasing. When we talk about automation we are talking more from a mundane job perspective instead of a skilled job perspective. The industry still requires skilled labour and domain understanding but the mundane repetitive jobs could be relooked and revamped. I’ll give you a very simple example. Look at an automatic quality inspection done for a consumer company. Till date, they had an inspection process which was more labour oriented. A person picks up a sample looks at the quality and then decides if its good or not and today we have put up an image based quality analysis. So now you have a 100% quality sampling happening, 100% inspection happening. To me, these are repetitive mundane jobs which have to be evolved. But someone still needs to teach the program what image is good or bad. So here we’ll need the skilled labour in the quality inspection process and the jobs won’t die but shift to a new domain.
+
+**Watch Out**: Does the fact that now Indians cannot move to the US due to H1 Visa restrictions affect our jobs?
+
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: The restrictions that have been brought up by the US are more towards the unskilled labour perspective. I think they still are very open and are looking at a lot of skilled labour to come. From the skilled labour perspective, I don’t see that as a challenge. From unskilled labours yes that would be. But then the US is only one global market there are a lot of other global markets which are open to talented people in technology. Last year, Japan has apparently issued a public notice saying that they need about 2 lakh engineers and they are more than happy to have engineers from India who can relocate to Japan and work there. Another thing I believe in is that opportunities in India itself are abundant. With Make in India campaign being given a thrust, we are seeing a very positive acceptance of Industry 4.0 based components or technology in the Indian manufacturing market. The need for skilled talent in India itself will increase.
+ 
+**Watch Out**: You had a look at our projects in Srishti. Can you suggest any programs or collaborative measures that can bridge the gap between students, innovation and industry? 
+
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: This is a point that I made yesterday as well - you should bring out the business usage of the technology that you are developing. If you don’t understand why am you are doing a particular thing, that becomes a gap. The articulation of business usage is something which I feel should be improved. Students being in an IIT are obviously great at technology but when you talk to the industry, you should know about the application of your innovation and how is it different from what already exists. I talked to a few students who developed drones that are available in a toy store today. It was a novelty 15 years ago. What new thing have they done that makes it a unique product. Students need to address- “What is my differentiating factor?”
+ 
+**Watch Out**: But isn’t that where the industry comes in?
+ 
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: Yes, it is the industry that takes the idea to the market, but unless you articulate well about what it can do, the industry won't know. As soon as I heard the boys I was able to visualise the possibilities of their models but had it been someone who had to rush through things if he is not able to hear the keywords he will possibly miss the link.
+ 
+**Watch Out**: Right now in our college, we have the technology and raw talent, and companies like TCS take students from here and bridge the innovation-industry gap that we have been talking about. What would your idea be of taking the student itself to the finished level?
+ 
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: TCS has something which we call an academic interface plan. We have a team which actually interfaces with universities and colleges to develop various plans. In the southern parts of India experts from TCS sit with the universities to define the curriculum because we understand that what comes out of college is not necessarily industry ready. So as we talked about AI and ML and whether that should be a full-time curriculum those are the things that we discuss with educational institutes. We discuss the expectations of a student when he comes out of college and how can they be cultivated through the curriculum. 
+
+So what we do is that when you are hired in TCS there is a three-month induction plan. In this plan typically what we do is we would have earmarked students for a certain set of businesses or a certain technology. So we train them to lessen the gap between the theory and the industry, the academia and the industry. We train them for this and then start inducting them on how to get going in those spaces. But that happens after you join the organisation. In academia, the best we can do is suggest what would help from a curriculum perspective.
+ 
+**Watch Out**: Speaking of academia, do you think that research not for the market, not for consumption for consumers is not required research?
+
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: That’s a wrong way to state that research is not required but if the intent at some point of time is to not commercialise, it doesn’t add value to the ecosystem. It is for your interest rather than for a result. Whether it needs to be commercial or not is not the point of debate. The researcher might not have the end product in mind but if he couldn’t think of an application of his research/innovation then that research doesn’t make sense. Understand that the end product is the summation of lots of small researches that happen and somebody needs to be orchestrating them. Not each of the small innovation would end up into a commercial product but they would end up as a component of the end product. 
+
+**Watch Out**: A general trend that is observed in Roorkee is that it is geographically disprivileged as compared to places like Delhi and Bombay. This poses a challenge in the sense that even though the talent is available, the companies don’t want to come here. How do you think our students can circumvent that?
+ 
+**Mr Sanjay Peshin**: If you had asked me this question thirty to forty years ago that would have been a challenge. But today in this age of social media and instant communication I think branding can help your institute a lot. Social media is only one way of doing it. I don’t see communication as a challenge today. What I see the real challenge is branding.  Are you branding yourself sufficiently strongly through the social media platforms available? You are a technology institute so obviously, you have a lot of technological talent and you could have many communication opportunities across the country. Industries are actually looking for institutes to come forward and share knowledge and information. Collaborative innovation is something which cannot be done by a single entity. You will need various entities to come together and build an innovation. And therefore in our group of partners, we have included educational institutions as well as startups to be a part of the innovation process.
+
+
+
+The valedictory function, at the end of day 2, marked the successful end of the techno-scientific exhibition. Ankit Alok Bagaria, GS Technical Affairs, addressed the audience, thanking the Dean SRIC office for making Srishti‘19 possible and the DIC for presenting cash prizes.
+The Guest of Honour for the Valedictory function was Mr R. P. Singh, Director, Directorate of Forest who implored the students to use technology to produce marketable products. His address was followed by keynotes from the various Guests of Honour.
+All the dignitaries present in the function appreciated the work of the students for successfully managing and conducting the Sci-Tech exhibition and thanked all the corporate delegates and guests who were present during the Fest. The function concluded with the award distribution to the winners and felicitation of the managing team of Srishti’19.
+

_posts/2019-04-01-social-credit-system.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Radio Facilitated Institute Domination
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: phekingnews
+image: socialcredits.jpg 
+excerpt: "The makings of a nefarious orwellian system of surveillance, intrusion, and behavioural conditioning"
+---
+
+After more than a decade of waiting, IITR was finally graced by the introduction of RFID cards on campus in January this year. Despite all the hype surrounding their arrival, no one has actually bothered to find out their actual use on our campus. Eyeing the fact that the administration was solely focusing on their use in the library, Watch Out decided to probe further into the matter. After some digging, we found the makings of a nefarious orwellian system of surveillance, intrusion, and behavioural conditioning.
+
+While over the last few years a lot of the decisions taken by the administration have been under a lot of scrutiny, they do not hold a candle in the face of what is yet to come. Taking inspiration from one of our more prolific neighbours (read: China), the administration intends to implement a new system to evaluate students: the Social Credit System. 
+
+Under the proposed system, every student is to be assigned a score based on a set of metrics that judge how well they conform to the established norms and rules, and fit into the community around them. It provides a metric to gauge the trustworthiness, morality, productivity and the overall character of the individual. The system will be implemented through a number of monitoring mechanisms to track students’ actions on campus and categorising their behavior based on said metrics. 
+
+A member of the inner echelons of the administration when questioned about the motivation behind the implementation of such a system, cited the steady corruption of moral values in the student populace: “In recent years, the attitude and philosophy of the student community has gone in the wrong direction, with far too many young minds embracing radical postmodernism and Neo-Marxist ideas. We have seen an alarming increase in alcoholism, substance abuse, politically motivated violence and hand holding among the opposite sex.” It is also likely that a blatant increase in demands for administrative reforms from the populace (which up until a few years ago was unheard of) may have also played a part in the administration deciding to crack down on the flippant attitudes pervading the student community.
+
+Among other things, the administration will track and record internet usage, both LAN and wireless. Accessing content deemed immoral or illegal such as pornography and piracy or activity such as cyber-bullying or voicing negative views on the national political scenario will lead to severe deductions on the score. On the other hand, time spent on educational sites like Coursera or NPTEL leads to a better score. This is intended to counter the recent underperformance of IITR students as compared to a number of other universities.  
+
+The recent excavations around the campus in the name of a new fiber optic system (think about it: do we really need even faster LAN?) are actually meant to cover up the installation of sensors that track your location using the new RFID cards. Students will be forced to carry these cards with them in a number of ways including but not limited to card + biometric sensors at all gates, departments, LHC and the library. This data will be used to determine the places you frequent and your company. Behavior such as frequent visits to the JD gate or to remote locations of the campus in pairs are deemed undesirable. Time spent at the library/departments/LHCs will be rewarded. Security at the entrances to the campus shall be equipped with breathalysers, which will be used at all hours post sunset.
+
+Based on the score, students may receive higher or lower preference for a variety of needs. Low scores may lead to lower internet speeds or fewer weekly servings of sweets in the mess (once Appetizer is integrated with the system). A more severe downside is the possibility of having more frequent room checks. Anything incriminating found in these checks, such as potted plants with medicinal qualities or bottles of fermented grape juice, can then be used to further deduct the student’s score. 
+Higher scores are given greater choice in applying to companies for placements and internships. This scoring system will be recognized by companies who come for the placements. Other benefits include being given your choice of hostel and room, and students with exceptionally high scores during the first semester may also be preferred for branch changes. A cutoff score will be declared for PoRs, including both the SAC as well as club secretariats. 
+
+## Our Two Cents
+
+While the administration has quoted security as the primary reason for introducing the RFID cards, that is clearly not the case as RFID is unlikely to ever completely replace biometric verification. The true purpose of these cards is to monitor and moral police the populace, which is a severe breach of privacy. The campus, meant to be a safe space and home for students, will now be a place of discomfort, with a constant sense of being watched. Further, as the administration unilaterally decides these metrics, it does not account for the opinion of the student community at any point. This is, unfortunately, within the jurisdiction of the administration since IITs are autonomous institutions. 
+
+This move does not actually benefit the institute in any way, but, in fact, is against its own interests. It is already against institute rules to consume banned substances. Those who do this are fully aware of the implications of their actions and adding a different deterrent does not make a difference. Besides, there is no saying when these policies might change. Today, it may just be consumption of alcohol that is penalised, but tomorrow, talking to people of the opposite gender may be outlawed. Such a distrustful atmosphere makes new entrants reluctant to join the institute, resulting in a drop in the quality of students. Further these metrics are very subjective and can easily cause unintended harms. Even the friend of a friend of an alcoholic may suffer collateral damage in the form of a lower score despite not doing anything wrong. Isolation from such vices leads to unrealistic expectations from the real world, and leaves the students unprepared for life after graduation. This entire system of moral policing really begs the question of why an academically successful student who engages in the occasional drink should be penalised at all. The careers of such people take a big hit for no justifiable reason. 
+
+This is a huge step backward in the name of progress. 
+
+Beware. Big Brother is watching you.

_posts/2019-05-16-anti-natalism.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "The Moral Bankruptcy of Giving Birth"
+image: anti-natalism.png
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "Anti-natalism: The moral/philosophical standpoint posits that it is morally impermissible to procreate and give birth"
+author: "Sudhang Varshney, Surya Raman"
+---
+
+> “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?”
+>
+> \- Arthur Schopenhauer
+
+The author of the critically acclaimed study in philosophy “The World as Will and Representation” speaks here of the anti-natalist stand. **This moral/philosophical standpoint posits that it is morally impermissible to procreate and give birth.** This editorial aims neither to criticise nor condone this philosophy, but to clear its nebulous representation that plagues popular media.
+
+A tranquil, almost languid warmth, gushes through our innards at the mention of life -- a silent agreement to the fact that it has a certain inherent value that is enough to warrant its sacredness. This notion is fortified by how religion -- the invisible thread of beliefs that dictates our moral compass -- generally places life at an olympian pedestal and consecrates it as a divine creation that mankind is unqualified to take in its own hands. This bleeds into the laws that shape the tramlines of how an ideal citizen should behave within society, a few demonstrative examples being the debate around euthanasia, capital punishment, abortion et cetera. The sanctity of an inalienable right to life, the ramifications of violating that right and the apotheosis of the human spirit have been indoctrinated into us by a multitude of factors that function similarly. Murdering is the ultimate sin, loss of life is a catastrophe. Mothers are revered as life-givers and the act of childbirth is the ultimate purpose that provides completeness to an individual's stay in the cosmos.
+
+Given how it has become instinctive to buy into this belief, it becomes imperative to take a moment to ask ourselves **‘WHY?’.**  David Benatar voices:-
+
+> “Creating new people, by having babies, is so much a part of human life that it is rarely thought even to require a justification. Indeed, most people do not even think about whether they should or should not make a baby. They just make one. In other words, procreation is usually the consequence of sex rather than the result of a decision to bring people into existence. Those who do indeed decide to have a child might do so for any number of reasons, but among these reasons cannot be the interests of the potential child. One can never have a child for that child’s sake.”
+
+This inquiry motivated cliques of people to look into the true nature and quality of human life as they appraised it. One of these philosophies that has gained traction right now is anti-natalism. A blanket claim associated with the anti-natalist sentiment is the idea that **the one guaranteed way to protect your child from suffering is to not give it birth in the first place.**
+
+Those espousing this idea generally invoke the ethical theory of negative utilitarianism, which gives greater weight to a reduction in human suffering than an effort to maximise happiness. For an illustration, R. Ninian Smart presents that negative utilitarianism would entail that a ruler who is able to instantly and painlessly destroy the human race would have a duty to do so. This is again contingent on the belief that human life is miserable, one of the characterisation(s) of which is called the **‘terminality of being’**. A human being is affected by three types of friction: physical pain (in the form of illnesses and catastrophes to which it is perennially exposed); discouragement (encompassing phenomena such as lack of will, fatigue, meaninglessness  and depression); and "moral impediment"( the incapability of humans to be altruistically ethical in all circumstances, a consequence of conflicting self interests in attempts to survive). In the case of assuming the generalisation that life assumes the binary of being miserable or not miserable, a decision theory matrix provides us with 4 case-scenarios for the existence of a chubby little boy called Jeff, who would’ve been  thrust into this world if his parents procreated -
+
+{:.mdtablestyle}
+|                  | Scenario A (Jeff exists)        | Scenario B (Jeff never exists)    |
+| ---------------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------- |
+| **Life is pain** | (1) Presence of pain (sucks)    | (2) Absence of pain (great)       |
+| **Life is nice** | (3) Presence of pleasure (nice) | (4) Absence of pleasure (Not bad) |
+
+1) Jeff navigates through life with the joys of ice-cream, watching cat videos, and a stable family while dealing with depression, injuries, stepping on lego pyramids and anxiety - the weighted average of which assigns his life a red stamp of being miserable. He has desires: spiritual needs which reality is unable to satisfy. He silently suppresses those desires to shield himself from the pain and ends up in a frigid unfeeling numbness. He still exists only because he limits his awareness of what that reality actually entails. Jeff’s existence amounts to a tangled network of defense mechanisms, which can be observed in his everyday behavior patterns . He was too easily forgotten for anyone to care when and how he died. This Jeff arouses our pity and his story is turned into a Netflix Original.
+
+2, 4) Jeff isn’t born and remains a fictional kid with a copter hat that makes us smile for the purpose of this article.
+
+3) Let’s here assume the absolute best of case 3. Jeff is born with a jawline that will cut through stone. He learns all languages across all species before he is in kindergarten and proceeds to amuse himself by creating one of his own. He has never not been euphoric: lady luck is his accomplice and all of the metaphoric oceans between him and his desires part to his whim. He looks like a million bucks even after stuffing his 80kg muscular frame with a tub of nutella that is processed immaculately by his ungodly metabolism. We don’t like this Jeff.
+
+**Case 1** is problematic and it seems morally incongruous to force this situation on someone- It is wrong to create someone so that they can try to make their life bearable by struggling against the difficult and oppressive situation we place them in. It seems more reasonable simply not to put them in the situation to which they will have to react, when its results are always uncertain.
+
+**Case 3** on the face of it feels like a desirable situation, as someone is leading a fulfilling and joyous life, and by refraining from procreation we preclude someone's pleasure. Therein lies the catch: **the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.** If there isn’t a 5-year old to snatch an ice-cream sandwich from, nobody goes home crying. Case 4 doesn’t have a Jeff for which the absence of this happiness is a deprivation and hence, the anti-natalist stand doesn’t suffer from the aforementioned quandary.
+
+**Case 2** doesn’t have our protagonist Jake, because he is but the thought-child of hypothetical anti-natalist parents. Nobody has to suffer.
+
+Hence, if we look across the first column in a world with Jeff, the first situation is terribly abhorrent while the second isn’t a moral necessity. That is, **we have a moral obligation to refrain from creating unhappy people, and we have no moral impetus to generate happy ones.**
+
+Here, it’s prudent to pause and note that life in general lies between the two extremes of pain and pleasure. However these arguments can be applied nevertheless.
+
+**Another crucial aspect of the ethos of giving birth is the consent of a future Jeff.** It isn’t feasible to educate an unborn person about the myriad possibilities his life might end up being like and then to obtain his informed consent to be brought into this world. For this very reason, Julio Cabrera argues that procreation is the violation of autonomy gullible Jeff, who might have opted to not be born had he been fully aware of the human situation and the ordeals associated with existence. So says Ashleel Singh -
+
+> “However one need not believe that coming into existence is always an overall harm in order to favour an anti-natal perspective; one need only believe that it is morally problematic to inflict serious, preventable harms upon others without their consent.”
+
+If one does not desist from having children, one can hardly expect one's descendants to do so. This would have been fine and dandy had our society allowed people to have on opt-out from the world that they felt was nasty to them, but that choice is killed by the ostracization and social sanctioning an individual harboring these thoughts is bombarded with. We are forced to live and be responsible for the happiness of others when we might barely have our own heads above water.
+
+_A gentle reminder from the authors is necessary here that none of this amounts to rampant suicide, genocide and murder for the very reason that the arguments made are on the morality of giving birth, and not the morality of choosing to continue one’s existence._
+
+**The natural course of the anti-natalist utopia will be rapid extinction of the human race.** In the cosmic scale of things, humans are a hairy enclosure of a soup of organs and gooey innards just like the diabolical rat that your mom calls a ‘shaitan’. Our species’ termination can’t be objectively justified to be a bad thing. All of the importance we attach to life is a belief that we have agreed to hold, and it isn't possible to either prove or disprove it.
+
+However , from the vantage point of an exoplanet-inhabiting green sentient sludge, humans have wrecked nature and led to the extinction of millions of species. After having been abused by mankind with reckless abandon for a morbidly long time, the Earth could really use a divorce.
+
+But there’s a saving grace, albeit not an absolving one. Society is rife with weird notions of morality. A person spending 50 lakhs on a luxury car ( which he doesn’t need to subsist) instead of channeling funds to saving hundreds of children who die of starvation is perfectly acceptable. That is to say, at the end of it all, it seems that it’s best to trust our inner conscience when taking calls on the morality of an action. If birthing a mini-them is someone’s jam, the anti-natalist is no one to whine.

