---Sweet November & My December---

Day 157- "One phase gets over" (Monthstone reading: 7 months)

A long gap again...but I had decided to be back only after finishing the application work.
So here's my progress for this duration:

Road-Map
GRE (done)

TOEFL (done)

University Selections (done)
Transcripts ( done)
SOP (done)
LOR's (all recommender's intimated)
University Applications (done)

1. Financial Documents
2. Visa Interview           

Time-line

• 12th Oct - 17th Oct- A visit to Kashmir. Srinagar, Gulamarg and Pehalgam were the major stops.
• 26th Oct- 30th Oct- A short visit to Mumbai to meet my professors and collect transcripts.
• 31st Oct- 1st Nov- Delhi- Chandigarh- Delhi....phew*
• 2nd Nov- 27th Nov- Approaching the statement of purpose iteratively
• 27th Nov - 4th Dec- Trip to Lucknow
• 5th Dec- 15th Dec- Approaching the statement , continued

Time passed unusually slowly over the past month. Many times I hit the writer's block and receded into my shell. However, during this shell-period I reverted to Two books that really helped me clearly put down my thoughts. I would highly recommend "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, jr. and "How to write a sentence and how to read one" by Stanley Fish. The latter especially gave me the much needed push to evolve my prolix to something deliciously succinct. At least I was in love with my new approach to writing my thoughts. Also, my SOP reviews were going smoother with lesser criticism.

I think this post would be a good time to talk about the essentials one needs to start writing the SOP.

First and foremost, the Logical Connect. It should be made clear that no one (not even you) would like to read an essay that lacks connect. So each paragraph in your essay should lead the reader to the next one in a smooth manner. Without connectivity, even with a hundred achievements, the SOP would pull down your profile. So make sure you lure the reader. Tell him who you are and this is why you want to do this!

Structure is the 2nd most important thing about your essay. The impact of a sentence comes out best when it is brief and precise. So for instance if I were to tell you that 'The most important thing to consider while writing your essay should be to make sure that you write short and precise sentences which convey your essential thought in the shortest possible way', I'm sure you would loose me even before the sentence finishes. However, if I were to rephrase it as 'Brevity and precision forms the core of a compelling essay', you would get the idea in fewer words without losing interest. The redundant gap is tossed away and the reader is left to sip only the concentrate. So make sure your essay has short sentences, and each word in the sentence is hand-picked. Just like a general picks the strongest men to prepare his regiment, its your task to carefully pick the words that line up your armada. Each sentence should have at least one warrior-word, placed in a way that delivers a vital punch. 

Simplicity is the most undervalued asset after one goes through the elaborate GRE-word list. Putting big words  which are not a part of your regular speaking makes your writing shallow. So strictly avoid searching for GRE translations for simple words to put in your essay. The best essays are those that clearly convey the writer's thought. So avoid any kind of pretense; it's a deadly trap.

These three things should be good enough to get you started. Otherwise there is always the option of turning to the books that I mentioned. It would tremendously purify your writing.  

I would be back here by mid-January after another spell of extensive travelling. However, I would keep checking my blog once in a while. So feel free to reach out, discuss or add more. 

--The October sky--

Day 89- “Closing in on the prey ” (Monthstone reading: 9months)

 

My monthstone reads 9 months now. You know what this means? This means that after 9 months I would be a toddler again; I would look at all the things around me with awe; I would have the curiosity in my eyes; I would not hesitate to ask questions even if it would be at the risk of sounding stupid in front of others; After 9 months, I would be born as a student again!

 

I’m so close, still so far away; done with so many things, still so much more that I need to get done!

 

Over this period of time I have come across many realizations, but one that has stayed with me is this; that it does not matter how far behind you are in a race….what matters is the killing instinct inside you, which can measure up all the bygones in that split-second you unleash it…the time that your adrenalin pumps in so hard that you transcend the physical limitations and exclaim ‘bring it on…this is my race…and the finishing line is mine to take!’…that attitude is all that is needed to change the game for anyone.

 

The days of September literally came from the palette of an artist; Colorful, rich and bright orange, green and red shades painted my sister’s wedding. The last few days of the month were dipped, soaked and rouged in celebration. The afterglow of it prevailed through the early days of October. Ahh! Then there was the Karaoke north zone finale as well which happened way before all of this….I sang ‘kiss from a rose’… even though I didn’t get through, it was a very satisfying experience to sing amidst the cheer of my friends…and end on a note of thunderous appreciation from the people.

