Branch: Mechanical; Batch: 2017
M.Sc. Admit: Imperial College, London (in Advanced Computational Methods for Aeronautics)
CGPA: 8.17
Thesis: STFC Daresbury Lab, United Kingdom & On Campus under Dr. Murthy
Extra: Music Club Secretary
Q. How did you get into Computational Fluid Dynamics?
I think it was just about the beginning of my second year when I started looking into this field. I was very fascinated by aerodynamics, flights, F1, etc. and wanted to work in this field. We had a bunch of courses like Fluid Mechanics that were related to the same at around this time. I knew a couple of seniors who fed my interest further, especially Jayesh Sanwal, who introduced me to Computational Fluid Dynamics in particular.
Q. Could you elaborate more on your field of work?
An easy way of explaining this would be with an example, let’s say you are given an aerofoil and there’s a wind flow over it. Now you are to calculate various relevant attributes like wind velocity profiles, the drag and lift generated, etc. You could either do this experimentally, which is very tedious in certain cases, or computationally. We just need to create a mathematical model, feed in any required data and out comes all the information we need.
Q. What do you think is the scope of CFD? Where else can it be helpful?
There is a lot of scope for CFD in various fields, it’s not just useful in Formula Racing or Airspace, it’s pretty much everywhere. Designing wind farms for energy production, studying the flow in long-distance pipelines and everything we lay down in the ground, etc. A lot of quality research is currently happening in hypersonics. Moreover, people are getting into software development as well, creating the software necessary to study fluids and aerodynamics and so on.
Q. So what were some of the courses you have done in your 2nd year that helped you to align interest in this field?
I did 3 courses which were very related to CFD and two of them were graduate courses. One was fluid dynamics, not to be confused with fluid mechanics. It focuses mainly on the theory of turbulence and compressible fluid dynamics. It’s essential to anyone who is into high speed fluids or wants to get the gist of theoretical turbulence. And the other course, which I did in my 3-2, was the finite element method. I would highly recommend every mechanical engineer to do this course irrespective of where your interests lie, because finite element method can be used everywhere. It’s a tool for numerical analysis. It’s an extremely useful course and the professor who used to teach it, and I think he still does, Dr. Pardha Saradhi, is an amazing professor. Finally, I did Wind Energy in my final semester.
Q. Given the online semester, could you recommend any courses/material?
In general, for students specifically interested in CFD, I would recommend NPTEL lecture series by Prof Suman Chakraborty and Prof Rajesh Bhaskaran's course called "An Hands on Introduction to Engineering Simulations" on edEx. These are really good resources that beginners can start to get an elementary understanding of mathematics and ANSYS Fluent.
There’s a survival guide created by some of us to help students from the mechanical engineering department in the future.
Q. How do you think resources at BITS helped you?
As the name suggests, in computational fluid dynamics you need a lot of computational power to do pretty much anything. And in most cases your laptops just won’t cut it. Thankfully the mechanical engineering department of BITS has started investing in servers to run your stimulations. It’s still under development but it was of great help. There is a lot of scope here and I expect it to be a lot more helpful to the upcoming batches.
Q. What were the projects you worked on?
I started working on a project under professor Dr. K. Ramachandra Murthy in my 2-2. It involved studying hypersonic fluids . During reentry into the atmosphere, spacecrafts travel at very high velocities and the temperatures soar to very large values. If the vehicle is fast enough, the temperatures get high enough to melt the entire coating of the thermal protection system. I worked on this heating effect and its effects on the aerothermodynamics of the entire system. I worked on this until my graduation and did my thesis on a related topic. Apart from this I also worked on a couple of other projects related to thermal-fluid structure interaction, turbulence in wind and rarefied gas dynamics.
Q. Could you give some tips on how to get projects in the mechanical department?
I would suggest people to start early and explore . It’s in your 2-1 when you’re doing all your foundational courses. But even then professors are always looking out for some help, they might need someone to code for them, run a bunch of stimulations of fluids, materials, something along those lines, so it’s always helpful when you approach them early on. You convey that you have the necessary skills, the theoretical knowledge or at the very least the enthusiasm to learn. In my case, when I approached Dr. Murthy and told him I wanted to get into CFD, I frankly did not know a lot. I only started working on it after getting in touch with him and he offered me the project. Just read up a little on what the professor is doing, talk to them and say you are interested in the field. If you decide you don’t like it afterwards, you’ll still have a lot of time to explore. And if you do end up sticking with that field and professor, it gives you a time to churn out a bunch of publications. So that will be very helpful for your Master’s or PhD.
