Exchange Diaries  

Vibhakar Mohta | Mechanical Engineering

Carnegie Mellon 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?
- “In my first year we had the winter workshop. My winter workshop was on autonomous robotics.
So basically I learnt embedded systems and how to program them autonomously. From there I
began my journey into robotics. After the winter workshop, in my second semester, I gave
interviews for various research groups on campus and I got into the Autonomous Ground
Vehicles (AGV) Research Group.”
- “The peer group you get in research groups is really good, especially the seniors, who are
working on various projects. You learn a lot about robotics and its subparts. So from third year I
had an inclination towards higher studies and it’s been there since then.”
2. What are the factors that you considered for selecting the universities you applied for?
- “I chose Carnegie Mellon because it had the largest robotics institute and its robotics
department constantly ranks first. The big names in robotics research include universities like
Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Georgia tech and ETH Zürich. Personally I chose Carnegie
Mellon as I had also planned on doing my internship there during my third year. I had gotten an
offer but due to the pandemic I was unable to accept it. I was still in contact with a few
professors over there.”

3. Did you apply to multiple universities? If yes can you please elaborate on the differences in the
selection process of the universities?
- “I had applied to 8 foreign universities. I only applied to universities abroad because robotics in
India is promoted in two main universities – IISc Bangalore and IIIT Hyderabad, but since I
wanted to do an MS, I chose to study abroad.”
- “The application processes for different universities are actually very different. In the start you
give your GRE and TOFEL. After that, for every application you have to review the university
requirements - they tell you to write an SOP (Statement of Purpose) or personal statements and
give you prompts. You have to personalise every application. You also have to name professors
whom you would want to work with and why you chose that specific university. IIT Kharagpur
has a really good alumni network and since I was in AGV, I contacted some of my seniors who
provided me with this information.”

4. How are you planning to manage your finances? Have you applied for any scholarships?

- “In my programme, there are no scholarships for MS students, only for PhDs. So I will have to
take a loan and work for a year or two to pay it off.”

5. Is CGPA a factor while considering higher studies at foreign universities?
- “You often hear people saying that CGPA doesn’t matter but that is all a hoax. It plays a huge
role not only when applying for higher studies but also during company interviews.”

6. Have you taken up any research project at your bachelor’'s level under any professor here at IIT
KGP? How did you manage your college studies and worked for your research?
- “I worked under Prof. Aditya Bandopadhyay in my 3rd year and Prof. Sikha Hota during my
Btech 4th year project. Due to lockdown I was unable to do any projects outside kgp as it would
have been online. So I chose the industrial side. I did two industrial internships- one was at a
startup and the other was at Wadhwani AI. They were mostly related to software development
and machine learning.”
7. What were the other difficulties you faced on taking this path and how to overcome them?
- “Difficulties in the application process? Mainly GRE. It pays a lot of focus on your vocabulary.
So you'll have to learn new words and apply them in the GRE based time setting. That is a little
stressful because we’re not used to English, we’re used to logical statements. Another difficult
thing is changing your application with every university you apply to. So once you have your
standard SOP written, you have to modify it for every university. Basically you have to give
every application some time. So the month of December, when applications are open, is very
stressful. You’ll have put in about 5 hours each day to get everything done.”
- “What worked for me is make a list of everything you have to do and plan out what slot you
would give to each. So I had my GRE prep going on, my application process, my Masters thesis
and also the end sems all going on at the same time. So I divided my day into 4 chunks. During
the time allotted, focus on the task at hand. It works like magic. I think it's called the hat
technique- wear a particular hat for a particular task. One of the most important things I have
learnt from IIT Kharagpur is Time Management skills.”
8. How did IIT KGP benefit you in your journey?
- “One course I liked was Automatic Control of Aircraft by Prof. Sikha Hota from the Aerospace
Department. Basically, this course teaches you everything you need to know about control
systems from standard controls to modern control theory. There are also a few courses on the
mechanical aspects of robotics from the Mechanical department- Kinematics of Robotics,
Robotics by Prof. D.K. Pratihar. The Electrical department also offers many courses related to
image processing, computer vision and controls.”

9. What are the opportunities after the Masters course?

- “What I like about robotics is it’s a mixture of almost all fields and produces a deployable
product. You get to work with something you touch physically and develop it into a product
which can help the masses. My big dream is to build a start-up in India which works on some
aspect of robotics. I don’t want to settle abroad, I want to see robotics in India grow.”

10. 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?
- “My final suggestion is that you should focus on what you like. Explore robotics if you like it.
Even if you are interested in coding, robotics is a field you should try out because you can
actually see your code in action. You not only have a lot of resources but also many seniors
who are always willing to lend you a helping hand. There are also a lot of us who are working or
specialising in this field. You can contact any of us for help and also join research groups in kgp.
Once you find your peer group who is into robotics in kgp, everything you want to learn and
explore will fall into place.”