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Transcript of Chea Voice
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With great pleasure Id like to pre-
sent to you the much awaited issue of ChEA
Voice. Though this issue took some time, it is
finally here with some changes and new addi-tions that include a Fine Arts corner, and dedi-
cated poetry section by our batch mates.
The articles have been chosen keep-
ing the varies tastes and preferences of the
reader in mind.
There a few informative articles which give
insight into the professional ethics that stu-
dents either lack these days or people have
started expecting too much.
A few students have also shared their Intern-
ship and Project experiences that encompass
a wide variety of opportunities. We also have
an article on the new trend that is setting
amongst students about studying .
Apart from this an informal & leisure section
has also been added which has a poem and
an article by an alumnus about the life after a
B. Tech. The enthusiasm shown was appre-
ciable. Hope you enjoy this issue !!
KRITI GUPTA
2nd YEAR STUDENT
A Special Thanks to the contributors of this issue ofChEA Voice. Prof. H. Narayanan
Dhruv Gupta
Arpan A. Bandopadhyay
Akanksha Thawani
Atharva Kelkar
Vibhore Jain
Deeksha Parihar
Arun Neethipudi
Vikrant Raj
Varsha Choudhary
Neha Dhakar
Naveen Pal Singh
Rekhit Singh Kaushal
Neha Bunkar
Anisha Garg
DISCLAIMER &FEEDBACK:
The ChEA Voice is aimed to
provide the students of the
Chemical Engineering a plat-
form to express their views. It
does not intend to malign any
group or individual. The opin-
ions expressed in this news
letter belong essentially to the
authors and the content man-
agers and do not reflect the
opinions of ChEA. Any queries
related to the issue may be
addressed to the Editor.
We would love to have your
feedback on this issue. Please
your suggestions for helping us
improvise. The faculty are
especially requested to send in
their views and comments.
CONTACT:
Kriti Gupta ChEA [email protected]
ChEA Voice2012-2013, Ist Edition
Professional Ethics 2
Intern Experiences 5
A study on no study 9
AZeotropy 2012-2013 10
Life after a B.Tech 11
Fine Arts Corner 12
Inside this issue:
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A dilemma faced by young people, usually at
the stage when they leave home for the rst
me, is that rules that they have lived bythus far seem quesonable. This arcle is
about an approach to handling the problem
of formulang a very personal but praccal
ethical code. The actual, detailed, soluon to
the problem is personal and not addressed
here but the factors which need to be kept in
mind are. Also some simple `dos and don'ts'
are described.
Ethical code: need and strategyFirst, should one have an ethical code at all?Why not play life by the ear?
A personal ethical code is a strategy for
choice of acon in situaons encountered
commonly by an individual. It limits the
choice and thereby reduces the stresses in-
volved in constantly opmizing according to
objecves which might vary with me and
circumstance. If the choice is made according
to a code, it is usually thought of as a duty
carried out and therefore leads to lesser feel-
ings of guilt, dissasfacon with outcomes,fear of punishment etc. There is oen a
sense of sasfacon of having performed
one's duty when one has acted in conso-
nance with the code.
What strategy should one use to design an
ethical framework that is suitable for oneself
while conforming broadly to universally ac-
cepted norms?
First look for generally agreed `universal prin-
ciples'-
as few of them as possible.Then study the condion of the individual by
him/herself and in relaon to others.
Finally match the two and work out details.
Fuzzy ethical rules Individual should aim at long term personal
`happiness'.
Individual should not `hurt' others (i.e.,
make them unhappy), should preferably be
invariably kind.
It is possible to argue that the second rulecould contradict the rst, but broadly
most of us would agree with the spirit of the-
se rules. We however need a working
denion of `happiness' to proceed further.
What does happiness mean?
Nowadays we tend to talk in terms of one's
mood. Mood could be thought of as an indi-
cator of the state of mind related to how we
perceive ourselves in relaon to the present
environment, past acons and future pro-
spects. We say the mood is elevated if we
perceive posively and depressed if we per-
ceive negavely. Excessive mood elevaon
could lead to inappropriate behavior with
adverse consequences. Happiness could beregarded as mildmood elevaon.