Ok, before I continue tracing my footprints to some inaccessible recess, let me snap out. So here’s the deal:

Road-Map

GRE (done)

TOEFL (done)

University Selections  (done…atleast for the US univs…still to fine tune on non-US univs)

1. Transcripts ( would get news on this today)
2. SOP (Go slow, man at work !)
3. LOR's 
4. Financial Documents
5. Visa Interview           

Time-line

• 13th Sep – KWC North zonal finals….had a thrilling time….The best part was that all my close friends were there to cheer for me :)

• 20th Sep – Chandigarh calling again! All wedding preps had been done now. Chachi was also there now. A convoy of 3 cars drove down to the city beautiful.

• 20th Sep-26th Sep – days of excitement, exhaustion, anxiety and reserve power ( which I believe my body stocked while I slept those extra hours ;) Though the marriage date was 24th September, we left back for Delhi on 26th Septmber (after the pag-phera)
• 28th Sep- Reception@ Delhi….this was the last function for my sister’s marriage

• 2nd oct- Dee and Adit leave for Mumbai

• 2nd Oct- 9th oct- The lull and silence…and a period of ‘let me sleep endlessly'

  Then there were other events that happened too in this time… went for ‘Zedde@HRC’, an evening out with May and Deb (neighbors) along with karaoke night with them in café revv, watched ‘killing them softly’ after winning tkts on the radio and attended 2 shows from the Lakme fashion week on 9th Oct (courtesy Madhavi) …but yeah, dat apart the week totally personified lull and silence;)
   

Its the age of gadgets and a civilization of technology...No one can run the risk of not getting warmed up to the tech gadgets today...else you would be living in the past. So my mother started embracing the tab that my sister and I gifted her very recently...and after coming back from the wedding, she thought "why not know my tech companion a little better?". Its not even been more than a week and the tab and Ma are fast friends!...Before I knew it there were messages being exchanged with Dee on whatsapp, relatives were being befriended and posts being liked on facebook...and my high score on angry birds was history now!!...I'm so glad!

So why would I share this? Well, Change is inevitable you see. You may choose to accept and embrace it or deny and resist it. The former leads you to live a life in the present contrasted with the latter. So no matter how intimidating the change, its best when we mold ourselves according to it. Never feel that you are too old to learn something new! That's what my mother taught me in the past few days and I'm totally inspired by her attitude.

The month of September was generous enough to give me a lesson in dealing with pressure situations which materialized now and then during the 3 days of Dee's wedding. Still, there is a lot more to be learnt on time management as there were things which I could not catch pace with. One such thing was the cryptography course on coursera, in which I fell right behind in my schedule by 2-3 weeks. Though I'm still counting on that jet of adrenalin to come alive and propel me to this course's successful completion.

I shall keep you updated.

--Wake me up when September ends--

Day 58- "SepTimbre: At the point of rolling " (Monthstone reading: 10 months) 

Now that's a big gap...I was supposed to be back here in 14days but finally back after 31 days. Aplologies for the late updates, but the past few days have just been building up on me.

The month is SepTimbre as it got me singing! While I could catch pace with things, I was 2 rounds deep in the kwc Karaoke competition; Now headed for the North zone finals on 13th sep:) You might want to check www.kwcindia.com to know more about it
Newys, So here I am; at that point in a roller-coaster ride where the cart has moved up slowly and steadily to the top of the structure....and you are able to stare blankly right ahead at the dead drop in front of you!. The essence of the roller-coaster is in the air and the cart is rolling now! With a few days away from my sister's wedding, all the preps are in full-throttle. The ride would touch ground as this month ends. However, more rides await after this one gets done.