_posts/2019-05-20-summer-diaries-gsoc.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: GSOC - What, Why, How and When"
+image: geesock.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Mohit Sharma, Vaibhav and Ishan Rai"
+excerpt: "Now that you’ve stepped into R, you might hear a lot of new buzzwords flying around in your first few weeks. Right beside Ghissu, Machau and chapo, you might catch wind of something called Gee-Sock."
+category: summer2019
+---
+
+Now that you’ve stepped into R, you might hear a lot of new buzzwords flying around in your first few weeks. Right beside Ghissu, Machau and chapo, you might catch wind of something called Gee-Sock. Unsure of what it really is, you’re intrigued and eager to learn more, only to find that the guy who uttered the word to you knows no more about it than you do. The hype and mystique that surrounds this word exhorts you to dig deeper, and so begins your descent into an abyss of medium blogs and quora articles, each of which makes less sense than the last to someone who, at this point, barely knows what code is. That’s where WatchOut comes to the rescue.
+
+## So What is GSoC?
+
+First of all, GSoC stands for Google Summer of Code. This information is imperative if you plan to flex on your batchmates with this newfound treasure-house of knowledge. Before we delve further into what GSOC is and how it works, you need to know about a little something called ‘open source’ which constitutes the essence of this esoteric endeavor.
+
+If a piece of software is open source, it means that its source code is freely available . It’s on the cloud for everyone to see, use, and hopefully contribute to. Contributions include everything from simple bug fixes like **“Hey, I center aligned this sidebar button”** to major enhancements, updating the documentation or even simple suggestions on what can be done to improve the technology. In a way, open source is the Self-Service equivalent of the coding regime.
+
+More often than not, open source orgs (short for organizations because programmers like to be cool) are not big on contributors. GSOC is more or less a platform for these organizations to attract new developers. A bunch of such organizations apply to Google for entry to GSOC with a list of projects that they would be offering to interested students. A list of the selected organizations is then released on the official GSOC website.
+
+Projects can be anything from “Oh that’s easy” to mildly intimidating to absolute monstrosities that can only be described as herculean at best and nigh impossible at worst, the range in topics being just as wide. There could be a project that requires you to change the css of a web-page to bootstrap, right next to one that requires you spend hours reading up on bioinformatics to even understand the terminology that is casually thrown around in the project description. But most importantly, you can always find something that you’re interested in. Computational physics? Machine learning? Aerodynamic simulations? Making mini-games for a website? There’s always something for everyone. So pick whatever floats your boat.
+
+Getting selected for GSOC means being singled out by an organization to work on one of their projects for the duration of your summer vacations, which is typically the period during which GSOC takes place.
+
+## How do I participate?
+
+First things first, go through the <span style="text-decoration:underline">[list of selected orgs](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/)</span> and pick one you would be happy working with. Though interest and interest alone is often hailed as the quintessential standard for picking an organization, practically speaking, that’s not always for the best if one actually aims to crack GSOC . The key is to be at just the right place on the spectrum between ambitious and complacent. Don’t go with it just because it sounds cool, it may turn out to be very different than what you initially thought . Also don’t pick something just because it seems easy; remember the main goal is to learn as much as possible. If it intrigues you, take a look, see if you find it interesting. Feel free to experiment a bit before you finalize on which organizations to go with.
+
+Having gotten that out of the way, comes one of the most important steps of this adventure: **Contributing**.
+
+In order to be selected by an org, one has to prove their calibre by contributing to their codebase in any way possible. Their code is usually linked in their page on the organizations list. This usually requires you to have a grip on the fundamentals of **Version Control Systems**. Learning, atleast the <span style="text-decoration:underline">[basics of git](https://www.atlassian.com/git)</span> is crucial to open source.
+
+Git is what you call a version control system, meaning it helps you track all changes made to your code and recall specific versions later. VCSs are often not the prettiest things in the world and may even seem useless at first, but once you get used to them, it’s objectively better than having multiple folders of the same project with names like “Project final” “Project final-est” and “Project final-est v2.o”. It also makes collaboration much easier as multiple people can work on the same file at the same time, which surprisingly enough is essential for an open source environment
+
+**“What is Github?”**
+
+Github is a website for developers to host their code and build their egos. It’s quite similar to google-drive, except for code but with a bunch of fancy vocabulary tossed in to make it sound cool. In order to make a contribution to an organization, stalk them on github, pick a repository (fancy word for a folder that contains the source code of an application) that you can and want to work on and fork (copy)  it. Scan through the Issues tab on the original repository to find something you can work on. A vague overview of how it works: you pick an app you wanna work on and make a copy of it in your own account. Then make whatever changes you want to that copy and once you think you’ve done something significant enough to be integrated into the original application, you “open a pull request” which is basically you asking the admins (benevolent dictators)  to review and accept your work i.e merge it with their own source. The more merged requests you have, the better. Brownie points if you also reported some issues.
+
+If it’s the first time you look at the codebase of an industrial application, just reading it, let alone modifying, may seem like a daunting task. But get this, no-one reads the entire code. Just pick an issue to work on and try to get a grip on the relevant segments. Try to start with small and simple bugs or improving documentation, slowly making your way up the ladder.
+
+Contributions should be kept as concise and useful as possible. It’s also useful if you already have in mind what project you’re going to work on and contribute to the parts of the codebase most relevant to that project.
+
+Then comes THE most important part. **Drafting a proposal.**
+
+Now that you have everything you need to think that you’re the best person in the universe for a project, that sentiment has to be communicated across via a well written, comprehensive project proposal highlighting your contributions to the org, which project you wanna undertake and how you plan to execute it. Consider this your first and only impression at the higher-ups so it needs to be as polished as can be with a well versed timeline, execution details full of all the technical jargon you can muster without sounding too pretentious and a motivations section describing your undying passion for the organization that you mysteriously developed over the past month. There's nothing about reaching out to the community. Keeping in touch with the core team, talking and updating them with what you're working on. Bonus points if you also get your proposal reviewed by one of the mentors before the final submission.
+
+That’s just the gist of it. A more formal and comprehensive template for the proposal is usually provided by the organization on their website or github and should be followed as accurately as possible.
+
+All set with a considerable pile of contributions and an eloquent proposal, given one plays their cards right with the existing community, an eligible candidate may make his way into the GSOC-student roster of the org. Their efforts are duly rewarded as they  become the subject of discussion among their friends, the discussions being mainly focused on chapos and GPLs, and gain the respect of peers. Congratulations, you are now eligible to utilize the entirety of your summer vacations, working 8-10 hours a day for the organization you worked so hard to get in.
+
+**“Wait, so all the effort I put in was just so that I could work even harder?”**
+
+Well, Yes but NO.
+
+## Incentives
+
+### MAD MONEY
+
+The organizations in GSOC don’t make you work for free. The monetary perks are obviously essential motivators for incoming participants whether or not they like to admit it. The profuse stipend also calls for more lavish chapos.
+
+**\#AndhaaPaisa**
+
+### KNAAWLEDGE
+
+Let’s not forget what the primary aim of GSOC is. To bring in talented, dedicated students to open source organizations in need of enthusiastic contributors, providing a talent pool to the org and exposure and work experience to the students involved. 
+
+### MAD RESPECT
+
+Clearing GSOC not only imbues an individual with wealth and wisdom but also an intangible accolade that you are now free to flaunt around for the rest of your college life, though at the risk of coming across as a an arrogant know-it-all but can play out quite well if used right.
+
+**“Sharma ne GSOC nikal liya. Andha machaya!”**
+
+So here you are, a few months since you began your GSoC odyssey after first coming to know about it from a loquacious chap who probably  went on to forget all about it a couple days later. You have now conquered the exigent battle that is GSoC,  gaining experience,opportunities and bragging rights that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere, along with the universal respect of the opposite gender*. You are now the epicenter of chapos and GPLs that, under any other circumstance, would’ve physically and financially fatal but now seem all the merrier.
+
+## Oh you didn’t make it? 
+
+You know what awaits you? A second chance. The thing with GSoC is, if an attempt doesn’t kill you (which it rarely does), it makes you stronger. If you put in effort and fail, you still get contributions and community exposure in the org that you tried to get into, giving you a significant head start for your next try. 
+
+So don’t be afraid to give it a second go, especially considering that the stipend is known to go up with each passing year. 
+
+**\* Some conditions may have been exaggerated to inspire more people**

_posts/2019-05-23-memoir-arnav.md

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: Of Debates and Doggos"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: arnav1.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Arnav Bhardwaj"
+excerpt: "I remember my first morning at IIT Roorkee as I woke up to witness a procession of dogs marching into the room since the door had been accidentally left open and apparently, the dogs saw that as an invitation to my humble RJB abode."
+---
+
+I remember my first morning at IIT Roorkee as I woke up to witness a procession of dogs marching into the room since the door had been accidentally left open and apparently, the dogs saw that as an invitation to my humble RJB abode. The treatment of these R-land dogs was to subsequently become the biggest topic of debate on this campus with people proposing extreme measures ranging from almost giving them citizenship rights to conducting a doggo massacre. Dogs are said to have premonitions and in retrospect, the dogs might have expected me to lend support to their cause in light of their upcoming troubles. But my affection for endearing biting doggos was as short-lived as my affection for mess food. Having embraced myself for all sorts of culinary disasters, the mess food initially seemed much better than expected. However, soon the horrors came to light as the pulses began to be ‘water’ed down along with my resolve to tolerate mess food. The saying - ‘If you can tolerate RJB mess food, you can tolerate food anywhere’ helped me survive through the first year.
+
+Apart from that, I got in touch with some amazing people, who became an inalienable part of my life in the coming years. It was great to meet people coming from various cultures and places and get to know about their lives and perspectives. However, despite the diversity, a common culture persisted on campus. A prominent part of this culture was the lingo. Within a few months, I got accustomed to the quintessential R-land lingo and was soon throwing around words like ‘ghissu’, ‘machau’ in random conversations. I especially remember the overuse of the word ‘ghissu’ to the extent that we were using it to describe even someone, who started studying a night before the exam. It was just one of the many slangs that stuck and subsequently lost all meaning.
+
+The turning point came in my 2nd year, when I realised that a Debating Society existed on the campus (it wasn’t very active back then). I came in contact with some stellar senior debaters, who would go on to become my mentors in debating and otherwise. I grew fond of debating not only because it remarkably improved my public speaking skills but also because it improved my analytical abilities by allowing me to deeply explore complex issues from multiple viewpoints. I attended my first debating tournament at the National Law University in Delhi. While witnessing stellar debates by seasoned debaters from DU and prominent law colleges was quite intimidating, the gained exposure proved to be a great learning experience. These learnings proved to be extremely useful in the 1st Inter-IIT Cultural Meet at IIT Bombay, in which I was selected as one of the five panellists for judging the finals. Towards the end of the year, I realised that the impact of debating went beyond making me a better public speaker. Debating transformed me completely by making me much more confident as an individual. This unwavering faith in self helped me excel in numerous presentations and interviews, making this the single most useful skill acquired in my college life. In order to allow the DebSoc to grow further, the seniors helped establish the DebSoc as a full-fledged separate entity of the Cultural Council. This proved to be a watershed moment as this single move was to facilitate the rapid growth of a debating culture on campus in the years to come.
+
+The third year arrived and I got busy with the whole internship process, which typically begins with writing glorified odes to oneself, in a process called ‘CV-making’. I remember myself and many those around me turning into heroes overnight, improving the profits of random companies by GDP-rivalling numbers as interns or spearheading (and not leading) mammoth-sized campus groups, which could put armies to shame. Setting the amusement of judging each other’s glorified CVs aside however, the internship process turned out to be a stressful affair. I had a disappointing run in the first semester with the limited analytics and core companies that arrived on campus. Thankfully, I managed to get two internship offers at the end of the year - a Process Consulting internship at KBC Singapore and a Business Analytics internship at Penguin RandomHouse. I chose the former.
+
+Apart from that, I had assumed the position of Additional Secretary of the DebSoc and a significant portion of my time was devoted to setting the foundation of the newly-established Debating Society on campus. The take-off stage involved the DebSoc’s first-ever recruitments, subsequent training of the recruits and participation in major debating tournaments. All these efforts seemed to finally pay off as we broke into the quarter finals of a national-level debating tournament and ended up at the 3rd position in the Inter-IIT held at IIT Kanpur. I remember a failed attempt at recreating a Federer-style trophy-kissing Wimbledon moment after the lnter-IIT. Considering how weird that looked with the miniature second runner-up trophy, I realised the need to get a bigger one in the coming years for a not-so-weird recreation.
+
+![pic](/images/posts/arnav2.jpg){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}
+
+Once the rosy period of my internship in Singapore ended, the fourth year arrived like a sudden storm out of the blue and I got busy with hectic placement preparations. Friends could be seen huddling together like penguins to brave the impending storm of placements unitedly. Every new company appearing on Channel-I gave a beacon of hope and yet, a sinking fear of the placement process coming closer. This period made me realise the importance of good friends in life. Whether it be helping out with interview preparations, giving last-moment ego boosts or simply lending morale support, each one of them selflessly helped me in different ways during this period. As the storm subsided, I finally got placed at OYO as a Business Analyst.
+
+Once the storm was over and hashtags like #andha_paisa had faded away from social media, life began to crawl back to normal. Since this was the last semester, I indulged in activities, which I couldn’t earlier because of time constraints or other reasons. I participated in my first-ever slam poetry in Kshitij’s FOS-Eunoia. The immense free time allowed me to read books, play snooker and tennis, hang out with friends or simply laze around. Late-night campus walks with friends, which often involved random discussions related to philosophy or politics, were also great memories. As this journey comes to an end, I am taking with me not only great memories but learnings from all the people I got to know on the campus. Parting with R-land was sad. But at the end of the day, I will remember the wisdom of one of my friends – ‘Life is meant to be sad. If you are expecting it to be happy, you are feeling uselessly entitled’.

_posts/2019-05-25-memoir-indroneil.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: Outside the Wall"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: indroneil.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Indroneil Kanungo"
+excerpt: "Humans are today the most dominant species on the planet and it wasn't always the case. It is because we developed a unique evolutionary advantage: our ability to socialize and communicate complex ideas using a language."
+---
+
+Humans are today the most dominant species on the planet and it wasn't always the case. It is because we developed a unique evolutionary advantage: our ability to socialize and communicate complex ideas using a language. In prehistoric times, this is what helped us gain the strategic advantage over creatures with superior speed, agility, claws and teeth. And today it helps us with much more than that. One way it significantly improves our lives, that we usually take for granted, is that we have not only the ability to learn from our mistakes, but also from the mistakes of anyone, anywhere on the planet, alive or otherwise. In that spirit, I would like to share with you guys the mistakes I've made, and the things that went wrong for me, so you can  avoid them.
+
+For reasons that are too personal, I was severely depressed through my second until about the middle of my fourth year. And as far as we know, depression is more common today than has ever been. It's my opinion that at least a part of the reason is  capitalism - which forces us to go against our natural instincts to cooperate and requires us to compete against the same friends that we help cheat in an exam. Our entire economy and education system is based around that principle - of competition. But regardless of the reasons, you have to live with it. When I look back at myself 5 years ago, I see a person who could have succeeded in any of the fields he desired. I had a really nice social life. I was pretty good at physics, math, coding, badminton, music and I could have chosen any of those but instead what I chose was to lie on my bed all day, staring at the ceiling, contemplating ways to kill myself. It's impossible to imagine a better version of yourself when you're in that state. You feel that you're a burden to everyone. As a result, all your attempts at convincing yourself to get help or to reach out to your friends will be in vain. This only makes it worse. But if there's one thing I could say to that person, I'd tell him to seek therapy or psychiatric help without a second thought. It's easy to forget that no matter how "sentient", you are really just a very complicated arrangement of atoms, and tiny things like talking about some stuff to the right person, or the right chemicals in your bloodstream, can have a drastic effect on your mood. So if you think you're feeling depressed, please don't throw away your career like I did, and get professional help. And before you ask, NO, you're not "too smart for therapy".
+
+I should have probably started with this. But as some of you may know already, I haven't really graduated. I have dropped out of college as I didn't think the time and the effort I'd have to give in order to get a degree would be worth it, and I hope I will not be proven wrong. I am going to pursue a career as a full-time musician. I have joined a music school in Mumbai and will be staying there for the foreseeable future. Deciding what I had to do was rather easy for me because all of the other options had been destroyed. But most of you people reading this likely do not have their lives as "sorted out" as mine so I think you could use some help. Through most of your life and especially in your college, you will struggle to please a set of people around you. It could be your parents, relatives, your teachers, employers, friends or even yourself. Life is easy as long as you can please every one of those at the same time. But here's the thing : after a certain point, you can't. That point typically comes around adolescence. And I think it should be the objective of your college life to figure out, who it is that you want to please. You should keep in mind that there are no wrong answers here. There's no right way to live life. But not having an answer could make your life potentially difficult in the future. Not that you asked, but I have found my answer. I have realized that I want to try my best to make myself happy irrespective of whether the other people in the list disapprove. Writing and listening to good music is something that makes me very happy and if you haven't already, I think all of you should try to figure out what the thing is that makes you just as happy.
+
+Your college life is a very critical time of your life. The tiniest of your actions have enormous, unpredictable consequences. So choose your actions carefully, think before you speak, and don't do drugs kids.
+
+But what do I know.

_posts/2019-05-27-doggie-doggie-what-now.md

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Doggie Doggie! What Now?"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: bigstory
+image: doggoz1.png
+author: "Surya Raman, Vedant Kumar, Harshit Dubey, Aditya Ramkumar"
+excerpt: "For some time now, cases of individuals being hounded or bit by stray dogs within the campus have been piling up. A meeting of the ‘Dog Menace Committee’ was convened on the 15th of April to address these issues."
+---
+
+*For some time now, cases of individuals being hounded or bit by stray dogs within the campus have been piling up. A meeting of the ‘Dog Menace Committee’ was convened on the 15th of April to address these issues. Watch Out got in touch with Professor Gargi Singh and K.P. Singh, Chief Security Officer to cut through the noise and try to understand the measures taken, their degree of success and the impediments encountered in the same. A link to the minutes of the meeting of the Dog Menace Committee has been provided at the bottom. Readers are also encouraged to go through a previous article on the issue by WatchOut.*
+
+<span style="text-decoration:underline">*[{{ site.url }}/2017/03/dogs-are-here-to-stay]({{ site.url }}/2017/03/dogs-are-here-to-stay)*</span>
+
+### The Menace
+
+#### *Chew you up, spit you out*
+
+They may be fuzzy, cuddly, floofy, smooshy balls of cotton candy or even scrawny, terrifying howling scoundrels, but the one uniting feature of all dogs is their need to gnaw and bite at anything they fancy, and as observed from the recent cases of dog bites reported in the campus, students are often at the receiving end. Dog bites are at the very core of the menace surrounding dogs. Fortunately, we haven’t had any cases of rabies - yet.  Aggression amongst dogs is very frequent near certain perilous locations and depending on how unfortunate someone is, this aggression can quickly be directed towards them.
+
+Another qualm that is voiced is how the presence of aggressive dogs effectively hijacks certain routes and forces pedestrians to take alternative paths. Seeing your favourite road being patrolled by a growling four-legged single-headed Cerberus that can outrun you (even if armed with Reebok’s Ultra Speed 2.0 Running shoes) is not quite appeasing.
+
+#### *Poopity Doop*
+
+The sight of trash strewn across the corridor, coupled with the mellow fragrance of poop in the air has been long been established to be not the best start to the day. And who wouldn’t want to share the water cooler with a pupper? The start of a new plague has never been easier.
+
+### Student Opinions
+
+> “There are "good" dogs, there are "bad" dogs, I was bitten by a "bad" dog. I don't want the campus to be dog-free, just we must have some kind of check on dogs.”
+
+Spending a quality Sunday evening on the SAC discussion forum reveals how the student populace is fractured in their opinions about how to deal with our furry friends/adversaries. Some call for complete ousting of all dogs while some classify them as being ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and want the naughty ones to face the thunder. Another segment believes that a possible truce between the two species can be reached if the students are more cautious and compassionate in how they deal with these animals. Since dogs don’t have access to Eduroam’s password, their needs are posited by sympathizers who are soon labelled as ‘dog-lovers’. However, a pervading commonality across all such segments is an uproar that the administration is not taking sufficient measures to address the problem at hand.
+
+### Initial Measures and Their Ineffectiveness
+
+> “Every dog menace incident is dealt with”
+
+Earlier, dogs that were identified as hell-raisers were thrown out of the campus, but it was soon found that displacing an animal from its place of birth was illegal; hence this measure had to be put on hold indefinitely.
+
+According to AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) and WHO recommendations, sterilization is the most effective way of controlling the stray dog population. Adhering to the same, the administration invited “Human Society International” to start a sterilization drive across the campus which aimed to inhibit 125 dogs from breeding. The outcome of the drive was favourable in the short run - the number of dogs didn’t increase in the following mating season. However, in the next mating season, there was an unforeseen increment in their population. It was found out that only about 50% of the aimed dogs were actually sterilized in the drive earlier, leaving the rest to mate to their heart’s content.
+
+### Recent Measures
+
+> “We fear what we don't understand, and we destroy what we fear”
+
+**Animal Birth Control Programme:** The second phase of sterilization has been initiated. Now, the dogs will be sterilised and vaccinated. A hard timeline has been set and is expected to be followed through (May 2019). The recently hired security agency has been instructed to carry out the sterilization drive in collaboration with RAAHAT NGO as their first job. Also, the dogs from outside the campus will be captured and pushed out of the campus boundaries. Any of the injured dogs will be taken to  Dehradun for their proper treatment and possibly, adoption.
+
+**Identification of the dogs:**  According to a <span style="text-decoration:underline">[circular](http://www.awbi.org/awbi-pdf/circular_abc_cantonmentboards.pdf)</span>  issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India, stray dogs cannot be beaten or driven away from their localities. They can however, be sterilised, immunized, and released back into the same area in accordance with the Animal Birth Control programme. The Dog Menace Committee, in their meeting on 15th April 2019, decided to use collar belts to distinguish between campus dogs and dogs that didn’t belong. On further deliberation, it was concluded that the campus dogs were smart enough to remove these collar belts. Instead, the identification of campus dogs is being done by cutting a 'V' shape on the ear lobe of the dogs. The stated procedure is internationally recognised. The dogs that will henceforward be identified as “new” can then be shown the door since their birthplace would not be within the walls of the campus.
+
+**Door to door garbage collection:** The administration has taken measures to ensure door to door garbage collection from all the faculty families residing inside the campus. The waste food (especially non-vegetarian food) attracted dogs and nourished them. Dog menace has gone down in the areas where efficient garbage disposal systems are in place.
+
+**Securing the gates:** Gates that are permanently shut see no influx of external dogs, it is the functional ones that let the dogs in. Keeping the same in mind, the Chief Security Officer has increased the security near the functional gates of the campus. The Institute Engineer has been actively working to resolve this problem and a change is expected to be visible soon.
+
+**Dog Shelters:** The Nagar Nigam, upon the request of the administration, has planned to make a dog shelter around 5-8 km outside the campus. This shelter will harbour the castaway canines and will cater to all their needs.
+
+**In-Hostel Measures:**
+
+- Ban on Feeding of Stray dogs inside the Hostel: This decision was taken keeping the students who fear dogs in mind. According to the administration, "If the dogs don’t get food in the hostel, they will go someplace else in search of food".
+
+- Water coolers in Bhawans have been enclosed/raised to prevent dogs/monkeys drinking from them. Ceramic water bowls of Roorkee Cares will be placed around the campus. This measure is expected to safeguard the water coolers. Students and guards fill up these bowls every day.
+
+**The counsel of the Experts:** Prof. Anindita Bindra (ISR Kolkata), a canine expert and researcher, is being called to the campus to present a neutral perspective. She will be talking to the Dean Administration, the Dog Menace Committee and will give a detailed analysis of what else needs to be done. A canine behaviourist from Norway is also being invited to do the same. Two canine trainers had been invited in the past as well. During their stay here, they conducted personality tests for dogs and identified them as 'Skittish', not 'Aggressive'. Residents of IITR have been known to thrash dogs and this forms a big part of the reason why campus dogs are skittish.
+
+### Roorkee Cares and the Biodiversity Problem
+
+Professor Gargi Singh started Roorkee Cares with the aim of caring for various animals in R-Land. They have rescued and helped dogs, squirrels, endangered birds etc. Campus junta is known to be engaged in the activities of Roorkee Cares. In Surat, the population of hell-raising dogs was culled by massive, large-scale poisoning. The city was soon tormented with the plague. Dogs keep the rodent population in check who in turn keep the snake population in check. Large scale killing of any species is harmful in the long run - we would do well to not mess with the ecosystem of any locality.
+
+### Our Two-Cents
+
+> “Our dogs are Skittish, not Aggressive”
+
+A Dog becomes <span style="text-decoration:underline">[skittish](https://wagwalking.com/behavior/why-some-dogs-are-skittish)</span> and <span style="text-decoration:underline">[aggressive](https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/why-do-dogs-bite-and-how-to-prevent-it/)</span> for a host of reasons. It might be protecting its family and territory from trespassers, it might be scared, lonely, angry or it might just be having a bad day. However, it is also true that students do at times provoke and ill-treat them as well over prolonged periods of time. These dogs are usually very afraid of humans and tend to sprint, bite and run away when they happen to spot someone moving alone in their area.
+
+This issue can be dealt with if the dogs are treated properly. The campus has a lot of therapeutic dogs -- Mr. Chattu, Ms. (Mrs.?) Rampyari etc. that live harmoniously alongside the more evolved homo sapiens of the campus. They are properly taken care of and usually enjoy human company. It is possible to make the skittish stray dogs therapeutic as well by feeding and caring for them regularly, if their translocation encounters impenetrable hurdles.
+
+The Dog Menace Committee meets every month, so any rule/initiatives which may have loopholes are expected to be revamped. Roorkee’s pup fiction will need an active contribution from the campus junta to have a happy and warm ending.
+
+<span style="text-decoration:underline">[Minutes of Meeting of the Dog Menace Committee Meeting, 15 th April 2019 (PDF)]({{ site.url }}/{{ "notice240420192.pdf" }})</span>
+
+![pic](/images/posts/doggoz2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}

_posts/2019-05-29-memoir-debjit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: We are The Ghosts of Your Future, and Bearers of Your Memories"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: debjit.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Debjit Tripathy"
+excerpt: "I have never been much for vocal expression of my emotions, but I guess that is one of a million things that Roorkee changed about me."
+---
+
+I have never been much for vocal expression of my emotions, but I guess that is one of a million things that Roorkee changed about me. And I don't know if I'll ever stay in a single town for 4 years with the same people again, so here goes.
+
+To be completely honest, I wasn't too excited about coming to this place. And the queues on the first day didn't exactly change the moods. Everything stayed pretty mundane for a better half of the first year. But a lot changed when a squad slowly started gathering. It started with small dine outs and extended to all night Mafia parties. I always kept a lot of space vacant in my room, so that I could seat everyone who said 'Hi'. And as they took their seats, we turned breakfasts into last meals of our days, after exhausting debates and contemplations on a wide range of subjects. The assortment of conversations I have had, as I vacate this room today, I hope I never have to forget those.
+
+What I came to absolutely love about the place is the people I got to know here. I go even as far as to say that knowing these people is my biggest achievement in college. As a curious little kid who wanted to know everything about everywhere, I sure had a great time with friends, juniors and seniors from all around. And the best part? They all accepted me like I never expected.
+
+The late night projects and squeezing in a couple of quizzes right before the endsems were the kind of adventures I enjoyed embarking on. And none of these memories would be there if every one of us knew all the same things. This pool of knowledge that you surround yourself with, this will be the very best source of learning you'll get in college.
+
+As I said, I'm not a man of emotions, but I do love metaphors. A lot of us don't know where we're heading, snow filled treks with nothing in sight and no clues about the destination. But the walk's worth it as long as you have familiar places or familiar faces.
+
+To everyone who's reading this, we'll be the ghosts of your future, and bearers of your memories. So remember, remember.