Control of moodSince our basic rules speak of long term per-
sonal happiness, it is pernent to speak of
possible ways in which mood can be con-
trolled and made mildly elevated. Mood can
be controlled temporarily and in the long
term by many techniques. The safest is to
control through rounes related to sleep,
mental or physical exercise, relaxaon, diet,social interacon, through deep involvement
in acvies and through change of scene.
Somewhat more subtle methods involve con-
trol through modes of thought which modify
belief systems, modify thinking and behavior,
improve self esteem and help perceive oth-
ers as benign (e.g.. raonal emove therapy,
cognive therapy). These are slow and me
tested. The last several decades have been
substanal advances in control through
If one accepts that one must aim at long
term personal happiness, it follows that one
must do one's best to maintain physical and
mental health. Organs, parcularly the brain,
should be kept in good health by using good
rounes related to sleep, food, exercise. In
addion, it is necessary to exercise self disci-
pline in order to feel free and to train the
mind to focus largely on the present, perceiv-
ing others and the universe as benign. Use
could be made of religious feelings, whichare natural to everyone, and religious rou-
nes, that one might have grown up with.
Page 2
Abridged version of a text of a lecture delivered on 16th Oct 2012. Original version may be found athp://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~hn/
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Page 3
Interacng with othersInteracon with others can take the form of
communicang with them or performing tan-gible acons on them. In the former case,
one should be truthful as far as possible.Ex-
cessive lying is noced by others and the in-
dividual is branded as unreliable. Also (and
this is very serious) lying aects one's own
view of external reality, and one starts be-
lieving one's own lies. Praccally speaking,
perhaps one should use three valued logic -
truth, falsehood, silence. Where one cannot
be truthful, it is beer to be silent.
The acons that one performs on others are
related to one's own feelings about them. In
most everyday situaons, thinking benignly
about others is benecial to us and negave
feelings towards them cause us acve harm.
Whenever others feel an individual can hurt
them, their reacon leads to a strengthening
of the individual's own negave feelings. All
negave feelings should therefore be hidden
to a lesser or greater extent from others --
depending on their nearness to oneself.Aempts must also be made to reduce these
feelings.
Convenonal mechanisms for hiding one's
feelings about others use the rules of polite-
ness and `good manners'. A general policy is
to appear `normal' and therefore non threat-
ening. Further, when one disagrees with an-
other person, unless it is explicitly required,
one does not voice it or even if one does, the
disagreement is with the view expressed by
the person and not the personhimself/herself.
Reducing negave feelingsIn order to reduce negave feelings one
could act posive, try to help others, to be
kind. The reacon to such acts will usually be
posive and thereby reduce one's own nega-
ve feelings.
As a general rule one could look outward
and be concerned with others' well being.
An extraordinarily eecve therapy for build-ing one's self esteem is to devote a certain
poron of one's me to caring for people
whose well being does not impinge directly
on oneself. One could call this the `Mother
Teresa' method, but of course praccallyevery civilized religion preaches it. It gives
one's life a purpose towards which one can
work and increase one's long term happi-
ness.
Dealing with Laws
One should avoid violang `laws' as far as
possible -- even the leer, but denitely the
spirit. One could of course independently
struggle to get unjust laws changed. But
while they are there, an individual would dowell to stay within the limits imposed by
them since punishments and the threat of
punishments will reduce personal well being
or the sense of well being. On the whole,
personal rules should be stricter than laws so
that one feels free.
Ethics in scienc acvityScienc Ethics: Rules
When you state your results, do not
knowingly uer falsehood. Give credit where it is due.
Falsifying resultsIn experimental work, deliberate falsicaon
is very dicult to detect since repeang
someone's experiment is me consuming
and expensive. But the author is deliberately
misleading the direcon of research the en-
re community is undertaking. Therefore, in
the rare instances where falsicaon is
proved, the system deals very harshly withthe perpetrator, essenally terminang
his/her professional career.
Giving creditSciensts deserve credit for their work.
When it is correctly accorded, the person
concerned is movated to connue doing
research. When a deserving scienst is de-
nied credit, usually the person would become
bier and get side tracked from connuing
the involvement in research.It is in the interest of the community that
whenever new research is reported, the work
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on which it rests is described with care and
fairness and due credit is given to these earli-
er workers (`Do unto others as you wouldhave them do to you ').
