Student Research Journal - Asms: Fill & Download for Free

There are many contexts to answer this questions. As I recognize a few of them, I will keep adding them.Faculty and InfrastructureThe faculty is really good. Around 90% teachers are PhD holders, are well versed with the syllabus as well as the English language. I mention English language because I had a problem understanding a lot of lecture material in my first year classes. First year teachers are not very good.The infrastructure is pretty decent. All labs have Ubuntu 14.04 installed in them, and they are in a good condition. Good CGI handling capacity, and all good LAN speed is available as well. Many software licenses are available, ranging from Java, C to MATLAB, Computers assigned to faculty have Windows installed along with Linux 14.04.Overall, since the college is located beautifully, the environment is very pleasant.PlacementsPlacements in the computer department are really good. Statistically, many Maharashtra candidates, when unable to get in to the IITs, NITs, IIITs, COEP, they think of MIT as the second option after PICT. A good deal of smart kids end up joining MIT Computers. Almost 85% of students who sit for the placements, get placed in their last academic year. Average package bagged is 4.2 lpa, highest being 18lpa.Further EducationSadly, a lot of Computer undergrads do not opt for further education. Only about 5-10 students pursue their MS every year and another 5-10 go for an MBA. Around 10-12 undergrads go for Mtech, but very few get an admit into IITs. Currently, There's a lot of efforts being taken to motivate students to pursue further education, including motivational talks by alumni, workshops on further education by many coaching institutes, and formal talks by foreign universities dignitaries. I think these were the few when I was still in college.LibraryThe library is vast and has huge collections of educational books. The reading rooms are a little small as compared to the free areas, the lawns, halls, sidewalks, staircases are all widely used by the students to study and group study.The digital library can be considered as a point of competition to the leading Indian colleges like IIITs. The digital library has subscriptions to all leading research journals including IEEE, Springer, ASME etcMCUG (MIT COMPUTER USERS GROUP)This group is a united effort of the Computer department students aided by a few faculty to collaborate and educate themselves about real world applications taught in the classes. They conduct workshops for non group members and try to make students aware of a few more concepts than those they already know of.RoboconThis team is the one interested in building robots (of many kinds) and compete in many competitions and they’ve won many prestigious awards, that too every year. The team consists of mainly E&TC department students, but a highly motivated Computer/ IT kid might also get through. Mind you, the ratio of a Computer kid getting in this team is 1 maximum 3 of the whole Department’s population!Technical FestsTexephyr is the official Technical festival organized by four departments of the college namely, Computer, Electronics & Communication, Information Technology, and Mechanical. It hosts around 45 events and about 5-7 workshops and receives a footfall of approximately 12000 every year. This event is the most awaited one amongst the geeks of engineering colleges.Sports & Cultural EventsThe following section is not particular to just the Computer department, but I couldn't find anything specific to the department.Around 17 sports teams exist in the college. All sports enthusiasts participate actively in the annual sports fest organized by the college called SUMMIT! These teams individually participate in the many sports tournaments throughout the year and are awarded personally by the founder on account of a notable achievement. The head of Physical Education Prof. Dhanave ensures the teams participate and practice throughout the year.The cultural team is by far the most active team in the college. They participate the most, they win the most, they are very creative and innovative.I think I'm done. I'll edit if I think I missed out something.

