Letter from CSEA vice-president, 2000 in department magazine to graduating 
batch of students.

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Dear friends

I must, first of all, thank you for this opportunity of conveying some
of my thoughts to you. Of course, in the first place, being CSEA
vice-president helps in getting such an invitation.

Anyway, to start things, I will begin by congratulating all of you on
your graduation. I can well imagine your happiness, for I have done
this (graduated) thrice. One peculiarity of most human beings is to
remember the good and forget the bad. Thus for example, the only
memories of a long trek are the view from the top, the great taste of
ordinary grub, the romance of the monsoons, and so on. I am sure, even
for this trek called M.Tech, you will forget the difficult first
semester, the long nights on an assignment, just to get a CC, or an
inscrutable or idealistic guide demanding more.

And hopefully, what you will remember is the view from the top.
Indeed, post-graduate work is precisely about leaving behind the
limited views of the foothills and achieving the perspective which is
obtained from an altitude. Almost necessarily, one must toil to
achieve height and stature. But this hard work is not wasted; since
perspective will stand you in good stead in your future. It will
enable you to move seamlessly from one area to another, connect one
problem domain with another, to select and choose from a variety of
possibilities. And it is this ability of yours which you must guard
and nurture. Ultimately, your value to society at large, or to the
entity you work for, will be decided by how you draw on this
particular experience. Your MTech is like the starting balance. Add to
the principal and live on the interest. Its time to move if you see
the principal depleting.

Truly, the world now, and especially India, presents you with an
enormous number of opportunities. Of course, there is a variety of
corporate research and development jobs. My own preference however,
would be to look at the challenges offered by the public sector,
infra-structure companies, and self-employment opportunities
interacting with these institutions. Banks want secure networks,
railways want train describer systems, revenue departments want
geographical databases. In fact, everyone wants to utilize scarce
resources efficiently. Small companies are mushrooming in all sorts of
places, which address these requirements and do great business. No big
names and no slave labour, but creative independence and good work.

One thing which irritates me is the baggage of insecurities our
graduates carry in their heads. This clouds their judgement of what is
a good job or a good opportunity. Will I get a job with SUN or HP?
Will my chances improve, if I work in networking, and so on. In
effect, it converts us into a herd of very nervous sheep going into
collective hysteria. After all, irrespective of its poor utility, the
price of gold will be as much as you all collectively decide,
hysterically or with a clear head. It is patently obvious to me is
that `they' need you more than you need them. Only when you realize
this can you be free and attain your true potential. Bad employers
judge you by how well you do what you are told to do. Slightly better
ones may appreciate you for what you do without being told. Both these
employers are placing you lower down on the creativity ladder. The
more creative top rungs of product conception and specification are
reserved for others. Judge your employer by where he places you in
this ladder, and not by the brand-name or the money.

Lastly, its a pleasure to welcome you into the IIT Alumni network.
Wherever you go, you are sure to meet someone from IIT. you can rely
upon them to help out, give you pointers on a new job, a useful tip or
a bit of friendly advice, and generally a good time. I too have
experienced this, for e.g, when I had recently gone to Pune, and got
to meet a lot of my ex-students. IIT Alumni have been in the news of
late: usually, how somebody has made millions, or who now heads AT&T
research, new internet companies, venture capital and so on. Even
within the institute, formally, there is now an increased awareness of
our alumni. Some of their spirit, their ideas and of course, their
money now form an important part of the institute thinking. The
important question, however, is where is the institute to find the
high-quality man-power which will, using our new-found financial
resources, convert our ideas into inventions. Most of our BTechs go
abroad and don't even come back, let alone stick around for an MTech.
Almost all our MTechs join multi-nationals which do all their
important R&D on other shores. Thus, these MTechs are also out of our
loop. The fact is that most of our students regard IIT as a stepping
stone to better worlds, and not as a place where they can explore and
invent. Indeed the human resource problem is far more acute than the
financial one. My advice then is: don't just send money. come back.

Finally, remember that life is also a trek. And that ordinary food can
be very tasty if the journey is interesting.

Milind Sohoni
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology, Powai,
Bombay 400076 INDIA,
sohoni@cse.iitb.ernet.in