Newys, let me roll-out my progress to you first:

Road-Map

GRE (done) - Score : 325/340; Awa- 5.0/6
TOEFL (done) - score: 114/120 ; (R-28, L-28, S-28, W-30)

1. University Selections (some progress here...but still to finalize...aiming to be sorted by September end)
2. SOP ( :(:( ....I dunno why it takes so much effort to pen this down!!!....October mid is the target)
3. LOR's (List finalized...Will approach the recommenders after SOP is done )
4. Transcripts ( this would be ticked by the time my next update happens)
5. Financial Documents
6. Visa Interview

Time-line

• 9th Aug- Bday pre celebrations of Praveer, spent doing Karaoke at V-spot cafe, Gurgaon. Incidentally I also enrolled myself in the Kwc 2012; a karaoke competition, the trials for which were ongoing then.
• 10th - 12th Aug- Drove down to Chandigarh with family. Good family time and some items ticked of the checklist of Dee's marriage prep.
  12th Aug- 18th Aug -Toefl Prep (gave around 2-3 papers and went thru the Official guide and Princeton Review. Imo pretty easy to score above 100 with a one week prep)
• 19th Aug - TOEFL day
• 20th Aug onwards-  prep and chores for Dee's marriage prep, facebook, Coursera course on 'Cryptography' by Dan Boneh, Kwc venue finals@Gurgaon.

Before I write a bit about the month, let me share some good links that I visited over the past few days while searching for new avenues to knowledge:

7 free education websites you don't wanna miss!

Prof Irfan Essa's Blog on Computational Photography @ GaTech

An article on Computational photogrpahy....(HDR's, plenoptic camera's, frankencamera and more.)

Khan Academy: An awesome online-learning site!

Alright, that said let me highlight one more site that I discovered while I was searching on the web. The site caught my attention cuz of the name. Ladies and gents, I am talking about stupidsid.com . This is an initiative by 6 pass-outs from Dj Sanghvi college in Mumbai. The site caters to the confused 'sid' who wants to find answers to so manyy things; from doubts in engg to counselling in further studies. This site is still young, but definitely a very promising initiative. For me the catch was finding something similar to edulix, only much more clutter-free and having lots of people from the mumbai university. It still lacks forums on MS in non-US colleges (something that you would find on Edulix) but otherwise a fabulous website.

I would also like to share my experience with the cryptography-1 course at coursera.org. The first course I tried to do was on 'Global Music'. It turned out to be a royal disaster as I joined while the class was already 2 weeks ahead of me. Time was already a demanding factor here, so eventually decided to unenroll after unsuccessfully trying to follow it. However, the course I am doing presently, the one on 'Cryptography' had a better start. Though I am still lacking in the class, I have completed the week 1 lectures and should be done with week 2 lectures in 1-2 days. (I still need to catch up one more week of lectures to be in sync though :( ) The quality of lectures is brilliant and the problem assignments look challenging and interesting. The course, however, also demands reference reading for better understanding of some concepts.
Really hoping to finish this in time and complete it successfully.

I am marking this day as my checkpoint. I have covered a good amount of distance on the highway 2 higher education now. Even though a lot more needs to be covered, this is a good time for me to place my cross and mark one phase of my journey as complete.

I will be back again once September ends to fill you in on my experiences....and in case I get delayed, wake me up:)

---August Rush---

Day 27- " The month of myriad changes " (Monthstone reading: 11 months)

It is only when I write things down I realize that I have been making progress; slow yet steady.

I guess its alright to become impatient once in a while when so many things pile up in the 'to-do' list. It becomes extremely difficult (and impossible) to focus on only one task at a time without raising red alerts for other tasks. So you choose the good old round-robin scheduling for task management; Giving time to each task, and making all progress equally (though slowly) without raising concern for any task. The bad part is that the results of this 'slow and steady' progress do not reveal quickly at all. But the better part is, as long as you are being consistent, they do get revealed, and that too in all areas. So where am I leading you to?

Perhaps to better appreciate my situation, or empathize or to get a better understanding of your own situation...whatever may be the apt case.

August Rush...wonder if you have seen this wonderful movie showcasing the musical genius of a kid.? If not, let me recommend this to you. However, I have kept the name of the post more to do with the month and the sudden addition of innumerable things in my to-do list. Time seems to be slipping away and still so much needs to be done. However, there is one musical aspect to it as well; This month I was taught by Adit (my brother in law and guitar mentor) how to play 'One Man's dream' on the guitar. Though the piece is far from perfection, but I can play the piece in slow tempo with a good level of accuracy. That apart I have been getting my daily dose of action at the Olympics. It's such a thrill to watch even when your own country is not participating. Athletics, swimming, sync swimming, boxing, badminton, diving and a lot many more I was able to catch up on the telly. Seems like August would be a pot-pourri of sorts for me.

