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    <title>Neerja Thakkar</title>
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    <description>Neerja Thakkar</description>
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      <title>Adaptive Human Trajectory Prediction via Latent Corridors</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/atp_via_latent_corridors/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 11 Dec 2023 11:12:19 -0800</pubDate>
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      <title>Studying Bias in GANs Through the Lens of Race</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/eccv_2022/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jul 2022 23:12:58 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/publication/eccv_2022/</guid>
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      <title>The Reliability of Forensic Body-Shape Identification</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/cvprw_2022/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jul 2022 23:12:58 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/publication/cvprw_2022/</guid>
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      <title>On the Feasibility of 3D Model-Based Forensic Height and Weight Estimation</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/cvprw_2021/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jul 2021 23:12:58 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/publication/cvprw_2021/</guid>
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      <title>Starting My PhD, Remotely</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/starting_phd/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 27 Sep 2020 13:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/starting_phd/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As you might have guessed from a sudden drop in my post frequency, as of about a month ago, I am officially a PhD student!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Due to the pandemic, my program is fully remote, so I’m staying at home in Minnesota for the fall semester and doing everything online. Based on what I’ve heard from other students (and the Bay Area being subject to wildfires), I feel good about this decision - extra time with my family and not paying Berkeley rent prices is very nice. That being said, I really want to move to the west coast at some point in the foreseeable future, so fingers crossed for 2021.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Orientation was fully online, so it was definitely anticlimactic, but at the same time, it was exciting and more useful than I thought. It was good to see all of the PhD requirements clearly hashed out, have my questions answered, and learn about the resources available to grad students. I was able to see a clearer path for the next 5-6 years - previously, I had seen my PhD as a rather nebulous concept. Although there weren&amp;rsquo;t very many opportunities to meet people virtually at orientation, I was still able to get a sense of the other people in my cohort, and they all seem amazing.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Classes started the next week, and I immediately got very busy between shopping classes and 1-on-1s with students (in addition to research). After debating between many courses, I decided to take Alyosha&amp;rsquo;s Intro to Computer Vision and Computational Photography class and Angjoo&amp;rsquo;s Learning for 3D Vision course. Alyosha&amp;rsquo;s class is mostly an undergraduate class with a small graduate section open, but since there was never a computer vision course offered at my undergrad institution, I decided to take it to fill in knowledge gaps and reinforce my understanding of foundational concepts in my field. Angjoo&amp;rsquo;s class is a graduate level seminar that consists of ~25 vision PhD students. We are reading a 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/cs294-173/schedule?authuser=1&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;fantastic set of papers&lt;/a&gt; and every class involves student presentations and discussions of the papers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I’m not going to lie, starting a PhD remotely has been pretty bizarre. On one hand, I’m absolutely stoked to be attending this amazing institution. I’ve learned so much in just two weeks from conversations with professors and my new peers. Learning about the innovations that the faculty have made in their fields always astounds me. But on the other hand, doing a PhD remotely feels very isolating. I’ve met a lot of people, but it’s been through having to actively reach out to people and schedule a time to talk, as opposed to just bumping into them on campus or meeting for a coffee. Spontaneous interaction and lunches/coffee every day helped me bond with my labmates in Spain, and it feels like one week in Spain is going to equal one semester of getting to know everyone at Berkeley. It&amp;rsquo;s unfortunate that the first year or so of my PhD will have to be like this, but I&amp;rsquo;m definitely staying positive, appreciating what I&amp;rsquo;m learning, and excited to meet my very intelligent and inspiring peers in person at some point.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In terms of what this means for the blog: Over the summer, I was able to get to many posts that I wanted to. If there’s something else you wanted advice on that I haven’t covered, definitely reach out, since I want to keep on writing. I’m hoping to write about my PhD - classes I’m taking, research I’m doing, events I’m attending and life in general (which will probably be significantly more interesting post-pandemic). Posts will definitely become much less frequent, but I love writing in my free time, and I’m excited to see how this blog will evolve!&lt;/p&gt;
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    <item>
      <title>Getting a SWE Internship, Part 3</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_3/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2020 11:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_3/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As I said in the earlier parts of this post, I started the fall of my junior year having never had an internship in the tech industry, and ended it with software engineering internship offers at Facebook, Palantir, and Microsoft, among other companies. Now, I want to elucidate the tech recruiting process.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My 
&lt;a href=&#34;%28https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_1/%29&#34;&gt;first post&lt;/a&gt; covered having a strong resume/job application, and my 
&lt;a href=&#34;%28https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_2/%29&#34;&gt;second post&lt;/a&gt; covered nailing the actual interview. This post will talk about how to pick an internship once you have an offer or two in hand!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Once you get a job offer (or a few), congrats! You now get to decide where to work, which can be hard, so this post is going to cover my thoughts on how to pick an internship. While a lot of my advice for picking a job might be applicable for full-time jobs too, this is specifically based on my experiences choosing an internship. I will also touch on negotiation, which is applicable to both.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Choosing a Job&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of factors that I considered when picking the best internship for me:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Team selection: If you are assigned to a team with your offer, do you like the team? If you aren’t assigned a team yet, how does team selection work, and will you get a say in it?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Technology/project: Do you know what tech stack you will be working on and if it’s relevant to the skills you want to build? Will you have any choice on what project you work on?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Location: How do you feel about the location you will be living in? Internships are a great chance to explore a new place, so if there’s a place you think you might want to live in post-graduation, an internship is a great time to move there&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Company culture: What is the culture of this company like? What will your work hours be like? How old are most of the employees, and what does the vibe of the office seem like?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Company values: Is this company in line with your personal values and morals? (That being said, don’t be too harsh on yourself at this stage - many people will not be working at their dream job during or right after college, and in the society we live in you do need a job and you need experience to work towards your dream job. I personally think it’s completely justified to work somewhere that your values aren’t completely aligned with, and then use that experience and what you learn from it to get closer towards your dreams.)