Q. How did you manage your courses and projects? I was not the best in academics and would miss my classes a lot. That meant I had a lot of time to devote towards my projects and my research as well. It was hectic, but I didn’t really have to think too hard about where I was putting my time.
Q. What were the different things that helped you get into a Master’s programme, and how did you apply for yours?
The most important thing when thinking about applying for a Master's or planning to go for a PhD is that you should actually be interested in research and be relatively clear about what you want to do. I worked on a project for a long time and had some experience with writing papers or contributing to them. And that’s when I realized I was liking research. And about my application process, every university has a different way of assessing your application. What worked for me, personally, was that one of my letters of recommendation came from a well-known professor in the UK, with whom I've been working for the past one year. Apart from that, your SOP and grades matter a lot too. Having any publications would be a huge plus.
Q. When did you start applying for the master's program?
One should start shortlisting all the universities you’re going to apply to by the beginning of your 4-1, assuming you’re done with GRE by the end of July. I got mine done by the end of October though. Then you should immediately start working on your SOP as it’s going to take you a long time. There’s going to be a lot of drafts and rejections. It took me about two months to get it to a state I was satisfied with. In European countries the application process starts in mid October and some European universities including Imperial College London, which is where I’m studying, have rolling admissions. Colleges with rolling admissions evaluate applications as they are received versus waiting to evaluate all applications after a hard deadline. I applied in mid October right when the applications opened and I got my result by the first week of January. In the case of American universities though, the application process deadlines are around mid December so you would get all your results by the end of March.
Q. Why did you choose a Master's over a PhD?
I did apply to a couple of PhD programs but it didn’t work out. PhD is a very long commitment, 5-6 years in the US and 3-4 years in Europe, so I wasn’t really sure if this is what I wanted to do, even if I have had a couple of years of research experience. I wanted to wait and see after my master’s if I wanted to get into the industry or get into academia.
Q. How can one get a good LOR?
If you have attended a professor’s classes and they know you, most of them are going to give you an LOR unless you have done something to mess up their impression of you. As with my case, if you have worked with a professor since your second year, you can expect them to write you a good LOR. The quality of a LOR depends on your relationship with your professor and the work you have done with them.
Q. Is it better to get a generic LOR from a bigshot professor or a genuine one from a professor that knows you?
A generic LOR does not matter even if it's coming from Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. It basically means that you were a nobody for that professor and they just copy-pasted the LOR for you. It won’t help you one bit, even if it's coming from a big shot. An LOR coming from a big shot will only help you if that professor has some really good things to say about you. All these professors sitting in Stanford and MIT attend conferences and socialize a lot. So they know each other, and when they see them writing really good things about some students, they’ll trust their judgement, increasing the chances of them accepting you.
Q. How does one go about approaching a professor for a thesis, be it off-campus or otherwise?
It's a little easier to get an on-campus thesis than an off-campus one simply because the latter involves a lot of connections and cold mailing.
For an on-campus thesis, knowing the professor personally and having worked with them in the past pretty much guarantees one. It’s okay if you aren’t in a situation like that though. If you’ve attended their classes, are in their good books and they know you by name, it gives you a good chance of the professor accepting your request. Even in the very worst case scenario, you can just mail them saying that you’re interested in so-and-so topic, tell them what you’re working on and that this was your skillset, attaching a small CV. You can then request for a small meeting in their chamber and convey what your interests are.
Trying for an off-campus thesis, frankly, is very frustrating. You have to cold mail a lot of professors. There is a chance you might get lucky and get your thesis in the fifth or sixth mail. Make sure you don't send something generic like “Hey, I want to do a thesis under you, please take me”. You research them well, see what papers they've written and go through their profile and the group they’re working with. After all that, write to them a very concise mail. A lot of professors read your emails on their phones and have very little time to go through them. They may lose interest if they have to scroll through yours. So it’s important that you have to stand out with a crisp, concise and decent profile. Make sure that you’re conveying your interest and the reasons you want to work with this specific professor. I used to write only two paragraphs in the mail. The first one would always either be about a project I've been working on and how it’s related to the professor’s research interests, or I would give a reference of a professor, in case he/she happened to be their acquaintance. And in the second paragraph, I would say, “I worked with this guy/on this project and it directly relates to your research. So I think that if I worked with you, I would gain a lot of experience”. There’s a myth that you need a very strong profile to bag a thesis and that's not really true.