Here is a suggested approach to finding good labs in MEMS:Use MEMSnet®/MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange®: research. Go through the list of research labs to find what topics/subtopics in MEMS research interest you.Attend the IEEE MEMS conference, and read selected conference papers from the International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 201X) : IEEE MEMS 2014 Conference -- January 26-30, 2014 -- San Francisco, USA.When you have read enough research publications (journal and conference papers, MS and Ph.D. dissertations, books, and technical reports), it will be clear which labs are great, good, average, barely decent, and pathetic.Networking with top researchers in MEMS can also point you to competitive research labs, not necessarily the best in MEMS but possibly in subtopics like BioMEMS, MOEMS, RF MEMS, NEMS, or otherwise.See Pasquale Ferrara's answer to How do I find the seminal papers of an academic field?.There are no shortcuts. Do a good literature review and you will find labs that would interest you (not way beyond your caliber and not pathetic), which you can join as a Ph.D. student.Use good journals like "IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (JMEMS)" (highly recommended) and "IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology." Special features of the "Proceedings of the IEEE" on MEMS and related topics like NEMS also help greatly.You can also consider looking at journal papers from the "Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS," which is published by SPIE. Some other research conferences may have decent research papers, such as SPIE MOEMS-MEMS (part of SPIE Photonics West); I would avoid using other SPIE conference proceedings as authoritative sources of information/research about MEMS, since the quality of the research papers tend to be poorer."Sensors and Actuators A: Physical" is a decent journal from Elsevier B.V.. Ditto for Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering (JMM) from IOP Publishing Ltd.. Springer does have some (pretty) good, or at least sufficiently decent, books and journals pertaining to MEMS/microsystems.If you want to do a postdoc, this will also be useful in finding labs to do your postdoc in. Ditto for visiting academic scientists/professors. For aspiring tenure-track professors, or junior faculty members, this is a good way to determine how good is a department/university in MEMS research, and incorporating MEMS research with other research projects (such as bioMEMS devices for surgical instruments, used in robotic surgery -- See University of Minnesota - Twin Cities). This can help you to determine if the department/faculty/school is too crowded in the area of MEMS research, or if you can fit in as the 2nd/3rd/5th professor in MEMS research.Personally, I would avoid the universities in Australia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. They are way overrated. Some universities in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan may have decent labs. I would focus on the U.S., and, to a lesser extent, Western Europe and Israel (see the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology).In addition, I recommend that you look at MEMS design automation, too. Duke and MIT have done some work on this. Why do stuff manually when you can automate it? Look at my EECS blog for more details; see EECS (ECE + CS).P/S: For Ph.D. programs in the U.S., pay attention to the Ph.D. degree requirements. Some of them are very tough. You may need to get "A"s on all of your classes, and/or take a bunch of exams that cover your research area (and perhaps major themes in the academic field). Some labs are in the electrical engineering (EE) department, and some are in other departments (e.g., mechanical engineering, ME). Taking a comprehensive exam in ME when you come from a background in EE is a nightmare, and vice versa; see Prelims and Comprehensive examination.Good luck!Addendum:To the best of my knowledge, no sufficiently good MEMS researcher is based in Australia and Singapore. Here, by good, I mean researchers who are doing transformative research involving MEMS; for a definition of "transformative research," see Transformative research -- it has a reference to a NSF web page, and an NSF report.If you look at MEMS 20XY, where XY are integers between 00 till 13 (since we are in 2013), how many "Outstanding Paper Awards" are given to research teams in Australia and Singapore?I don't know if any of the aforementioned MEMS journals have "Best Paper Awards," unlike other journals. For example, the Donald O. Pederson Best Paper Award is given to authors of the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD); see TCAD Best Paper Award.So, I can't compare researchers with "Best Paper" awards from journals concerning MEMS. Ditto for MEMS design contests. From Pasquale Ferrara's answer to What are some good VLSI design contests?, the DAC/ISSCC Student Design Contest may have accepted MEMS designs, just like the ASP-DAC University LSI Design Contest and the International Conference on VLSI Design's Design Contest.Another thing to pay attention to is public policy with regards to technology and research; i.e., technology policy and research policy. Australia isn't doing too well in this regard. Just look at where its Ph.D.s in EECS are heading to. How many corporate research labs are in Australia? One? CiSRA - Canon Information Systems Research Australia. What? That's it? Yup. How many R&D centers are in Australia? Probably less than 10. By R&D, I am referring to development that is part of the engineering core competence of a company, rather than research -- small "r" + BIG "D".Singapore? Just look at the return on investment (ROI) on Singapore's government funded research. It is absolutely pathetic. Number of good start-ups generated, which got acquired for buckets loads of money or became multinational companies traded in the major stock markets? Most probably ZERO. Number of high-quality journal and conference papers generated that won "Best Paper Awards" or equivalent? Negligible. Note that conference papers in EECS are considered as publications, with DOIs and what not.In short, Singapore's research excellence is way overrated. I mean, if you compare the number of high-quality journal and conference papers from research teams in Singapore, it is pretty low compared to its peers in Asia and the Pacific/Oceania (including the Middle East). We can't even finish top 5 in this region, either as a nation or when you compare research institutes/universities. This is based on a ranking of countries and organizations in the aforementioned region with regards to the number of research publications and citations, which was published in the Straits Times in the last year or two.Singaporean universities and A*STAR research institutes have good prestige, but lack in quality to back it up. Yes, researchers in these organizations can publish interesting papers with their collaborators in other countries thanks to funding from the local government and initiatives, such as the Singapore-MIT Alliance. However, if you look at research output from projects that are primarily based on the work of Singaporeans/Singapore-based researchers, rather than their collaborators overseas, it's a joke.I have personally heard a R&D team leader/manager at the Institute of Microelectronics - Singapore told people in a public IEEE event that they had not adequately tested their ICs when they submit them to research conferences and journals for publication. What would any decent researcher say of that? Dodgy. Arguably scientific misconduct. I had also interned in A*STAR research institutes (IME and BII) before, and I hate the organizational/corporate culture there. The racism, sexism (including an act of molest that I witnessed), and scientific misconduct that I have witnessed was sufficient evidence that there are systemic failures in Singaporean universities (heard of many poor first-hand experiences from non-Singaporean students/researchers) and A*STAR research institutes.Granted, the local government has made significant progress in terms of science policy, technology policy, and research policy to improve conditions for research in Singapore. However, it will need at least another 10-20 years to make a significant impact, in terms of transformative research. Ditto for Australia. Why? You cannot change the local culture quickly. You will need lots of love and time for ignorant and bigoted perspectives and poor work ethic to change.They may be "hardworking," but that's usually because they choose to use ineffective practices/methodologies instead of more effective and efficient practices/methodologies. That is, they are intellectually lazy, and refuse to learn about other areas in their fields, let alone other academic fields. Why spend 100 hours to do X when you can learn Y in 20 hours to do X in <10 hours? Granted, learning Y may be very hard, but if it is more effective and efficient, why not?Singaporeans can find fault with the academic background of the international students that they recruit, since they aren't recruiting the top students from good undergraduate programs in science and engineering. It's always easy to blame others...But, electrical engineering programs at National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University don't even encourage students to take intermediate classes (for juniors and seniors, and junior grad students) in more than 3/5 research areas. Just look at the structure of the BS EE degree programs (or the equivalent thereof) at these universities. Now, compare these programs with other BS EE programs from good universities around the world.Also, pay attention to the lack of success of engineering Ph.D.s from Singaporean universities. Did any of them get tenure-track positions at world-class research universities within 3-5 years after graduating with a Ph.D.? Did any of them become research scientists at corporate research labs within 3-5 years after graduating with a Ph.D.?Great research universities do produce students who get tenure-track positions at world-class research universities or become research scientists at corporate research labs immediately after getting graduating with a Ph.D.. In Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Prof. Sanjit Seshia from Carnegie Mellon and Prof. Luca Daniel from Berkeley got tenure-track faculty positions (Berkeley and MIT, respectively) after their Ph.D., and Dr. Chenjie Gu from Berkeley became a research scientist at Intel Strategic CAD Labs after graduating with his Ph.D..By good undergraduate programs, I am referring to the following universities: Technion, Indian Institutes of Technology, National Taiwan University, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), ETH