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Compensation: How much are you getting paid, and what others perks/bonuses are there, such as free housing, a housing stipend, a transportation stipend, free Uber rides to/from work, free food, etc.? If you can afford it, or if the differences are pretty minimal, I would recommend weighting the other factors more strongly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Full time conversion: If you want to work at the company full time, do many interns have the opportunity to? How are interns evaluated and how many get return offers? Will you have to re-interview?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Talk to a lot of people! Once you get an offer, the tables turn, and now the company is actively trying to get you to work there. They will be more than happy to connect you to engineers who can give you a better insight into the above considerations and answer any other questions you have. I had a lot of calls with employees at the top 3-4 companies I was considering interning at, which was very helpful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Negotiation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As I said, once you get an offer, the company has determined that you are definitely qualified, and now they want to do what they can to convince you to work there. The tech industry is in high demand for talent, and with an offer in your hand, they have decided that you are that in-demand talent. When I went through recruiting, I felt so grateful to have job offers that were paying me very well, that it felt ridiculous to think of asking for even more. However, after talking to other women in the tech industry, I believe that you absolutely should negotiate.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Women are much less likely than men to negotiate, and to negotiate aggressively, and this is part of the reason why the gender pay gap exists. Therefore, even if you don’t feel great about negotiating, I would strongly encourage you to consider it. Negotiating can feel really scary, but in reality, oftentimes the worst thing that can happen is that a recruiter says no (if you say “give me X or I’ll walk”, or negotiate extremely aggressively, then it’s possible that you will lose a job offer, however, if you just ask politely then you’ll probably be fine). For full-time, you can negotiate for almost anything - salary, of course, but also stocks, signing bonus, vacation days, location, work from home flexibility, and other things in your offer. Having another job offer that pays more/is in your ideal location/has some other benefit is a great way to negotiate. Negotiating for internships is harder, since internships often have very set budgets, but you can still try to negotiate, especially for things such as your internship location or team. There are a lot of great online resources about negotiation that I would strongly recommend you check out and try out!&lt;/p&gt;
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #16: Reflections on My Time in Spain</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_16/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2020 13:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_16/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;rsquo;t believe that exactly one year ago I landed in Madrid for my Fulbright orientation! So much has happened in the past year, and as cliche as it sounds, I feel like a pretty different person now than I was then. This post will shine a little light on that.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s funny because at the time I was leaving for Spain, I didn&amp;rsquo;t actually want to go. When I found out that I got the Fulbright, part of me was really excited and honored, but another part of me was hoping to just stay in the US with my friends and family. My Spanish was rusty and after spending the past 4 years in Hanover, New Hampshire, I felt very comfortable with my college friends, so I didn&amp;rsquo;t want to move somewhere where I knew literally no one. But a few weeks into being in Spain, that feeling started to turn around, and now I am grateful in so many ways that I had the opportunity I did to live in Zaragoza for 6 months.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here are my reflections from my Fulbright year on a bunch of different facets.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On Spain and cultural differences&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A few things about adjusting to life in Spain were particularly stressful. Spanish bureaucracy is a nightmare to deal with, especially when your Spanish is far from perfect. Getting my &lt;em&gt;empadonamiento&lt;/em&gt; and TIE took way too long and far too much effort. Spanish food culture largely revolves around eating meat, so being vegetarian was difficult when eating at a lot of Spanish restaurants, especially with the addition of my nut allergy. The Spanish schedule is very different, and while I largely ignored the traditional schedule and worked a more regular 9-5, whenever I wanted to go out to eat with friends dinner was at 9 or later, and &amp;ldquo;going out&amp;rdquo; meant it was difficult to be home before 5 am. The sun rising absurdly late also never sat sit right with me. On the bright side, I was forced to improve my cooking skills, and I discovered some foods in Spain that I really loved - Spain does mushrooms &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; well. And paella is always at least pretty good. Wow, 6 months out, I actually miss some Spanish food, even though when I was in Spain I craved all the food I eat in America.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;While there were some frustrations, life in Spain was mostly positive and mind-expanding! In general, I felt much less stressed in Spain, compared to undergrad. While a significant part of this had to do with not having schoolwork, it was also also in large part due to being in Spain in particular. People aren&amp;rsquo;t in a rush in Spain. They wait for other people, and want to enjoy life and make lots of time for their friends and family. Although many of my friends in Spain were a bit older than my friends back in America, it was still interesting to note that a much larger portion of my Spanish friends were in committed relationships. It just seems like people in Spain value friends and family over themselves much more. In fact, I told some of my Spanish friends that it seemed like young people here more wanted to invest in relationships, while young people in America wanted to prioritize themselves, and they told me that just the notion of &amp;ldquo;investing&amp;rdquo; in someone else is so American and representative of the capitalism engrained in our society.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking of capitalism, I really appreciated the fact that in Spain, people have accepted that a place to live and healthcare and education should be human rights. It&amp;rsquo;s the norm in Spain, and many other parts in the world, to not pay exorbitant amounts of money for college or healthcare. College at the most expensive private university in Spain is under 10,000 euros a year, and on financial aid college can often be completely free and come with a stipend generous enough to cover rent, food and books. The simple fact that Spanish people don&amp;rsquo;t have to worry about healthcare or college expenses really changes people&amp;rsquo;s relationships with money, and the lack of obsession with money in Spain was very refreshing after coming from a undergrad instution where many people wanted to go work on Wall Street. In Spain, it’s completely normal for businessmen to be friends with janitors or software engineers to be friends with nail salon workers, and I loved the replacement of social stratification/classism with a general appreciation for humanity. The fact that beer is a euro on average makes going out to bars accessible to everyone, which also makes it easier for software engineers and nail salon workers to get a drink together.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On new friends&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My lab was incredible. It was really nice to make some Spanish friends in Spain (which sounds weird, but meeting international people was so much easier than meeting Spainards), and I loved going to work every day and seeing my lab friends. Work was very social, since we ate lunch and took coffee breaks together every day, and also hung out on weekends or juepincho nights occasionally, and as a result I got pretty close to them. I talked the most to 3 of the guys in my building, and a lot of our conversations involved us just joking around and correcting each other&amp;rsquo;s Spanish/English (but half of the time when I corrected their English because something was phrased awkwardly they said &amp;ldquo;it&amp;rsquo;s British&amp;rdquo;), but I also gained so much from learning about their culture and approach to life and work. As a bonus, since we&amp;rsquo;re in the same field, I know with pretty high probability that I&amp;rsquo;ll see them for many more years at conferences.