Saturday, June 09, 2012
Howdy !!
How are y'all doing?
Been a long time.. a whole lot of things have happened and I've partly written about those. Will try to finish those posts in the next few days. I can't wait to share it!
Very many things to share... Hopefully, I'd finish all of this on time.
The Accident
You all know how psyched I was to get that Robotics course last sem. The work load was insane (put it together with DataMining). I pulled very many all nighters.. Was buried in the lab through the thanksgiving holidays and boy, was I done with the Search-and-Rescue robot pretty much on time.
And then, as luck would have it, on the day of the final robot demo, I met with a freak accident with a skate-boarder. Got a torn lip and some chipped tooth. Had to get 15 sutures and left a scar. OK, that was bad, but the saving grace was I cracked the algos final while on Narcotic drugs. I gave my robot presentation with that big fat lip, and it went well. Well, I now sport a scar on my face and gives me a bad-ass look.
The Super-crazy semAnd then, as luck would have it, on the day of the final robot demo, I met with a freak accident with a skate-boarder. Got a torn lip and some chipped tooth. Had to get 15 sutures and left a scar. OK, that was bad, but the saving grace was I cracked the algos final while on Narcotic drugs. I gave my robot presentation with that big fat lip, and it went well. Well, I now sport a scar on my face and gives me a bad-ass look.
Ok, in January, I decided to take life head on. Decided to graduate in 3 semesters. But still had quite a long way to go.
> 3 graduate courses to do
> 2 undergrad courses with exams
> be a TA for a introductory Java class of 180 students
> Take a supervised teaching course
> Since I'm graduating, search for a full time job. (was travelling to the bay-area everyweek for interviews)
>And keep in touch with loved ones at home.
Needless to say, I was quite busy and didn't have much time to do anything else and guess what
I did it all. I completed my coursework and projects on time and applied for graduation! yay!
Graduation
I know, I'm not doing justice to any of the important events here. But, I wanted to tell the story.
It was a pretty spectacular event and my brother few in from NJ to celebrate with me. I wore an oversized fancy black robe and walked across the stage, got my hooding, had a few photos clicked, raised the champagne glass.. in all was a very memorable happy day.
The job search
Well, this was easily the most stressful part of the whole ordeal. Planning to graduate without a job(leave alone a dream one) is super risky here. Since I'm on a Student Visa, the I20 will expire on the day of graduation and I had to file for a OPT or H1B inorder to stay in the US. Well, I tried everything, prepared whatever I can, read every bit and attended a total of 18 interviews. Yes..18!!
And most of the initial ones were rejections. The companies, failed to see why I'm switching from VLSI to Machine Learning. I was constantly trying to read and prepare for the bigger companies later on.
During the spring break, I gave 4 interviews in 7 days and got 2 of them. VMWare and Bloomberg offered me good positions in Palo Alto and NYC respectively. These were good. But not good enough. I didn't take the trouble to come to UT to join these.. And then I cracked a start up in Dallas. Lymba gave me the position that I wanted NLP/DM but the pay was way too less.. So, it was either VMWare or Lymba... And then on Mar 28, I interviewed with Google and cracked it!!! Yes.. Google!
And I'm starting on Monday, Jun 11. Super excited.
Well, I missed another major event. It is special on its own and didn't want to merge it with this post. More about it next time.
Be awesome!
vinbot@google
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