PlagiarismThis is the second most serious violaon of
scienc ethics. Here one is robbing others
of credit.
When it is commied, it is very easy to de-
tect and the punishment is certain and harsh.
Some alleged plagiarism only violates the
leer not the spirit, but even this gets pun-
ished currently. So extra care has to be takento see that one is not comming
inadvertent' plagiarism. Whenever a materi-
al (text, table, gure, photograph ...) is taken
from a source verbam, the source should
be immediately stated and also the fact that
the material is verbam.
Beyond the codeThe researcher should acvely resist the
temptaon to `appear good' (i.e. do whatev-
er yields immediate, oen quantave pro-
fessional credit) rather than concentrang on
being `good' (i.e., being deeply involved withthe problem). It is beer to adopt a personal
code which enables one to do this. This
could be regarded as working towards long
term personal happiness.
One's natural tendency is to grab as much
credit as possible for oneself or for one's im-
mediate group and `damn' others' contribu-
ons `with faint praise'. However, all of us
appreciate generosity in others even if we
ourselves have diculty in being generous.
So acve eorts must be made to be gener-ous as far as possible (e.g.. Einstein's gener-
osity to Bose).
Established workers should always be on the
lookout for detecng and nurturing talent,
parcularly among the disadvantaged. When
such talent is discovered the enre research
community is inspired
(e.g.. Hardy discovering Ramanujan).
Page 4
PROF. H. NARAYANAN
EE Department, IIT Bombay
Now that my life is nally falling apart, now
that my skin is nally peeling I see you under
my skin, I nally see the pain thats been kill-
ing me.
Nostalgia, dear mother of pain, I see youve
made my heart your home.
Now pain is what is le of what used to be a
cherished memory.
And I cant let go,
cause it would only end up killing me.
Every faded photograph I see,
Every single dream,
Brings it all back, all the things youve taught,
Every virtue I ever longed for,
Every bit of the person I wanted to be.
All my childhood castles have nally been
washed by that last wave of reality.
I wish I could be a bit more clear,
But the world would think Im sick.
Whats le of me is a bag of memories, and
broken will.
Whats le of me is hanging from the last
strand of hope, from the stained fabric of a
screwed up life.
I wish i could be a bit more clear,
But the world would think Im sick.
I am not sick, I just miss school.
Though I know I dont deserve to be,
I just hope you remember me.
ARUN NEETHIPUDI
IInd Year Student
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Page 5
The rst day was terribly disastrous, I some-
mes speak to myself.
I ended up spending my summer break lastyear in the beauful and safe city of Munich.
To begin with, I would say, Munich is a
crowded city (relavely; you cant compare
with India!). So, it is very dicult to get hold
a place to live for a me period as short as 3
months. I worked at Technische Universitt
Mnchen, which was in one extreme corner
of the city and lived in the other extreme. But
the metro (they call it U/S- bahn there) net-
work was very well established.
I was interested in Chemistry more than
Chemical Engineering. I worked in the eld of
Theorecal Chemistry, which is not really
related to Chemical Engineering. The work
turned out to be really challenging and inter-
esng, much more than I was expecng. I
dealt with Gold-Palladium metal clusters and
the work was purely computaonal and mod-
eling based. There was a huge amount of
stu to learn. I could not complete what we
had planned before because we had under-
esmated the complexity of task. And, I think
they were more or less happy with my work,
which is why I was asked to come back next
year.
Germany is the scienc power of all Europe
(and tremendously well organized). Speci-
cally, Munich has a great scienc back-
ground (the rst nuclear plant of Germany
was built outside TUM). If you talk to any
person in the U-bahn, there is a high possibil-
ity that he would be working as an engineer.And research, as far as I understood, is taken
way more seriously there than you would
nd in an average research lab in India. The
administrave part is well aended to, since
a normal professor has whole bunch of peo-
ple handing only administraon. The gap be-
tween the professor and students is very nar-
row outside Asia (I used to call my 52 year
old supervisor with his rst name).
