Ritwik Vashistha, a Y20 Masters student from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. In this edition, he talks about his journey that led him to IIT, and how he chose what his future would hold for him.
Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IIT-K.
My time at IIT Kanpur has been amazing, albeit short. I learned a lot of things and not just statistics. As I leave IIT Kanpur, I would like to share some experiences in the hope that they might help future students decide about their future. However, before I talk about the experiences, I would like to share a personal story about getting into IIT.
The desire to get into IIT has been a long one. I got into the rat race to prepare for JEE after class 10. Contrary to many people’s experiences, no one really forced me to pursue engineering. At that time, I was really fascinated by programming, and computer science engineering at some IIT seemed to be the best possible outcome for me. However, I really didn’t study well in the next 2 years, and seeing some of my peers perform at FIITJEE made me realize that I am never going to be as good as them at solving those PCM questions. I kind of gave up on getting into IIT and decided that I’ll settle for some NIT/IIIT/BITS. But life had a good lesson in store for me, and I didn’t perform well enough even in mains to get into a decent NIT/IIIT. Fortunately, I got in touch with a professor of statistics from IIM B, and he recommended I go for statistics and not pursue engineering. I took up his advice after seeing my situation, and luckily it worked out very well for me. I enjoyed studying Statistics at Delhi University and managed to get into IITK for my Master’s. This was not what I had imagined in high school, but I fortunately still got what I wished for earlier, albeit in a different way.
Now, let’s talk about the experiences –
Ph.D. vs Industry vs Civil Services
One of life’s difficult decisions is deciding a career path for yourself. During my Master’s, I decided to take a shot at this decision and contemplated various possibilities for myself after completing my Master’s. Initially, I was interested in becoming a diplomat and an IFS officer because of my interest in International Relations/policymaking and the push from my parents to become a bureaucrat. Then, I also considered working in the industry after my Master’s as a data scientist or Quantitative Analyst. Most of my peers were interested in working in the industry. Finally, I also thought about going for a Ph.D. and becoming a researcher. Deciding between these 3 options was a difficult task, and I learned a lot in the process of finalizing what to do.
My strategy was to read and learn in detail about each option, talk to multiple people about these options and then compare the pros and cons. This didn’t happen in a day; it took me around a year to make the final decision. Regarding IFS, I remember attending a talk by Mr. Rajan Singh (ex IPS officer who’s an alumnus of IITK) and realizing that a government job won’t be a good fit for me because of my nature. This wasn’t the sole reason behind my decision to not pursue IFS, but like a final nail in the coffin after considering the option for months. In the case of industry, I talked with lots of alumni of my course about their job through the help of LinkedIn. I started realizing that joining the industry right after my Master’s won’t also be the best option for me because the jobs available to students in my course don’t seem to be interesting enough in reality. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t exciting jobs in the market but that it would probably be challenging for me to land that job right after my Masters’.
Then finally, I was also considering doing a Ph.D., and I talked with my seniors and professors. I very clearly remember what one of the professors told me about Industry vs Ph.D. – “You seem to be an above-average student to me, and my recommendation to all above-average students is to go for Ph.D. because they will get bored soon with the daily tasks in ordinary data analyst jobs”. This resonated with what I had observed while talking with multiple alumni working in different companies. Finally, my Pfizer internship helped me in making a decision. While working at Pfizer on an applied research project, I realized that I enjoyed the work there – reading research papers, understanding different statistical methods, observing where those methods might run into problems, and working on solving them. This was the exciting work I wanted to do in an industry job. However, I learned that Pfizer and many top research-oriented companies now hire only fresher Ph.D.s or Master’s graduates with 5-6 years of experience for such applied research-oriented roles.
Additionally, I realized that I am more interested in working on problems where I might need to develop a new method rather than just working on repeated applications of widely used popular methods on different issues. This realization, combined with the fact that a Ph.D. might be needed for ‘interesting’ applied research roles in the industry, pushed me to consider going for a Ph.D. where I could focus on methodological or applied research problems. Therefore, I finally decided to apply for Ph.D. programs in the US and sit for placements as a backup. During placements, I got placed at a bank for an analyst role. In February, I got to know that I have been accepted into my dream Ph.D. program at The University of Texas at Austin.
This may sound trivial but the main takeaway from this experience is that if you are confused between multiple options, talk to different people about them and get a good idea about some options by trying them out. Doing both things will help you understand what will work for you and what wouldn’t. But remember that in the end, no outcome can be 100% correct; you’ll always take a risk by going for one option over another. In my case, I am definitely taking a risk as it might turn out that I don’t enjoy research as much as I had hoped and if things don’t work out, I will try out something else. However, something that I have realized over the last 2 years is that we shouldn’t be too afraid of failing. It’s okay to be a little fearful of failure but it shouldn’t stop us from trying to fulfill our dreams even if it’s risky!
In the end, I would just like to say that I feel elated to have been a student at IITK. I enjoyed being here and I am now looking forward to being an alumnus. In case anyone is interested in knowing more about applying for Ph.D. abroad or any other thing, feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn.
PS – It would be wrong of me to not acknowledge the favorable situations that helped me decide about the future. First of all, I was fortunate enough to have a great CPI at the end of my first year, which allowed me the flexibility of thinking about applying for a Ph.D. during the summer holidays. Maybe, if I didn’t have a good CPI, then I wouldn’t be very enthusiastic about applying for Ph.D. due to its perceived importance in the application. However, having gone through the Ph.D. application season, I think CPI doesn’t matter much. If anyone is having doubts about going for further studies due to their low CPI, then my suggestion would be to not get discouraged but focus on highlighting other parts of their application, such as research experiences. Secondly, I was lucky to get an internship at Pfizer and have a great experience. My mentor at Pfizer was great, and he agreed to extend my internship to help me do my MSc project with Pfizer. He also gave me a great recommendation letter and an informal assurance about working with Pfizer if my Ph.D. plans didn’t work out. This helped me not worry about the future and apply for a Ph.D. with a backup option.
Written by: Ritwik Vashistha
Edited by: Aviral Upadhyay, Ayush Anand