_posts/2019-06-01-memoir-siddharth.md

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: Jigsaw Falling into Place"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: siddharth-memoir.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Siddharth Saravanakumar"
+excerpt: "I loved painting with my fingers as a 7 year old, playing guitar till I bruised my fingers as a 12 year old, and deveining prawns with my granny for her curry as a 15 year old."
+---
+
+*I loved painting with my fingers as a 7 year old, playing guitar till I bruised my fingers as a 12 year old, and deveining prawns with my granny for her curry as a 15 year old. The best memories from my childhood? Getting my hands messy.*
+
+Most people think of me as this happy-happy dude who knows what he wants to do with his life, started a student-run cafe, and who cooks all the time and experiments with food. It’s partially true, I do know what I want to do with my life, but it comes at a price. There’s a feeling of devastation when I come home- no parent would want to accept that their kid who’s in India’s most prestigious institute wants to throw it all away and cook full-time. The relationship with my parents has become sour and knowing that it will not be the same, at least for a few years, is a hard pill to swallow. But that’s the choice I have made for pursuing my dreams of becoming a chef.
+
+I joined IITR in 2014 as a half-hearted physics undergrad, skeptical if I had taken the right decision. The thought of joining hotel management was still lingering in my mind- cooking was the only thing I ever liked- while physics at IITR seemed the easier route and a reason to smile for my mother. My father, on the other hand, was skeptical regarding Integrated M.Sc. Physics, as a non-B.Tech course at an IIT was an ordeal for him. The ‘ideal’ son that I was at the time, I promised dad that I’d work hard and branch change to a course that was better on paper. I write these lines laughing at my plight, wishing I could tell my younger self that cooking is what I'd continue to pursue in the final years of my college life.
+
+There will come a time of confusion, anger, a constant feeling of being lost, and maybe depression in your tenure at Roorkee. Most of the times that phase will be in your second or third year, the years you have to make the important decisions of your life. It's tough, it really is. What’s important is to make conscious choices that are unaffected by the path often taken and never look back. That's the hard part-not looking back-because it’s so easy to point at the mistakes we made in hindsight and feel frustrated about it. Start making peace with your past, it’ll help in the long run.
+
+The first few years of university have been harsh,but the final year of my Insti life has been rewarding. I stopped comparing myself to others, realized that cooking is my path in life, and did nothing but experiment in my cafe throughout my final semester. I loved every single moment of cooking in college, and it made all the previous bitter years of college worth it. No one came and handed me this happiness, no one gave it on a silver platter. I worked hard for it, visited the main building every other day, made the administration believe in my vision and as to why they must invest in this idea, and made sure they act on my idea. Trust me, it’s tough to justify spending the Institute’s money on a hobby like cooking. They did not understand it at the time, some of them still don’t, but those who do are happy when they visit my cafe for trying out the food. It feels great, it truly does.
+
+The choice of becoming a chef, I must admit, was a product of the frustration I felt as a physics undergrad at IITR. I always thought I'd work a normal job till I'm 40 and then start a cafe of my own in Pondicherry. But college academics, particularly physics, frustrated me so much that all I could think about was doing something I love in the remaining years I had left in college, something that made me feel free and creative. I perceived cooking as an escape, but now I knew it had to be pursued more seriously. I'm really happy that I did.
+
+I sometimes wonder if I were in a less intensive branch, would I have followed the herd and gotten a job like everybody else. If I would have ever come up with an idea of a student-run cafe in India and started Culinary Club, IIT Roorkee. I really don’t know, but in retrospect, I’m happy I chose Physics. It made me do the things I love, it made me cook. Culinary Club has been my surviving grace- the reason I was sane in the final year of  my Insti life- and something that makes me really happy. That, and food shows on Netflix- Chef’s Table, Mind of a chef, Shokugeki no Soma, Eat street, The final table, Raja Rasoi aur anya kahaniya. Yes, you read the last one right.
+
+Brilliant show.

_posts/2019-06-05-memoir-ankit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: There is a romance in knowing these people before they're famous."
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: ankitvyas.png
+category: memoirs
+author: "Ankit Vyas"
+excerpt: "We left home for Roorkee at around 4:30 AM on 23rd July 2015 as I secretly made an entry in my diary, ‘Time to live the dream’."
+---
+
+
+We left home for Roorkee at around 4:30 AM on 23rd July 2015 as I secretly made an entry in my diary, ‘Time to live the dream’. A confident, outspoken, middle-class first-generation IITian was about to land in Roorkee with a vision no humbler than casting this place in his own image. The first semester went by more or less unceremoniously with a few seniors vying to recruit me for their political purposes while others admonishing me and amusing themselves on hearing anything related to academia. In hindsight, I feel that spending the first year in Azad Bhawan (yep!) in ignorance of the good, bad and the ugly of this place afforded me time to enjoy cricket in the evenings and take leisurely walks in the campus at nights.
+ 
+I stayed on campus during the first-year summer vacations to work on a project in the Math Department. One day, a friend invited me to accompany him to a nearby village to teach small children. We enjoyed the exercise each evening but could not continue it after the vacations due to our heavy schedule (or so we believed). On his suggestion, I started reading novels and have built myself a small library now. By the end of summers, I had already rejected a relationship proposal from a long-time friend and been rejected by two others.
+ 
+In the beginning of the second year, I joined the Student Mentorship Program(SMP) and the Institute Alumni Relations Cell(IARC) while both these programs were being introduced to Roorkee for the first time. While SMP offered me an amateur perspective of many ambitious, energetic and inspirational college seniors, the IARC introduced me to gray-haired CEOs, entrepreneurs, civil servants, social activists, etc. from across the globe. These alumni made me realize that the most important asset to hold dear are the friendships that we develop during our time here. One of the alumni remarked on his Silver Jubilee Alumni Meet ‘There is a romance in knowing these people before they are famous’. To this day, I am surprised as to why they almost always spoke of Roorkee in good terms and never spoke a harsh word against it. Maybe the passing years teach you to feel gratitude towards the positives while comfortably letting the negatives pass into oblivion!
+ 
+Meanwhile, the allure of ‘#machau’, a glorious social media presence, the pretense of ‘coolness’ and the toxic idea of busyness equals productivity had already started to sting me. With each day, I grew restless to do more, to be more and to have more. The peer-pressure was intense and giving in was easy. These insecurities, combined with some past incidents of my life and my habit of living inside my head turned out to a perfect recipe for long-term depression. I too considered myself ‘too smart for therapy’ as mentioned in one of the previous memoirs. However, I did undergo counseling later on during the final year.
+ 
+The beginning of the third year opened up new cracks in our insecurities regarding internships and an urgency to decide our careers. We were given the impression that this internship would define, for the most part, which field we were to pursue during our initial careers; an impression which like most of my senior’s opinions and my beliefs is subjective and hence only partly true. With some hard-work and stroke of luck, I was selected to NTHU, Taiwan and KAIST, South Korea. I got selected to KAIST owing to the project I did during the first-year summer vacations (which I abandoned midway). The dots had begun to be connected looking backward. I decided to avail both these offers and divided 3 months evenly between the two places. These 3 months were undoubtedly the most productive time of my college years. I had traveled to a foreign country for the first time and used this opportunity to interact with the locals and know an alien culture. Taiwan is a peaceful country with the most gentle and helpful people you’d find anywhere whereas Korea is a workaholic country with extreme competition owing to widespread capitalism and consumerism. It came as a sweet surprise, and learning to see how people in a different world can live and thrive with a completely different set of principles and value system and be at peace with their lives.
+ 
+On my return, I had exhausted my mind and spent my health and needed refreshment. A couple of my friends invited me to join them on a trip to Dharamshala where we were to stay in silence (yeah literally silent except for 1 hour each day) at the Tushita Meditation Centre for a week, without any electronics. I readily agreed. I had always been repulsed by the dogmas and rituals of religion and maintained a safe distance from them. However, I did believe that spirituality could be a way to find the satisfaction and peace that many authors preach in their books with much gusto. The experience at Tushita was enriching and refreshing. This was followed by a tense couple of months of the placement season. Amidst much confusion amongst a job, a Ph.D. and a Master degree, I decided to take a job. During the final semester, we converted a friend’s room into a kitchen and cooked our own food.
+ 
+The IIT tag gave me the opportunity to speak to professors from the HBS, MIT and Stanford and a former student of Stephen Hawking. My desire for new experiences led me to interact with soldiers from the Indian army who served in the Siachen Glacier at -50 degrees, a retired Navy officer who fought pirates in the Atlantic Ocean near South Africa, an Irish girl who has been taking care of injured stray dogs in Sri Lanka, Israeli people who had served in their army and US troops (I actually spent a day with them in South Korea), Europeans and Americans who make a trip to the Himalayas in search of peace and travellers who have been on the road for many years. I have cooked my food with Pakistani students, explained the Indian electoral system to my communist Chinese professor and dated a Taiwanese girl. Many of them did not know what the IITs are which was humbling. Within the confines of this campus, I made hundreds of acquaintances and a handful of friends. All my experiences – good or bad – have convinced me that the confines of this 365 acres campus are too narrow a boundary to procure the necessities of a ‘good life’.
+ 
+I realize that we all have come here from vastly different (un-)privileged social, cultural and economic backgrounds. Our little head wraps around events and automatically builds meaning from experience utilizing our biases and preconceived notions. Hence, I would like to invite you on a journey to the R-land, to question your biases and do the hard work of altering your self-centered default setting. To see the world through the lens of others within this campus and beyond. And to be a little less sure of yourselves when you leave this campus.
+

_posts/2019-06-07-memoir-aditya-rathi.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: With love, Rathi."
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: rathi.png
+category: memoirs
+author: "Aditya Rathi"
+excerpt: "Dear Roorkee, I never really wanted you to be a part of my life. Four years ago, I remember feeling like I had no other option except you - like I had to settle for you."
+---
+
+Dear Roorkee,
+
+I never really wanted you to be a part of my life. Four years ago, I remember feeling like I had no other option except you - like I had to settle for you. You were never my first choice. You just didn’t feel like home. However, out of sheer helplessness, I gave you a chance.
+
+Ever since, we’ve had a love-hate relationship, you and I. Time and again, you kept giving me numerous reasons to dislike you, and yet, moving on from you seems emptying. Over time, I am sure you’ve heard me (through muffled cries and unrestrained rants) swear at you and curse you. So instead of just reminding you (and in the process, myself) about it all, I’ll try to tell you why, with all your vices, you’ll still be a story I’ll recall with happiness.
+
+I’d like to thank you..
+
+..for throwing untimely challenges at me and messing my sleep-cycle up. I learned to love both the tranquility of the night and the chaos of the day. I saw sunsets half-asleep and sunrises wide-awake.
+
+..for making me miserably lonely with seemingly no place to go. I ended up in conversations with Bittu-bhaiya while I waited for my cup of tea.
+
+..for reminding me how rare second chances are. It made me opportunistic on my good days and hopeful on my bad ones. I started being grateful for when fresh starts were given to me, even though I learned to never seek them actively.
+
+..for letting me be stupid enough to rest my fate at the outcomes of coin-tosses.
+
+..for embarrassingly short and unsuccessful interviews. It humbled me. It made me want to work harder.
+
+..for panic-induced blackouts, ill-tempered anxiety attacks, and unwelcome bouts of depression. It made me compassionate enough to try and help people who needed me when I was doing well. It made me humane.
+
+..for uncertain situations and confusing choices which demanded prompt action. On one hand, it coaxed me into being civil to the ones that came to me for advice and mentorship, and on the other, made me accept the consequences of and live with my decisions.
+
+..for a fair share of both heartbreaks and joy. It made me resilient and faithful, and gave me regular reminders of and (necessary) testaments to the tenacity of the human heart.
+
+..for the monotony disguised as the food in the mess. It made me miss home-cooked meals.
+
+..for putting me in uncomfortably painful situations. It trained my brain to resort to my defence mechanisms more smoothly. I started finding jokes swiftly enough to normalise a lot of problems I’d otherwise be miserable about.
+
+..for making me acutely dependent. It helped me gain modesty and learn to ask for help.
+
+..for making me insecure, vulnerable, volatile and fearful. It made me look deeper into myself. It made me realise how beautiful (but fleeting) moments free of these emotions were, and led me to appreciate them to the fullest.
+
+..for keeping me away from my family for months at a stretch. I ended up finding a family for myself right here.
+
+~
+
+Four years ago, I gave you a chance. Thank you for not letting me down.
+
+With love,
+Rathi.

_posts/2019-06-13-memoir-anchit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: May Hogwarts never change!"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: anchit1.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Anchit Shukla"
+excerpt: "Writing this memoir takes me back to the first day at R-land standing in a long queue waiting for my turn to officially start living my dream."
+---
+
+Writing this memoir takes me back to the first day at R-land standing in a long queue waiting for my turn to officially start living my dream. Being a socially introvert person that I had been till my Kota days, I just wanted to break that when I came here. I think I succeeded, though some people don’t think the same.
+
+
+![fb_post](/images/posts/anchit2.png){: style="width:70%;height:auto"}
+
+
+The day I posted this on facebook :D, to the day we parted ways, the world changed, people around me changed and I changed with them learning a life lesson almost every time I was shot with a challenge. But, with all the highs and the lows, these four years made me a person that I never thought I would be able to become. 
+Thanks, Roorkee!
+
+Thank you for providing me an opportunity to meet great, great people. For letting me learn from the experiences of my seniors, They are the ones who I credit for helping me enter the design world (they even placed bets on whether I would be coming back to work during my initial Cogni design days and told me this an eternity later). The journey that followed is what I would cherish throughout my life.
+
+Thank you for imparting in me a selfless attitude which always helped me in helping people around. Sadly, the culture at IITR has now transitioned from a phase where people cared about other people but still, it exists in bits (I have had hours of long talks on the group culture that R-land has and how it has always brought people together). I hope that this selflessness would not cease to exist.
+
+Thank you for the lifetime friendships. For the perfect locations that you provided to have conversations, some wise and some wicked. Earlier the main building area used to be the quietest place at night and I have had the most gyaan-ful discussions there watching the beautiful night sky.
+
+Thank you for the most nalaayak juniors that I have had from Design Studio and Kshitij and thanks for making me learn to handle them. I must say that they will surely take the legacy forward and would achieve greater heights.
+
+Thank you for helping me find occasions to explore myself. I never thought I would write a whole long poem and perform in a slam poetry event until you made me do it.
+
+Thank you for making me immune to embarrassments and failures. Believe me, I have had many and I would suggest everyone in college to have one. It would help you find your best self. 
+
+Thanks to your geography Roorkee, I was able to measure distances in the north. Special mention to a pahadi person, who planned the most fun trips to the most peaceful places of Uttarakhand and thanks to Maggi for making the best noodles that always came to rescue. The North will be remembered.
+
+A senior of mine in my freshman year told me that being in a college, you get to know people from 8 different batches and if you talk to even 10 percent of them(that’s almost 700 odd UG folks), you become an experienced individual right away. This, I tried to practice and I believe that a lot has been earned.
+
+Thank you, Roorkee for being the amazing host that you were and I hope that you would always be the way you have been!

_posts/2019-06-14-guide-to-branches.md

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Watch Out's Guide to the Branches at IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona]
+category: academics
+image: branch-guide.jpg
+---
+
+It is pretty difficult to choose a field of study that you might have to stick with for four (or five) years. We know because we've all been there. Hence, to make the process a little bit easier, we came up with this rather elaborate and painstakingly devised guide to the various branches at IIT Roorkee. With an analysis of the various specialisations available, including an overview of the syllabus, future prospects, and some inside information from IIT Roorkee, we hope to give you a perspective of what you might be getting into!
+
+![pic](/images/posts/branch-guide-19.png){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}
+
+<a href="/WatchOutsGuidetoBranches2019.pdf" style="text-align: center"><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-block btn-lg">Download the Guide Here!</button></a>

_posts/2019-06-15-memoir-yash-trivedi.md

@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: Excelsior!"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: yash_trivedi.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Yash Trivedi"
+excerpt: "Let me begin by saying - Thank you IITR, for giving me the best four years of my life. From first year to now, Roorkee has shaped my personality in unimaginable ways - and I doubt I would have got the same exposure anywhere else."
+---
+
+Let me begin by saying - Thank you IITR, for giving me the best four years of my life. From first year to now, Roorkee has shaped my personality in unimaginable ways - and I doubt I would have got the same exposure anywhere else. Roorkee has taught me things I never knew I needed to learn.
+
+
+With no engineers in my immediate family, preparing for JEE was never an “obvious” choice. So, when I came to Roorkee, I did not have any sort of expectations whatsoever. I was simply excited to know what lies in store. Our hostels, mess food, the people, the oppressing heat - I had never been exposed to this kind of atmosphere before and instead of being put off by it, I was actually looking forward to the next four years. In the first month itself, Roorkee surprised me in many ways. I had never imagined there could exist a dedicated group for film making on campus or, a group that makes ATVs, or a club that goes on regular Himalayan expeditions.
+
+
+My first year in campus was all about exploring what our campus had to offer - I sat for almost every campus group recruitment and tried everything - from sports to coding to electronics to film making to automobiles and even took a project in the Physics department after the end of my first year. Of course, I didn't continue most of these activities but this phase of "exploration" served two important purposes -
+
+1. It helped me figure out things I didn't want to do again. At least, I can say I tried but didn't enjoy it.  
+2. I got acquainted with some exceptionally talented people in each of these fields whom I can ask for help anytime i.e. networking.
+
+Such has been most of my life at IITR - I always had my plate full, which I believe is what everyone should be doing. You will never have so much freedom and independence to try out things and not worry about the consequences. And Roorkee has more than enough things to keep you busy. Believe me, you will get a platform to try anything you want to.
+
+
+Your "IIT" tag matters more than what most of you might think - it helped me get a research intern in Paris - and it has many other less noticeable, but more potent advantages as well. So, just make the most of it! Also, academics is definitely not the way to judge a person here - I went from being a regular tutorial solver to studying a night before the exams, and still managed to get a decent grade everytime. But how you spend your time otherwise is important. While in college, there is never a time when you can't do something productive. Another thing I realized was - there is sooo much to learn from people around you - in the form of inspirational seniors, loving juniors and an extremely talented peer group. Almost always, you will find someone more "machau" than you at what you are doing. But then this is what makes you want to work harder, and this is how it should be.
+
+
+Film making, building ATVs and tennis - these are the three things that have been constant across my four years. Cinesec has influenced me so much that I can not thank it enough. I met such amazingly talented, creative and like-minded people that were almost like a family on campus. Staying awake for 50 hours at a stretch, brainstorming over a script, the 12 hour long editing sessions just two days before end terms, refreshing our YouTube page every 30 seconds to see the increase in views - it really pains me to think that I will never be able to do these things again. My balcony friends - a group of misfits glued together in the most perfect combination ever - almost goes synonymous with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering.  
+
+
+Those who know me, would know how bad I am with decisions. I tend to over think even the most simplest and inconsequential of decisions. There was a time when I was studying for JEE as well as NEET and even gave both entrance exams. At times, I think - should I have followed my father's footsteps and become a doctor? But almost instantly, my mind answers - I would not have met the exact same people had I chosen to pursue medicine instead. I would not have been the same person that I am today. I would reiterate what others before me have mentioned - the friends you make here and the experiences you share with them is the best gift you can take away with you. I like to believe that which ever activities I have been involved in - including campus politics and countless evenings in divine - will come of use some day, in some way or the other. Like me, most of you will find yourselves in this situation regularly: (Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken)
+
+<center><br>
+And both (ref. roads) that morning equally lay
+<br>
+In leaves no step had trodden black.
+<br>
+Oh, I kept the first for another day!
+<br>
+Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
+<br>
+I doubted if I should ever come back.
+</center><br>
+
+In retrospect, could I have done something differently? - Yes.
+
+But do I want to go back in time and do it differently? - No
+
+
+Hope you get the point. I am fortunate to have met some brilliant people in this journey whom I respect a lot. I still don't know what I really want to do, where will I end up and which decisions would take me there - but let's keep something for destiny as well, no? Until then, I'll just go with the flow. But Roorkee, thank you, for being jussst perfect!
+
+
+
+
+
+