But people really believe in work hard, party
harder. Young students would hang out withtheir friends aer work. The weekends are
always o, and you would not nd a single
soul in the enormous building on weekends
(my supervisor used to try and shoo me o
and suggest places to visit, but it did notwork well ll the end). People try to travel as
much as they can in summer, because the
winters are freezing cold. The supermarkets
close at 8 pm everyday and are not open on
Sundays at all. The banks somemes close at
3 pm, which was very annoying for me in the
beginning.
Generally, people are more kind, friendly and
helpful in all Germany (Indians are more so-
cial and there is a subtle dierence). I was
well aended to at the University and theDAAD meengs. Aer the rst two weeks, I
never missed home.
Living alone wasnt very uncommon. Stu-
dents separate from their parents at the age
of around 19 years and start living alone,
which is precisely why they were all more
independent than me. I was living alone in
the apartment too. There was no other stu-
dent from IIT Bombay that I knew or met. But
in some me, I realized that I should not bebiased towards being around more Indians
(though I travelled to other countries with
the rest of IITB junta who were living in Ger-
many and France). It was nice to be with peo-
ple from dierent parts of the world (I really
mean it, Munich has 25% foreigners).
An uncanny skill of cooking and swimming is
what you would not nd in an average teen-
age Indian student. I was taught some
amount of cooking by a Lan American friendwho was sharing the oce with me.
Here is the most interesng stu-food! (I am
a vegetarian and I faced some mild dicul-
es) In all Europe, you would easily nd res-
taurants of dierent European countries. I
had a good taste of German, Greek, Italian
and American food. If you get a chance to go
Europe, dont miss out on Greek salad with
feta cheese, Italian lasagna and Zucchini
friers with tzatziki (the one on the nextpage, picture 1).
Intern Experience
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Europe is culturally and environmentally rich
connent. With the visa for 23 countries and
great network of trains all through the con-
nent, travelling was very easy. The scenic
trains (all trains passing through Switzerland
belong to this category in my opinion) would
provide you the best train experience ever! I
had visited Italy and Switzerland (and Germa-
ny, of course). Switzerland was really a para-
dise experience. But Rome, Paris (which I
could not go to), Vacan city, Pisa and Salz-
burg ice caves are not to be le out too. By
the me you come back to India, you are
down with 4 wonders of the world already
and have your camera lled with beauful
scenic pictures! Above is a picture (picture 2)
of a really unaended canal in Switzerlandand the one next to it is about the scenic
train.
There was some out of the box stu that I
experienced (especially while travelling to
other countries) which made life really inter-
esng. Not being able to locate our accom-
modaon in the city at 1 am at night and
spending night in a tent (frozen) are memo-
ries that I would never forget.
City and suburbs are much more clean that I
found in India. Even the graveyards look
beauful! There is a striking dierence be-
tween Munich and a city like Bombay. Alt-
hough both of them are equally important to
the respecve countries, environment and
technology live together in Munich, while not
so much in Bombay.
Schengen visa for Germany is issued in one
day. But keep in mind to have your spend
amount menoned on the invitaon leer.
Travelling to other countries require some
amount of preparaon, like carrying stu
according to weather, booking accommoda-
ons well before leaving, reservaons for
trains, etc.
To conclude, I had a great experience, both
academically and otherwise. I feel that Mu-
nich is a good choice to take with nearly 30
museums, 40 churches, town halls, Allianz
Arena and Olympic Park inside the city, so a
lot to explore in 2 months itself! And it has
been more than 3 weeks already since I have
le the city, but I sll miss the place badly.
More than that I miss all those people who
made me feel at home.
Page 6
Picture 1
Picture 2
AKANKSHA THAWANIIIIrd Year Student
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Page 7
Aer a frustrang wait for the results which
were nally announced in March 2012 and
some minor delays in the Visa process etcnally it was all done and I was ready to y
away to Canada having already taken a few
short( survival) cooking lessons from my local
guardians in Mumbai. My host professor got
me in touch with an Indian graduate student
at McMaster University( where I was to in-
tern) who received me and helped me with
the inial adjustment into the Canadian sys-
tems.