Anyways, before I sum up the past few days, let me briefly discuss the road-map and time-line to get you synced  with my progress:

Road-Map:

1. GRE (done)
2. University Selections 
3. TOEFL (Taken date for 19th)
4. SOP (one para done...expecting progress soon)
5. LOR's (Recommender's almost finalized)
6. Transcripts (waiting for the 1st one from college...should be there in a week)
7. Financial Documents
8. Visa Interview

Time-line:

• 31st July - small 2-day trip to Chandigarh. It was time to celebrate DD's (Deepak Dawar) masters admission in US; as he was scheduled to fly on 2nd Aug, the day was perfect!
• 1st week of Aug- Rakshabandhan celebrations@ Ghaziabad, A daily dose of London Olympics 2012 and a new and extremely important site I found out- courseera (brilliant initiative..it has immense potentials to revolutionize the education system)

Ok , now that we are in sync, let me discuss the relevant bits. This post I would be discussing about  my 'university selections' and a brief overview of 'online education'@ courseera.

Lets start with the 'University Selections'. These are the universities that I have identified which offer good courses in computer vision and also have professors with 'computational photography' as their research interest:

1) MIT
2) Stanford
3) Univ of Washington
4) ETH Zurich (switzerland)
5) Univ of Toronto (Canada)
6) UC Berkeley
7) Carnegie Mellon Univ
8) Geogia Tech
9) Columbia Univ
10) UC Irvine

My criteria for choosing a colleges is: 1) College has a well established Vision Lab; 2) College has a faculty who is actively teaching courses in the field of computer vision and computational photography. I believe that there are some good colleges in Netherlands, Germany and France as well which offer excellent options for computational photography, but I am still to explore those. For the other colleges, I generally write to the students and professors for guidance. That really helps in my decision-making.

While I was searching for info on computational photography and professors associated with that, I discovered an extraordinary site called coursera. This is a revolutionary venture by Stanford Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. The site offers online educational courses by the top professors from the top universities all over the world at an incredible price. What price you ask?? Well for FREE!!! Isnt that incredible?...I had my a-ha moment when I found and registered myself for the online course for 'Computational Photography' by Irfan Essa (GATech) and 'computer vision' by Jitendra Malik (UCB). The courses are generally around 5-8 weeks long. There are 160 online courses from which a person can choose. There are video lectures, weekly assignments and a final exam associated with each course and the successful completion of a course can also get you a certificate from the college/ prof.. This is something which I had always been looking for. If you are a student by aptitude, this site would be nothing less than 'wonderland' for you. With some refinements, this would definitely revolutionize (not that it has not already) the education system all around the world!

One last addition before I close this post. There are two technical blogs that I have started following (visible in my list) by the name of 'Onionesque Reality' and 'Computational photography'. The former is a tech-blog by a person called 'Shubhendu Trivedi' with a lot of handy information on a lot of technical topics, including a few on computer vision. For computer vision enthusiasts, I would recommend 'face-recognition using eigen vectors' and 'face-recognition in bees' from the blog. The other blog is relatively new with around 13 posts as of now, but seems very promising. Do check it out!

I will be back in another week or two to update here again. Till then, keep exploring! 

Thought cloud:  'Before leaving for USA, DD gave me some food for thought which I found very relevant, so sharing it here. He told me that the only university that truly mattered resides in the head and nowhere else; we can't seek the best outside because it lies within us.'

A trip back to college and a small vacation

Day 13- Refueled and ready to rock the speedometer needle

Before I start with any of my details over the past few days, let me start by sharing the roadmap right now:

Road-Map 

1. GRE   (done)
2. University Selections  (brainstorming at edulix and with peers and professors on…still to make a final selection of 10 universities where I would like to apply)
3. TOEFL (new item added)
4. SOP (1 small para done..lotss to be done yet)
5. LOR's
6. Transcripts (applied for 1 original at college right…will apply for more as per demand)
7. Financial Documents
8. Visa Interview

I totally forgot to add about the TOEFL bit in my last post. As per my discussions with people who have already taken the exam, it is not all that difficult and scoring above 100 is easily possible with a little amount of practice and preparation. A competitive university would want your score to be above 100 (out of 120) in order to consider your application.

Also, here are the new additions to my time-line.

