IISc Bangalore is always envisaged as an epitome of learning; churning the so-called ‘best brains’ of India. As a part of the college curriculum, I was selected as a research intern in the Electrical and Communication Dept., IISc Bangalore for a period of two months (June-July 2009). I worked in the field of wireless communication as a part of DRDO-IISc Joint Mathematical Program. The icing on the top was a two-month stipend waiting for me at the end of the project. Life never seemed so beautiful to me.
A big scoop of black carrent in the Baskin-Robbins just outside the Bangalore airport greeted me; and I devoured it whole-heartedly. The year 1999 was when I visited the city last; and 10 years hence, zealous was the city in greeting me. Boarded a cab to Lalbagh, I committed myself I would make this summer a memorable one.
A research opportunity at IISc was perhaps the best thing I could have in my entire academic career. I worked in a research group comprising a few M.S. students who were pursuing their full-time courses at IISc. It was Performance Analysis Lab aka PAL Lab (as the local guys used to call it) and I was working and analyzing in different methods in improving the performance of IEEE 802.11 WLAN. The lab had a very congenial atmosphere for research. The lab members were encouraged to work in teams of two/three which according to me increased the productivity and induced a sense of accountability. Original and innovative ideas were greatly appreciated. All the possible support was extended to pursue such ideas. People in the lab were highly spirited and always available for discussions on research related queries, and at times.
In the lab, everyone was a few years senior to me and that was a big help because I spent most of the two months clarifying a number of doubts I had. My Prof was very pleasant to me and spared time while he could. Never was I made to feel inferior. Seeing his humble and down-to-earth attitude, I pondered how we guys bask in our past glories and contemplate ourselves as the ‘King Ozymandias of Egypt’. Perhaps, people tend to become modest and self-effacing as they start picturing in their mind’s eye the zenith of their success. I enjoyed every bit of time out there. The whole ambience of IISc semmed to instill in me a positive vibe in my psychological, philosophical, physiological and of courses my academic life. In short, I was happy!
Despite some unexpected health problems, I stuck to my simple things and renewed my research activities at IISc and eventually completed the project. I felt that although, I did not create a big project there, I came out of there with a far better idea of what research life is likely to be.
I conquered finally!!!
PS: For those interested in pursuing summer internships at IISc Bangalore, a piece of information-IISc Bangalore invites internship applications through JNCASR or IAS at the institute level.
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This post was written by Soumyabrata Dev (ECE Class of 2010, NIT Silchar) on his Internship experience in IISc in 2009. Currently he is a Graduate Engineer Trainee in Ericsson. CES thanks him for writing this article as a part of our MISSION 2015 initiative and hopes that more and more students from NIT Silchar will take an active interest in Undergraduate Research.
Author’s Publications:
[1] Soumyabrata Dev, Ziaul Haque Choudhury, “A randomized cryptographic algorithm and its simulation in C and MATLAB, with its hardware implementation in Verilog HDL”, IEEE Conference on Anti-Counterfeiting, Security and Identification (ASID 2009), August 2009 available in IEEE Explore Digital Library
[2] Soumyabrata Dev, Nischal S, “An efficient partner assignment algorithm for improving the performance of 802.11 WLAN”. The paper is available in the Academy Publishers, Finland’s Digital Library resources forever, is indexed in the major academic databases, including IEE INSPEC, EI (Compendex), Thomson ISI (ISTP), and other indexing services and published in the special issue (during November 2009) of the International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering [ISSN: 1797-9617] by the Academy Publishers, Finland.
[3] Soumyabrata Dev, Prithviraj Shome, Arijit Upadhaya, Abhijit Deka,”UNIX Simulator with advanced unix features” accepted for poster presentation in IEEE International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering and Technology, India
[4] Soumyabrata Dev, Krishna L. Baishnab, Ziaul Haque Choudhury, “An efficient heap management technique with Minimum Fragmentation and Auto Compaction”, 2010 3rd IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Information Technology (IEEE ICCSIT 2010), sponsored by IACSIT, IEEE China Council, IEEE Beijing Section, and co-organized by Sichuan Computer Federation, Chinese Institute of Electronics, Peking University, Sichuan Institute of Electronics, Journal of Electronics Science and Technology (JEST), University of Electronics Science and Technology, Northwestern University, and Huazhong Normal University.
Civil Engg Society, NIT Silchar 