There was the usual culture shock and anawe for the mouth-watering prosperity be-
yond imaginaon, but the grad student men-
tored me through and soon I was quite com-
fortable with the Canadian system of living
apart from one eludible thing: FOOD!!! I was
hungry, I was craving, I ravenously hunted for
restaurants and nally did nd a few places
oering authenc Punjabi cuisine however
they were either far o or too expensive so I
busied myself into siing through archives of
Zee TV's all me famous ``Sanjeev Kapoor'sKhana-Khazana'' episodes trying to make
something out of those innocuous looking
vegetables and beans. I sort of got this
strange feeling that I was living just to eat
food and nothing else. Whole days would go
in shopping groceries, learning cooking,
cung, cooking and eang food.
Then came the big jolt! I was selected out of
all the Indian MITACS students to give a
presentaon on the Science Technology In-novaon policy of India at University of Oa-
wa alongside with 13 full professors repre-
senng their respecve countries including
the Director of MIT talking about US. Man! I
was almost dead with the very idea of doing
this. I am good with mathemacs and engi-
neering but here I was suddenly asked to talk
about a whole country's policies which I had
never studied or crically thought about. I
was nervous and did not want to let anyone
down, but then there were reassurancesfrom director of MITACS and
the organizing professor from University of
Oawa. The organizing professor also got me
in touch with Dr Chidambram (Principal Sci-
enc Advisor to Prime Minister of India)who guided me on some key ideas to which I
added my inputs which I had gained from
aending endless number of instute collo-
quiums in IIT, sessions of P2P StudE Club and
various other sources.
The conference was great. My presentaon
was well appreciated and was a nice change
for the aendees from the rather usual eco-
nomic policy perspecve( GDP, funding etc)
to talking policies from an engineering per-specve. I spent a week in Oawa, the capi-
tal of Canada, was invited to diplomac din-
ners by various embassies, met the Prime
Minister of Canada at the Canadian parlia-
ment and got an exposure to a completely
new paradigm.
In this process I was also in touch with vari-
ous IIT alumni in Canada and US, talking with
whom was a great personal experience.
Aer this two week dabbling into socio-
techno-polico part of science, I returned to
my mainstream work. My guide explained
me the problem I was to work on, assigned
me a PhD mentor and planned out a regular
meeng schedule. I used to go to my lab at
around 9AM and return by 4PM to my room
strictly only on working days (summer me in
Canada has a lot of fesve holidays! :D). I was
working with a simulator of a hydrogen man-
ufacturing plant, from analyzing the data of
which I had to give my analycal inputs aboutsome fault tolerant operaonal schemes. The
work was light and non-taxing.
I was already selected as a potenal PhD stu-
dent at McMaster University and was called
there just to be around and see if I would
want to come back.
I gave my work the requisite respect and di-
verted my remaining facules to other inter-
ests which I had been postponing for a long
me due to hecc coursework during the
semesters. This was also a me for personalintrospecon and revelaons. I spent sleep-
less nights somemes rhetorically asking
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE
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Page 8
myself why my country is monetarily poor
and about the next steps I had to take for my
career, keeping in my mind my patrioc bend
as well as the great opportunies (mostly in
developed countries) to solve problems of
the mankind as a whole through science.
Well of course there were the usual tourist
trips, mulple luncheons, dinners and the
partying around. Myself along with my
friends were once randomly picked up from
the crowd while roaming at Dundas Square in
Toronto downtown for a quick interview tele-
casted live on Canada TV about how we were
having fun in Canada. It was a nice feeling tosee oneself on one of the giganc screens at
the square.
There were many trips to various industries
(which oered me jobs!) and good work-
shops which basically funded my tourist trip
to the city they were organized in :D.
The main purpose of the MITACS program is
to give a rst hand experience of the world
class research facilies and people at univer-
sies in Canada. The reckoning and various
inputs completely changed my viewpoint
about countries, ideas of belongingness, pro-
fessional and social understanding etc. I will
perhaps write more on this in some other
arcle of mine since it would be on a very
philosophical note.
Summer 2012 was a very happening me for
me and of all the multude of experiences
that I had as a MITACS Globalink intern in
Canada, I have discussed only a select few in
this arcle. I am sll unable to decide that by
choosing this internship over other real op-
portunies to strengthen my resume for my
PhD apps was worth this experience. Howev-er in all when I look back now I think it was a
good break (and perhaps much needed at
that me) from academics and engineering
stu to learn other important things for
which I am sll unsure if it was the suitable
me in my career.