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Outside of the lab, I met a lot of international people in Zaragoza, through the &lt;em&gt;auxiliares&lt;/em&gt; program (English teaching assistants funded by the Spanish government), my roommates, and through Aiko&amp;rsquo;s Spanish class. I enjoyed meeting so many different people and just seeing how many things there are to do with your life besides the paths Dartmouth students often choose. These people were from all walks of life and have gone on such cool journeys that led them to Spain, and I had a lot of fun adventures with these friends and loved getting out of the Dartmouth/research lab bubble. Just our converstaions were so different - in America, people would always start by asking me where I went to school or what I was doing professionaly, whereas here, people would start by asking me where I was from, what I thought of Spain, and other questions that felt more personal in a good way. Being around people very different from me gave me a new perspective on my own life path and decisions that I am so appreciative of.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Finally, my Fulbright friends are amazing and truly some of the most incredible people I have ever met. I went from being overwhelmed by what felt like networking at orientation to making incredibly genuine friendships with them. We had a blast exploring Spain and going to bars together, and also had wonderful deep and intellectual conversations. Everyone I met through Fulbright is so passionate, caring, kind, and doing awesome things. I&amp;rsquo;m still closely in touch with so many of my fellow Fulbrighters and I absolutely cherish those friendships.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Having a global network of friends now is amazing, though slightly painful when you&amp;rsquo;re in the country that&amp;rsquo;s handling a pandemic the worst, while your friend in New Zealand has been living a pandemic-free life for months.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On research and academic/professional benefits&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There have been so many of these! While I had a wonderful time traveling and exploring and socializing, I also got some good work done, and here&amp;rsquo;s what came out of it:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I made wonderful connections with the lab in Spain that I had the privilege to work at. Since academia is really small, I am definitely expecting to run into them at conferences in the future, or maybe continue collaborations as I see how my research interests evolve. I still WhatsApp my labmates with random research questions, or about the tapas bars we&amp;rsquo;ll go to when I come back to Spain&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I feel more prepared for my PhD. I got better at reading papers and synthesizing important points from them, and I had time to take online courses and read up on things I need to learn. I also learned how to swap out the GPU in a desktop which is a useful skill!&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Focusing primarily on advanced research in a new area showed me how much knowledge exists that I don&amp;rsquo;t have yet. However, I think that realizing you have a lot to learn is an important part of the PhD process, and learning about the gaps in my knowledge meant that I could start filling them, which I did!&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I got to do research in a completely different lab and country from undergrad, so now when I go to Berkeley I won&amp;rsquo;t see the way things are done at Berkeley as the only way to do things. It was generally great to get a different perspective on my field&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Immersing myself in research full-time made the frustrations of research much more clear. When you&amp;rsquo;re doing research, you can spend days or weeks or months on an approach that ultimately pans out to nothing. While I had experienced this in college and knew it was a part of research, doing full time research made the extent of frustration I can feel that much clearer, but recognizing this also strengthened my ability to cope with it and showed me what to expect during my PhD&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;While I respect all research and can recognize scientific merit, I realized that I care most about research that has an immediate societal impact (espcially when I got to attend the FAT* conference), which helped me hone my research interests&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On Personal Growth&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I’ve definitely became more independent and comfortable with new situations, as comes with moving to a foreign country. One surprise was actually realizing that I love alone time. Before, I always thought I was extroverted, but now I think I’m  equally introverted and extroverted. My alone time in Spain was a nice mix between relaxing and intentional time, where I thought about my goals and journaled. I also adored just walking around different Spanish cities and getting lost in my thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I definitely got a lot better at meeting new people and figuring out how to navigate cocktail parties or house parties where I know almost no one - I was shy before, but I actually started to enjoy those situations and always getting to know more people. Before Spain, I would often make close friends and then have fun experiences with them, but in Spain I had a lot of fun experiences with near strangers, a decent amount of who then became good friends. Now, it’s a bummer to not be able to go out and make new friends, but after the pandemic ends I’m very excited to do so again!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was really happy with the fitness progress I was able to make in Spain. I wanted to start running for a while, but when I got to Zaragoza, I could barely run for 5 minutes. I was able to get to the point where I could run 3 straight miles, and was inspired by some of my Fulbright friends to run a 10K in the spring. I had started training when I had to go home, and it became clear that no races would be happening anywhere for a while, but it’s still great to have gotten to a point where I know I can run a race when it’s safe to again. Overall, I feel much healthier in general - it was really nice to take care of myself and actually prioritize my health, which I hope I can continue doing for the rest of my life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I just felt (and still feel) so much healthier in every way - it was great to learn how to take care of myself, prioritize my physical and mental health, and learn how to relax. Spanish culture was exactly what I needed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, my Fulbright year (or I guess 6 months), was incredible. When I studied abroad during my junior year in Budapest, I only talked to other Americans and acted like a tourist the whole time. I knew that I did Budapest wrong, and I was ready to do Spain right. I didn&amp;rsquo;t know what &amp;ldquo;right&amp;rdquo; looked like, but I went to Spain with an attitude of opennes and spirit ready for adventure, and now looking back, my 6 months were so much more fulfilling than I ever thought my whole 9 month grant could be! I am excited to return to Spain and see my friends, but I also want to approach the rest of my life with the attitudes I honed in Spain and see where my next adventures take me.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #15: Remote Fulbright</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_15/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2020 13:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_15/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s crazy that it&amp;rsquo;s been almost 6 months since I was in Spain! In this post I&amp;rsquo;m going to talk about what finishing up a Fulbright remotely was like. My next and final post in this series will reflect on the academic/professional side of my time in Spain and the personal side of my thoughts on my Fulbright year.