Zurich, EPFL, Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) / TU Lisbon, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Bilkent University, Middle East Technical University, Sharif University of Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, University of Bremen, University of Karlsruhe, and a bunch of German technical universities.How do I know that they are good? Just take a look at the academic background of good researchers in the semiconductor industry. Look at the academic background of graduates from non-American universities who end up in good Ph.D. programs around the world, and eventually in R&D and corporate research labs.Also, look at the academic pedigree of tenured faculty members in Singaporean universities. How many of them have been primarily responsible for transformative research? Probably <10, if any exist at all.To put things in perspective, while Mr. Matthew Moskewicz and Dr. Conor Madigan were undergraduates at Princeton, they developed the Chaff SAT solver that was 10-100x better than other SAT solvers. See Boolean Satisfiability Research Group at Princeton. Here, we have American undergraduates beating Ph.D. students and professors from world-class research universities that you are and had been affiliated with (MIT and Stanford), as well as research scientists from IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and the like by 1-2 orders of magnitude, which is hard to achieve in SAT solving... Can you imagine Singaporeans doing that? That is like asking Singapore to produce at least one Alan Webb, who was a sub-4:00 miler in high school.Prof. Pedro F. Felzenszwalb at the University of Chicago published a high impact paper in computer vision as an undergraduate that is still being highly cited. In the last 8 years or so, some UCSD undergraduates co-created the subtopic of comparative proteogenomics with their undergraduate research advisors and other collaborators. A significant number of grad students in good U.S. research universities have published papers at top conferences, like the Design Automation Conference (DAC), based on (extensions of) their class projects while working on other research projects as MS/Ph.D. students. Have students in Singaporean universities done stuff like that yet? No. Will they? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We will find out.Young researchers and prospective Ph.D. students don't wanna wait that long for things to work out. They want to join the best labs/organizations that they can get into, preferably those located in inclusive communities. Australia and Singapore may have made noticeable progress in the last 20 years. But, young researchers want to make an impact in the world, start families, and what not. They can't hope and wait for ignorant, lazy, incompetent, and bigoted dingbats to change.Singapore and Australia may look promising to many people, especially those outside of developed countries who may have difficulties going to certain developed countries like the U.S., Germany, Sweden, and Israel. However, they are ignoring what other countries are doing.To illustrate what I mean, examine the following. In the last 6 years, National Taiwan University (NTU) has regularly placed top 3 in various programming contests of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) (EDA), such as the CADathlon and the recent IC/CAD contests associated with the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, and programming contests associated with the International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD) and International Workshop on Timing Issues in the Specification and Synthesis of Digital Systems (TAU workshop). Number of professors in EDA exceed 8. How many research universities outside the U.S. have the kind of impact that NTU alumni have in the semiconductor industry, in the areas of EDA, digital and AMS/RF IC design, device engineering, and semiconductor manufacturing? Not many. And certainly none in Australia and Singapore.I have updated my comment.You are welcome... This is not just about MEMS or EDA. The failures are systemic. I was at Bioinformatics Institute (BII). So, I have seen enough in different organizations in Singapore.You also have to remember that a lot, if not most, of engineering graduates (especially BS graduates) from Singaporean universities don't do R&D in Singapore 5-10 years after graduation.Singaporeans can claim that they don't have the privileges that other cities/countries have. The Intel Lab in Barcelona that collaborates with Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya... Intel's Haifa Design Center and IBM Haifa Research Lab that collaborates with the Technion... TSMC and other semiconductor companies (e.g., IBM) that collaborate with National Taiwan University... The initiatives that some Portuguese universities (including Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) have with some U.S. research universities like MIT, UT Austin, and Carnegie Mellon University... But, what about Bilkent University, Middle East Technical University, and Sharif University of Technology? What excuses do we have?I am not trying to bash Australia and Singapore here.It is important for Australians and Singaporeans to know that money can't buy love and respect, which is a critical component of diverse and inclusive communities. They should also know that money can't buy passion, perseverance, and tenacity.Having a great immigration policy and huge funding for STEM research can help, but real change has to come about organically from within. Australians and Singaporeans have to want to pursue great careers in R&D for things to change. It starts from great STEM programs in the equivalent of local K-12 programs, and continuing through grad school and beyond. When would good universities in Australia and Singapore have programs like Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) Program (at MIT) and MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP)? When would they care about improving diversity in the STEM faculty?Clearly, a lot of work needs to be done.