My takeaways: opened up opportunies in
Canada, made awesome friends and learnt
how to cook food!
Figure 1: The meeng room in Parliament, where I met the Prime Minister( not in the photograph)
DHRUV GUPTA
IVth Year Student
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Page 9
to make a decision by seeing the opening
and closing ranks of the previous years'
students, which makes it a decision ofluck
The post-IIT arrival reasons:
IIT as a means to a beer end : IIT is seen by
most as some place which, aer having
stayed four years in, will give them a stud job
and a dream package. How distorted from
reality this really is is another queson alto-
gether. This feeling of having it as a means
means that we expect fruits from only the
hard work that we put in during the JEE days.
IIT as a pathway to IIM's : Many people have
a stereotyped idea about IIM taking in all IIT
grads irrespecve of anything else. This
means that one, they do not need to study in
IIT to get in, and that acads now are useless
and only CAT is where the real thing is.
Methods of teaching : This point is somewhat
controversial, but this does happen in many
courses, where the professors don't use nov-el or student-friendly techniques which will
help in garnering the student's aenon.
Cing an example for this, many people in
my freshman year preferred to not aend
classes and watch MIT professors teach in-
stead, only because of their teaching meth-
odology
This arcle is not an arcle trying to preach
to the world as to how to balance acads and
everything else (I would love to learn this artfrom someone), but it is my aempt at de-
bugging the fact that people's enthusiasm
decreases exponenally in something that
they loved less than months back.
IIT-ian Pre-IIT :
Before tenth : Wow Physics is so interesng!
Electricity is so awesome! Tesla is God!
JEE days : Arey yaar, aaj parabola khatam
karna hai! Kya mast chapter hai yaar!
IIT-ian at IIT :
First year : Abbey kya give up hai mod-phy!
Second year : Kahaan narak me phas gaye
bhagwaan!
This drasc change, though seemingly hilari-
ous, does occur. In almost each and everyone of us, to a certain extent. When I came
to IIT, I saw everyone all cheered up to score
full and top every exam like they used to in
All India JEE mock tests.
But as days pass by, the enthusiasm towards
academics is replaced by a sense of rebellion.
And knowingly or unknowingly, what we
came here for keeps driing to the back of
our minds, and other aracons (read sports,
cult, moodI and not only DC) start racing for-
ward.
Let me make it clear that I am NOT against
extra curricular acvies, in fact I feel life at
IIT is seriously incomplete without that. What
I intend to state is that these acvies which
are supposed to be extra curricular, become
an excuse to take our minds o something
we are against. These reasons could be cate-
gorized into two phases post-JEE and post-IIT
arrival.
Some post-JEE reasons :
Lack of informaon on branches during coun-
seling : The counseling brochure does not
contain ANY informaon on branches, thus
leading to choosing of branches based on
misconcepons prevalent about the branch
and no proper knowledge.
Rank based stereotypes: Tu top 100 hai?
CS lega?.One is expected
ATHARVA KELKAR
II nd Year Student
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In the year 2050, when big chemical plants
with disllaon towers and smoke stackswould have disappeared; new, clean and
compact plants would be operang in indus-
trial parks neighboring residenal quarters
without disturbing the environment; new
technologies will be used for exploing new
starng materials, ecient reacons and
separaon processes would have trans-
formed what once was a typically energy-
guzzling industry into a model energy saving
industry. Seems too good to be true, innit?
Realizing this dream calls for a dire need to
be aware of the obstacles that you walk past
but refuse or ignore to work on. Awareness
demands acon. Acon demands thought.
And thought demands INNOVATION. Hence,
innovaon is a very crucial and novel compo-
nent of our strategy toolkit.
An old saying goes, "Innovaon and evolu-
on go hand in hand" because evoluon
drives the change and takes us to the nextlevel of innovaon. Endeavoring to bring a
change, this is exactly what AZeotropy 2k13
brings to you. We plan to propagate the mes-
sage Inspire, Innovate, Evolve!