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When I got back to the US, everything still felt so chaotic. Many people were very unhappy with the way that Fulbright had handled the pandemic and that we were sent home to a country with an inferior healthcare system. I think that the Fulbright Spain Comission did a wonderful job dealing with a completely unprecedented situation, but that the US goverment&amp;rsquo;s lack of leadership/direction made things really crazy and bad for many people. It&amp;rsquo;s also absolutely horrible that many Fulbrighters lost their health insurance abroad and had to come back to the US uninsured in the middle of a &lt;em&gt;pandemic&lt;/em&gt;, but that is completely the fault of American values and our current administration. After some pressure from Fulbrighters, the Fulbright program did provide reimbursements for all of the travel back and a little extra money to aid the sudden transition back. I was extremely lucky to be able to come back to Minnesota and life with my family, and I won&amp;rsquo;t get into my feelings on this chaos too much more, but you can read some of my friends&amp;rsquo; very well-articulated thoughts 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0320-coronavirus-spain-20200319-ssm2ppsfhvhopmwns22ciwxusm-story.html&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2020/03/23/coronavirus-tennessee-native-fulbright-scholar-barcelona/2898350001/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The month of March felt a bit rough between watching the world fall apart, mourning the loss of my time in Spain, and remembering how cold Minnesota is until the end of April. However, as spring started to appear (the second spring of the year for me, actually), I realized that a lot of good things were happening. I had been really burnt out after college, and had regained some of my energy the previous summer, but after a few weeks at home I started to feel extremely energized and ready to take on all sorts of new personal and research-related projects again (like starting this blog, and you can read about some other things I did during this time 
&lt;a href=&#34;%28https://neerja.me/post/how-im-spending-quarantine/%29&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). I felt deeply re-invested in research and learning, which has been wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also felt extremely connected to other people. There were so many college friends and friends from back home that it had been hard to stay in touch with, between traveling all the time and time zone differences, but now I was able to talk to them more often. I also have stayed in contact with many friends in Spain and friends I made in Spain who returned home to other places, like New Zealand, and it&amp;rsquo;s been really fun and interesting to talk to friends all over the world during a global situation such as this one. It was additionally wonderful to have more time with family than I had ever thought I would at once (I honestly don&amp;rsquo;t understand why American culture takes so much pride in independence and moving away from family).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s also ironic that in leaving my Fulbright program early, I got much closer to many Fulbright friends than I had ever anticipated. Going through the same crazy situation was a great way to bond, and we filled the strange time with game nights and lots of Zoom calls. We even had a virtual Research + Masters journal club a few times, which was really successful and interesting. Overall, I so value my friendships with the other Fulbrighters. A few close friends of mine have also been starting their PhDs/med school right now, and it&amp;rsquo;s been lovely to have good friends who understand the crazy situation I&amp;rsquo;m going through right now.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Actually finishing my Fulbright remotely was definitely a very different experience from being in-person. The time difference was significant, and it is completely different to meet once a week over a call than to be in a physical place for ~40 hours a week. So much of the benefit that I got from being at my lab in Spain came through the chats that we had over lunch/coffee breaks, learning from my labmates, getting to go to group meetings, and generally being in a new environment. Going to another country is really about the place, culture, and people, and unfortunately so much cannot be replicated over a computer screen. Of course, staying in Spain and being confined to my apartment wouldn&amp;rsquo;t have fixed any of this, and I&amp;rsquo;m very happy that I was able to return home and spend time with family.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Fulbright end of year event (over Zoom, of course), was not the weekend of celebration in Madrid that I thought it would be, but nevertheless it was still a fun time. It was fun to see people&amp;rsquo;s faces, and hear recaps of different groups&amp;rsquo; times in Spain. I was also extremely honored to have been voted for two different superlatives - Most Growth from Orientation to Mid-Year (I guess not that hard when you&amp;rsquo;re fresh off a plane and very disoriented when you first meet people), and Best Instagram Documentation (I do love to capture fun moments).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;While having to finish up a Fulbright remotely was not what I expected, the 6 months that I did have in Spain were so extremely fulfilling and honestly far exceeded my expectations, so I have absolutely nothing but gratitude for the opportunity and everyone that made my experience what it was!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Getting a SWE Internship, Part 2</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_2/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 05 Sep 2020 13:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_2/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As I said in 
&lt;a href=&#34;%28https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_1/%29&#34;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt; of this post, I started the fall of my junior year having never had an internship in the tech industry, and ended it with software engineering internship offers at Facebook, Palantir, and Microsoft, among other companies. My first post covered having a strong resume/job application, and this one will cover nailing the actual interview.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Before I dive into it, I want to link to a few helpful resources that I&amp;rsquo;ll refer to throughout this post:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;http://www.crackingthecodinginterview.com/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Cracking the Coding Interview&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://leetcode.com/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;LeetCode&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.hackerrank.com/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Hackerrank&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are a few different components to the tech internship interview process and types of interviews:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Coding challenges: Sometimes, a recruiter will send you a link to a &amp;ldquo;coding challenge&amp;rdquo;. This will often be on a platform similar to Leetcode or Hackerrank, and is a prerequisite to getting an interview. Be careful when you click on it, because this will normally start a timer. Read the instructions very carefully, since often your code will have to perform in a specific way to pass the challenge.  The best way to prepare for these challenges are to do a lot of questions on such a platform. It&amp;rsquo;s also useful to ask your recruiter if the coding challenge is going to be graded by an automated process or by a human - if by a human, be sure to comment your code so that even if something is off they know your thought process&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Phone screen: Often, before getting to the interviews, you will have a phone screen. The phone screen can be one of many things - it can just be a chance for you to ask the recruiter questions, it can be a behavioral interview, it can contain a brain teaser, or it can have a full 45-minute coding question. Be sure to understand which kind of interview it will be well before the call&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Coding question interview: This is an interview where you are given 1-3 questions that you have to talk through and then write code for. This can be in-person, with coding on a whiteboard, or over the phone, with coding on a Google doc or similar platform. When applying to internships, I had 2-5 of these interviews, depending on the company. The next section will focus on preparation for this type of interview&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Team matching interview: Google has these interviews after you pass the coding interviews (I made it to this stage but dropped out after one interview