Journey through Grad school ...

Life at Grad School

Dear chance blog readers,

If there was one word to describe the nature of my life at grad school it would be something similar to the above picture. A good friend of mine had rightly compared it to be similar to that of a roller coaster ride and I cannot agree more with her :). Whether or not I was a great student is a totally different story, best not delved by me here ;) .

My take on the biggest reason for this journey to be so bumpy would partly be my then naive frivolous nature, combined with an insatiable curiosity/ inappropriate bravery in wanting to take hard courses without considering the implications it might have on my GPA :D. I would say it was the side-effect of something more on the lines of lacking the maturity of looking before leaping !

On the plus side, this quote by Arnold Edinborough was what kept me going throughout my self inflicted arduous journey through grad school

“Curiosity is the very basis of education and 

if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat,

I say only the cat died nobly.”

Must say, if I were to wholeheartedly thank one person  for saving/guiding the curious cat in me through grad school it would be my thesis supervisor. He was indeed more than a supervisor any student could have ever asked for. Must say, his genuine guidance inspired me to passionately continue my current line of work. As we can see from the below picture he was indeed more happier than myself that I graduated successfully ;) 

With the guide who saved the curious cat in me

Reading about the art of gratitude elsewhere inspired me to write this post.I take this opportunity to convey my heartfelt gratitude to each and every soul that had helped ease this bumpy ride of mine :). This post would also be an humble attempt to explain my late start in entering the lovely world of blogging :).

The end result of this journey: 

• Lots of knowledge gained in a melange of courses ( yes, more than the no. required to count towards graduation)
• A masters thesis (Click next to read if interested) Milao: A novel framework 
• The thesis recently, luckily became a conference paper( thanks to hardworking lab mates and my guide/professor)
• 2 internship opportunities
• 5 job offers ( The number of job rejects I got would be a secret close to my heart :) ) 
• An average GPA of 3.52 ( my GPA at the end of first sem will also be a secret very close to my heart :) )
• Worldly wise learning on living by myself away from family
• And yea not to mention a delayed graduation date by one semester :D.

 Above all, lots of love from friends with a heartwarming farewell party and this cute graduation card which I will cherish forever :)

Better late than never, for a heartfelt biggg THANK YOU  

 

Looking back, while I do regret the many mistakes I made which stressed my family and myself a bit at grad school, am glad now that I feel like I did learn a bit from those mistakes and it was in a way those mistakes that indeed strengthened me to a certain extent. 

This my dear readers is: A survivor's story of Life after Grad School Hijacking :D 

Well, the story of how I got into grad school in the first place while having a job offer to work in India after my undergraduate degree, is a totally different story which I will hopefully pen down in the future ;)