_posts/2019-06-16-publishing-paper.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Guest Editorial: All About Paper Publication"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Ekdeep Singh Lubana"
+image: lubana.jpg 
+category: career
+excerpt: "I am writing this article to address certain myths that I have every so often been presented with while being consulted by peers who were interested in publishing their research work."
+---
+I am writing this article to address certain myths that I have every so often been presented with while being consulted by peers who were interested in publishing their research work. I have had the opportunity to present my own work at three top conferences now, within the field of embedded systems, data compression, and sensors, while having published a journal paper too. Please note that this article is bound to be heavily biased by my own personal experiences, for academic communities have highly variable publication routines. For ex., while conferences garner a lot of reputation in circuit branches (possibly more so than journals), this may not be the case in natural sciences, which highly regard journal publications.
+
+So, to begin with, there are several cycles involved in publishing one’s work.
+
+1. **Building a manuscript**–Your article/research paper is supposed to be a well-drafted manuscript that, succinctly but descriptively, demonstrates the problem statement studied, the solution proposed, and the contributions made. This manuscript is to be submitted for review, thereafter.
+
+2. **Choosing a platform to publish**–Broadly, one can publish via three platforms: (a) preprints; (b) conferences; (c) journals. I give brief descriptions about the three in this paragraph, but elucidate further details on choosing the exact venue in a later part of the article. Preprints are not technically publications, but an early body of work that you find promising. The idea here is to either mark your problem territory or unveil solutions/problems that require attention from the community. ArXiV is the most popular preprint platform and most certainly an academic’s newsboard. Conferences are generally the platform of choice if your work has gained a certain level of maturity, such as if you define a problem and in part solve it. Finally, the old school, high-prestige publications are journal papers, which usually carry a lot of lustre with them. These papers are heavily scrutinized by several reviewers before publication.
+
+3. **Peer review**–In most conferences/journals, one’s submission is assigned 3-4 reviewers who assess the novelty, plausibility, and clarity of your work, thereby scoring it on a predefined scale. These reviewers strive to find achievements and loopholes within your research, which you may be given a chance to address. I say “may”, for reviews can lead to either direct publications or rebuttals. In the former situation, reviewer comments are unveiled to you and, if the review score is high, your paper is accepted for publication directly. It is now at your discretion to modify your paper as per reviewer comments. For ex., say a reviewer said the caption of figure 2 is unclear and is vital to understanding the paper. In this case, it would be a good idea to change the caption. However, note that one is not allowed to perform significant changes to the paper. For ex., if you have found an optimization technique to improve your algorithm’s speedup from 2x to 3x, you are not allowed to modify your paper towards the same. The idea here is that your proposition may be fallacious, which needs to be reviewed, but since the paper has already been accepted, it cannot be reviewed again. In case significant changes are found, the paper is rejected.
+
+
+4. **Rebuttals (the latter situation)**: The pipeline towards acceptance decision varies from venue to venue. In most top conferences and journals, however, one is given a chance to address the limitations found by reviewers. Certain venues allow for one to update the paper to address the reviewer comments, while others ask for limited text (<500 words, typically) responses. The idea here is to convince why the reviewer why your assumptions are correct or why the supposed limitation may not actually cover your target domain. Also, if you do think that the reviewer is right with his analysis, save some electrons and just thank the reviewers. :3
+
+Finally, the review/rebuttal process culminates in the publication of your work. Now, having described the general idea, let me talk about certain specifics that I find important for people to know.
+
+1. **Faculty involvement**–Something that simply confounds me is the opinion that one needs a professor to be affiliated with one’s paper in order to publish his/her work. This is an absurd notion. You can publish alone, with your friends, with your grandparents, with your friend’s grandparents–whosoever you want, truly. In general, however, the authors of a piece of work will be the people who have contributed to it in some way. If the contribution is not significant, then such people are conventionally mentioned in the acknowledgement.
+
+2. **The lust of journal publications**–the publication cycle for journals is excruciatingly long, to the point where certain journals even take a year or two to go from review to publication stage. I am personally a heretic when it comes to journal publications, for these long winded time windows can actually become the bottleneck of scientific progress.
+
+3. **Publishing half-cooked ideas to conferences**–The following especially applies to circuit branches. This maligned notion for conferences has become a rather old-school opinion. In actuality, the competitiveness of conferences has risen to such high degrees that unless you have significant contributions to unveil, publishing in conferences is really hard. Further, the amount of content expected to be published in a top international conference paper in certain fields is several folds more exhaustive than that of a journal. Such communities have essentially accepted the limitations of journal publications and are progressing towards more dynamic and fast-paced publication cycles. One could argue that this adulterates the content quality, but there’s enough empirical proof that indicates otherwise.
+
+4. **Do not publish for the sake of it:** This point cannot be stressed enough. Students interested in pursuing academic careers are usually hounding towards getting themselves published; however, a publication at an unrecognized platform can be worse than no publication. Strive for top venues and settle for suboptimal ones if you have to, but do not publish for the sake of it.
+
+All this said and done, an important point that I haven’t yet addressed is how to choose a platform to publish. Say you want to publish your work at a conference, then a good idea would be to find high H5-index conferences within your field at Google Scholar Metrics. For ex., a search for top conferences in computer vision at Scholar Metrics results in the following link: 
+
+<a href="https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=eng_computervisionpatternrecognition">https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=eng_computervisionpatternrecognition</a>.
+
+ You can find a relevant category on the website to find a suitable venue for your work. H5-index describes how many papers have had at least as many citations, in the last 5 years, at that venue. This isn’t an ideal metric to test a conference’s competitiveness, but certainly a metric that correlates well. Journals are usually evaluated by impact factors, than H5-index. I wouldn’t think too much about the metrics, frankly. The idea is simply to find a list of top venues. Thereafter, you go through some publications from previous years at that venue and try to determine if your work fits in well. Remember, **the idea of publication is not just to unveil your contributions, but also to take feedback to improve your work.**
+Lastly, some pointers specifically on conferences. While journal publications are carried out through the comfort of one’s home/workplace, conferences demand traveling to a venue and presenting your work. Presentations can either be oral or poster. Oral presentations are usually much fewer than poster presentations and typically involve a 15-20 minute talk by one of the authors, followed by a 2-5 minute questioning round. Don’t worry if you feel too shy to ask questions to the presenter amongst a hall filled with several luminaires from your field (evil wink), for presentation sessions are usually followed by coffee breaks and allow enough time for one to interact with authors of the papers that one finds interesting. But, there’s also a lot of really good free food available during these breaks, so do make sure you really have something worthwhile to give up all of that for. That said, your presentation really, really needs to be remarkable. Your presentation is you getting a chance to pitch your work to investors, who may choose to read your paper, take up your work, build upon/around it, cite you, make you popular, and get you a Nobel/Turing/Abel/other field-specific counterparts of the darn medal.
+
+Now, due to societal obligations, I am expected to conclude this article, but, frankly, I do not have a conclusion. Therefore, peace out. :)
+

_posts/2019-06-17-losing-my-pride-virginity.md

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Guest Editorial: Losing My Pride Virginity"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Anonymous"
+image: losingpride.jpg
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "Your first Pride walk can be nerve-wracking, especially if you are new to the city and know absolutely no one. This was the situation with me, but I was equally determined to attend it, not knowing when my next opportunity would come."
+---
+
+Your first Pride walk can be nerve-wracking, especially if you are new to the city and know absolutely no one. This was the situation with me, but I was equally determined to attend it, not knowing when my next opportunity would come. Well, thank god for Pravritti that I had some people to walk with, or else I probably wouldn’t have gone for Pride. For those of you who don’t know what Pravritti is, it is a group, more like a safe space, for the queer people across all the IITs of the country. I spoke to these people for the first time that day but we bonded so naturally, it really did not feel like we had just met. That is one of the things Pride is about, go around and meet new people(probably your exes too) without any fear of judgement whatsoever. Honestly, that part terrified me the most because I can’t help but think of what others will think about me. What if they judge me? What if they don’t like me? People were so easily approachable that I could not help but let my guard down. The overthinking, the fear of judgement, these negative thoughts just faded away into the background. It was just a bunch of beautiful people walking together to celebrate love in all its forms, what was there to fear?
+
+
+Also, Pride fashion is at a completely different level. People were pulling off saris with such aplomb in the sweltering heat, it was commendable. I could see blue and pink(colours of the bisexual flag) jumpsuits, bright tight-fitting floral shirts, rainbow raincoats and much more, all under the radius of 2km. The beauty of all of this was that they were carrying themselves with such confidence, it was hard not to get mesmerized, or rather, inspired by it. I learnt that one of the ways to strike up a conversation with the people in Pride is to compliment them. I just wanted to compliment every person in that Pride march because every single one of them was beautiful in their own way, but I obviously stopped myself from doing that, thinking that it would come across as creepy. I was wrong, as usual. I got the cutest reactions and in return, I received some compliments too. What warmed my heart was how genuine everything was. People were not faking it, they actually did mean everything they were saying. It’s because each and every member of the community knows what one goes through as a queer person in a country like India, and sometimes this is the least you can do to show your immense love and support for them, to show them that they are not alone in this struggle and to make them feel proud of who they are.
+
+
+It was truly amazing to meet and walk alongside such kind-hearted, brave and beautiful human-beings. I could literally feel myself surrounded by this intense positive energy for the entire duration of the walk. I felt empowered, and yet vulnerable, excited yet terrified. But all in all, it was an overwhelming experience. Overwhelming is the right word to describe my first pride experience. And I know that not everyone supports the LGBTQ+ community, but I really do wish that everyone, or at least the people that are part of the community as well as it’s straight allies, get to experience the magic of just being their true selves at least once in their lifetime.
+

_posts/2019-06-18-free-will.md

@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Of Mop Haired Scientists and Demonic Puppetry"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Surya Raman, Sudhang Varshney"
+image: free-will-1.jpg
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "A word of warning from the authors : this article is long and extensive. We would be remiss to not let you know that this is a laborious read."
+---
+
+*A word of warning from the authors : this article is long and extensive. We would be remiss to not let you know that this is a laborious read. However, we are certain, that the brave ones, who will journey through this merciless sea of words, shall surely find it to be an exhilarating and fruitful exercise. This warning also acts as a perfect segue to the article.*
+
+*Because.*
+
+### What Does It Mean To Be Certain?
+
+An omniscient being is defined as an entity that knows everything there is to know. For the theists among us, this could be God. For the purposes of argumentation, it is assumed that such a being exists. The being knows everything there is to be known about the present, and all the laws governing all possible interactions between and within systems in the universe. These interactions are the pathway through which we sense the flow of time and the universe moves from one state to another. Say for example, this being knew the position of every particle and every way they influence each other. It could, then, prophesize the exact state of the world a second later. Applying this iteratively, it follows that the exact description of the universe was set in a cosmic stone since time took birth. This essentially leads us to a deterministic world and a predetermined future we have no control over. This being is Laplace’s Demon -  named after Laplace, who came up with this line of reasoning to prove determinism.
+
+> “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
+>
+> —  Pierre Simon Laplace, [A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities](https://bayes.wustl.edu/Manual/laplace_A_philosophical_essay_on_probabilities.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+A seemingly obvious fallacy here is the assumption of such an omniscient being, but closer inspection proves otherwise. The information necessary to determine the future would still exist- irrespective of the existence of this being- and hence the world would remain deterministic, the only difference being the absence of an entity that can access this information.
+
+However, there is the possibility of another tenuous flaw in the above line of reasoning. Another underlying assumption here is the existence of a complete description of how the universe functions. That is, the assumption that the continuum of states of the universe follows a certain set of laws which we call scientific principles, the search for which is the motivation of scientism and scientific research. However it is imperative to keep in mind that at the end of the day, every model we construct to explain the world around us will always be false. It is debatable to claim that we can know everything about a particular system when we ourselves are parts of it ( to develop an intuition, ponder on this - **can an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent entity create a stone it cannot lift itself?** That is, if we are the part of a physical system, governed by the laws that constitute its preamble, can we actually unravel every piece of information within that system?) . But some models are useful. Newtonian mechanics permit acceleration of systems to superluminal speeds, which is known to be impossible, but it does serve to predict cosmic motion to a beautiful extent.
+
+One such model is the non-intuitive behemoth called quantum mechanics.
+
+> “If the present is known exactly, the future can be determined.”
+
+According to a philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics (called the *[Copenhagen Interpretation](https://www.benbest.com/science/quantum.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}*)<sup>[1]</sup>, it is the premise and not the conclusion of the above statement which is false. This interpretation posits the existence of an [inherent indeterminacy](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4q93/could_you_explain_schr%C3%B6dingers_cat_to_me_li5/){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[2]</sup> in physics, and by extension, reality- a direct result of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics (the Uncertainty Principle).
+
+### "God Does Not Play Dice."
+
+The aforementioned philosophical stance on reality never fell into good favour with our favorite mop haired scientist - Albert Einstein.
+
+> “In living through this ‘great epoch’, it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!”
+>
+> — Albert Einstein (1914), [“Letter to Paul Ehrenfest”](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1955505){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+His vexation is decidedly not subtle. He agreed that we could not know the present in its entirety. However, he emphasised on the we. He believed that the extrapolation of the fact that we encounter indeterminacy everywhere in physics, to the generalisation that reality is inherently indeterministic, was too much of a stretch. The [hidden variable theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_hidden-variable_theory){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[3]</sup>, as it was called, took shape along this view - the claim that fundamentally everything ran smoothly along the tramlines set by deterministic one-to-one models that were tragically out of the reach of human comprehension (he went so far as to call some quantum phenomena ‘spooky’) at the moment. Essentially, there might be some fixed variables which lead to the probabilities of a system as claimed by quantum mechanics, which are hidden from us and what we only observe is the resulting probabilistic and unpredictable observations. His friends, Podolsky, and Rosen  smiled in agreement. It was difficult to stand up to the goliath of the scientific world, and the philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics remained nebulous for an excruciatingly long time.
+
+Three tumultuous decades of passionate debates, discussions, fistfights and armchair rants passed before a resolution started to emerge and culminated in groundbreaking experiments and inequalities (beginning with John Stewart Bell’s famous theorem) that have  [settled](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[4]</sup> the matter to a certain extent (though critics of these proofs still persist). **Any physical system is indeed *determined* by a probabilistic wave function.** Einstein’s qualms with the quantum theory seemed to have been satiated.
+
+But this still doesn’t mean that we have figured out the true nature of the world.
+
+Even if for a moment we assume that reality is, in fact, probabilistic, and not exact, this still does not entirely guarantee the existence of free will. At this point, we define free will as absolute freedom to choose what to feel, what to do, and how to do it. If we assume that the universe is probabilistic, then we must also accept another fact that comes along with it (through quantum mechanics): a variety of factors contribute to the disparate probabilities of the occurence of different events and we essentially have no control over choosing the probabilities of these events. This therefore does not guarantee the existence of absolute free will, since we do not control just how probabilistic the things we do on a daily basis are. It can however be accepted that the future is probabilistic, and that these probabilities depend on a multitude of factors and hence the universe is not entirely deterministic - at least not in the way we think of determinism, where the universe follows one set path, and everything that happens, happens with infallible certainty.
+
+![pic](/images/posts/free-will-2.png){: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
+
+### Compatibility Theories
+
+The existence of an omniscient entity like a God clearly does not allow for the existence of free will. However, compatibilists have a convenient workaround. Compatibility theorists believe that determinism and free will can co-exist. Their workaround to the problem of Laplace’s Demon, is to change the definition of free will. Compatibilists define free will as having the freedom to act on one’s motivations without external coercion, while accepting that one does not have the freedom to choose one’s motivations. Arthur Schopenhauer summed it up neatly :
+
+> [“Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/32731/what-does-schopenhauer-mean-by-a-man-can-do-what-he-wants-but-not-want-what-he){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+The problem with these theories is quite obvious - the definition of free will has been contorted according to convenience and the new free will barely resembles what we initially started with.
+
+The common consensus on deciding if someone is accountable for their actions is to determine if the person could have done otherwise. With this as our context, we come across Frankfurt’s Counterexamples. Frankfurt’s argument tried to disprove the **[principle of alternate possibilities](https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/compatibilism.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline"}**, which states that a person is morally responsible for his/her actions, only if they could have done otherwise.
+
+Here is a typical example of Frankfurt’s assertions:
+
+*In an election, a person X must choose between, A or B, and it is given that she is likely to go with B. She will decide against B only if she considers the failures of B in the past. Unbeknownst to her, B plants a chip in her head that will make her choose B if she ever happens to considers the past. B decides to use the chip only if she considers the past. As things happen, she doesn’t consider the past, and decides to go with B.*
+
+Frankfurt, here, was trying to prove the co-existence of free will and determinism by showing that an individual could be held morally responsible for his/her actions, even if they lacked the freedom to do otherwise. It becomes paramount, here, to analyse the relationship between X’s inclination to go with B, and X’s subsequent decision to go with B.
+
+If X’s inclination to go with B and the subsequent decision to go with B are related deterministically, then the argument collapses under its own weight. In trying to prove that people are morally responsible for what they do even if they do not have the freedom to do otherwise, Frankfurt was essentially trying to prove the existence of free will in the presence of a God, or essentially, the co-existence of free will and determinism. However, in his reasoning, if he assumes a deterministic framework, then he is begging the question, that is, assuming the very thing being debated.
+
+On the other hand, if the relation between X’s inclination and decision is indeterministic, then the chip in her head can not predetermine what her decision would be, it is only after her choice, that the chip will be activated, which would then be external coercion, and X would have encountered different options before being forced to go with one. Thus, X is morally responsible for what she chose, but encountered multiple options in the process of doing so.This again defeats Frankfurt’s argument.He had to prove moral culpability in absence of other options.
+
+**[Frankfurt’s Cases are not easy to comprehend in one read.](http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/frankfurt_cases.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[5]</sup>**
+
+### The Significance Of This Debate
+
+It is fair, at this point, to ask the need for this unnecessary hurling of ponderous words and facts, when Average Joe blissfully smokes away his days, living under the illusion of free will.
+
+The implications of the existence of free will or determinism are far-reaching and have been discussed for centuries. Free will is closely related with the concepts of moral culpability, responsibility, sin, praise, punishment etcetera. The problem is simple enough : **if the world is deterministic, then nobody is responsible for anything they do - whatever happened could not have been changed, and the universe is merely following its predestined and immutable path.** How then can we praise someone who does good for society, or equivalently punish someone who harms it? If someone microwaves their pet squirrel in a drunken haze, is he culpable for the painful squeals of the innocent rodent? He couldn’t have done otherwise in his stupor, but then he could’ve chosen not to drink to begin with. But isn’t his decision to inebriate himself determined by a complex rigamarole of social factors beyond his control that shaped his personality and hence his choices?. It is here that we encounter the principle of alternate possibilities again.  A deterministic world would then render the concepts of praise and sin utterly meaningless.
+
+### Why Though, Do Notions Of Praise And Sin Exist?
+
+A common answer to this question is the idea of positive and negative reinforcement -- the same principles employed while teaching your little sibling to call you the greatest brother in Uttarakhand in exchange for an extra french fry and while educating your pet about the ethics of  not urinating on your favorite Chikorita plush by not acknowledging his goodness as a boy respectively. This is the consequentialist view, the objectively intended consequence being a more ‘moral’ society.
+
+However, we do not ordinarily praise or blame other people because - as a result of engaging in careful deliberation - we have reached the conclusion that it would be in our best interests to do so. Rather, we praise or blame persons as natural and reactive expressions of visceral responses to what we see people do. It is, hence, safe to assert that we do not ordinarily pre-decide on the usefulness of a compliment or a word expressed out of chagrin.
+
+A critique of a world of objectivity sheds more light on the consequences of accepting a deterministic universe .We would still incarcerate murderers and thieves, and we would still sing praises for acts of bravery and philanthropy. But these actions and words would have a different, hollower meaning than they have for us now. Our praises would not be expressions of admiration or esteem; our criticisms would not be expressions of indignation or resentment. Rather, they would be morsels of positive and negative reinforcement meted out in the hopes of altering the character of others in ways best suited to our needs. An act of heroism or of virtue would not inspire us to aim for higher and nobler ideals, nor would it evoke in us a reverence or admiration for its agent. At best we would think it is fortunate that people occasionally do perform acts like these. We would consider how nice it must be for the beneficiaries and decide to encourage similar behaviour. We would not revulse from acts of injustice or cruelty as insults to the human spirit, nor be moved by such acts to reflect with sorrow or bewilderment on the tide of events that can bring persons to stoop so low. Driven by objectivity, we would recognize that the human tendency to perform such heinous acts is undesirable, a problem to be dealt with, like any other, as rationally and efficiently as possible. **It seems then, that in order to embrace determinism, we would not have to do away with the concepts of praise and blame themselves - we would have to alter the attitudes and judgments these practices typically express.** It doesn’t take a lot of effort to realise how this transcends into transforming every human relation into a form that seems far removed from the instinctive arena that makes us feel ‘human’ and which pervades in status quo.
+
+Whether that’s a world we want to live in or not is debatable. This notion becomes concrete when we begin to search for answers to the following question.
+
+### Do Our Affiliations With Either Side Of The Debate Impact How We Behave?
+
+A [fascinating social experiment](https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[6]</sup> was conducted within this paradigm by Kathleen D. Vohs and Jonathan W. Schooler. A group of people (Group A) were made to read anti-free will texts and another Group B were handed pro-free will texts. After this conditioning, the two groups were asked to give a test with the possibility of cheating to score higher and the amount of pilfering was quantified. As observed in the outcome, participants cheated more frequently on a simple arithmetic task after reading an essay that refuted the notion of free will than after reading a neutral one. This correlation persisted in another experiment, in which cheating involved active efforts from the participant. These findings suggested that the loss of accountability by believing in determinism had a marked impact on the actions of these individuals. Determinists were also observed to be [less punitive](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14765562){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[7]</sup> to deviant conduct than staunch proponents of free-will, though some studies claim otherwise.
+
+In another study, Vohs and colleagues measured the extent to which a group of day laborers believed in free will, then examined their performance on the job by looking at their supervisor’s ratings.Those who believed more strongly that they were in control of their own actions showed up on time for work more frequently and were rated by supervisors as more capable. **In fact, belief in free will turned out to be a better predictor of job performance than established measures such as self-professed work ethic.**
+
+Determining culpability for crimes is yet another major arena where the extent of free will involved is brought into the picture. The number of court cases, for example, that use evidence from neuroscience has more than [doubled](http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/tag/nita-farahany/){: style="text-decoration:underline"}<sup>[8]</sup> in the past decade—mostly in the context of defendants arguing that their brain made them do it. And many people are absorbing this message in other contexts, too - at least judging by the number of books and articles purporting to explain “your brain on” everything from music to magic. Determinism, to one degree or another, is gaining popular currency. The skeptics are in ascendance.
+
+### C'est Tou Pareil
+
+Perhaps the truth of it will never be known to us. It is possible that quantum mechanics is the truth and that the universe is neither random, nor deterministic, but probabilistic. Or perhaps reality is exact, and human beings might never access that precious nugget of information.
+
+Knowing that everything one does has already been determined can be scary and reassuring at the same time. Having complete free will is no less terrifying - one is then responsible for all of one’s failures and dysfunctions. In this madness however, a silent observer lurks just out of sight. And there is peace to be found in that stranger.
+
+And that silent stranger, **[is the absence of any meaning,to anything.](http://watchout.iitr.ac.in/2018/04/whither-do-we-go){: style="text-decoration:underline"}**
+
+#### References:
+
+1. [https://www.benbest.com/science/quantum.html](https://www.benbest.com/science/quantum.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4q93/could_you_explain_schr%C3%B6dingers_cat_to_me_li5/](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j4q93/could_you_explain_schr%C3%B6dingers_cat_to_me_li5/){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_hidden-variable_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_hidden-variable_theory){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/frankfurt_cases.html](http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/frankfurt_cases.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf](https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14765562](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14765562){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+1. [http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/tag/nita-farahany/](http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/tag/nita-farahany/){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+#### Further Reading:
+
+- On the implications of Free Will:
+  [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27759547?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents](https://www.jstor.org/stable/27759547?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+- On how the Bell Inequality doesn’t resolve the EPR Paradox:
+  [https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0703192](https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0703192){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+- A fairly simple proof of Bell’s inequality:
+  [https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5214](https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5214){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+- Dostoevsky’s brilliant insight into the human condition, and his interpretation of freedom:
+  [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8578/8578-h/8578-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8578/8578-h/8578-h.htm){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+- Everyone’s favourite philosopher Neitzsche on the philosophy of free will:
+  [https://philarchive.org/archive/RICNOF](https://philarchive.org/archive/RICNOF){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+**Illustration credits:** Shivam Maan, Prakhar Kothari