because I didn&amp;rsquo;t like the team and had offer deadlines with other companies), in order to make sure there&amp;rsquo;s a good fit between you and the team. Some other companies also have similar interviews. Definitely take these seriously, because they can determine whether or not a team is willing to have you join them, which translates into you getting the internship or not&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Other interviews: I don&amp;rsquo;t know that much about other types of interviews such as design or PM (product management), but Cracking the Coding Interview has an amazing breakdown of other types of interviews, and the author has written a separate book on applying to PM jobs&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;rsquo;s how I prepared for the coding question interviews (the bulk of the interview process):&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;First, I decided on the topics I needed to master and reviewed the basics of those topics by implementing data structures/algorithms from scratch. These topics included (but are not limited to - it&amp;rsquo;s been a while) the following:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Data structures - arrays, strings, linked lists, trees, DAG, graphs&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Algorithms - sorting, binary search, tree traversal, BFS/DFS, Dijkstra&amp;rsquo;s, minimum spanning tree algorithms&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Some bit manipulation and other topics I didn&amp;rsquo;t know well, so I wouldn&amp;rsquo;t be caught completely off guard if asked a question, but I didn&amp;rsquo;t go too in depth on learning things I didn&amp;rsquo;t really know&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Then, I nailed down a solid approach to solving an interview question that I could practice with and hone. The interview is as much testing your coding abilities as your critical thinking and communication skills, so based on knowing that, this was my approach:
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Carefully read/process the question, create a small example if it&amp;rsquo;s not provided to help you conceptualize what you&amp;rsquo;re being asked to do&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Ask clarifying questions! Think of different cases you have to consider (for example duplicates, negative numbers), and ask if there are any conditions on the input you are given or the output you have to produce. Oftentimes, part of the challenge is being given a vague question and then having to nail down exactly what you are being asked&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Once you have a good idea of what you&amp;rsquo;re supposed to be solving, come up with the first solution you can think of, even if it would be really slow or not provide a completely correct output. Describe your solution and acknowledge these limitations. Your interviewer might ask you to code it up at this point.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Then, work on optimizing your solution. If the small example you created was lacking, come up with a better example to work with. Your interviewer might give you hints and that&amp;rsquo;s completely okay! They want to see how you respond to their suggestions. Cracking the Coding Interview has some good strategies on how to optimize your solution using this approach&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I tried to solve many of the questions in CTCI using this approach . I went slowly, really thought things through, and read hints as needed to get a minimal working solution that I would then code up. After, I would always carefully read the solution no matter how far I got and really understand where I went wrong.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I also solved some questions in leetcode for more practice - leetcode has a lot of good, hard questions&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I did a mix of paper coding (to emulate a whiteboard) and coding on computer in a basic text editor or Google docs - I think practicing both was very important for me since typing and writing interact with my thought process in different ways, especially when I&amp;rsquo;m also talking out loud as I code&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I would also highly encourage you to practice whiteboard coding with friends! There are so many tech jobs out there and recruiters really want to see all qualified candidates succeed, so there&amp;rsquo;s absolutely no reason to be competitive with your peers and not help each other. Get hints from them when you struggle and talk as you code to emulate a real interview.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Grad School Preparation Panel Transcript</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/grad_school_app_panel/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2020 11:23:14 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/grad_school_app_panel/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve spoken in a few panels in the past year for Women in Computer Science and Dartmouth Pan Asian alumni association centered around graduate school/different career paths. Here are some questions I was asked at the most recent panel I spoke at, and my answers to them.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What has been helpful for you in figuring out your career goals and how grad school factors into those?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I thought through a couple of career paths - software engineering and a research career, and then pursued experiences that would let me try out both of those. On the SWE side, I did 2 SWE internships, one at 3M and one at Facebook. On the academia side, I took hard classes, added a math major since math is so important for CS research, did research, worked on a textbook, and TAed classes. I realized that while the perks and salary of SWE was nice, the more academia oriented experiences were so much more fulfilling to me. Getting to actually experience a taste of different paths, and then reflecting on them, really showed me which one was right for me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I had already gotten into grad school and knew I wanted to go by the time I did my Fulbright, but that experience made me feel 200% confident that getting a PhD was right for me, since I got more perspectives on grad school and got to do research full time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you recommend that students take time off before starting grad school? What have you learned in your experience?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Absolutely!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re considering a Master&amp;rsquo;s program, it&amp;rsquo;s important to know that you really need the degree before doing it. If you’re not sure, it&amp;rsquo;s better to hold off on jumping into a program. Some tech companies will pay for a Master&amp;rsquo;s for you, and many see years of work experience as equivalent to time spent doing a Master&amp;rsquo;s degree, but the difference is that with a Master&amp;rsquo;s degree you&amp;rsquo;re paying for it instead of getting a salary.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re considering a PhD, it&amp;rsquo;s important to know that you absolutely want to do a PhD and that you love research before you commit 4-6+ years to it. If you&amp;rsquo;re not sure, you should take some time to do whatever you need to do to be sure of your decision.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I deferred for a year to do fulbright and this was one of the best decisions of my life for so many reasons. Spain is amazing, and it was great to get to travel and explore. I made friends with Spanish people and non-Dartmouth American students and people from other countries - getting out of the Dartmouth bubble gives you more perspective when considering your future. It was really nice to get a break from school, since I was burnt out after undergrad. Finally, it was also super helpful career wise - I made connections with a lab in Spain, did research full time emulating parts of the PhD experience, learned so many things and learned what I don’t know, and really thought about and shaped my research interests.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, I would recommend a year off, but I would also think through what you want to do in that year off carefully - what are your goals for your year off? Why are you taking a year off? What do you hope to achieve or clarify?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What advice would you give to students who are starting to think about applying to grad school?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My advice depends on if you’re early in undergrad or approaching the end of college/graduated.