Timeline

July 18th – Traveled from Delhi to Mumbai. Went to college and applied for transcript- phase 1 

July 19th- Application for transcript- phase 2 (completed). Left for Goa

July 20th-July 22nd- Attended the wedding of a close friend from college and chilled out with college folks.

July 23rd- Back in Mumbai for a couple of hours; then caught a flight back to Delhi on the same day in the afternoon.

This trip did indeed blow off some steam. I had gone with full intentions to forget about application and college admissions for a while (Though at the back of my mind I had all of it running like background processes). Well, the trip was fruitful also for the reason that I was able to apply for my 1st transcript. Then I got to interact and take opinions from a friend who has already completed his masters in US from one of the good universities (Georgia Tech). For periods when I was traveling alone, I had planned on adding bits and parts to my SOP and reading ‘The Gatekeepers’ by Jacques Steinberg to get an idea of the admission processes in universities abroad. Though I was able to flip through a few pages of the book, couldn’t squeeze out anything for the SOP.

Anyways, talks apart, I thought of highlighting two important things in this post:

1. Transcripts
2. TOEFL

Let’s start with the first one. For those of you who are not aware of what transcripts are, here is what you need to know. Transcripts are required to be sent to all universities/colleges where you want to apply. In order to get a ‘transcript’ made, you are supposed to go to the exam section of your college with your original mark-sheets of all semesters and convocation certificate (the convocation certificate is optional I guess). After this, follow these steps (these set of steps are specific to a college in Mumbai university…it can differ slightly for other universities):

• Take the Transcript form from the registrar and fill in the details. It is also possible to wind this step at the comfort of your house by requesting the registrar to email the form to you. You can get a print-out and fill it. It would save time.
• Once the form has been filled, you will need to buy letter heads of your college. One transcript application requires roughly 10 letterheads. So for instance if you are applying to 10 universities, make sure that you have at least 100 letter heads of your college. You might be required to write down a letter to the registrar requesting for the letterheads.
• Next, you are supposed to get a photocopy of your mark-sheets set. (you do not give your originals!)
• Once the letter-heads, form and photocopy is done, arrange it and approach the registrar, who might ask you to fill in a few details at the backside of each photocopy. After that you can submit the form, 1 photocopy set and around 12 letterheads to the registrar in order to receive one original transcript from the college. As per the revised prices, you would be asked for Rs 1000/- for 1 original transcript.

Do apply for only one original transcript first and make sure that it is error-free. After that, you can choose to apply for more depending on your needs in the same manner. Quite a lot of colleges expect you to send across the original transcript in the application stage. Some on the other hand require an original transcript at the time of admissions; before that, an attested true copy of the transcripts from the college would work. I would strongly advise you to keep one original transcript with you at all times. You may choose to send original transcript or true copy in the college application depending on the specification of the university.

Coming on to the second point, TOEFL, this is the second exam that has to be undertaken by a student who does not have English as his first language. The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) gives the college a fair idea about the proficiency of a student at the English language. It involves 4 sections, namely- Speaking, reading, writing, listening; each scored out of 30 marks. The best way to prepare for the test is to give a couple of practice tests initially to gauge the level of preparation. After that a student can prepare accordingly, working selectively on sections which require more attention. On an average, a 7-10 day preparation is considered adequate in order to score above 100. I intend to take mine by 10th August mostly. Also you can start off by going through the official guide for TOEFL by ETS.

I have been reading through quite a few online resources which provide info on the GRE, TOEFL and SOPs/LORs. One place that I would definitely recommend checking out is HappySchoolBlogs. I have subscribed to it and keep getting links to articles which are very informative in nature. I was searching for some feed on TOEFL, when I happened to find the following page on HappySchoolsBlog:

http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/toefl-test-experience

This contains links to pages, which contain answers to a lot many questions which were hovering in my head. TOEFL takers I would highly recommend you to check this out. Also do checkout forums on Edulix. Indeed you will have to search a lot, but you would surely find pertinent stuff if you put in efforts.

Please let me know in case if you do have any doubts/questions. In case you feel that you want information on some other related areas, please do bring it to my notice. I will definitely try and provide you info to the best of my knowledge and on the basis of current trends. 

Feel free to leave your suggestions, comments here.