_posts/2019-06-20-placements-at-iitr.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Bang for the Buck: 2018-19"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: placement_office.jpg
+category: career 
+excerpt: "A batch of around a thousand students enter the quaint premises of IIT Roorkee every year with gleaming eyes, ready to live the IIT dream they toiled for 2-3 years."
+---
+
+A batch of around a thousand students enter the quaint premises of IIT Roorkee every year with gleaming eyes, ready to live the IIT dream they toiled for 2-3 years. Though a melange of different ideas, cultures and personalities; each one of them slogged through the same system and remained confined to the monotony of JEE preparations. But this place opens multiple doors of opportunities that help them discover their unique skills while persevering to find a stable footing in a whirlwind of freedom. 
+
+After completing their degrees at IIT Roorkee, some students choose to go for higher studies, B-schools, civil services, startups, while others (83.55% this year) opt to sit for the placements. The placement season is often considered as the final assessment card of the 4-5 years spent at IIT Roorkee, appropriating ‘machauness’ to the ones with a big fat juicy paycheque. A secure first step towards professional lives, lucrative pay packages and a rigorous preparation process that brings out the best (or worst) of oneself are usually the reasons why students glorify placements throughout their stay at the campus. 
+
+The placement season is spread over two phases and in this analysis Watch Out has included the combined data till May 28, 2019. 
+
+
+## Number Crunching
+
+
+The **first phase** of placements starts from **1st Dec** to **15th Dec** wherein companies come to hire prospective employees in a continuous streak while the second phase starts in **mid-Jan** and continues till **May** with recruiters visiting the campus from time to time. The **second phase** is mainly for universities and coaching institutes and focuses on M.Tech and PhD students seeking for a place in academia.
+
+The placement process for the first phase starts way back around September when companies fly down to give presentations, followed by resume shortlisting, written or online tests and finally the interviews, which commence from December 1. The anxiety is palpable, and one can almost feel it pulling at them in a giddy maelstrom of raging emotions. It is a harrowing time for the final year students at the campus. The TPO organises preparation tests and workshops in partnership with Career Launcher & pariksha.com. These workshops are week-long classes that give a general course on quantitative aptitude and provide tutorial sheets for practice. These are useful for students who are not very inclined towards specialised profiles and are also helpful is ascertaining their relative standing amongst their peers.
+
+We dug into this year’s placement data* and curated the following statistics. Useful trends highlighting aspects of the placement process and patterns regarding the offers made in the **Placement Season 2018-19** also form a part of this Placement Report. 
+
+**Number of Eligible Students ( UG+PG+PhD)** = 1788<br>
+**Number of Students Registered** = 1494<br>
+**Number of PPOs** = 120<br>
+**Number of Offers made (Including PPOs)** = 1090<br>
+**Number of students accepting the offers (including PPOs)** = 1005<br>
+**Number of Companies that recruited** = 318<br>
+
+This year, in total **1021** offers were made on campus across **UG and PG** including **120 PPOs** secured by the students after their pre-final year internships. Like every year, the graphs are high peaking for **circuital branches (EE, CSE, ECE)** in terms of percentage placed as well as the pay packages. **93.52%** of students were placed in the **CSE Department** and **88.85%** in the **ECE Department** while the **Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department (72.58%)** and **Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department (78.53)** also show impressive figures.
+
+*The graphs are interactive. Kindly hover on the graph and click to see the tooltip and labels. 
+
+ <iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/jwH2-yZon/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 750px" scrolling="no" ></iframe>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/MW_9XXgp2/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+A total of **380** companies visited the campus for recruitments , of which **318** recruited.<sup>[1]</sup>
+
+[1] The data on Channel I also contains duplicates which makes the count 304 instead of 279.
+If we consider different profiles or a PPO offered by the same company as an individual count (For Eg: A single company , say Goldman Sachs, offering jobs as Data Analyst, Software Developer and a PPO is counted as 3) this figure then equals to **279**. An additional **39** companies came for the Departmental Placements of the Department of Management Studies. The total number of **unique** companies (some of which give offers in multiple profiles) that recruited from the campus is **262**. 
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/gCPnXW5Lr/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 600px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+<style>
+* {
+  box-sizing: border-box;
+}
+
+/* Create two equal columns that floats next to each other */
+.column {
+  float: left;
+  width: 50%;
+  padding: 10px;
+}
+
+/* Clear floats after the columns */
+.row:after {
+  content: "";
+  display: table;
+  clear: both;
+}
+</style>
+We have tried to simplify the job profiles and roles as follows:
+<div class="row">
+<div class="column">
+1. Business Developer and Analyst<br>
+2. Consultant<br>
+3. Data Analyst<br>
+4. Data Scientist<br>
+5. Design UX/UI<br>
+6. Engineering Analyst<br>
+7. Engineering Core<br>
+8. Finance Analyst<br>
+9. Management Trainee<br>
+10. Operations Manager<br>
+11. Product Manager<br>
+12. Supply Chain Manager<br>
+</div>
+<div class="column">
+13. Quantitative Analyst and Researcher<br>
+14. Software Developer<br>
+15. Technologist<br>
+<ul>
+    <li>Hardware Engineer</li>
+    <li>Technical Staff/Technology Cadre</li>
+    <li>Engineering Trainee</li>
+    <li>Server Engineer</li>
+</ul>
+16. Web Developer<br>
+<ul>
+    <li>Frontend Developers</li>
+    <li>Backend Developers</li>
+    <li>Full Stack Developers</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+This year, IIT Roorkee witnessed **67** companies recruit in **Software Development** whereas for the students interested in **Data Science** (**7** Companies) and **Product Design and Management** (**8** Companies) were hiring. **68** companies recruited the **Core** enthusiasts this season while **47** companies offered **Pre-Placement Offers**. (Refer the pie chart for profile wise company distribution).
+
+The next infographic gives an insight into the kinds of profile offered by the companies and indicates the popularity of Technical and Core profiles with less space for Data Sciences, Consult and Finance.
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/-Mkh3RARy/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+ <iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/k5Wt2afLF/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 850px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+ <iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/6C0-mJs9u/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px"></iframe>
+ 
+ <iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/n6GkGWQfF/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px"></iframe>
+
+Students grind day and night throughout their college lives to get that coveted  Day 1/2/3 jobs that usually guarantees fat pay cheques and fancy profiles. A high paying job is something that everyone fancies even before coming to the campus. This year the overall average CTC turned out to be **14.727 Lakh INR. Microsoft Redmond** and **Uber International** offered the highest paying packages of **INR 1.5 crores** and **INR 1.20 Crores** respectively. App Dynamics, Squarepoint Capital, Uber India, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Mercari were among the other high payers with packages **above 30 Lakh INR**. 
+
+Companies that come to hire for software profiles pay a very substantial remuneration (average of **INR 23.15 Lakhs**) and are awarded an earlier recruitment day whereas core engineering profiles offering an average CTC of **INR 10.19 Lakhs**, have to settle for a later date. Conversely, providing a later slots/date to finance or consult profiles leads to companies reducing their pay figures. This potentially creates a bias which makes students gravitate towards software roles, as seen in the heavy coding culture on campus. The following graphs give detailed information about the CTCs:
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/g5qOETUzj/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px; " scrolling="no" ></iframe>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/k-Pi4NM5Y/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 800px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/62cp8DUI0/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 350px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/EjTFdL_Mz/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px"></iframe>
+
+There seems to be almost negligible difference between the average CTC of Male and Female of the campus. Profile wise, maximum females took jobs in the Core Engineering (31) followed by Software Development (**21**).
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/uycTqHq49/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 500px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://cloud.highcharts.com/embed/L-FpRhjZK/" style="border: 0; width: 800px; height: 650px" scrolling="no"></iframe>
+
+<i> **\*Note**: We have analysed the data on the basis of students placed not the number of offers made by the companies. In case you want to go through the data we used, you can visit **Placement Online** on **Channeli** wherein under the **Extra** Section you will find Branch-wise, Company-Wise and Department-Wise offers made. The data we present here excludes all the duplicate and rejected offers mentioned on the portal. The CTCs used for the analysis along with the profiles were obtained from **Channeli Notice Board**. Due to the unavailability of data of PPOs, we weren’t able to analyse the same in detail. There have been major issues in availing proper data due to lack of provisions and measures in the system to keep a detailed record. We have tried our best to provide as authentic trends as possible. In case you find any discrepancy, feel free to write to us.</i>
+
+
+## Bridging The Gap
+The Placements 2018-19 fared well for the students with a total of **1005** students **accepting** the offers. The lack of diversity and variety of job profiles during placement season has been pointed out since long, TPO claims that as compared to last year, this time many new companies visited for Finance (**8 companies**), Quantitative Research and Analyst roles (**3 companies**), but still, the number of students placed in these profiles are very low (**33 and 8 respectively**). Google, JP Morgan, AQR Capital, Appdynamics, Sprinklr, Squarepoint Capital, Udaan and Fractal Analytics were a few top names that recruited for the first time from our campus.
+
+
+The campus culture lets the students explore a wide range of career options and provide space to every individual to evolve in his own way. Apart from coding and software development, the enthusiasm for Finance, Consultancy, Operations, Data Science, Marketing, UX/UI Design, Product Management and Design profiles has increased significantly. But at the approach of the placement season, the lack of companies in the desired sector and proper profiles lead to a major disappointment (See the Profile-Wise Companies Distribution Graph and Profile-Wise Students Placed Graph). 
+
+On-campus placements definitely have an edge in comparison to off-campus placements due to a straightforward, transparent and simplified process. The tasks of emailing and approaching the company are done by the TPO and most of the major firms recruit through campus placements. But students interested in other profiles, due to lack of offers, choose to dive into the chaotic rigamarole of off-campus placements by a variety of methods, approaching their alumni networks or crawling through LinkedIn, to give an example. In these matters, the TPO needs to take concrete steps to accommodate the needs of the students. The TPO has the sole power and authority to approach the companies, talk to the HRs and negotiate the hiring date and offers. Big firms and reputed brands fight over earlier slots and provide fairly high enumeration only when given the slot of higher priority. This year, certain firms like Bain, Rivigo, Schlumberger, I3C, to name a few did not come for hiring even after taking the test and shortlisting the candidates. When given a lower priority, reputed firms either refuse from recruiting or reduce their pay packages. In the end, it is the student community that suffers.
+
+With the establishment of specialised campus groups like Design Studio, Finance Club and Data Science Group, it is quite clear that the student community is striving to build a decadent culture in various fields. The TPO will have the full support of the student community in approaching reputed names in these fields and hence it's prudent to make attempts at fostering better and healthier relations with companies that still give Roorkee a cold shoulder.
+
+Indubitably, the placements are an important stepping stone for the next phase of a student’s life. Despite all the factors, one must also understand that the entire process is also has a degree of subjectivity. On D-Day, you could lose your nerve in front of the recruiter, or something on your resume might interest someone from the panel, or, you might have to miss out on an interview because your slots clash, or you might even get a chance to give a walk-in interview. If you look at the bigger picture, even though a job offer might seem like a metric to measure how successful your college life has been, it isn’t the only mark of your skills and abilities.
+
+There are many things the junta needs to know about the workings of the TPO, like the workings of the current system and the problems students face during the raucous of placements and internships. Watch Out will address this need for information dissemination through an article on the TPO soon and we’ll also try to find possible resolutions to the issues that we faced due to lack of data for the coming years.
+
+Until then, we hope this serves as a helpful reference for the next batch of students heading towards the placement season. 
+  
+

_posts/2019-06-21-memoir-rainbow.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir: Roorkee and Rainbows"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: rainbow_rk.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Anonymous"
+excerpt: "A small acceptance could make someone’s life. For not every closet is Narnia. "
+---
+
+For the few thousands from a set of 12 lakh that do end up getting into an IIT, it seems like a dream come true. A culmination of hard work, efforts, time and money, with the hopes of a bright settled future. But if you’re like me and belong to the small non-heterosexual male minority, things may get bleak for you, soon and fast.
+
+If the rampant “kya gay hai ” and other homophobic remarks don’t push you deep inside your closet, the casual bigotry prevalent across sure will. The truth is, with all the conversation flowing around the scrapping of Article 377, the people on campus are kind of accepting(?) the fact that LGBTQ+ people (might actually) exist and so now, most guys think they have to prove their own and question others’ “straightness” all the time, lest they turn out to be one. Cultivating a despicable atmosphere of hyper-heterosexuality and toxic masculinity. 
+
+(Not that I’m complaining. After all, watching guys flex their muscles trying to prove their manliness is supposed to be my labour of love, right?)
+
+8th September 2017. The day I finally came out to myself. A day people usually associate with feelings of liberation, glee or being epiphanous. Not me though, for it was a day when everything I believed in was shattered. A day that plummeted me into a cyclone of self-doubt and denial.
+
+The days leading up to it were some of the most trying days of my life, I suffered from major bouts of anxiety, depression and self-identity crisis. I felt like I was trapped in a YouTube video running at 2x when all I could manage was 0.75. Everything was changing so fast and rushing past me in an indecipherable blur. So I ended up doing what I always was good at, shutting myself out. I started ignoring plans, stopped meeting friends, missed lectures and fucked up my academics and submissions until one day I couldn’t take it any longer. I locked myself in my room and finally screamed out loud- “I AM NOT STRAIGHT”, a small voice at the back of my mind was ready to taunt me with “Took you long enough”.  
+
+It was stupid of me to believe the churning thoughts would suddenly stop, though. Because the aftermath wasn’t pretty either. Still having no idea what to do apart from probably loathe myself more for existing, I did the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I came out to my straight best friend, who also happened to be my first guy crush (and accidentally also to my mom, who read said message and freaked out, but that’s a story for another day). Surprisingly he took it well and although I was still as clueless as before, this acceptance was the tipping point for me.
+
+What ensued was a series of coming-out messages to close friends where the OCD me crafted each one uniquely and made a list of people I came out to (or LOPICOT as I call it), followed various subreddits, devoured articles, forums and tried a few dating apps( wouldn’t recommend unless you want PTSD in your initial acceptance path). 
+Every positive and encouraging response pouring in emboldened me to be more sure about who I was and I realised that a strong support system in the form of close friends, is what actually channels this entire process of self-discovery and acceptance. 
+
+
+And I’m not saying every person in your life will embrace you with open arms and warm hugs, I’ve had my share of stone cold silences and metaphoric shut doors. But branding every person who doesn’t accept you immediately as homophobic makes you no different from them. Give them time, if they come around, well and good, if they still don’t, move on. You’re probably better of without them.And once you have reached that magical number of acceptances, you’ll get comfortable and confident enough to notice that you’ve run out of fucks to give to the fear of exposure. 
+
+Because in my time at Roorkee, I’ve realised that homophobes are as much a minority as those of us belonging to the community. A large chunk of the predominant straight junta remains clueless, unaware, or believe it to be of no concern of theirs, till this day. These are the people who get carried away by the wave of casual homophobia and sexism in the name of fitting in and this is the perfect demographic that any campus group willing should target for sensitization.
+
+So, if you’re still reading and are a fellow member of the community: Hang on, things do get better. You’ll find who you truly are eventually and be able to proclaim it proudly to the world. Just take the first step and come out to someone you’re close to. 
+If you’re a nonchalant and unaware person: Look out, someone might be reaching out to you and not always through words. We sure don’t bite if a helping hand is given.
+If you’re a homophobe: The times are a changing and we’re coming for you, riding our unicorns, rainbow swords blazing. 
+
+A small acceptance could make someone’s life. 
+
+For not every closet is Narnia. 
+
+
+PS: You can call me a hypocrite for being anonymous here, although I wouldn’t mind screaming it from the top of the Main Building for all I care. It’s just me taking care of the small minority of homophobes. I know we must be damn scary for you to have a phobia of us. 
+
+TL;DR: I, a non-heterosexual male from IIT Roorkee eventually turned out to be just fine. 

_posts/2019-06-22-young-india-fellowship.md

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "The Young India Fellowship (YIF)"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: yjf.jpg
+author: Rochisha Agarwal
+category: career 
+excerpt: "The Young India Fellowship (YIF), is one of the most sought-after programmes in India, conducted over a year,  at Ashoka University.   It is a one year multi-disciplinary post graduate in Liberal Arts (courses from humanities, commerce as well as science)."
+---
+
+The Young India Fellowship (YIF), is one of the most sought-after programmes in India, conducted over a year,  at Ashoka University.   It is a one year multi-disciplinary post graduate in Liberal Arts (courses from humanities, commerce as well as science). This seven year old program aims to arm and furnish well-rounded individuals with critical thinking, leadership abilities and an inclination to serve the public.
+
+
+**Ashoka University**
+
+Ashoka University is a private university, focussing primarily on research, located in Sonipat, Haryana. Ashoka University emphasises more on liberal learning, as opposed to conventional rote memorization prevalent across the rest of the country. It's recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and is listed amongst the top ten universities in India.
+
+
+**About YIF**
+<br>
+*“The biggest takeaway from being part of the Ashoka community is the network. The professors here are the best in the whole country.”*
+
+
+<div align="right">-Rounak Banik, IITR alumni and a YIF fellow.</div>
+<br>
+
+YIF’s eminent and enviable faculty exposes the fellows to a plethora of concepts and cultures, and opens many metaphorical doors in their lives.  Guest lectures and workshops happen frequently and witness global achievers like Shashi Tharoor, Raghuram Rajan and Nandan Nilekani. The fellows get to engage with these esteemed individuals, who can then provide assistance in the future.
+
+The courses offered here range from Foundation of Leadership, and Philosophy and Cognitive Science, to Mathematical Thinking, Shakespeare and the World and a humongous array of other diverse courses . The course structure comprises of 8 semesters in a year, with each semester consisting of 2-3 courses. Due to this heavy curriculum, YIF can be very hectic for many, but for engineers a hectic schedule is an everyday story. Courses are evenly divided, in that roughly half of them are core or compulsory, and the rest are elective courses. As we’ve mentioned already, the range of topics covered is ginormous, and hence the existence of a large number of diverse electives helps students specialise/get acquainted with fields previously unknown to them.
+
+There are two compulsory programs at YIF which run almost the whole year:
+
+
+**Experiential Learning Module, ELM,** is a core component of the fellowship which runs for eight months. It complements academics with real work experience. Fellows work on live projects for different organisations and individuals representing multiple sectors. It consists more of NGO work, with less stress on the corporate side.
+
+[https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-profdev-133](https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-profdev-133){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+
+**The YIF Critical Writing Programme** aims to help the fellows develop a ‘critical thinking’ approach towards most problems they face personally and professionally, which enables the fellows to write and express their views in an elegant and captivating manner. To ensure that the students receive the best guidance, the fellows are segregated into groups of about 15 students each. Each group is assigned its own ‘Writing Perceptor’, who not only educates children about the root values of critical thinking, reading and writing, but also imparts a personal touch to each and every group.
+
+[https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-writing-134](https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-writing-134){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+<br>
+
+*“Here at YIF I learn more from peers than anything, the diversity we are exposed to at times pushes us towards unexplored imaginations”*
+
+<div align="right">– Nikhil Tripathi YIF fellow.</div> 
+<br>
+
+The fellows at YIF are from varied disciplines and backgrounds, including design, business, engineering, literature, law and much more. Engineers make up roughly 30% of the student body.
+Such a diverse environment pushes the fellows to acquire essential skills needed for research, problem-solving and effective communication - all essentials for a successful professional life.
+
+
+**Application Process**
+
+Your application at the YIF is the most crucial part, which includes your profile, your necessary academic records ( 10th and 12th plus graduation), employment/ internship details, extracurriculars, essays which are related to your field (of graduation or postgrad), and referee details (LORs etc). If you’re selected, this is followed by a telephonic interview.
+
+Upon clearing that, you have an in-person interview at the end, which is held at Ashoka University itself. The interviews are based on your application and your discipline, and hence are different for everyone. It's easy to crack this strenuous application process, if you remain genuine and lucid in the essays and interviews. The IIT tag is also a very big boost to your application.
+
+[https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-admissions-41](https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-admissions-41){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+[https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-selection-138](https://www.ashoka.edu.in/page/yif-selection-138){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
+
+
+**After YIF**
+
+YIF opens up great sets of opportunities and helps the fellows get into the best universities across the world like University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University and Yale University. The fellows usually do their masters from such top-notch institutions. YIF was not set up with the objective of creating insane placement opportunities - their vision is to enhance your social skills. Readers are advised to keep in mind that the program cannot possibly serve as an alternative to MBA. The in-campus placements are pretty poor when compared to IITs, but most people are able to secure a good off-campus placement owing to the skills and network that YIF gifted them with. YIF has helped alumnis become successful entrepreneurs, social workers, leaders : people who leave an impact on society.  
+
+It is a great program if you’re inclined towards Humanities and Social Sciences. You can use your year at YIF to significantly expand your skill-set and also reflect on what you’d eventually want to do with your life.

