Thoughts, Reflections, Musings

Manas Thakur | CSE, IIT Bombay

On Research

Five reasons we love compilers research:
1. We get to really see and experience how things work (as well as break!) on a computing system.
2. We get to show-off all those geeky tools and command-line techniques available online (large software to work with).
3. We use and work with concepts from all the subjects taught to us in a good CSE curriculum.
4. We are both – scientists and engineers – even while working with abstractions.
5. Our outcomes, toiled by hard fun-filled work, often improve someone's life, directly.

Did (m)any of these points surprise and/or excite you? Get in touch and join us to experience the joy, first hand, in flesh!

On Teaching and Mentoring

Philosophy behind my teaching and mentoring style.
We often land up in a career trajectory by chance. Fortunately for me it has all always happened by choice. And super fortunately, I also have a team comprising many who dare to follow their dreams till the end. This short article talks about the trajectory of an early-career teacher-cum-mentor, who is not only overhelmed by the love poured on him by his students and mentees, but is also resolute on continuing to make the process of learning as enjoyable as he can.

Paradigms course finding its character (Experience article).
Teaching a course on programming paradigms to senior IIT undegrads, who are already familiar with many programming languages, is not an easy task. Furthemore, known for promulgating fun in learning, I wanted to replicate the excitement created in classical SICP offerings. Read this Medium blog to find how I balanced classics with modernism in a Paradigms of Programming course offered in the year 2020 (yes, it was also among the firsts to be marred with Covid-19 and confuse everyone with online classes), and experienced a new paradigm of teaching CS courses, on the way, myself.

On (Academic) Life

Life of an IIT professor (Re-post).
Very many people assume the life of an IIT professor is very chill: teach a few classes, sip a few coffees, and come back home. I wouldn't argue that our lives are not fun (we are our masters and as academicians get to positively affect generations of people), but IIT professors definitely are much busier than the outside world sometimes assumes, with so many things to take care of, 24x7. This article by Prof. Arpita Mondal provides an excellent glimpse.

 

Forever under construction