My research interest is in the area of Computer Vision which in simple terms means 'to create artificial systems (that mimic biological vision) which can be used to help us in doing daily stuff easily', for e.g. a robot, an efficient visual search engine etc. In India I hardly found any group which is doing good work in Computer Vision. Those groups (elite IITs) who somehow publish a research paper in a top tier international conference are focused towards just publishing papers and not focused towards quality work.
PhD is not about publishing arbit papers, it is about doing good work. I have seen people getting a PhD with just one or two publications but the quality of work will be extremely high and they will have higher no. of citations. Sometimes even in IITs people will judge a phd student by the no. of publications. So, I had no choice and had to look at options out of India.
USA - top choice for all grad students. But I dont like getting evaluated based on the no. of words that I can store in my hippocampus i.e. the GRE test. Nobody is ever going to use those 5000 words in real life. Moreover, I'm very lazy to learn it. So, dropped USA!!! :)
Australia - dont wanna die [many Indian students killed due to racism]
UK, Switzerland - too costly to live.
Even though the research groups in these countries are good, education is business there. So, the only remaining ones which have good groups as well as cost of living is cheap and where education is not business are - Germany, France.
I got three phd offers - one from Barcelona (Spain), one from Paris (France) and one from Freiburg (Germany). Who goes to Spain for studying? :P :D . I had to choose between Paris and Freiburg. World renowned mathematicians have been from France and Germany. I dont know why I did not opt for Paris but here are the reasons for Germany -
1. Historical Reason: Compare the progress of Germany and India since 1947. Germany was ruined in 1945. We got our independence in 1947. See where Germany is now and where we are! Of course, India is almost 10 times bigger than Germany but thats not a good excuse.
2. The research environment is brilliant in Germany. Their research is always towards practical realization of their ideas. Germans are intelligent, hardworking and sincere in everything they do whereas intelligent Indians are hard'ly' working :)
3. All the universities in Germany have almost the same status. In India we have the IITs,IISc, TIFR and the rest (i.e. junk). Even in France they have the Ecoles, INRIA and the rest!
4. My guide was a postdoc in UC Berkeley! and he is starting his career in Freiburg as a full professor at the age of 34!! Since I'm his first phd student I have the advantage of getting direct guidance from him and interacting with many more brilliant guys.
5. No credits for course work for PhD in Germany!
6. There is a chance of finishing the PhD in 3 years. (I'm sure I will take some more time :) )
That is why I chose Germany!
For those who are wondering whether a PhD from a not-so-well known university counts in India, I would say "I dont care"! For me what matters is the journey and not the destination!! If I manage to do some good work during PhD then getting a good position in India shouldn't be a problem (hopefully!).
P.S. - If my research interest had been in the area of Machine Learning then I would have joined IISc. They have a stud ML group. There are almost 10 profs working on different kinds of ML problems. Prof. Ravindran (IIT Madras, CS Dept.) once said - 'If you shake the CSA building of IISc some ML guy will fall down' :D
PhD is not about publishing arbit papers, it is about doing good work. I have seen people getting a PhD with just one or two publications but the quality of work will be extremely high and they will have higher no. of citations. Sometimes even in IITs people will judge a phd student by the no. of publications. So, I had no choice and had to look at options out of India.
USA - top choice for all grad students. But I dont like getting evaluated based on the no. of words that I can store in my hippocampus i.e. the GRE test. Nobody is ever going to use those 5000 words in real life. Moreover, I'm very lazy to learn it. So, dropped USA!!! :)
Australia - dont wanna die [many Indian students killed due to racism]
UK, Switzerland - too costly to live.
Even though the research groups in these countries are good, education is business there. So, the only remaining ones which have good groups as well as cost of living is cheap and where education is not business are - Germany, France.
I got three phd offers - one from Barcelona (Spain), one from Paris (France) and one from Freiburg (Germany). Who goes to Spain for studying? :P :D . I had to choose between Paris and Freiburg. World renowned mathematicians have been from France and Germany. I dont know why I did not opt for Paris but here are the reasons for Germany -
1. Historical Reason: Compare the progress of Germany and India since 1947. Germany was ruined in 1945. We got our independence in 1947. See where Germany is now and where we are! Of course, India is almost 10 times bigger than Germany but thats not a good excuse.
2. The research environment is brilliant in Germany. Their research is always towards practical realization of their ideas. Germans are intelligent, hardworking and sincere in everything they do whereas intelligent Indians are hard'ly' working :)
3. All the universities in Germany have almost the same status. In India we have the IITs,IISc, TIFR and the rest (i.e. junk). Even in France they have the Ecoles, INRIA and the rest!
4. My guide was a postdoc in UC Berkeley! and he is starting his career in Freiburg as a full professor at the age of 34!! Since I'm his first phd student I have the advantage of getting direct guidance from him and interacting with many more brilliant guys.
5. No credits for course work for PhD in Germany!
6. There is a chance of finishing the PhD in 3 years. (I'm sure I will take some more time :) )
That is why I chose Germany!
For those who are wondering whether a PhD from a not-so-well known university counts in India, I would say "I dont care"! For me what matters is the journey and not the destination!! If I manage to do some good work during PhD then getting a good position in India shouldn't be a problem (hopefully!).
P.S. - If my research interest had been in the area of Machine Learning then I would have joined IISc. They have a stud ML group. There are almost 10 profs working on different kinds of ML problems. Prof. Ravindran (IIT Madras, CS Dept.) once said - 'If you shake the CSA building of IISc some ML guy will fall down' :D
Brilliant! I never knew you could write so well! I didn't even know these are the reasons you chose Germany.
ReplyDelete"Compare the progress of Germany and India since 1947. Germany was ruined in 1945. We got our independence in 1947. See where Germany is now and where we are! " => Isn't Germany a small country compared to our vast India? Obviously they have become advanced so soon na.
it is not obvious.akkha country tehas nehas hogaya tha. fir bhi abhi woh log sabhi mein no.1 hai
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