Exchange Diaries  

Kanishk Singh | Computer Science and Engineering

Columbia University, United States of America

1. While you were in college, what was your motivation to go for higher studies and in which year did
you get that motivation? How did you manage your academics with your preparation?

A: was not very motivated towards research in the initial years of my undergraduate study. In the
CSE department, the BTP(B.Tech Project) starts from the 6” semester itself, unlike other departments
where it commences from the 7" semester. That was my first introduction to the world of research. I
also got an internship opportunity at Adobe while doing my BTP. This developed my interest towards
industry research and opened my eyes to the opportunities that came with it.

2. What are the factors you considered for selecting the universities you will apply for?

A: There is a website called ‘CS Rankings’ where you can shortlist the universities to apply to based on
your area of research, which in my case was NLP. I also took a look at the lab work to ensure that they
were aligned with my area of interest.

3. Did you apply to multiple universities? If yes can you please elaborate on the differences in the
selection process of the universities? In universities in which you were not selected can you please
share what you felt you lacked, and what could you have done better?

A: applied to 8 universities. Some were for Masters programmes and others for PhDs. In most of the
universities you have to submit an SOP(Statement of Purpose). However some universities also ask
for personal statements, which is a little different from an SOP as you have to state your personal
experiences and how they've helped you achieve your goal. Most of the other requirements for
applications are common for different universities like GRE, TOFEL and LORs(Letter of
Recommendation). In some universities like CMU(Carnegie Mellon University), you also have to send
90 second introduction video of yourself.

The registration portal opens around September-October. You will have to prepare your SOP and
request your professors, mentors or the people you've worked with for an LOR then. Most of the
deadlines range from 1*' to 15" December and for some cases like Columbia, it was on 15" January.
Start working on your SOP by October and get it reviewed by your batch mates and professors.

In this cycle of admissions, the GRE scores were waived off owing to the pandemic. So in usual cases,
you would have to give your GRE and TOFEL too. I suggest those who are interested in going for higher
studies should give these exams in their pre final year because many of the students will have their
placements the next year. When applying for graduation it's always good to have a backup plan. Some of
my friends gave their exams in the December of the pre final year. But I gave my exams a bit late during
the month of October. For GRE you will have to prepare a month while a week is enough for TOFEL.

4, How are you planning to manage your finances? Have you applied for any scholarships? What
were their procedures?

A: Columbia university offers the Shardashish Interschool Fellowship for Indian students studying
there. I applied for it and have got a reduction of about 50,000 USD in tuition fees. Here the fees for 3
semesters(1.5 years) is about 65,000-68,000 USD. For the rest of the amount and housing, I plan to
take out a loan. So coming to the fellowship, there is a standard procedure followed. After you submit
your final application and pay your fees, Columbia University will send a link regarding the
Interschool fellowship(or you could check it out on the university webpage). For the fellowship, you
have to submit another personal statement highlighting how your past research work has been
dedicated to the development of India. In my case, I mentioned that I was in NSS and elaborated on
my bachelors work, which was Al for social good. They also check your financial records and give
preference to those who have a greater need and have a strong academic record.

5. Is CGPA a factor while considering higher studies at foreign universities?

A; Although both scholarships and applications mainly depend on the aforementioned factors, it is
generally recommended to maintain a good CGPA for higher studies.

6. Have you taken up any research project at your bachelor/master's level under any professor here
at IIT KGP? How did you manage your college studies and work for your research?

A: I did not work under a lot of professors unlike others who start from 2" year itself. I started my
research work with Animesh Mukherjee Sir of the CSE department as a part of my bachelor’s thesis.
My work was on generating counter narratives against online hate speech using NLP. On social
media platforms, the general algorithm to combat hate speech is to block/suspend their posts.
Another more scalable way is to automatically reply to them which could be more effective in
neutralising the situation. Having 2 preprints on such projects, I submitted my bachelors work to
NCAI and my masters work to KDD.

Other than that, I took various courses in kgp, particularly those which have term projects which plays a
huge role in augmentation of research projects on your CV. I worked on a project dealing with fashion
recommendations as part of the Deep Learning course. In the Reinforcement Learning course, the topic |
chose was the robustness of RL algorithms with observation noises. I also worked on implementing a
highly parallel Histogram of Forensic Gradient, which is a primary algorithm to detect objects during my
course - High Performance Computer Architecture. These were some of the course projects I did.

Apart from these, I also took up industry research internships at Adobe Research and Amazon Science. At
Adobe, I worked on the problem of improving a positively unlabeled learning framework with the help of
techniques from Topological Data Analysis. After exploring techniques under resource-constraint settings at
Adobe, I interned at Amazon Science where I worked on the problem of learning under limited data to flag
sponsored advertisements that do not comply with locale restrictions and ethical guidelines, and for that, |
implemented and explored various Active-Learning strategies.

Although I have taken up multiple research projects, in the SOP one has to explain their major 3/4
projects. For me, it consisted of my BTP/MTP work and 2 internship projects only.

7. What were the other difficulties you faced on taking this path and how to overcome them?

A: The research work requires a lot of dedication and it's easy to lose motivation when you don't see
results in your term project and thesis work. I too faced problems in my thesis work. You have to be
vocal about your problems with your mentors (PhD guides), who are always ready to help you. Don't
wait until the last moment because Research work is more of a collaboration and not an individual
achievement. I used to discuss my work and take suggestions from my batch mates too since some
of them were working on similar projects. You have to maintain a good peer group to remain
motivated towards your goals.

As I mentioned before, the BTP(6 credits) and MTP(12 credits) have dedicated special credits. So you're
supposed to work 6 or 12 hours a week on that project. As a result, I did not have to dedicate every
waking hour to the project. The key to a good term project is that you start early. A lot of my batch mates
started at the last moment and did the bare minimum work on their projects. You can still technically put
it on your CY, but it will be clearly visible that a good amount of work has not been done. In foreign
universities the term projects hold a lot of weight, with students going on to submit their work to
conferences. The mentors and professors of your term project will be very helpful. So I recommend you
start it seriously early, preferably as soon as you are allotted the project. Also, in your 4"/5" year, you
should pick up 2-3 hard courses and other light courses. Take your seniors’ help for course management
too.

The main problem I faced with the applications was the proximity of the deadlies for different
universities. Sometimes, you don't have the time to personalise each of the SOPs. A personalised SOP
for each department is always preferred over merely changing the first and last paragraphs. During that
time, I was also doing an in-semester internship at Amazon so I was not able to manage the deadlines
efficiently. As a result, I was not able to give my best SOP to CMU, which had a relatively early deadline of
about 9" December. So it's important that you start early, have your SOP revised and get feedback from
your friends and mentors.

8. What are the opportunities after the Masters course?

A: I am inclined towards higher studies though I have not finalised anything yet. I have experienced
industry research at Adobe and Amazon Science, which I found to be highly challenging. The models.
here have to be reliable in all situations unlike research, where the model is said to have succeeded if
it worked on the given data set. So I'm keeping my options open as of now though I am inclined
towards the academic route

9. What are the suggestions that you would give your juniors who want to pursue higher studies?
Could you please give a rough roadmap to ease their journey?

A: Maintain a good CG. It helps you get research internships at universities either through
cold-emailing or with the help of IR-cell. So find a balance between your academics and
extracurricular activities.