Monday, January 21, 2013

Happy one month!

I have now completed a month at IISERP.  Apart from some delays in arrival of my household luggage from IISERK and acquiring internet connection at home, the transition has been very smooth.  Well equipped office space was alloted to me on Day 1, administrative joining-in formalities were done promptly, I found a suitable apartment [1] and got a new car on Day 2 and started driving practice immediately thereafter [2].  While I waited for my luggage etc to arrive from N1, I enjoyed the warm hospitality at my favourite guest house.

My colleague, Prof. Sunil Mukhi, who joined a couple of months ago, summarizes his impressions of IISERP very well in this post and I couldn't agree more.

Here are some things that I like most about my new workplace:

1) The Mathematics group, of which I am a member, is fairly well staffed.  Other than a comfortable teaching load, this ensures that committee work and other responsibilities get evenly distributed among all members.  So, while a couple of colleagues can focus on, say, building the course curriculum, some others can take care of student counseling etc.  One group takes care of seminars etc and another takes care of library matters pertaining to Mathematics.  We even have a Happiness Committee which organizes regular get-togethers to facilitate interaction between faculty and students.  I will write later about the responsibilities given to me.

2) We have a separate course structure for PhD students.  Mathematics graduate students need more course preparation than other STEM fields and we have the requisite courses to offer to our students.  My student seems to be benefiting from this a lot.  While he has started work on his PhD project, he is taking some core foundational courses that he had missed out before.

3) My colleagues, including the senior ones, across all STEM fields, are in general, very friendly and approachable.  This is totally not meant as a complaint, but it took me a lot of time to make friends in my former workplace.  For months, I went to the office, did my work and came back home without talking to anyone.  It was more common there for people from the same grad school to hang out together.
By contrast, over here, it is impossible to be left alone in a corner while having lunch at the faculty lounge.  Even if people come in groups, they reach out and talk to others on the table.  I like that very much.







[1] "Suitable" is an understatement!  This apartment is a dream.  The kitchen itself is bigger than the biggest room of my previous dwelling!

Friday, January 18, 2013

The worst kept secret ever?

This blog is no longer anonymous.  Well, frankly speaking, it never was, really! The Indian science community is very small and the things that I like to write about (or can write about) also make it very easy for people to search me if they want to!
In fact, I just realized that anyone who figures out that I am at an IISER (super-obvious) and do Mathematics (easy to see because I don't talk about setting up labs etc) can put the search words "IISER Mathematics blog" on google and be directed to my webpage!

So, N1 = IISER Kolkata

New1 = IISER Pune

My STEM field: Mathematics

I never really cared about people discovering my identity, but an anonymous blog stylistically made it easier to write about certain people and incidents without revealing their names.  Hence, the reluctance to go public!

But, I am aware that many people at IISER Pune read this blog (I don't think this was the case at IISER K). [1]

So, it is a little awkward to pretend to be anonymous!

Going public also gives me more freedom to write about Mathematics-based issues and about life in Pune, which I am enjoying very much [2].

IISER Pune, my new academic garden, is a lovely place.  I am very happy to be here and will be writing more about it shortly.  Stay tuned!



[1] A few days ago, Professor VS Rao, the registrar at IISERP, mentioned that he appreciated a certain post I wrote about the guest house at IISERP.  When I asked him how he figured out that I was writing the blog, he thought I was joking! :-)

[2] One of the things, for example, which is very Pune-specific, is that the National Defence Academy is located here.  It is my father's alma mater.  I visited it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was an extremely profound experience, about which I would like to write one of these days.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy new year

A very happy new year to all.

I am settling down in New1 very comfortably and hope to write about it soon.  Life is going to be very different here.

Right now, I am a little busy preparing for the PhD course that I will teach this semester, setting things up in my apartment and taking driving lessons.

Will be back soon, but wanted to write a small blurb on the first day of the year.