_posts/2019-06-27-online-food.md

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Food, Blackmail and Uneasy Body Cavities: An unexpected movement on the rise in R"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: phekingnews
+image: delivery_boi.png
+author:  Mohit Sharma, Murtaza Bookwaala, Divyam Goel
+excerpt: "The first few weeks in R-land often tend to be overwhelming. In these days of ecstasy, the “quality” of mess food is quite easy to overlook."
+---
+
+The first few weeks in R-land often tend to be overwhelming. In these days of ecstasy, the “quality” of mess food is quite easy to overlook. But after the three days it takes for the euphoria to wear out, it becomes increasingly clear with each passing day that sustaining oneself exclusively off the mess food is a daunting task, to say the least. Rumour has it that the delicacies served in RJB tend to depreciate further in flavour as time passes but the credibility of such statements remains dubious.  While the canteens and eateries around the campus provide viable alternatives, most of them either lack the satisfaction of a full meal or aren’t cheap enough to not offset your budget.
+
+Given these circumstances, food delivery services like Zomato and Swiggy, in addition to being a suspiciously convenient way to smuggle *stuff* into the campus, are also an imperative facility for blokes that want a cheap satisfying meal from time to time but feel like a 10 minute walk to the campus gate is too much work.
+
+However, all such wet dreams were shattered when the administration issued an ordinance restricting the entry of delivery *bois* into the campus. With this tyrannical precept in place, Bhawan residents now have to travel all the way to a campus gate(which may or may not be the one closest to their humble abode) to collect their order on a scorching sunday afternoon.
+
+A GB dweller was quoted saying
+
+**“This is the worst thing to happen to the Campus since the Lipstick brouhaha of 2010”**
+
+But underneath all the dissent and general dysphoria surrounding this decision, lie the makings of a what can only be described as a nefarious smuggling syndicate of sorts constituted by food delivery services as a means of retaliation. As Watch Out decided to probe further into this, we discovered something much more sinister than what we initially expected.
+
+It seems that in order to meet the expectations of IITR students - their primary source of revenue in Roorkee -The food delivery consortium has decided to collude with insiders, i.e, fellow students of yours, to establish what is now being called Guide to Groceries, or GTG for Short.
+
+GTG is an underground network of campus mules that have been coaxed,bribed,blackmailed or voodooed by these capitalistic food transporting conglomerates into doing their dirty work, i.e, peddling the deliverables from campus gates to bhawans for the convenience of  previously dissatisfied folks.
+
+Though they tend to be extremely secretive and suspiciously loyal towards the syndicate, WatchOut managed to get in contact with one of these “victims” and arrange a brief interview under the stipulation that their name be kept a secret.
+
+**Enthusiastic WONA reporter** : So How exactly were you strategmed into becoming a nutrition mule for the armada of vespas with swollen behinds?
+
+**Trapped kid**: It all started with a seemingly innocuous text that I got, offering an internship with one of the aforementioned firms. My chances of landing an intern had been extremely slim at that point and it seemed like something I couldn’t afford to miss. So I put aside my bong and texted back with a ‘Y’. It was a downward spiral from that point on, and I can’t really pinpoint what my breaking point was. Maybe it was when I realized that the employee-special app they had me install on my devices was actually a keylogger…or maybe it was the first time they asked me to shove a packet up a place that’s only meant to be treated nicely, but at this point, it doesn’t really matter. The workload’s light enough and the money’s decent.
+
+![First Contact](/images/posts/food_chat.png){: style="width: 80%;"}
+<div align="center"><b>The First Contact<br>
+ (as described by our anonymous source) </b></div>
+
+<br><br>
+
+**Slightly worried WONA reporter** : Does that mean you’re content with what you’re doing? Do you not feel duped by these evil malefactors?
+
+**Trapped(?) kid**: Not really, and I wouldn’t really call them evil. My boss is an ass, yes, but is that really such a shocker? I also have to tolerate a mild lingering discomfort in the region where my legs meet, but it’s something I can live with.
+
+*The interview then came to an ill-timed end as the kid had to leave for picking up another order. “Got to Go. Duty Calls” were his final words as he walked away.*
+
+*Watch Out therefore concluded that the administrators of GTG have managed to condition their victims beyond recognition, making them believe they actually liked doing their dirty work. We therefore decided to dig deeper into  what tactics had been deployed to achieve this level of behavioral conditioning. Research however, came to a standstill after our theories about mind control started to seem unreasonable, leaving us with only one option, contacting an insider to get a look at this situation from the other side.*
+
+**WONA:** Tell us something about your job
+
+**Delivery Boi**: Well, delivering food is our main job. Though we provide service to all of Roorkee, IITR is the prime hotspot. We get a lot of delivery requests throughout the day. and the thing is, to get a bonus, we need to minimize the number of rejects. And honestly speaking, considering all the hype around IIT, people here are not very bright. Once a girl from KB asked me on the spot, to alter her order. Part of my daily routine is dealing with these whippersnappers who apparently don’t understand the concept of “no cancellations” trying to cancel or worse, alter their order after I’ve been waiting a good ten minutes for them to collect it. It can sometimes be quite hard to contain myself and stop the altercation from turning into a fistfight. On top of that, these blokes aren’t generous,either. They just keep asking for “IIT Discount”. And that is after the 50% discount they already have. Sometimes they order food from the same restaurant they are sitting in. And don’t even get me started on how lazy they are. It was not enough to get food up to their bhawan gates. Now they want it up to their rooms, shoved up their….
+
+**WONA:** Alright, alright. We get that you are fed up with your job. And now there are more reasons for that. You aren't allowed to enter the campus now. What's all that about?
+
+**Delivery Boi**: Ah well, I don't know. Maybe peeps at the admin wing thought that students were skipping mess too often or something like that. So they invalidated our ID cards which are necessary to get entry into campus. Now those brats need to come up to the college gates to get food, which leads to more rejected orders. And that’s taken its toll on the job ie. delivering food and you know, stuff. (He said this followed by a series of eerie and visibly awkward winks)
+
+**What stuff?**
+Well, you can say it is food too. Sustenance of the soul, and if I may, it's better than the normal food and it takes us to places. It's like...
+
+**Lubricous WONA reporter**  : And where do you get this sustenance of soul?
+
+*This question was asked solely for research purposes and the answer is to remain undisclosed until the interviewer’s wake from a deep slumber they fell into shortly after the interview concluded.
+
+A Vice-style dive into this rabbit hole, among other worrying revelations, shows how alarmingly easy it is to influence students of R into doing stuff that’s less than virtuous. Estimates suggest as many as 70 students - give or take one - are currently trapped in this vortex. It could be your classmates, your roommate or even you. If you happen to know/suspect anyone stuck in this nefarious business, feel free to reach out at [iamamulepleasehelpme@gmail.com](mailto:iamamulepleasehelpme@gmail.com){: style="text-decoration:underline"}. Your speaking up could save someone’s career or more. Just know that sometimes it takes more courage to ask for help than to act alone but it’s always worth it. The only mistake you can make is to not reach out.
+
+**Illustration credits:** Sudhang Varshney and Ritik Mathur

_posts/2019-07-01-national-abu-robocon.md

@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "National ABU Robocon’19"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: robocon_final.jpg
+author:
+excerpt: "The ABU Robocon is an annual Asian-Oceanian college competition, where robots are pitted against each other to perform complicated tasks in limited time. The competition was started in 2002 by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and is one of the most popular events among collegiate students interested in Robotics."
+---
+
+
+*The ABU Robocon is an annual Asian-Oceanian college competition, where robots are pitted against each other to perform complicated tasks in limited time. The competition was started in 2002 by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and is one of the most popular events among collegiate students interested in Robotics.* 
+
+*Each country is represented by a single team, and for this purpose, national college teams fight it out in the National ABU Robocon, India and the winning team competes in the international championship. Team Robocon IITR started off as a group of a few robot enthusiasts 10 years ago, and has now evolved into a full fledged hardworking campus group that aims to win this national competition, and represent India on the international platform.* 
+
+*WatchOut! decided to interview the Team Leader of Team Robocon, Bhavya Goswami, to find out various details of the competition, and to obtain a first-hand account of their experience on the national stage this year.*  
+
+**1. What are the different stages of the tournament? What stage did you finish at?**
+
+Till 2018, the competition used to have only a single stage which included the Prelims followed by League Matches among top 24 teams with 2 matches per team in both of them, followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.
+
+But this year, the structuring of the tournament was revised. This time the tournament consisted of 3 stages : 1) *Design documentation* – In this we had to submit proper documentation of our robot which consisted of its mechanical design, electronics, strategies, prototypes, and alternate designs; 2) *Working Video* – In this we had to send them a proper detailed video showing them the working of the robot as mentioned in the stage-1 documents; 3) *The competition* which included prelims, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals. 
+
+In the prelims, each team gets to play two matches. It doesn’t matter who your opponent is, since this round is not about finishing the problem statement. This round is all about collecting the maximum number of points. The top 8 teams go through to the quarterfinals. Here the matches are all knockouts and the match comes to a halt the minute one of the two teams finishes the problem statement. 
+
+We finished 6th overall, and won the <span style="text-decoration:underline">*‘Judges Special Award’*</span> and <span style="text-decoration:underline">*‘Quarter finalist award’*</span>.
+
+**2. What was the format of the matches, as in was it a multiplayer competition or did it consist of one on one matches?**
+
+The competition consisted of only one on one matches. It was just like a duel between two warriors in a grand arena, the only difference being not actually fighting with each other, but  completing the problem statement as quickly as possible.
+
+
+
+**3. What were the parameters of judging? Were there some tests or requirements to be fulfilled?**
+
+Each year, a different country in the Asia Pacific region gives a unique, completely new problem statement with new sets of rules and constraints. As per each problem statement, we have to make a specified number of robots (generally two) from scratch. These robots need to complement each other to complete certain tasks in less than 3 minutes. Also, yes there are always a lot of requirements which need to be fulfilled like weight, dimensions, pressure and stuff with lots of rules and constraints.
+
+**4. Was there any theme or template for the competition? If yes,what was it and how did you prepare for it?**
+
+Yes, each year the problem statement is based on a certain theme. This year the theme was *Great Urtuu* which means sharing of knowledge in Mongolian. According to this theme, we had to make a wheeled manual robot and a fully automatic Quadruped robot. They both needed to coordinate with each other to manipulate various objects and navigate in the game field, in the most efficient way possible. 
+
+The quadruped robot had to climb on obstacles like ropes, boxes, slopes on its own. It was really a challenging task. Even top universities and institutes haven't been able to design it yet and most of them are completely unfamiliar with the concept.
+
+**5. How did you prepare for the competition this time around? What all efforts were put in by the team members?**
+
+Generally, we start working even before the announcement of the problem statement. We familiarise ourselves with the latest advances in electronics, sensors, navigation, simulations, and we design and develop various *mecha-tronic* modules which can be used in our problem statement. After the announcement of the problem statement, we brainstorm to choose the most efficient course of action and then work accordingly. We create multiple prototypes, then select the one which is most well equipped to handle the given problem.
+
+
+After joining IITR, this was the process which redefined innovation for me. It is really fulfilling when you can create something from your imagination and it is a feeling that can’t be expressed. We first ideate the whole model, and subsequently put in a lot of effort actually building it, and it  shows in the way the robot works.
+
+
+The efforts that our team puts in the robots we create each year are incomparable. We sacrifice a lot of stuff, including our academics, sleep, friends, relationships and much more, just to make the best robot in the country. Those efforts cannot be expressed in words here.
+
+**6. What has been the history of Robocon in IITR? What have been our achievements in the past?**
+
+Robocon IITR was started by a group of 3-4 friends with great enthusiasm for robotics in 2009. They participated by chipping in their own pocket money and eventually won the Best Debut Award. Even though they lacked the resources, they completed the tasks on their own. I’ve even heard stories that our seniors were so resourceful that once they wrapped the rubber rim of pressure cookers on wooden circular slabs to make traction wheels. Then over the years as the interest in robotics increased in our campus, our team progressed. So much that we won the Best Aesthetic Award along with the 5th rank in 2014 as well as in 2016. Last year we secured the 7th rank along with Best Innovative Design Award and this year we achieved 6th rank with Judges Special Award and Quarter-Finalist Award. We are still connected with all our alumni and founding members and they keep motivating us and help us to win the competition with the same enthusiasm.
+
+
+**7. Tell us about your robot. Its architecture, the essential technology etc?**
+
+Our manual robot had a three-wheel Omni drive for holonomic movements and grippers for completing the task. These were amalgamated with various sensors like encoders, ultrasonic distance sensor, pressure sensors, gyroscope sensor, etc and various actuators like motors, pneumatics and servos. We used various equipments from Tinkering Lab like lathe, 3D printers, PCB etching machine, drills, welding machine and various assorted tools to manufacture the different parts. 
+
+We designed two automatic robots- link based and 3 axes linear movement based, both are one of a kind in our institute.
+
+**8. What challenges does a venue present? How was IIT-D, as a host for the competition?**
+
+IIT Delhi really surprised us as a host. They made a few controversial decisions like delaying the competition, reducing the number of teams in the competition and rejecting teams after they had constructed their robots. But these decisions were based on an analysis of events from previous years and so the conducting team stood by them, despite the backlash from Robocon community.
+
+As there were lesser teams this time around, it was a lot easier for them to manage everything, and also more enjoyable for us. Transportation services too, were provided round the clock, which made the commute much easier from last time around. Each member was provided a different room for their stay. Arrangement for food too, was a lot better than last time. The management was such that these trivial things did not interfere with our preparations like they usually do. Efforts were taken so that each team got proper practice slots before tournaments and knockout matches. Getting these practice slots was a huge headache last time around.
+IIT Delhi also took a bold decision of straying from tradition and not allowing any team to stay in the pit area from 11 pm to 8 am. Though many people disliked this decision and opposed it, I think it helped us to strategize and get a good night's sleep.
+
+ During the last two practice slots, our robots didn't do well which left us disheartened. Even the senior members of the team couldn't concentrate, and we couldn’t practice at night due to new regulations but we somehow gathered ourselves, motivated the team and told them to get over it and just go to sleep. And the next day our robots worked just fine. We were the first team to complete the problem statement in the tournament and finished 2nd at the points table in the prelims. I think it was due to the new rules that we could put up such a performance.
+
+There were some snags too. Due to smaller arenas, our alumni, who came from far away couldn’t see the event live. Overall, the hosts did a fine job in upgrading the quality of the event. Their efficiency in managing the event helped us to concentrate on the matters that were most important, rather than worrying about food and stuff.
+
+**9. Were there any particular challenges you faced ? How well did you tackle such situations during the competition?**
+
+Our team's timeline used to be broadly fixed each year but this year we had some problems as the competition was delayed. At the time of documentation we were writing our initial ideas whereas we should’ve completely fabricated our robots and started practising. Not surprisingly, at this stage we grabbed one of the lower ranks. Our inability to explain our project to authorities was an eye opener. For video submission we planned to take help from CineSec, but that didn’t pan out, as they were busy. So we did it ourselves and created a video. It was so good that we got 98 marks out of 100 and that brought us in the top 8 teams .
+
+The third stage was the culmination of all that we had done and hence was more difficult than the first two. It is really tricky to go past the prelims, in to the knockout. So we prepared for the final stage from the start.
+
+The final stage experience was full of highs and lows. It was a one day event with two practice
+days before it for the teams to practice. During practice we tested, improved and calibrated our robots properly. Initially, we did well in the practice slots, but in the later stages we started making mistakes, and the robots malfunctioned. The pressure of the situation was really high. There was an issue with our robot and it was a time crunch situation, but we successfully overcame it. For completing the task and reaching the quarterfinals, we had to get 100 points and cross a *Sand Dune*. Very few teams before us could manage it. But we crossed the dune and secured 100 points. Our strategy this time was to go for the completion of the problem but as a contingency plan we knew completing only one part would get us through. As it turned out, the team did amazingly well and completed each part.
+
+We were all amazed. It was our high point of the tournament and the team was really confident. We finished 2nd in the top 8 teams for the quarterfinals, and our match was against the *Government College of Engineering, Awsari*. And though we were ahead most of the time, we failed at throwing a thing called *Shegai* twice. Taking nothing away from the opposing team, we really were quite unlucky in that match. It took us some time to accept what had happened. You can watch the match on Youtube. Although we were ahead most of the time, it was just the last 10 seconds when we lost the match. It took some time to sink in. Many team members couldn't help but cry, and the whole arena watched in stunned silence. Later on the Judges Special Award was a bit of  a consolation.
+
+**10. Apart from this competition, what other events and projects do you engage in? How does that  help in preparation of the final goal and how does that help in further research?**
+
+ We don’t participate in other competitions or events because Robocon alone is one heck of a competition if you’re preparing it for seriously and with the intention of winning. But yes, we do a lot of projects and research in our workshop. We always work to improve our mistakes and learn about things which can help us with the next problem statement. These research projects help us in developing better robots.
+
+
+
+**11. How do you guys start working on a project? How do you think of the design and abilities of a robot and how do you proceed on it? After the conclusion of any year’s competition, when do you start preparing for the next one?**
+
+We have a certain idea phase in which all the team members think independently and come up with some random ideas. We discuss those ideas and then decide how to prototype them. Sometimes we do a literature review to increase our technical knowledge in certain aspects. We design various mechanisms, simulate them, then fabricate and then test them, and finally choose the best one to incorporate it in our robot. Generally we start working on the next problem statement just one month after the completion of the previous one.
+
+
+
+**12. Would you like to comment on your result this year? What were you aiming for and how much could you realize?**
+
+ We aimed at making the best robot in the tournament and winning the competition. We, as a team, have the caliber and technical knowledge to win the tournament. We are making technical advancements at a very rapid pace and this is evident from the last few performances. We have entered the knockout stages in 3 of the last four outings. It's just that we are not able to get over the ‘forsaken’ quarterfinal line somehow. We keep losing in the quarter finals and almost every time it is the small things that cost us the tournament. We as a team, have always covered all the big things properly, but we’ve failed at executing certain small things at crucial moments.
+
+In the last couple of years, our robot designs and performances have been better than various Robocon giants like MIT Pune, VIER and COEP Pune. This year too, only three teams in total were able to complete the problem statement and we were one of them.
+
+These are good results but we want to be the best team in the tournament. It’s not going to be easy, but we are confident that we will be able to achieve our dream soon.
+
+**13. What all changes and improvements do you wish to make next time around?**
+
+First of all we need to analyse the situation thoroughly. Find out exactly why we don’t qualify for the semis. I think we need to improve our practice methods.  I saw the practice slots of other good teams, and they are quite organised and everyone seems to know their business. There is no unnecessary shouting or confusion. We on the other hand plan our practice slots in the competition and it is really unfair to ask the operators to behave exactly in the way we need. This has been the main problem. We waste a lot of crucial time in practice slots and we need to make ourselves better at that. We need to simulate time crunches and pressure situations so that we can prepare for realistic competition conditions. There are certain other things as well, and the team will properly acknowledge them in the team meeting next semester.
+
+**14. This year, the events of Robocon were delayed significantly. What challenges did this predicament put before you? How much did it affect the proceedings of this year’s preparations and how will it affect your next season's schedule?**
+
+This year’s competition was delayed significantly. One of the biggest problems that we
+faced this year was that the people from third year (the year which leads the team) had to go for their internships. Though the competition is important, career decisions quite obviously matter more and hence they had to prioritise their internships. Hence our team was left with a weakened leadership. And though the sophomores are technically sound, they aren't adept at the decision making process. We did communicate with our seniors online, but the effect wasn't the same. Also, the delay in the competitions disturbed our mindset and this affected our plans. 
+But we can't use that as an excuse as it was the same for other teams too.
+
+Also, we couldn't start our summer training program on time. So now we need to be proactive and make use of the time that is left judiciously. I am sure that the next leader will definitely take that into account and act accordingly.
+
+**15. <b>Well, we’re definitely proud of your performance on the national stage! Any concluding remarks?</b>** 
+
+Thank you. 
+
+The thing is that we do not have a decent marketing team so there is no way in which we can communicate our thoughts or reach out to the people of the institute in an effective way. We have a Robocon IITR page (do follow it if you are interested) but that is not enough. I want to thank WatchOut! for giving us this opportunity to express ourselves. I would like to use this opportunity and tell the IITR junta that robocon is not just a technical project. It's competitive robotics - it’s like a sport. It develops character. You will learn a lot of engineering here but you will also learn human skills that cannot be taught in a classroom. You will learn to stay calm and make decisions in the most pressing situations. You will learn to accept defeat after putting in a year of hard work. Though it seems a bit scary at first, this is something that makes you an adept and well-rounded human being. 
+
+Technical knowledge is what we all crave to get after getting into an institute like this. I know many of the young minds dream of making something work and not just formulate a principle on paper. And this is what we do. We realize the designs of our imagination and make it work at whatever cost, and you will learn that this cost is not just technical expertise. 
+
+
+And to all the fans of Team Robocon IITR (whatever small bunch of fans we have), thank you for supporting us and don't worry, we are getting there. You will soon see Team Robocon IIT Roorkee representing India at the international platform!
+

_posts/2019-07-04-gender-and-sexuality.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Gender and Sexuality"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Sudhang Varshney, Manya, Saurav Mahale"
+image: gender-sexuality-survey.jpeg
+category: editorial
+excerpt: "With the recent dissolution of Article 377, the LGBTQ movement has been gaining momentum nationally and this provided Watch Out! with an impetus to appraise the climate of the campus with respect to gender sensitisation and awareness about gender and sexuality."
+---
+
+<div class="infogram-embed gender-sexuality-infogram" data-id="f3e598bc-ec1a-48f9-a571-6af502904126" data-type="interactive" data-title="Copy: Gender and Sexuality Survey-copy"></div><script>!function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement("script");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");</script><div style="padding:8px 0;font-family:Arial!important;font-size:13px!important;line-height:15px!important;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #dadada;margin:0 30px"><a href="https://infogram.com/f3e598bc-ec1a-48f9-a571-6af502904126" style="color:#989898!important;text-decoration:none!important;" target="_blank">Gender and Sexuality Survey</a><br><a href="https://infogram.com" style="color:#989898!important;text-decoration:none!important;" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Infogram</a></div>
+
+***
+
+**Illustration credits:** [http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/programs/wgs/](http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/programs/wgs/){: style="text-decoration:underline"}

_posts/2019-07-11-memoir-mohan.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "A Memoir"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: mohan-memoir.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Mohan Agrawal"
+excerpt: "Closure is a made up thing invented by Steven Speilberg to sell movie tickets."
+---
+
+<a href="/MohanMemoir.pdf" style="text-align: center"><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-block btn-lg">Click here to read the memoir</button></a>

