Graduated

I graduated from OMSCS, the Online Master's in Computer Science Program at Georgia Tech. I achieved my personal goal of earning a Master's degree in Computer Science from a prestigious university. I was admitted to this program in 2014 and continued to take one class per 15-week term. I decided to go beyond the requirements by taking three additional classes and graduated with specializations in "Computational Perception and Robotics" and "Software Systems."

My Journey

Pursuing a master's degree in computer science has been one of my long-standing aspirations.

I completed my schooling and college in India but missed the opportunity to attend a prestigious institution. Determined to pursue a Master's in Computer Science, I made my first attempt in 2002 but failed. I started working and earning money while continuing to take courses. I tried again in 2003 and failed, and once more in 2004 with the same result. Despite these setbacks, my passion for learning Computer Science kept me motivated to continue taking courses and improving my understanding of the subjects.

I enrolled in Continuing Education Proficiency Courses at IISc, which were offered on Wednesday evenings. These courses eventually paved the way for me to contribute to CPython development through the Google Summer of Code program.

However, I still had not achieved my ultimate goal. In 2007, I decided to try again.

With work experience, four patents from my job, and part-time courses under my belt, I applied to US universities in 2007. I applied to 10 universities but was rejected by all of them.

In 2008, I applied to 5 universities and faced rejection again. I repeated the process in 2009, applying to another 5 universities, but was unsuccessful.

In 2010, I received one admission offer through a referral, but I decided not to pursue it as it was not a good fit for me.

In 2012, I almost enrolled in a part-time master's program, but I chose not to continue because it was not in Computer Science.

In 2014, the OMSCS program was launched, and it looked very promising. I applied and was admitted in its second offering. I started my classes in January 2015, and after taking 13 courses, I completed the program in December 2019 with a GPA of 3.21.

One of my most important lessons during this course was my failure, getting grade C, in Computational Photography due to a mistake I made. I could have been removed from the program, but I became more careful, corrected myself, and retook the course to earn a B grade.

The experience has shaped me well as a person. The journey was fun and eventful. My family, especially my wife, Shalini, supported me a lot. She would regularly check in with my plans and adjust our social outings accordingly.

We celebrated our first child, Siddhartha's first birthday, when I started this program. We had our second child, Saharsha, while I was taking the courses. Keeping them entertained while pursuing a master's degree was challenging. I used to put them to sleep and then return to my computer to complete assignments.

In terms of work, I lost a job, got a new one, and then changed jobs again during this timeframe. I struggled a bit to balance work and study but managed to focus on work without letting one interfere with the other. I also got promoted twice in the same organization during this period. Overcoming this long-pending desire and mental block was a significant achievement for me.

Finally, we celebrated my graduation with a family trip to Atlanta, and my wife Shalini organized a party with our friends. She also requested me to give a short speech. Here is the speech that I shared with my friends.

We can celebrate anything. My wife, Shalini, is organizing this party as she wanted to celebrate my graduation.

I feel a little awkward and embarrassed to be honest, but I am supporting her just as she helped me throughout this journey. And I want to thank my friends for coming.

For sharing things that I have learned, I want to talk about the quality of honesty because I think about it a lot.

It is challenging to keep up with the changes; it is challenging when our desires fail; it becomes challenging to lose opportunities every day. Given all these, I still think that our time and the journey is enjoyable, if on any task we dedicate our time to, we do so with honesty. There is a lot of value in doing things with our bent of mind. Learning, understanding, and then doing things that we like to do. Failing is okay, and the number of attempts overtime does not matter. The result might be enjoyable, just as I realized that with my graduation.