konni uchita salahaalu

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’05(+/- 10 yrs):Drink Coffee.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, coffee would be it. The long-term benefits of coffee have not been proved by scientists, the rest of my advice has no scientific basis either. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the beauty of IISc. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the beauty of IISc until you’ve left it. And more often than not, it is not what you think it is either. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of you at IISc and recall in a way you can’t grasp now what a lovely campus you were in.

Don’t hate the crows; probably they are statistics students!

Don’t worry about being a pensioner. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as getting a girl-friend by watching Darrr… The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 11 AM on some random weekend when T-board is closed. Do one thing every day that scares you.

Attend a Rhythmica programme. Or join Voices.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember the compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old scholarship sheets. Throw away your old grade cards.

Read the Graduate Student Handbook, even if you think it is too early to know the information.

Do not read too many papers. They will only make you feel confused.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what your thesis is going to look like. The most interesting people I know didn’t know whether they would get to write their thesis, even in their third year. Some of the most interesting guys, now in fifth year of PhD, still don’t. May be you’ll have an easy compri, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll graduate in four years, maybe you won’t. Your thesis might actually have some impact on the society, maybe it won’t. Maybe you will become a professor by the time you are 40, maybe you’ll end up at NIAS by 60. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s. Look at your advisor, and pray to God that you don’t end up like that; or atleast that you get better students than he did!

Get to know your professors. You never know when you’ll need their recos. Be nice to your lab-mates. They’re your best option to count on in case of a deadline and are the people most likely to treat you for dinners.

Enjoy your lab. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest place you’ll ever get.

Share and Enjoy!

Eat in C-Mess for some time, but leave before it makes you hard. Eat in A-Mess for sometime, but leave before it makes you soft. Keep changing Mess. If you are in B-Mess, changing the floors will do.

Accept certain inalienable truths. Food is not cheap. Professors will belittle. You too, will grow bitter. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were in Master’s, food was cheaper, Professors were nice and research was universally believed to be a good idea.

Respect your seniors.

Don’t expect anyone else to support your coffee bill. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe your guide will pay you from some project. But you never know when either one might dry out.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the coffee.

Note: The above article is based on a ‘Guide to Life for Graduates’ composed by Mary Schmich, published in the Chicago Tribune on June 1, 1997. It has been widely circulated on the internet as ‘the 1997 commencement address at MIT by Kurt Vonnegut’ (which he denied of course.) The Phdcomics has its own version of it for Stanford! In this age of Google, I think this much is enough to lead to the original article.