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re in college and have time, think through your academic plan and if that’s aligned with grad school, since grad schools want you to take hard courses. If you&amp;rsquo;re considering  a PhD, start doing research ASAP if you haven’t already - it&amp;rsquo;s okay if it’s not exactly in the area you want, but getting research experience is super important. You should also seek out relevant internships and research and TA positions and other opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you have graduated or are close to graduation, know that one advantage about grad school is that there&amp;rsquo;s no rush to apply as soon as you decide you want to go. You could apply to programs this fall as a dry run but then also apply for a Fulbright grant or other research opportunities so that if you don’t get into a program you want you have something to do over the next year to strengthen your application.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How did you narrow down a list of potential programs to apply to? What were important considerations for you?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For a PhD, your advisor is the single most important factor. You can research reserach papers and ask your current research advisors if they can recommend programs and people to work with. Academis is really small, even internationally - everyone I talked to personally knew or knew of the professor I was working with in Spain, for example. I would recommend just finding people you think would be interesting to work with when you&amp;rsquo;re applying, and then trying to figure out the actual fit once you&amp;rsquo;re admitted, since many professors will be more willing to talk to you then.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Personally, I just applied to my top 4 dream programs, with an intent to reapply next fall if I didn&amp;rsquo;t get in anywhere. These were programs that had advisors I would be thrilled to work with and were also all around excellent for all kinds of CS and other programs, because my ideal situation involved being surrounded by amazing people in all disciplines. Location was also a small factor, but all of these programs had locations I would be very happy in.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you have any tips for the grad school application process?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;General advice:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Start early, and have friends look at your essays&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Use Dartmouth resources as available - for example, the Fellowship office for Fulbright&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Advice on different application components:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;SOP: tell a story about how you were shaped intellectually, show your research potential - most undergrads haven’t done a ton of research, so explain why you will be able to succeed at research&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;GRE - don’t worry about it too much! For many programs it’s not actually that important and your time and energy would be much better spent focusing on research or taking hard classes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Letters of recommendation - extremely important. Form strong relationships with professors, ask them a couple of months in advance at least, give them a list of things you want to include in letter because often they will have forgotten details. More information can be found in 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/rec_letters/&#34;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you have any tips for the Fulbright application process?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My answer to this question is summarized my 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/&#34;&gt;Fulbright application posts&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Getting a SWE Internship, Part 1</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_1/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2020 13:00:25 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_1/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As I approached my junior year, I had never had a software engineering internship in the tech industry before, and I really wanted to get an internship at a big or medium-sized tech company for the upcoming summer. I did some research on how to approach recruiting, and then I went for it. I ended up getting offers at Facebook, Microsoft, and Palantir, among other companies. The tech recruiting process can feel intimidating, but it&amp;rsquo;s actually pretty straightforward, and once you understand it you can definitely take the steps to get your first internship too! In this 3-part series, I&amp;rsquo;ll walk you through the steps I took that led to that outcome.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll talk about how to strengthen your application so that you get an interview. In my next post, I&amp;rsquo;ll talk about how to nail the interview. Finally, I&amp;rsquo;ll discuss how to navigate choosing an internship post-offer. This series is based on my own experiences, which were heavily influenced by older students, and by 
&lt;a href=&#34;http://www.crackingthecodinginterview.com/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Cracking the Coding Interview&lt;/a&gt;. I&amp;rsquo;ll be referencing the book several times, and it&amp;rsquo;s very worth checking it out!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The first step to getting an interview is having a strong resume. There are two components to this - building the material that will go on your resume, and then actually writing the resume.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generating strong material for your resume&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Course selection - take relevant computer science courses, and especially ones with projects.  Math courses also look good. For software engineering internships, GPA doesn&amp;rsquo;t seem to be too significant - a general rule of thumb I heard is that if it&amp;rsquo;s above 3.0, put it on, if it&amp;rsquo;s below, keep it off. If your major GPA is higher than your average GPA, and you&amp;rsquo;re majoring in a relevant technical field, it&amp;rsquo;s fine to just put your major GPA on.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Work on side projects  - working on projects will improve your programming skills, and also show initiative to recruiters.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Look for opportunities at your school or in your community relevant to software engineering. For example, Dartmouth, my undergraduate institution, has the 
&lt;a href=&#34;http://dali.dartmouth.edu/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;DALI lab&lt;/a&gt;. You could also teach yourself basic website development skills and then build a website for an organization that you&amp;rsquo;re a part of. Don&amp;rsquo;t hesitate to apply for opportunities even if you don&amp;rsquo;t feel like you know enough - obviously, be honest about your experiences, but once you&amp;rsquo;re on the job there is so much that you can teach yourself.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Seek out SWE internships at companies that might feel less prestigious or desirable, since having any SWE internship experiences on your resume will make it a lot easier to get future interviews.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to write your resume&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Try not to go over 1 page. Remove high school activities and jobs as needed.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Include detailed descriptions on exactly what you did and highlight your contributions. Try to quantify them if possible (ex. I optimized this code to make it 4.5x faster).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Add a section on programming projects. This can involve research projects, class projects, and side projects. State the technologies that you used and your contributions, if this was a group project.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Be prepared to discuss anything you put on your resume, or to be asked questions relevant to any programming languages or frameworks that you say you know on your resume. You can differentiate these by level of experience.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Only include important technical skills, so that they stand out. Many people include things such as Microsoft Office that everyone should know, and that aren&amp;rsquo;t very impressive compared to programming languages/frameworks.