---I have updated my comment with the following:But, electrical engineering programs at National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University don't even encourage students to take intermediate classes (for juniors and seniors, and junior grad students) in more than 3/5 research areas. Just look at the structure of the BS EE degree programs (or the equivalent thereof) at these universities. Now, compare these programs with other BS EE programs from good universities around the world.Also, pay attention to the lack of success of engineering Ph.D.s from Singaporean universities. Did any of them get tenure-track positions at world-class research universities within 3-5 years after graduating with a Ph.D.? Did any of them become research scientists at corporate research labs within 3-5 years after graduating with a Ph.D.?Great research universities do produce students who get tenure-track positions at world-class research universities or become research scientists at corporate research labs immediately after getting graduating with a Ph.D.. In Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Prof. Sanjit Seshia from Carnegie Mellon and Prof. Luca Daniel from Berkeley got tenure-track faculty positions (Berkeley and MIT, respectively) after their Ph.D., and Dr. Chenjie Gu from Berkeley became a research scientist at Intel Strategic CAD Labs after graduating with his Ph.D..

I am currently pursuing a PhD at the Astrodynamics and Space Missions (ASM) group of TU Delft, so this qualifies me to answer this question. My PhD is about investigating various dynamic processes that are happening in the atmosphere of the planet Venus using physics modelling and data analysis of previous missions to Venus (e.g. Venus Express).Coming to what is life like for a PhD student in Europe? It is highly dependent on where you are doing your PhD. I can answer this from my experience living in the Netherlands.My experience has been quite positive doing a PhD at TU Delft until now and I am in my second year. I am funded through a Dutch Science funding from a government organisation known as NWO. I had to undergo a series of selection rounds before I was offered this PhD even though I knew my current supervisor before that.All PhD candidates at my faculty are considered to be employees and not students. We are under an employment contract (with a said amount of hours per week) and have multiple stages of review processes that we have to undergo. We are provided almost all of the benefits an employee at a Dutch company/organisation would get which includes pension fund and allotted leave period. We also have to pay taxes similar to a job. My salary comes under the funding scheme of Collective agreement for Dutch universities (CAO) and I am entitled to a year-end bonus plus a holiday bonus. The salary is mostly generalised for all the PhDs under a contract from NWO as far as my knowledge goes and cumulatively is a little more than 50,000 dollars (gross amount) in the first year which increases annually. I would say that the salary is quite competitive and allows us to have a normal life without excessive financial stress as complained by the majority of PhD students around the world.I live in a beautiful city called Delft which has a population of approximately 100,000 people and boasts a rich cultural heritage, so you always have plenty of options to go out and enjoy with your friends. Also the city is quite multicultural and the people friendly. If you are bored of Delft then there are other cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht within an hour of your reach through train. Renting a house in Delft is expensive as compared to neighbouring city of The Hague so you can expect to spend 30 to 40 percent of your salary on housing subjective to your lifestyle ofcourse.My working conditions are quite flexible as my supervisor expects results but does not mind how and from where I do that. But this can vary depending on your PhD supervisor. My project is funded for 4 years and I have to meet certain requirements which includes publishing a certain minimum number of papers in reputed journals of my field and producing a thesis at the end of my PhD. We are always encouraged to become independent researchers here at Delft so it is highly appreciated if we find ways to solve a certain problem by ourselves. I am provided with travel funding for atleast two conferences a year and apart from that I am also free to participate in skill enhancing workshops. Apart from my research activites, my PhD includes some teaching duties as well which can be upto one whole day a week when averaged over the duration of PhD, but again it is subjective depending on your faculty and supervisor.Hope this helps!