Q. What advice would you give to somebody who wants to compensate for a lower CG?
It depends on where you want to go. I don't think I'm the best person to give advice if you want to get into industry because I never sat for placements myself. But for research, if you do not have a great CGPA, the best thing for you to do is not do a bunch of projects, but do quality projects and get good publications out of them. One of the projects I did, I started in my 2-2 and it lasted till my 4-2. It helped me get a couple of publications and conferences as well. They look at your holistic profile. And you're not really compensating per se, your CGPA will always be a red flag, but what you can do is have good research projects so that you have some leverage on your side.
Q. Which technical clubs were you a part of and were they of any help?
I was part of Hyperloop. I also know a bunch of people from the BAJA-SAE team (Team Vulcan) and Aero Club. It was a really good experience and I would suggest every kid who's coming into mechanical engineering to get into one of these technical clubs in your 1-1 itself. You don’t need much to join these clubs except some enthusiasm. They’ll make you do a lot of work in there and you end up learning a lot. A lot of people I know who are doing amazing work right now and churning out publications or doing cutting edge research got their start in places like Team Vulcan.
Q. What advice would you give to someone who wants to balance their academics and college life?
When you get to campus, at times it can get very boring or stressful and clubs help you cope with all that. Don’t think of them as something you have to balance, you only have to do that when you are way too invested in them. I was part of the music club and was pretty invested in it, but I was only in that one club and didn’t have it too bad. If done right, clubs and friends are like having a way out, a channel to express yourself. Just make sure you don’t stretch yourself too thin.
Q. How did being part of the Music Club help you express yourself?
I think it’s one of the best things that happened to me on campus because it shaped me into who I am today. I was the manager of the club in my second year and secretary in my third year. So it gave me the opportunity to learn things like managing a large inventory budget, conducting events and so on. I remember us conducting music nights and all the practice that went behind it, it was hectic but I enjoyed it. It taught me to see things from a different perspective of how to manage my time and work in a team. The team spirit while doing academic group projects doesn’t even come close to that of when working in a club.
Q. What advice would you give to students year-wise? First Year: For academics, I would say, join a bunch of technical clubs. I would suggest you learn a bit of coding, even if you’re from mechanical, it will help you a lot. Otherwise, you will have to waste a lot of time on learning it later on. Most of your projects would involve a lot of C++, and other programming languages. When it comes to cultural activities, I would suggest joining a couple of clubs and making more friends, because these clubs are the only way you get to find a different aspect to the Bitsian life.
Second year: This is the time you start thinking about where you want to go with your career. You will be doing a lot of foundational courses in your 2-1. By 2-2, you will have some idea of what you want to do. Try to explore lots of new things.
Third year: I think this is the most stressful year of your college life, because you will either have a POR in a club, or you'll have a lot of academic pressure. You’ll also be panicking about what to do with your career, where you actually want to go for a job, or to apply for a summer internship. I will just say relax and try not to panic. It's easy to say this now, but if you panic, you'll just lose your sanity. It is a very crucial year for you so it’s better you go through it with a clear head.
Fourth year: You’ve done everything. Just chill out and look back at your college life. In your fourth year, you only have your thesis and then there’s a semester where you’re not doing anything except a couple of classes. So just relax and give all this advice which I'm giving to you right now.
Q. Looking back, are there any things that you think you could have done better in college? Any regrets?
Definitely my CGPA. If you're a mechanical student, and you want to get good grades, just attend the classes and all the surprise quizzes. Frankly, if you give all the quizzes you will at least get a B or an A minus. My CGPA, I think, is the only thing I could have worked on more. But I'm satisfied with whatever I'm graduating with now, it’s neither good nor bad.
Q. Is there any final advice you'd like to give before wrapping up?
Just enjoy your college life. I've been looking back after graduating and I miss the campus a lot. Cherish your undergrad life, you won't get it again. It's the best time of your life.
Disclaimer: The points given above are the views and steps taken by the individual. They are not fixed steps and guideline to base your college upon. Our hope is to inspire students so they can take the necessary steps here after. We hope you like it!
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