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Applying to Jobs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Once you have a resume, it&amp;rsquo;s time to actually apply to jobs. Applying online definitely can lead to interviews, and you should send your resume to as many places as you can, especially when trying to get your first internship. That being said, there are many other application approaches that often will result in a better shot at an interview.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Career fairs at your university: These are great because you can actually talk to recruiters, learn about the company, and indicate your interest. At a career fair, an actual human being will see your resume, instead of an automated bot. If you can get a recruiter&amp;rsquo;s email at the career fair, you have a point of contact to follow up with, which is much better than submitting a resume online and waiting to receive an automated message.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Career fairs at conferences: Conferences such as Grace Hopper or Out4U have huge career fairs that are incredible places to snag an internship or full time offer, but come prepared to interview on the spot.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Smaller companies: use websites such as 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://angel.co/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;AngelList&lt;/a&gt; to find startups in locations/fields that you&amp;rsquo;re interested in. Interning at a startup is an incredible opportunity to learn a lot, and startups tend to have a later recruitment cycle.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;LinkedIn: Keep your profile updated and indicate that you are searching for jobs, and recruiters will sometimes reach out to you. I&amp;rsquo;ve also had success emailing alumni from my college to ask about their career paths, and sometimes alumni will even be willing to refer you.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Referrals: If you have friends or know older students who have worked for tech companies, don&amp;rsquo;t be afraid to ask if they would be willing to write you a referral. Some tech companies will incentivize employees to get referrals, so many people are very happy to help. Of course, it&amp;rsquo;s the decision of whoever you ask whether they decide to give you a referral or not, but&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Also, a note on cover letters - I didn&amp;rsquo;t write any cover letters, but some small/medium sized tech companies might like to see more personalized interest.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #14: Pandemic</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_14/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2020 11:03:42 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja_espana_14/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As I had discussed in my previous post, the coronavirus was getting progressively worse in Spain. Once Trump made his announcement, I decided to make the most of my remaining time. I am not a spontaneous person, but knowing that I probably at least had 48 hours left in Spain, I decided I was going to go to Barcelona. I booked a train ticket, threw some clothes and toiletries into a bag, and headed to the train station. Train rides were always a fun and special experience for me &amp;mdash; I loved putting on some music and writing in my journal, or just enjoying the beautiful view of the Spanish countryside. But on this train ride, I couldn&amp;rsquo;t even put on music. I just stared at some news on my phone and tried to process Spain falling apart (this was a little before it was clear that the entire world was falling apart and the implications of the pandemic were much more dire than just cancelled foreign study programs).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I got off the train and took the familiar walk through &lt;em&gt;Estacion Sants&lt;/em&gt; and into the metro, and eventually stepped out onto &lt;em&gt;La Rambla&lt;/em&gt; and walked a block through the beautiful Gothic Quarter to get to my friend Anna&amp;rsquo;s place. She opened the door to her apartment and we gave each other a hug (this was before we really understood the concept of social distancing) and the relief I felt was immediate. It was lovely to finally be with someone who understood my position of likely being forced to leave Spain.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We ventured out to a bar Anna wanted to show me. It was magical - I was transported to a forest. Next, we went to my favorite bar in Barcelona (and in the world), a classy place that makes custom cocktails that always end up being the best cocktail I&amp;rsquo;ve ever had, and all seven or so friends I&amp;rsquo;ve taken there agree. Then it was time to meet up with the rest of the Barca gang. We first went to a noodle/dumpling bar, and then we went to another place with empañadas. It was incredible to see everyone - the level of comfort that I felt being surrounded by them after a crazy week was unreal. Audrey proclaimed that she was in denial, but she knew we were all going to be sent home. Apparently the ECA (the branch of the government that runs Fulbright) had said that all exchange programs would have a 60 day pause. We had 90 days left, so this was so clearly the end.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-one-last-sangria-in-an-ethereal-cozy-bar&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/forest_bar.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;One last sangria in an ethereal, cozy bar&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/forest_bar.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    One last sangria in an ethereal, cozy bar
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The next morning, we had a busy day ahead of us. Anna had a list of places she wanted to see in Barcelona before she left - mostly various museums - and we were going to make some progress on it. The day had a surreal energy. I knew that our time here was so limited, by days, maybe even hours. It was crazy and terrifying to watch the world fall apart in ways that I had never imagined, but also a beautiful reminder about how special life is, and how much of a gift it was to be half a world away from everything I had known and held familiar.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;




  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-places-in-barcelona-that-were-now-familiar-felt-extra-remarkable-and-magical-like-this-plaza&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_plaza.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Places in Barcelona that were now familiar felt extra remarkable and magical, like this plaza&amp;hellip;&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_plaza.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Places in Barcelona that were now familiar felt extra remarkable and magical, like this plaza&amp;hellip;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-or-the-hallowed-walls-of-the-gothic-quarter-fun-fact-theres-a-skull-on-the-underside-of-the-pont-del-bisbe&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/gothic_walls.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;&amp;hellip;or the hallowed walls of the Gothic Quarter. Fun fact: there&amp;rsquo;s a skull on the underside of the pont del bisbe&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/gothic_walls.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    &amp;hellip;or the hallowed walls of the Gothic Quarter. Fun fact: there&amp;rsquo;s a skull on the underside of the &lt;em&gt;pont del bisbe&lt;/em&gt;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We started the day off with me finally visiting the famous Boqueria market. Then we got brunch with Audrey and a college friend of hers who had just arrived in Barcelona as part of world travel on a Watson fellowship. The meal was wonderful - I had been looking for real American-esque brunch food in Spain the entire time I was there and I had finally found it.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-it-only-took-me-5-trips-to-barcelona-to-go-to-one-of-the-biggest-tourist-attractions&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/boqueria.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;It only took me 5 trips to Barcelona to go to one of the biggest tourist attractions&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/boqueria.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    It only took me 5 trips to Barcelona to go to one of the biggest tourist attractions
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-brunch-with-audrey-and-anna-3&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_brunch.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Brunch with Audrey and Anna &amp;lt;3&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_brunch.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Brunch with Audrey and Anna &amp;lt;3
