BITSians have to choose between pursuing a semester of PS-II or Thesis during their final year. While the majority of students opt for PS-II, a sizable number of students choose to undertake a thesis. To highlight the thesis stream and explain its workings, the Students’ Academic Cell (SAC) conducted a Thesis Talk on February 12, 2022.
There were three speakers invited to the event. The speakers agreed that the first semester was the optimal time to go for a thesis, and strongly recommended that MS aspirants pursue off-campus theses over their on-campus counterparts.
Speaker #1: Abhijay Kemkar
Abhijay Kemkar is a mechanical engineering student from the graduating batch of 2022 who did his research thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He suggested using university webpages and project sites such as SiROP to search for available projects. He advised that students link their CV in the form of a Google Doc link instead of a PDF and to wait for a week before sending out reminder mails. He recommended applying to labs where alumni professors worked, for a higher chance at correspondence and going through the abstracts of their papers to get a broad idea about the professor’s field while mailing them. Kemkar stated that August was an appropriate time to start emailing professors. He felt that taking up courses which aligned with one’s research interests was not of much help.
Speaker #2: Shikhar Singh
Shikhar Singh was a dual degree student from the graduating batch of 2020 (M.Sc. Biology + B.E. Electronics and Instrumentation) who did his corporate thesis in machine learning at Anarock Tech. He stated his reason for pursuing a corporate thesis as the rarity of getting to work on one’s actual interests during PS-II, while a corporate thesis would offer a far more flexible and focused approach to specific one’s areas of interest. He mentioned that AUGSD guidelines prevent students from pursuing theses at PS-II stations, and urged students to familiarise themselves with said guidelines. He advised the attendees to connect with alumni through LinkedIn to know about openings at their places of work and added that Facebook groups for the same purpose also existed.
Speaker #3: Naitik Khandelwal
Naitik Khandelwal, a mechanical engineering student from the graduating batch of 2022, did his thesis at the Langer and Traverso lab at MIT. He cleared up the misconception of only dual degree students being eligible for a thesis, that the choice of conversion from PS-II was available to all. Contrary to Kemkar’s advice, Naitik stated the benefit of taking courses relevant to areas of interest and scoring well in them. He laid emphasis on doing and documenting projects and project-type courses (SOP/LOP/DOP) to build a good profile. He recommended that students partake in remote research or corporate internships in their third year. Naitik concluded the talk by advising students to send emails to professors at 8 AM, use a good mail tracker, and to not get disheartened by rejections.