_posts/2019-07-15-summer-diaries-amex.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: American Express"
+image: amex1.jpg
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Manan Jain"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: "During my first 2 years, I had worked on various webD projects as a member of SDSLabs. I also got to explore software development as a GSoC intern right after my 2nd year. So when American Express arrived looking for ‘Software Engineer’, I decided to sit for the test."
+---
+
+> During my first 2 years, I had worked on various webD projects as a member of SDSLabs. I also got to explore software development as a GSoC intern right after my 2nd year. So when American Express arrived looking for ‘Software Engineer’, I decided to sit for the test.
+> AmEx was one of the earliest companies that came to offer summer internships to pre-final year students. 
+
+## Making it there
+
+Students from all the branches are eligible to sit for the test. A part of the reason I ended up choosing AmEx was my branch (Chemical). Although I am not aware of the exact cut-off, a CGPA > 7.5 should be fine.
+
+**Online Round:** <br>
+This round comprised of 20 MCQ questions which were to be solved in 35 minutes. You don’t really need to prepare for it as the questions were doable and tested basic Mathematical Aptitude, Data Interpretation and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Just ensure that you don’t commit silly mistakes in this particular section as there is a strict cut-off. Around 15 people were shortlisted for the next round. 
+
+**Technical Round:** <br>
+It began with me giving a brief description of myself (which was the most uncomfortable, if not the toughest, part of the process). Thereafter, the discussion revolved around the projects I had done. I was asked to explain the logical aspect and the architecture of a couple of them. I was also asked about the improvements that can be made to them at a superficial level. 
+It was followed by questions pertaining to Probability and Statistics. The round concluded with a prolonged discussion on the practical application of Statistics to real-world problems.
+
+The idea behind this round is to analyze your ability to understand a problem and then propose a way to solve it. In my case, the problems were loosely based on web/software development projects I had done. So it is important to be thorough with the projects you list down on your resume.
+
+**Technical Round + HR:** <br>
+The interview began with me listing down my strengths/weaknesses (second most uncomfortable part). I was given a couple of puzzles to solve which was followed by a guesstimate question. The interviewer encouraged me to come up with different approaches to the problem. The latter part comprised of more HR-esque questions (interests and goals). The round, somehow, concluded on a philosophical discussion. 
+
+**Tip 1** : Be prepared for a “Why should we hire you” question.<br>
+**Tip 2** : Try to ask a follow up question at the end of the interview. If you don’t have one, conjure one up during the interview, as I did.
+
+Given the nature of my interviews, I was expecting my role to be software/development oriented. However, I was assigned the role of a Data Analyst, which was quite surprising.
+
+
+## Work
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/amex2.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:50%;"}
+
+Most of the AmEx interns, including me, were allocated the Gurgaon office while the others got the Bangalore one. The Gurgaon office seats over 6000 employees distributed across the 3 major divisions - 
+Enterprise and Digital Analytics (EDA), Credit and Fraud Risk (CFR) and Technology.
+I was a part of the Membership Rewards team from EDA with my profile being that of a Data Analyst. 
+
+My building was part of the One Horizon Center which gives you all the corporate vibes you would want from your office. AmEx has an open workspace culture. So all the employees, be it a senior manager or a director or just an intern, share the same space. This is one of the things I liked the most as in addition to watching and learning from your senior leaders, you can seek help with ease. The office timings are pretty flexible but I’d still recommend aligning your work hours with your team/project members (to make the most of the internship). 
+
+**Note:** The workspaces on the lower floors have been laid out quite creatively. Also from the higher floors you get an amazing view of the skyscrapers around and the nearby golf course. So, try to take a trip around the office as soon as possible. I found a massaging chair on our last day.
+
+The responsibility of delivering a project is given to smaller groups of 2-3 members and each person works on multiple projects. Most of us received our individual project’s description a week before the joining date. Once we were there, all the interns were assigned a mentor to assist during the project. 
+
+So my team, i.e. Membership Rewards, worked around the Reward Points a customer receives on using the Amrican Express credit card for various transactions. 
+My project was to analyze and answer- <br>
+* Why were the customers calling up the Customer Care when most of the things were available on the website? <br>
+* Who were these customers? <br>
+
+Different models were devised to form sort of a journey for each customer and identify the problem areas. They were identified in terms of the information available on the website and also its UX. Most of the work was done in HQL (fancy SQL) and SAS. The models I leveraged were written in Python. So it would be good for you to have a basic understanding of SQL and Python as they were also being used by most of the other teams as well. The most encouraging aspect about working there was that I was trusted with a project which was to be presented to other business partners. In turn, it would be fair to say that interns there are treated like regular employees. However, you are also expected to deliver in an equal measure.
+
+The best thing about AmEx has to be the people there. On the first day itself we got to interact with the senior leaders of the company, who were really welcoming. The Director and the VP of my team got really involved in the work I was doing and we used to have regular brain-storming sessions. Also, the team members really looked out for each other and were quite helpful. I had a great time discussing everything and anything over lunch with my team. 
+The HR people also made some efforts to arrange sessions with top executives from India and the US offices. 
+
+## Summing up and key takeaways:
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/amex3.jpg){: style="width:70%;height:60%"}
+I had been involved in development before but AmEx gave me an opportunity to explore the field of Data Analytics. The internship was an amazing learning experience not just in terms of the flavour of the corporate world that I got, but also in terms of the insightful discussions I had with some really smart people. During one of the meetings, my VP said “You can teach a person to code for the project, but you cannot teach them to care about the project”. That basically sums up the values that powers this company. 
+
+Even after a lot of deliberation, I still haven't made up mind as to what I'll be doing after these 4 years.
+
+I am glad I was able to contribute by bringing a fresh perspective to the table. The most important thing that I have learnt is that at the end of the day, the value and quality you attach to your work defines you. So whatever you do, give it your best shot. 
+
+Some final tips:
+1. Try to pitch in new ideas/methods for your project. 
+2. Interact with the people as much as possible. They are obviously more experienced and  it’ll definitely develop your social skills.
+3. Look at this internship as a golden opportunity and make the most of it in every way possible.
+

_posts/2019-07-17-summer-diaries-reckitt-benckiser.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Reckitt Benckiser"
+image: rb4.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Suyash Singh"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: 'As a student of chemical engineering in IIT Roorkee, the options to get a core intern are very limited, Majority of the students do their third year internships in non-core domains (mostly software and data science) and are then placed in similar fields a year later.' 
+---
+
+
+As a student of chemical engineering in IIT Roorkee, the options to get a core intern are very limited, Majority of the students do their third year internships in non-core domains (mostly software and data science) and are then placed in similar fields a year later. With such demotivating stats and me personally not trying enough to build interest in chemical engineering (which happens with most of us), I had no plans (or rather hopes) to get an on-campus internship in a core company.
+During my campus life, I was mostly involved in management profiles (including Convener, Thomso-2018), but during my 2nd year Summer break, I took a chance, or rather two, to explore chemical engineering. I did two internships, one in a management profile (Business operations in particular) and the second one in a paint manufacturing company. I got both these internship offers through LinkedIn. I suggest all sophomores to use this great platform as effectively as possible.
+
+## Making it there
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/rb1.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+So it was the latter internship which instigated me to pursuing Chemical Engineering as a career choice. But mostly, it was the prevalent hype of Reckitt Benckiser (RB), being a Day 1 Company that comes in the same slot as ITC, and of course the fancy stipend they offered, that I eventually applied for this company.
+
+**Criteria for applying:** <br>
+Reckitt Benckiser (RB) opens for Chemical, P&I, Metallurgy and Biotechnology. For their internship program, they do a basic resume shortlisting (there is no CG cut-off but a 7.5+ CG with an overall decent resume seems to do the trick). The CG clearly stops playing any part after this, as there were interns with a CG of 7.8 to 9.2 from other IITs, mine being the lowest of them.
+
+**Group Discussions:** <br>
+This is followed by a Group Discussion which usually involves discussion on new product development under already existing brands, presented to us in the form of a case challenge. A thorough reading of the presentation that they present before the GD, is preparation enough for the group discussion.
+
+**Tip**: Reading time allotted before the GD starts is quite less, so just going through the keywords and understanding the deliverables expected out of the case given to us, helps to start first and perform better in the discussion.
+
+**Technical Round + HR:** <br>
+The only other round after the GD is the personal interview; the interview is a mix of technical and HR. Some preparation on any particular core topic (branch related) does help in moving the discussion in the right direction. In my case the discussion moved to the detailed technical part of my previous internship (the one in a paint manufacturing company). There was also a long discussion about comparing my work experience as Thomso Convener and sitting here for an R&D intern. But just being truthful and portraying your learnings from each of your previous work experience helps to move the discussion to an encouraging and desired side.
+The HR part of the interview involves discussion on what your expectations from the company are. Some knowledge of RB’s brands can help you a lot here as well.
+
+
+## WORK
+
+**Profile and location:** <br>
+Summer interns from various IITs are sent to the Gurgaon R&D facility. This is among the only 7 global R&D category centres for RB. It handles R&D for a 12.5 Billion GBP company, so trust me when I say this, working here does make a lot of difference!
+
+
+**Aim of the internship:** <br>
+All interns are given live market relevant projects, which are categorised mainly into two parts: New Product Development (NPD) and Existing product development (EPD). We are given full freedom to lead the project in our own way and to use the R&D facilities necessary to shape our project. I personally got the opportunity to work on Lizol Floor Cleaner. My project involved formulating a Lizol with some given specifications according to the need in the South Asian Market and recent technological trends, globally. So, my project involved a lot of research as well as Lab work, making samples and trial batches of new Lizol formulation.
+Second phase of my project involved Cost Optimisation and new claim study which gave me an opportunity to interact with the marketing, regulatory and various other corporate teams of RB. This not only helped me to understand the origin of my project but also provided me with a broader business perspective of FMCG companies at a global level.
+<br>
+
+RB being an MNC (present in 60+ countries), it provides enormous opportunities to interact with RB employees across the globe if you need project related assistance.
+One of my co-interns got a project, which demanded connecting with RB employees from various teams in different countries, so he was mostly on US Skype calls late in the evening (that was an experience in itself!)
+
+
+
+
+**Work Culture:** <br>
+ If I compare it with my previous intern (the one in the business operations), nobody here was in a rush, and it’s quite contrasting to the picture I had in my mind of the corporate world. The best thing about RB has to be the people here. On the first day itself we had a pizza party with the senior leadership team of the company, who were really welcoming and interactive. The official work hours are 9AM- 5PM, 5 days a week and nobody expects you to stay or work beyond that (although you have the freedom to stay till late evening, as I did sometimes till 9pm), which is pretty comfortable, considering how much some other companies expect an intern to work. People are pretty relaxed and as long as you achieve your deliverables, nobody would put any pressure on you. If anything, there are days when it gets a little too relaxed and you have absolutely nothing to do as your batches are under study.
+RB has a future leadership program(FLP) through which they have been hiring engineers in the last few years, which means you will easily find a hierarchy of seniors from IITs which eases your opening up with the other senior members of the team.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/rb2.png){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/rb3.png){: style="width:100%;height:auto"}
+
+## The Place
+
+One plus point of working in RB is that there’s a mess which serves awesome lunch. Just like in labs, RB experiments a lot with food too and we get so much variety to eat!
+(P.S: For Non-Veg lovers: We get Chicken every day, except on Tuesdays*)
+As about the city, Gurgaon is synonymous to pubs and fresh brewery at Sector 29 and Cyber Hub.
+RB was kind enough to provide us a 2 week hotel just outside the Sector 29 market, which compelled us to try every pub in the complex.
+
+
+## Summing Up
+
+As a company, instead of just expecting you to do what you are told, RB expects the interns to challenge them and provide a fresh perspective to their approach and thoughts, and I’m glad my work was appreciated and recognized because of the off-stream approach I followed.
+<br>
+
+Overall, the experience at RB gave me a perspective of what R&D means in FMCG world, which I would term as ‘Business pro R&D’.
+After exploring diverse fields in 3 years of my college life, these 2 months’ experience at RB gave me a much needed direction to restructure my thoughts regarding my career, and to decide what’s best for me after graduation.
+
+
+**Few Tips for the Students interested:** <br>
+
+* Read about the brands under RB.
+
+* Brush up your core subjects a little before going for the interview.
+
+* Prepare the HR questions really well; you should have clarity of thought while answering those.
+
+* Once you get there, make the most of it by networking with people.
+
+

_posts/2019-07-18-summer-diaries-nikunj-gupta.md

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Bold and Beautiful"
+image: nikunj1.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Nikunj Gupta"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: 'For a person who has never been abroad, a foreign research internship provides an inexplicable opportunity to get his feet outside of India and gain some insights as an intern while travelling places you like. And that’s exactly why I ended up applying for a foreign research internship.' 
+---
+
+For a person who has never been abroad, a foreign research internship provides an inexplicable opportunity to get his feet outside of India and gain some insights as an intern while travelling places you like. And that’s exactly why I ended up applying for a foreign research internship.
+
+## Getting There:
+
+My journey starts last year in August post-GSoC (Google Summer of Code) completion results. I  wanted to do a foreign internship taking inspiration from the articles I read and the people I met. But I was skeptical about applying to STE||AR GROUP, Center for Computation Technology (CCT), LSU which happened to be my GSoC mentor’s university. The primary reason being my backward thinking, that a lower ranked university might not provide me with enough research opportunities. Or that I might end up wasting my time working on something I’m not interested in. In hindsight, I had forgotten all the interesting topics I learned thanks to the project (which was tagged as “hard”, and my mentor had almost no faith in the project completion). So, I started looking for universities like every friend of mine did and throwing random emails, showing interest in their work and how I could help with my prior experience, to professors expecting replies. I got replies from IST Austria and MIT (I applied seriously to 4 universities, so I was glad by getting a reply from 2). Unfortunately, the prof at MIT was going out for a 2-year vacation and decided not to take me in. The prof at IST Austria showed interest in my work. I had applied to IST Austria for a winter internship, so the professor demanded more time. I had to obviate from taking IST as my summer preference, again due to the same thinking. Finally, I applied to LSU for the winter internship to which my mentor happily agreed. Unfortunately, the USA visa takes 3+ months and I was simply out of time. I had to, therefore, settle for a research internship at IITR during winters. By the time winter vacation hit, I met a few people who got me rid of my plagued thinking, and I finally threw in a casual email asking if there’s an internship opportunity available at LSU.
+This time my mentor made sure that all the paperwork was done on time. And that’s how I ended up at LSU.
+
+
+## The Work:
+
+
+My research internship lies in a niche subdomain of Parallel and Distributed Computing, a paradigm of distributed computing also known as Asynchronous Many Task (AMT) systems. My advisor was the same person who mentored me during my GSoC project. Prof. Hartmut Kaiser is a well known person within the AMT community for his work on HPX. He is also a voting member of the ISO C++ committee.
+One of the best parts about the internship was my power to choose any project to work on. I chose to work on the project “Resiliency in HPX” (HPX being an AMT runtime system). It was to add fault tolerance to the HPX runtime system for supercomputers that would appear in the next decade with exaflops range (or as we like to call it, the extreme scale computing domain), the details of which are mundane to the generic audience. My advisor gave me complete responsibility for the project and therefore, I was supposed to write code for the complete architecture and formulate the final report as well. Working hours were flexible. As long as I could show progress and get results, my advisor had no issues with me taking a leave or leaving early. This charade was soon taken over when I started working and realized that I will have to work late hours to get the work done. Initially, I remember working on weekends to complete the work that I had to do. But soon, the project became relevant and work eased out. This is when I started exploring places on the weekends. I made friends and did trips outside of Baton Rouge.
+
+
+## The Cultural Shocks:
+
+
+Being from Delhi, I had lived a metropolitan life and I did not expect any cultural shocks. I did face a few shocks, one of which being over friendly strangers. If you’re in India and you randomly say “Hi” or nod your head as a gesture, the other person will probably think that you’re in your correct state. It’s completely different in the states, where I had random conversations with strangers based on what was written on their t-shirt! Next shock was what we people tend to call out as 1st World Problems. I always thought of it as jokes, never did I know it was literally the case here. What came as a surprise was the rising vegan culture. Finding vegetarian food is not difficult provided you decide to go vegan and drop the dairy contents as well. The food itself was also not as bland as I expected. It was actually good and I appreciated a lot of the dishes I ate.
+
+Another key difference that I found here was how people treat each other within the group. People here call others on a first name basis. That meant that I was calling people doing their PhDs or Post Docs or even professors by their first name which is next to impossible to observe in India. Also, I was never treated as an undergraduate trying his hands on research. I was treated with the utmost respect and my work was valued.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/nikunj2.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+## Home and Office:
+I got a whole office room to myself which is something that I did not expect as an intern. I was given access to the STE||AR GROUP’s home brewed cluster “Rostam”. I was given a workstation grade computer to work with. The workstation I worked on was the fastest personal computer that I had worked on. It was a dual socket machine and had 2 Xeon CPUs with 64 GB RAM and a powerful Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics card. Apparently, the specs were considered old by my advisor who constantly advised me to work on the cluster!
+
+I rented a fully furnished studio apartment from the recommendation of my advisor. This meant that I had to take care of the food, laundry, and cleaning by myself. With no experience of cooking whatsoever, I tried making the simplest of Indian dishes using online recipes or video calling my parents. It was the first time I valued mess food and probably the last time as well. With some practice, I was able to make some simple dishes perfectly and learned French dishes from one of my colleagues.
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/nikunj3.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+## Visiting places:
+
+If you join the STE||AR GROUP with the intent to visit places in the USA, you will be heartbroken to hear that Louisiana is in the middle of nowhere. All the lovely places you’ve heard of namely New York, Miami, Orlando, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. are thousands of miles away. And to add a cherry on the top, Bus services in the USA are horrible. To the extent that I decided to buy flight tickets to places once I experienced the buses. New Orleans was the first city I visited. The city of Jazz so to say will never get you bored if you’re a music enthusiast. Amongst others, I visited Atlanta (Georgia), Houston (Texas), Austin (Texas) and plan to visit New York before I return.
+Baton Rouge itself is a fun place to live in for a couple of months doing an internship. It’s not the most dynamic city you will come across, but you will be amazed to see what the city has to offer!
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/nikunj4.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+## Key Takeaways
+
+The most lovely thing about my group is culture and group dynamics. The group is integrated well with the industry so the work carried in the group has a direct impact on the software people use. Contributing to such a group opens up new boundaries all together in terms of research work and industry exposure. Some key takeaways from my experience would be:<br>
+
+* Apply early if you’re applying to USA without enrolling yourself in a program. Visa times are surprisingly high.
+
+* Do NOT judge a research group by the rank of the University. If the work they’ve been doing interests you, go ahead and shoot them an email.
+
+* Do not shoot hundreds of emails. Try to find professors or research group that align with your interest. Writing 3-4 good emails will have more probability of you ending up with an internship than sending hundreds of them with similar content.
+
+
+
+
+

_posts/2019-07-19-summer-diaries-layan.md

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Schlumberger "
+image: layan1.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Layan Kaushik"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: 'The idea of exploring different core engineering fields has always excited me. I had already experienced a research project based internship after my 2nd year. So, a leap into the corporate sector was what I sought for since the beginning of my third year.'
+
+---
+
+
+The idea of exploring different core engineering fields has always excited me. I had already experienced a research project based internship after my 2nd year. So, a leap into the corporate sector was what I sought for since the beginning of my third year.
+
+## Schlumberger, what about it?
+
+Schlumberger is the only Oil & Gas services company (read core engineering) that visits our campus and recruits (offering decent package) from almost all departments. In India, they have their bases located at Mumbai, Barmer, Pune (IT segment) and Kakinada -  which is where I pursued my internship. The management of the entire Indian East Coast, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and North East India is administered from Kakinada.
+
+## Making it there
+
+Although the notice for internship at Schlumberger came early September, but the shortlisting and interview process got delayed and finally took place the following year in the month of April. Due to this delay, the recruitment process was cut short to two rounds - the first being resume shortlisting and followed by a personal interview. They prefer candidates with a decent CGPA (>7) who also have performed reasonably well in co-curricular activities, possess good soft skills and have held various positions of responsibilities throughout their career. A peak in any two of the above mentioned skills and a decent display in the rest can help you grab an internship at Schlumberger. During the personal interview round, few technical questions related to basic engineering knowledge may be asked but more emphasis is given to classic interview questions (‘about yourself’, ‘strengths and weaknesses’, ‘why should we hire you?’, and ‘why Schlumberger?’) to test one’s soft skills.
+
+## Work
+
+Previously, the duration of the Internship used to be 4 weeks but this year onwards it has been extended to 7 weeks. Similar to previous internship programmes, all interns at Schlumberger had to attend a 3-day induction programme at Nerul base, Navi Mumbai. There we were introduced to the Oil & Gas Industry and given an extensive demonstration of various safety instructions required to follow religiously while carrying out any job at the workstation.
+For the rest of the days, we were sent to our allotted locations and segments. I was assigned to the Completions Segment at Schlumberger’s Kakinada base in Andhra Pradesh. On arrival at Kakinada, I was introduced to my team and was assigned a mentor who briefed me about the project. I was working with another intern from IIT Delhi throughout the period of the internship. The project assigned to us was quite simple. The Completions segment recently won a huge ONGC contract, therefore, the segment area was doubled. We were asked to perform 5S lean management method and later develop a layout of the proposed area in accordance with its workflow. More stress was given to learning the oil and gas industry and the tools used in the Completion segment’s work.
+Apart from this, we were sent to Reliance workshop to get a first-hand experience of how jobs are practically done and also to get our hands dirty. These workshop visits became an everyday affair, which helped us understand the ins and outs of the segment and attain a sense of belonging.
+
+
+## Life at Schlumberger
+
+As stated in the previous few dairies, Schlumberger functions like a relentless well-oiled machine. Employees work round the clock depending on the task assigned. They have a strict ideology of doing the job correctly the first time, hence the pressure on every employee is tremendous. Moreover, they have a stringent HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) policy: working without a proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) or driving without the seatbelt fastened can put your job at risk. However, Schlumberger has a very friendly work culture, where help and guidance are always available from fellow employees. The lively atmosphere along with the music which is played in the workshop gives a positive vibe to the workplace. Moreover, frequent movie nights and parties with the team made my stay a little more fun.
+Schlumberger also provides luxury accommodation for all interns and the Schlumberger base is equipped with ample facilities for leisure activities such as Table Tennis, Gym, Squash courts and rooms for those who want to take a power nap during office hours. Meals and travel are all taken care of quite efficiently and as per requirements.
+
+## Location
+
+Kakinada is a small remote industrial city in the eastern coast of India. The weather during my stay was pleasant as monsoon came in early. A recently constructed multiplex made my life more convenient as I could enjoy a few of my favourite food outlets and did not miss out on any of the latest movie releases. The nearest city, Vishakhapatam is a 4-hour drive North from Kakinada but none of the interns could visit as it required prior consent from the management of Schlumberger which made life beyond Kakinada non-existent.
+
+## Summing up and key takeaways
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/layan2.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+The work assigned to an intern is quite basic as more emphasis is given on getting accustomed to the Schlumberger work culture and its lifestyle. One can easily find an excellent peer group with whom he or she can discuss and share things of interest. It was lovely to see the employees make efforts to help all the interns fit in and make everyone feel like home.
+Few tips for people gunning for it:
+
+* Be thorough with what you’ve written on your resume.
+
+* Practice the basic interview questions, preferably give mock interviews.
+
+* Build your resume while you can.
+
+* Be calm and confident during the interview.
+
+* Feel free to contact me for any further questions!
+
+
+