A brief overview and Status Check

Day 1- (Monthstone reading: 12 months)

I embarked on the journey to higher education quite some time back now, but my journey officially commences from today, on this blog here. For the clueless, this is the highway to education, and I am standing right next to the "monthstone" which reads '12 months'. Most of  the times the person on the driving seat is pretty clueless once he lands on this highway. Believe me you have no idea about how many people are out there, waiting to spot you and grip you with their claws, claiming that they would guide you to your dreams. So that's why this blog. This is where I honestly describe my journey as I drive on this road in order to pursue higher education. Ohh!! We didn't get formally introduced, did we?

So this is my story. I am a 25 year-old from India; an IT engineer by education, a music-lover and a photography enthusiast who wants to pursue his Master's in the field of 'Computer Science' (breaking it further- want to pursue the subjects  in 'image processing', 'information security', 'photography', 'computational photography' and 'Global Music') and pursue my Phd post that to study the security aspects in Computational photography. After having worked with a reputed IT firm for 3.5 years, I realized that the time was ripe to get my higher degree. I left my job in Chandigarh and came back to stay with my parent's in New Delhi. The weekend I reached Delhi, I had my GRE scheduled. Luckily I cracked the exam with a score of 325/340 and an AWA score of 5.0/6. Good start I thought, but trust me right now GRE score seems to be just equivalent to the amount of fuel that one has in their tank while on this highway. So suppose if your vehicle does not give a good average, you might just run out of fuel before you reach your destination. Anyways, there are a lot many parameters that seem to decide how feasibly you would be able to manage to the college of your choice. So for the past few weeks, I have been exploring these parameters. I have been visiting college websites, reading about professors I would really want to emulate and writing to them, shortlisting universities of my choice and taking counsel from the people who have already been through this phase and occasionally penning down a few words on my SOP. One more important thing happened in this duration. I was looking for internship opportunities with companies dealing with image processing, when I came across a start-up 'Uber-Labs' right here in Noida. I wrote to the guys and had an interview with them. These guys are really working with the cutting-edge algorithms in 'Feature-detection' and I totally could relate with the work. Being low on the technical know-how, I started reading books and material on image-processing alongside my regular rounds of university searching. Still there on the reading phase though, I intend to go full-throttle on this internship opportunity by October (till then I intend to wind up the application process, TOEFL...then September would also pass by in a jiffy, as my sister would get married in that month).

Just to give you a clear picture, let me share a rough timeline of events and a roadmap with you:

Timeline

May 14th- Left job atInfosys

May 25th- Back to Delhi

May 28th- GRE

June - Visiting University websites, shortlisting, talking to and writing to people and profs with my set of queries

July (up till now)- shortlisting to around 15 universities, brainstorming session with 'BrainGain Mag' team, finding about SOP, writing to admissions council, professors and students from universities.

Road-Map

GRE   (done)

University Selections  (in progress)

SOP 

LOR's 

Transcripts 

Financial Documents

Visa Interview

The road to education in India is relatively simple. You look around, see what the topper's in your class are pursuing from the very beginning and stick with trying your hand at that. So there is a bottle-neck situation which happens for the coveted fields of science, and then engineering and then, to quite an extent, management. Please do not misinterpret me if you are one who has been on this route, I only mean to share a picture with you that I see. I believe when it comes to making a choice on something that one is truly interested in, we start to weigh the consequences of our choice; something which is more to do with our conditioning since childhood. This makes it really difficult to be on the road solely meant for 'you'. I faced this predicament when I was working and it took a lot of effort to leave a comfortable good-paying job to opt for my dreams. This also meant letting go of a lot of things. I learnt that you would need to let go off a few things before you prepare to take more in your plate. However, despite the if's, but's and maybe's, the words from one of my favs ring inside "Here I am, on the road again"

Alright..enough said! I can go on endlessly about it so I better  hit the brakes for now. Hope I could give you a rough picture of how things are now from where I look.

Lot of things to come still. I would keep writing as I progress on this road. There won't be daily posts, but there would be posts coming in around every 2-4 weeks. I promise. People who have already been through this phase, please do share your insights and the things to watch out for and take care of to make sure one reaches their destination. Also, do give in helpful inputs which can guide a traveler on the highway. Others, keep reading and provide inputs; Also feel free to discuss and ask questions. I would also share information specifically related to the fields of image processing and computational photography .