Recently I was at home and enjoying some time off from studies. It was a relief to get out of the monotonous schedule of the college. I was reading this book named “PhD grind” by Philip Guo . Its a memoir of a Ph.D. Student at Stanford and a nice explanation of the frustration of a research scholar. The author used a word “Burnout” to describe “the long frustrating time span when you are working rigorously day and night on something without any output”. The post is about my first burnout during M.Tech.
By July(2013) I was done with all course works and was supposed to start with by thesis work. By August I did nothing. In mid August I contacted my guide for some guidance about the thesis. Sir gave me total freedom about whatever I want to do. He said, “ Look for something you find fascinating.” I took it very seriously and studied day and night, rigorously looking for new research areas, sometimes not even talking to anyone. Well it all lasted for 2 days...:D and then I found something fascinating, “Homeland” :D.
August was almost over so I went again to sir. Sir suggested me to work on MANET. For next 1 or 2 weeks I did literature survey of MANET but failed to find something that has not been done already. I discussed with sir again and told him that my interest is in Big Data and Data Analytics. I did some courses on this topic in the past and quite liked it.
During first 2 weeks of September I started learning about cloud computing and did find many areas to work on. I studied VM migrations, cloudlets, tried out openstack blah blah … This was the time when the burnout started for me. I have done some decent projects during under-graduation but it was very hard for me to work on something with a research prospective. My whole career was depending on this.
Cloud Computing and Big Data looked promising and did land me with a job in hand but it was not fascinating and moreover I personally think that it more appropriate to use them as a tool rather than working on them. So it again looked like a dead end for me. It was getting hard for me to focus now.
From the past 1 year or so I was trying my hand in Machine Learning(ML) but in vain. I haven't done any introductory course on ML neither during under-graduation nor during post-graduation. So I was failing every time. I had some experience with ML during some Big Data courses but it was very restricted. So MANET, Cloud computing and Machine Learning were all a failure for me till now.
During start of October, I started with ML with a mind set of working on it. For about 20 days I did basics of ML and simultaneously started exploring new areas. I didn't know anything what I was studying and what am I supposed to look for but I continued. I read anything related to ML that came in front of my eyes. During day time I would be in the lab looking on my computer screen or doing my duties as TA. When at room i'll be reading pdfs or watching TV serials. I stopped going out( Well I don't go outside very often even if I am free), didn't pay much attention on my food. It got very hard to bear me.
I contacted some of my M.Tech seniors and visited a Ph.D. Scholar also for guidance. After discussing with him we came up with a small project on “Gesture Control”. A few night's study revealed that Intel has already launched an SDK with hardware(a depth camera), there was nothing for me in this field to do now. Frustration level was at its peak now.
I went again to sir with a hope to get something concrete. I prepared a list of what I know and few topics that I found a interesting. We discussed for some time and then decided to work on “Behavior recognition”. I moved on to face recognition first. Learned PCA and other algorithms. In the mean time I found a relatively new area of ML- ”Deep Learning”. Deep learning was different and a very active field related to the older neural networks. The digit recognition algorithm was awesome and it looked something new.
Then came the final phase of burn out- the colloquium. It was start of October and we were supposed to submit a topic name and two papers that we will be giving presentation on. The topic was clear enough but it did take me some time to figure out the papers. By that time I was so worn out that I needed a break. So I went home and loved it.
Now when I look back I realise that it as definetly my first burn out that I will never forget. It was very depressing and full of despair. I got unbearable. There is one person who suffered during all this that too without any reason - “My room-mate Shashank”. I didn't realize that I was being very painful but now when I look back, I realize that I was being a jerk. Well I special thanks to him. So far so good. Lets see what happens next.
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