AZeotropy, one of Indias largest Chemical
Engineering-oriented fesvals organized by
Chemical Engineering Department of IIT
Bombay, is now standing high, aracng
huge audience. What began as an idea with a
few events in 2007 has sublimated into a
plethora of not only intriguing compeons
and events, but also a wide variety of lec-
tures by eminent personalies, panel discus-
sions on crical issues and excing on-the-
spot quizzes, informal events etc. Time
passed by and we sailed smooth through
Opt for Opmizaon, We mean Green,Safer pracces for Safer Returns, R3- Re-
use Recycle Rene and now Inspire, Inno-
vate, Evolve.
You there, can be a part of our team eort. It
will cost you nil. All you need is to stand and
move ahead with ideas eervescing in your
mind, visions clear. We ought to realize that
the future of our lives depends magnicently
on innovaon. Innovaon by those minds
who havent yet spoken and by those whohavent been heard. So many like stars in the
sky that stay sll even in the darkest hour,
but brighten up millions of eyes watching
them!
Page 10
DEEKSHA PARIHAR & VIBHORE JAIN
IIIrd Year Students
AZeotropy 2012-2013 team
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Page 11
An undergraduate degree prepares you for
many good jobs but there are many jobs like
project leaders in industrial research divi-sions, university professor etc. that require
advanced degrees. Research teams in the top
industry think-tanks & government labs con-
sist primarily of people holding masters or
doctorate degrees. The excitement of explor-
ing the cung edge of knowledge, and the
thrill of your rst research result, something
you have discovered that no one else in the
world knows, are worth savoring. These were
the factors, which led me to take up my grad-
uate studies at University of Minnesota, TwinCies.
The rst year in any graduate program is all
about courses. While most schools have the
wrien of qualifying exams for PhD qualifying
examinaons within or aer the rst year,
here you have to present your thesis pro-
posal in front of a faculty panel followed by
an oral examinaon tesng your chemical
engineering concepts and we need to do at
least 10 courses within 3 semesters. But itsmore about learning and hardly about grades
Advisor selecon in graduate schools is tricky
and probably the most crucial decision of
our life. Schools vary between having a rota-
on system (taking up short projects in about
3 dierent groups unl you nalize 1) or
where professors present their research and
based on mutual consent, students decide on
advisors, which was aptly quoted by one of
my friends, as the advisor dang process.UMN has the advisor dang process where
we need to meet at least 20 professors be-
fore nalizing on our advisor (so far I have
only met 10 :P). Actually, its good because
you are exposed to the research going
around in the department and I feel it is nice
to be open to various research themes be-
fore deciding your advisor.
My experience in UMN has been excellent so
far. I am completely awestruck by the cung
edge research going around here. My class-mates include people from US, India, Greece,
Turkey, Bangladesh and its always excing to
interact with them. The senior graduate stu-
dents are there to help you out in every man-
ner possible. The research infrastructure is
simply excellent and most of the labs have
there own TEM (you dont have to be at the
mercy of SAIF). Professors are extremely ap-
proachable, highly collaborave and are
ready to co-advise on any project, which suits
the interest of the students.
The department here is very social. The rst
Friday of every month we have our round-
tables (IIT counter part of happy hour) which
is total fun. We have ping pong champion-
ships where students and professors com-
pete for the tle with equal zest ,our HOD
had been the champion for a long me and
was recently defeated by one of the new pro-
fessor :D .Talking about Minnesota without
talking about the weather is incomplete. It isfall now and temperatures are already sub
zero with no sign of snow yet. :(
But the beauful fall colors make up for it :]
Life of a graduate student is not necessarily
like the one we read in PhD comics. It is all
about learning and gaining skills, which come
handy in career ahead, both academic and
industrial seng. It is a common misconcep-
on that, PhD leads to academia. Ive real-
ized so far in UMN that the companies likeare always on lookout for graduate students
for their various research posion openings.
Companies even go to the extent of track-
ing/stalking students to oer them jobs.
Hence, if students have an inclinaon for re-
search, PhD is a surely a worthwhile invest-
ment.
ARPAN A. BANDOPADHYAYAlumnus, Batch of 2012
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7/29/2019 Chea Voice
12/12
Naveen Pal Singh, IInd year student
Rekhit Singh Kaushal, IInd year student
Vikrant Raj, IIIrd year student
Anisha Garg, Ist Year Student
Neha Bunkar, Ist Year Student
Neha Dhakar, IInd Year Student
Varsha Choudhary, IIIrd Year Student