_posts/2019-07-20-summer-diaries-aarush.md

@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Harvard"
+image: aarush1.png
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Aarush Gupta"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: 'TL; DR: I spent 11 weeks at Harvard as a part of my summer internship. I had a great time there and the internship would go a long way in helping me with my career. Below, I will try to summarize my experience there, as well as share how I landed the internship.'
+ 
+---
+
+**TL; DR**: I spent 11 weeks at Harvard as a part of my summer internship. I had a great time there and the internship would go a long way in helping me with my career. Below, I will try to summarize my experience there, as well as share how I landed the internship.
+
+## Before Applying
+ 
+I worked on a couple of Deep Learning projects with professors at my department during my second year and a remote collaboration last summer. Consequently, I had a fair idea of what research constituted of and what I could expect from an academic internship. It gives you the freedom to choose a problem that interests you, try out your ideas and work at your own pace. There are deadlines, but they are scattered and more relaxed than what you would find in the corporate world. But most of the on-campus internships offer the role of a software developer. Therefore, I opted out of the on-campus internship season and applied for a research internship instead.
+ 
+## Making it there
+ 
+The most common method of applying for a research internship is by emailing professors. With a research paper from last summer’s project, I was pretty sure that I would get an internship easily. But that did not happen. I emailed around 15 professors (after going through their work and writing customized emails to each one of them) from around July till November but did not get a single reply. So, if you don’t get any replies, don’t be disheartened and keep trying. It is all a part of the process. Honestly, it also depends a lot on your luck. I have seen people getting an internship after their first email, and people who did not get any offer until near the end of the academic year.
+ 
+I also started looking for other options on the way. I applied to Naver Labs, a South Korean AI industrial research lab, and got through. But I had a preference for an academic research internship instead, so I kept on applying to various research labs. I also applied to various internship programs such as Mitacs, Summer@EPFL, ISTernship Summer Program, etc. without any luck. I expected this because my CGPA was not up to the mark. Until March, I just had an industrial research internship offer. Shortly after that, I was shortlisted for the SN Bose Scholars Program. For those of you who don’t know, it is a scholarship program to support Indian students for an internship in the United States. The scholarship includes a stipend of $2500, airfare and health insurance. Out of around 1500 applications, only 50 get through in the end. Each department from the participating institutes nominates two students for the program. Applications without nominations are not accepted. Following the nomination, the applicants are required to fill in an online application, submit their CV, statement of purpose, research statement, and some supporting documents. Based on the applications, students are short-listed and are required to find a mentor in the United States. Having a mentor beforehand also works. The program organizers also help you to reach out to mentors from previous years. Once you get a mentor, the rest of the proceedings follow (getting the award and offer letters, the visa application, etc.). After being short-listed, I selected around 6 prospective mentors from different universities and shot them emails. I got a reply shortly from 4 of them asking to schedule an interview. I gave the interview for Harvard first and got through. What did they ask in the interview for Harvard? I just gave a presentation on my research paper and answered some related questions. That’s it! I also got an offer from the University of Southern California, where I was supposed to work on Natural Language Processing.
+ 
+So, in the end, I had three internship offers, viz. from Naver Labs in South Korea, the University of Southern California, and Harvard University. Having a preference for academia, I chose Harvard over Naver Labs. Also, I was more inclined towards working in Computer Vision rather than Natural Language Processing and therefore, I went ahead with Harvard instead of USC.
+ 
+In retrospect, I think that the SN Bose program lays more emphasis on the research profile of the applicants rather than their CGPA only. In my opinion, CGPA is actually not a good criterion for gauging someone’s research calibre. But that’s the way it is. A piece of advice, if you have a low CGPA, you are in for a tough fight. But you’ll get through :).
+ 
+
+## The Institute
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/aarush2.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+Harvard University is the oldest higher education institution in the United States. Situated in Cambridge, MA, it is an Ivy League college and has the highest annual endowment in the world for an educational institution (around $40 billion). It is famous for the business, law, medical and engineering schools as well for its notable alumni, including Barack Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Natalie Portman.
+ 
+## Project
+ 
+My internship was a part of the Connectomics project, broadly involving the segmentation and analysis of brain scans obtained by electron microscopy (EM). The overall objective is to develop 3D maps of connections in the human brain to help in neuroscience. How so? There are many diseases and disorders that are attributed to “wrong wiring” somewhere in the brain. With interactive models of neuron wirings, neuroscientists can better understand these diseases and possibly arrive at a cure. The project further aims to improve the understanding of how the human brain actually works, how memories are stored and so on.
+ 
+Multiple research groups at Harvard have been working in collaboration on this project for about ten years now. The reason why it's taking such a long time is the staggering amount of data associated with a single human brain. To give you an idea, it takes around 100 terabytes (roughly 100000 gigabytes) just to record all the connections in a salt grain-sized block of the brain! One of the tasks associated with this project is to detect mitochondria in neurons automatically. It turns out that mitochondria are very different in shape from what was taught to us in high school. Instead of the globular structure that you might remember from your high school biology textbook, mitochondria look something like this:
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/aarush3.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+The conventional methods used for medical image segmentation fail for such non-convex morphologies. Another problem is that a large number of mitochondria are in contact with each other, making the problem more difficult. During my internship, I worked on developing and testing neural network architectures which take into account these priors and give better results than the standard methods.
+ 
+## Work and Academics
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/aarush4.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+ 
+The work environment at the lab is very accommodating. On paper, the interns are expected to work for around 40 hours a week. But that is flexible and largely depends on the amount of work on your hands. There are no specific timings to work, and the labs can be accessed anytime using a Harvard ID. People usually come in at around 10 in the morning, leave by around 5 or 6 in the evening and don’t work on weekends. Group meetings and lunches are held every week to catch up on work-related stuff or for chitchat. One thing that I really love about Harvard is that there are plenty of computing resources here. I could easily train multiple models at the same time, with each one being trained on 8 Graphical Processing Units (GPUs)!
+ 
+Harvard has an exceptional research output and the people here work hard, no doubt. But they also take time out of their schedules for recreation and hobbies. There is a foosball table and a grand piano just outside my lab. I see people playing foosball or just trying out a new piece of music on the piano almost every day. There are a few people who play the piano really well, and it’s a delight to work with soothing tones playing in the background. The point is that they pursue their interests, be it academic or otherwise, passionately.
+ 
+With MIT at a walking distance from Harvard, researchers from both the institutes collaborate regularly and students of one institute can attend courses at the other. Also, for the undergraduate program at Harvard (and at many other universities), students have three semesters to decide upon a major, unlike the universities in India where you have to choose a major at the time of admission. Both the institutes also allow students to take up multiple majors and minors (instead of one, as is the case at IITR) during their course of study. One of my friends at MIT is majoring in Physics and Philosophy, with minors in Maths and Music!
+ 
+## The City
+ 
+Boston, named after a small town in England, is a great city except for the erratic weather, which was a total bummer initially. It is a thriving port city with economic bases in finance, business services, biotechnology, and information technology. Thanks to multiple colleges and universities in the city, Boston has around 2000 start-ups. With a lot to explore, the weekends were usually packed. Various events, such as art walks, food festivals, and concerts, were organized from time to time. Other times, I would just hang out with some friends at MIT at one of its fraternities, Alpha Delta Phi, playing Cards Against Humanity. I also attended the orientation program organized for Bose and Khorana Scholars at the University of Chicago and visited New York recently.
+ 
+Housing is expensive in Boston with the city having one of the highest costs of living in the United States. I rented an apartment with four other interns at Harvard from India, which eased things financially. The apartment was about 20 minutes away from the campus. I usually commuted by bus, which was quite convenient and affordable.
+ 
+There is a wide variety of food to try out here. You can try out the local dishes such as the Boston Cream Pie and the New England Clam Chowder or experiment with other cuisines like Japanese, Korean, Thai, Lebanese, Mexican, etc. The Indian cuisine being on the spicier side, I initially found most of the food here rather bland. So, during the first month, we would cook Indian food almost daily at the apartment. Slowly, you get used to it and ease into the different cuisines.
+ 
+Almost every department at Harvard has a cafeteria serving decent and affordable food. Each meal costs about 8 dollars. If you want to shell out a little more, you can go to nearby restaurants or cafes at Harvard Square, the historic centre of Cambridge. You can have pizza, burritos, waffles, gelato, burgers, salads, souvlaki, and whatnot. The list is endless. Although if you are a vegetarian, you might have to struggle a bit finding vegetarian options.
+ 
+## Summing Up
+ 
+Getting a research internship is difficult but has its own perks. You meet a lot of new people from different countries, experience a new culture, and learn a lot of new things. If you work dedicatedly, you can expect a strong recommendation letter from your mentor (which is useful 
+for higher studies and even for getting a job) and a publication depending on how your project progresses. In my opinion, it’s worth the extra effort. If you get a chance, I’d strongly recommend going for a foreign research internship at least once during your undergrad at IIT Roorkee.
+ 
+Cheers!
+
+
+
+ 
+ 
+
+

_posts/2019-07-22-memoir-ruhela.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "There was a sense of infinity about those days, like they will last forever"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: ruhela.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Utkarsh Ruhela"
+excerpt: "You've left that room, that place, that safe haven. Do you feel anything? Do you feel different? Are you really oblivious to the fact that you will never be at that place where you spent 1500 days of your life?"
+---
+
+You've left that room, that place, that safe haven. Do you feel anything? Do you feel different? Are you really oblivious to the fact that you will never be at that place where you spent 1500 days of your life? There was a sense of infinity about those days, like they will last forever.
+
+You don’t miss your college perpetually like you miss your lover. No, it is sporadic. One moment you see a colonial structure resembling the James Thomason building and your mind drifts away; you sigh. Not of pain or missing, but the melancholy and a sweet ache that you might never get to run on that trail. Or go on those lavish South Indian meals on your bike.
+
+That's why it has taken me more than a couple of months to pen this retrospective piece down. It is anti-climatic really, I haven't been missing college all that much, maybe it will dawn upon me slowly.
+
+As I ponder upon my experiences, I wonder if I have performed upto the "mark". I slowly realised that the “mark” changes with time, as you move and grow through this time-space curve, so does your sense of purpose.
+
+Gradually those Solani canal trails started calling me for another 5k run, the mighty Himalayas calling me to trek them, my friends calling me to show up for another short quiz session. In my own room, there was oblivion of The Anathema and vigour of The Who and Nirvana. Reading Seth or Dostoevsky after a session of recreation. Or, in my more lucid moments I had Paul Kalanithi or Herman Hesse with the cheapest and best Americano I have had. I tried to understand life through the lens of these eccentric experiences. My sense of purpose for a while was to experience everything that Roorkee and college had to offer.
+
+Throughout my college life, a major white noise was that of seeking of validation for myself. I tried seeking it everywhere, in some academic subjects, in my discipline, in my meditation. No accolade, no achievement, no grade, no lover could satisfy that hollowness in long-term.
+
+Since graduation, there's a sudden gong of mortality, of that finiteness of things. Those five years were magical. School to college transition was just a kink, to more fun times, to more independence. When you are in college, you have this infinite reservoir of energy and will. You're full of explosive optimism, looking forward to a life full of possibilities.
+
+I used this mantra, whenever I was anxious or concerned about an issue, I would question if it would matter after 5 years. Because the things which are not under your control have a poetic sense of justifying themselves in the hindsight.
+
+Funny how we were going to conquer the world just a couple of years ago, now we merely seek to find a place in this absurd (?) world. Has the definition of conquer changed or have we? Are we settling for less? Or have we learnt that Ozymandias fell too?
+
+Here comes the sermon now.
+
+There’s no grandiosity in your existence. Many existentialists have offered a similar thought. There’s no grandiosity, there are no perfect moments, there’s just plain human existence. All your problems are just humane, which are not going to go away after achieving that star-studded internship, placement, or PhD offer. Your life will still stay the same. All those thoughts will be still there after a fleeting moment of distraction due to exhilaration from your achievements. It all sounds gloomy so far, but people who know me personally would know that things aren’t bad for me. I have tried taking this outlook and morph into something positive, acting in “good faith” as Sartre would point out. Existentialists describe bad faith as phenomenon in which human beings, under pressure from social forces, adopt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting inauthentically. In essence, one must find their own sense of purpose.
+
+All the productivity you require out of yourself stems from a sense of purpose, be it the JEE exam you took, or the course you aced at in college. That sense of purpose, even of temporary nature, lets you gather that will and do something. I know a part of my sense of purpose lies in learning different sports, languages, understanding humanity and nature more minutely. But, these are peripherals, as my friend coined this term for these interests. I am still to get to the crux of it. Or, I might find out there is no crux, the peripherals are all there is. The point is, we must explore and search for this meaning for ourselves.
+
+Eventually you must realise that whatever you did was the best you could manage to do in those circumstances. So fret not for you are always putting in your best.
+
+On a lighter note. Ten things the author recommends to try while in Roorkee (disclaimer— author might or might not have done all of this):
+
+1. Trek the hell out of Uttarakhand, Himachal too if possible. Start with Chandrashila or Triund. Warning: Do not go to Gaumukh-Tapovan glacier in your trainer shoes, you might just fall off of a crevasse.
+1. Solani road stretches serenely till Bahadrabad, one should cycle along that stretch. It is a forty five kilometre cycle ride that will be etched in your memory forever.
+1. Try noting down every detail of your life in a journal for at least a week.
+1. There's a bridge connecting old Roorkee to Civil Lines area, which goes to the Cemetery. Visit both the places. Maybe take your girlfriend there (refer to disclaimer above) .
+1. Find friends in your seniors and juniors. Friends being the operative word. Don't create rigid hierarchies when dealing with human beings.
+1. Try going to the football field at night with your friends and run a 100meters dash in an inebriated state. Watch the sunrise too, it's a hell of a view from there.
+1. Play as much sports as you can. Also, you will never find an avenue better than sports to make friends.
+1. Try living your life in frugality for a week or a month. Save all the money and spend it on one meal. Just for kicks, you know.
+1. Attend as many SPIC MACAY concerts and institute lecture series as you can.
+1. Learn swimming if you don't know yet, and dive from the 10 meters diving platform. Also, go touch the bottom of the 20 feet(?) pool. The pressure down there is ethereal.
+1. Live.

_posts/2019-07-22-summer-diaries-abhishek-kumar.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Goldman Sachs"
+image: "abhishek-kumar-1.jpg"
+tags: [wona]
+author: "Abhishek Kumar"
+category: summer2019
+excerpt: 'Goldman is probably one of those Day 1 firms that people across all the branches aspire to work for.'
+---
+
+Goldman is probably one of those Day 1 firms that people across all the branches aspire to work for. This might be because of my prejudice or a small and biased sample space, but even while preparing, Goldman was the firm most of us targeted. All this buzz around GS made me apply for it.
+
+## Criteria For Applying
+
+JEE ALL is the eligibility criterion and that’s all they demand of you on paper, after that it’s about your cleverness, talent and preparation. Goldman shortlists all those who apply for an online test irrespective of your cgpa, branch etc.
+
+## Online Test
+
+The test is extremely crucial in the selection process (Your test score isn't only a standard to qualify for the interview, it is also taken into consideration while making the final decision, so make sure you give your best). The questions or the weightage of different streams seem to vary every year,I’ll try to give you a flavour of it:
+
+**Coding section:** We had just one coding question whereas some IITs had two.The question appeared big and the story around it made it seem like it was tough but it was a straightforward question based on Hashmap.
+
+**Computer Science Section:** This is a comprehension based section that checks your basic knowledge of data structures and operating systems. I felt one could answer it without any previous knowledge and just by going through the passage but a couple of beginner articles from geeksforgeeks should be good for you.
+
+**Probability:** A lot of folks especially from the non circuital branches rely heavily or sometimes entirely on this section. This section had 8-10 questions of probability. You don’t have to do good in all the sections to get shortlisted, exceptional performance even in one section sometimes gets you a call for the interview but keep in mind that  a huge number of people will solve 8 out of the 10 problems of probability, So evaluate your chances accordingly.
+
+Sometimes, they have a section on machine learning as well, but last time, they had just two basic questions from ML which were in the computer science section itself.
+Balance your time properly, don’t spend your entire time coding only one problem nor leave it untouched because you were flirting with probability throughout.
+
+## The Interview
+
+Each division of Goldman that visits the campus, prepares its own rank list depending on a combination of questions from that test. And based on these lists, you can be shortlisted for one or more divisions. The count of interview rounds you have depends on how many divisions selected you in their lists.
+
+
+Four division visited Roorkee last year. Risk, Technology, Securities and GIR(Global Investment Research). I was shortlisted for all the four and had almost continuous 7-8 hours of grilling interviews. It’s not this harsh for everyone, I have friends who made it through after a couple of rounds as well. The questions in the interview will be mostly from competitive programming or probability. Make sure you are thorough with whatever is included in your resume. I had an entire hour of interview on machine learning because my areas of interest mentioned it. Don’t unnecessarily write stuff to fill your resume or to make it look big. Sometimes, you may experience that the interviewer is asking stuff that you have no knowledge of, he may encourage you to think about it. Do not hesitate to try such questions, they are asked purely with the intention of judging your approach and not your knowledge or the correctness of your answer.
+
+
+Almost all the rounds have a very similar structure. It starts with ‘tell us something about yourself’, a couple of questions of competitive programming, something from your resume or a question from probability and ends with “Do you have something to ask from us?”. I don’t really know if it matters but people recommend to ask something and so I did.
+
+“Tell us about yourself” is the section that can be used to play around a little. Tell them something about yourself that might have relevance to the interviewer and he may end up discussing that rather than a random question which might not click for you at that time. This doesn’t always work but you don’t lose anything by trying. 2 out of my 8 rounds were based on Java,OOP and RXJava, because I had brought up my second year’s internship where I worked on these(Preparing your resume accordingly can do this trick as well). But it’s up to you to decide if you really have a strong suite that may interest the interviewer or whether you are good at solving these problems there.
+
+![pic](/images/posts/abhishek-kumar-2.jpg){: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
+
+## Work
+
+### Project
+
+There is a wide spectrum of work or the areas that Goldman offers but what you will be working on is not in your hand nor do you have any way of finding it. Approximately a month after your selection, you’ll get a mail that will have your division, this can help you get a rough idea of what work you are going to get. I was asked in the final round which division I wanted to work with (It was probably because I was interviewed for multiple divisions), but honestly, I had no idea of what each division does. You will not know till the interview the divisions which are visiting Roorkee so I don’t think this helps much.All I said was that I want something on the intersection of tech and finance and probably all of their division except technology fits this.
+
+My team worked on core systems and there was not much of finance except having the chance of interacting with people who are good at it. There is not much that I can disclose about my work because of a non-disclosure that I have signed and the fact that Goldman takes it very seriously.I’ll try to give you an abstract of the nature of work. There were a couple of projects that I worked on. In the first one I was expected to research on a new database design,prototype and deploy a scalable real time database design for their data on which they carried out a huge number  of calculations everyday (I am not sure if I can write what these calculations are for), this project was expected to save a couple of thousand computing hours for them. Second one was mostly around debugging a complicated platform that they already had. It took a lot more memory in a few scenarios than expected and crashed, I had to find the component that caused it and identify its origin.
+
+### Work Culture
+
+This is something that is not uniform across Goldman and depends heavily on your team. But one thing is constant: You will have work to do.
+
+My team didn’t have any timing as such. Everyone had their own set of deliverables and they spent time accordingly .You don’t really have to report to anyone everyday or every week for that matter. There will be times when you can walk in at 12 and leave at 7 but there will also be times when you stay till 2 AM, it's about how you manage your work and how much of it you want to do during your internship. The best part(may not be true for all teams), I had absolute autonomy on my project.
+
+It is not that you get free from work if you finish your project early. I remember someone saying, “We are never out of work at Goldman”. But no one would push you to work more or tell you that you are expected to do more, except during your mid term review when your manager gives you feedback on how you have been doing so far. You will definitely be judged for your work though(Your PPO’s decision is mainly based on this).
+
+The best part about Goldman is its flat organization. You can walk up to anyone without an appointment and have a chat. Your manager isn't always right just because of his seniority. You and your views are valued equally. Obviously, this is the way it is intended to be and there may be scenarios where this may not be true but luckily I had a supercool manager in this respect as well.
+
+The biggest perk that you can probably take away as mentioned by some really senior leader during our orientation is, “You work with a set of really smart and passionate people and the more you network, the more you can take away from here”. Your life can get really dull and hectic in Goldman in some time if you are missing out on this part. Goldman organizes a couple of networking sessions for the interns with senior employees of the firms(Free lunch would be what you can look up to, if you don’t like talking).
+
+Goldman also takes you out on a day for Community TeamWork. This is with the motive to give back to the society and understand the diversity that this world has. I was taken to a wildlife hospital where we painted and cleaned cages/shelters of monkeys, parrots, bears, deers in which they are kept during their treatment.There is an intern party that the company sponsors other than numerous others that your team takes you out for(Team dependent again, you gotta be lucky).
+
+Towards the end,you have a poster presentation(expo) kind of event where you showcase/present your work to entire division(It happens in the Risk Division, not sure of others).This is a chance for you to get noticed by the Managing Directors and other senior leaders and make a good mark . Trust me, your two months of hard work is on one side and the visibility that you get on this day is on the other. You can and  should definitely aim to shine out among everyone.
+
+### Place
+
+Goldman has shifted to a new office this year. This office is crazy and has amazing things to fall in love with. More than anything else; the monitor. You have a giant beast, a huge curved monitor, a super fancy lift,recreation room, gym, adjustable desk(You can stand and work) to mention a few. And, Bangalore is too famous for me to say anything (Very bad traffic :P).
+
+## Summing Up
+
+Generalising anything would be tough about Goldman, because be it work or culture, its extremely diverse across different teams. But Goldman has a set of principles that it follows extremely seriously and expects you to do the same. It is a brilliant place for those who don’t limit their work to their desk and to whose who may want to explore the finance world but stay connected to technology at the same time.
+
+To those who want to work with cutting edge technology and are sure about it, you may want to reconsider this option.
+
+You should stay connected with friends from other IITs, there will be around a week’s gap in the recruitment. So you may get a rough idea of the question paper pattern from them.
+
+**Note:** Since Goldman Sachs doesn't allow any pictures of the premises to be take, these images were procured from the internet.