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then, Audrey peeled off, and Anna, our new friend, and I took the scenic route through the Gothic quarter and up to Montjuic. Of course, we were talking about how we would probably all have to leave soon. And then, just as we got to the top and started to take in the beautiful view of the city, Anna got an email. What we had all been dreading was here. Her undergrad institution&amp;rsquo;s Fulbright coordinator told us that we were all going to be sent home and should start booking flights. I stood in silence as Anna talked to her family on the phone, and tried to process this news.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A few minutes later, I got an email too, sent to all grantees. Spain was now CDC level 3, and we were encouraged to return to the US within the next week. I read the information about closing our bank accounts, how stipend payments would work, and getting a plane ticket, and tried to process this - it felt unreal, even though I knew it had been coming. After Anna and I absorbed this, we tried to go to the Joan Miro museum, but it was closed. The city was shutting down.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That evening, we all gathered at a soccer field near Montjuic with drinks and chocolate and watched the sun set on our Fulbright. We passed sheets of paper around and wrote notes to each other under a one minute time limit. When I got my sheet back, I was amazed at the depth of things that my friends wrote about me, despite me seeing most of them only about 5 times total over the 6 months I had known them. It hit me that I had been a part of and helped create something so special between all of us, and I was so excited to continue building those bonds and enjoying Spain (the castle in Girona that we were all planning to stay at in April really epitomized that), but now it was all just going to end. Later, the pandemic got much worse in America and all of the horrible economic and personal impacts for so many people became clear, but at the time, it just felt like we were being sent home.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-my-friend-sasha-and-i-at-the-soccer-field-overlooking-the-city&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/sasha.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;My friend Sasha and I at the soccer field overlooking the city&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/sasha.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;700&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    My friend Sasha and I at the soccer field overlooking the city
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-barca-gangs-last-in-person-rendezvous&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_montjuic.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The Barca gang&amp;rsquo;s last in-person rendezvous&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_montjuic.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;700&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The Barca gang&amp;rsquo;s last in-person rendezvous
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The next morning, Anna, our friend Akshay, and I got brunch; the restaurant was already closed for eating and only open for takeout. We sat in Placa de la Universitat - one of the first places I had ever been to in Barcelona, since my sister and I stayed in a hotel near the university my first time in the city. We sat on a bench and I tried to just enjoy looking at the city and talking to my friends, knowing that this would be one of my last moments of peace before I had to pack up my apartment and deal with a million things. I headed to the train station and bought one last ticket to Zaragoza.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I got home and tried to contemplate having to pack up my entire apartment in the next 2 days. My flatmates were excited - apparently the president was going to address the country in the evening. As I started packing, messages were flying in every WhatsApp group. Everyone was really confused, and debating whether they should say in Spain or leave. They were angry at the lack of clear guidance on exactly what we needed to do from Fulbright, since the email just &amp;ldquo;strongly recommended&amp;rdquo; that we leave. I personally thought that the Comission was very responsive and helpful during this crazy crisis, but the fault was with the US government for having a lack of a clear plan and leadership at the top, which then trickled down to be confusing for us.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was definitely conflicted, but I also knew that my family really wanted me to come home, and being with them during this crazy time didn&amp;rsquo;t seem like the worst idea. It also seemed like flights were getting cancelled left and right, so we all had to try to get out of Spain ASAP. My flight was booked for Tuesday originally, but it got cancelled, so I moved to a Monday flight and gave myself less than 24 hours to pack up.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That evening, the president of Spain spoke to the country. He announced that Spain was going to enter a strict lockdown, that people would only be allowed to leave their apartments to get groceries, go to the pharmacy, or go to the doctor. All of a sudden, everyone in Spain started taking the virus really seriously. My flatmates and labmates realized that the virus could spiral out of control and that they needed to listen to their leaders - what a contrast to how Americans responded to the virus. On the bright side, the lockdown meant that Spain somewhat got a handle on the virus. Also, the prospect of spending a lot of the next 3 months in my apartment in Spain made leaving a lot easier.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The next day or so was a whirlwind of packing everything up, realizing it wouldn&amp;rsquo;t even fit into the 4 suitcases/duffle bags I had, my labmate Julio saving me by both letting me store a few things at his house indefinitely and driving me to the train station, making it back to Barcelona, and hauling my luggage around until I was at the baggage drop and then Delta agent was merciful with extra baggage for the first time in my memory. I very cautiously got on the plane, feeling aware of my proximity to others in a way that I&amp;rsquo;m now familiar with. I was sitting next to a guy who had been studying abroad in Barcelona and had to leave early, a relatable mood.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The screening when I landed on U.S. soil was very lax. They took my temperature, but did no other checks, and I doubt they would have done anything except encourage me to quarantine for 14 days if I did have one. I had low expectations of how America would handle the pandemic, but this was an early indication that it would be even worse. That being said, the gratitude and relief I felt when I saw my family and got home was immense. I missed Spain immediately, but I felt so lucky to have a loving home to return to, to still be on my parents&amp;rsquo; health insurance, and to have my supportive family and wonderful friends to process this unprecedented situation with.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Why I Decided to Pursue a PhD</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/why_phd/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2020 10:08:34 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/why_phd/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s one thing to figure out how to position yourself and apply for a PhD program, but actually deciding that you want a PhD is an entirely different process. In this post, I&amp;rsquo;m going to walk through the aspects of my academic journey in college that made me feel confident in my decision to pursue a PhD in computer science. Before I dive in, I want to make it clear that a PhD is at its core about research. Therefore, this post will center on why I decided to go after a research career.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Journey&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As a freshman, I discovered computer science for the first time. I knew the field existed and it sounded vaguely interesting to me, but it wasn&amp;rsquo;t until I took CS1 and went through the process of solving problems with code that I realized I really liked it. I was vaguely pre-med throughout my first year, and stuck with it even though I liked CS more because I felt like I was excelling in my pre-med classes but didn&amp;rsquo;t have faith in my CS abilities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My freshman summer both gave me some self-confidence and made me truly think about the concept of a PhD for the first time. I interned as a software engineer in a data science lab along with 3 math and computer science PhD students. My project on parsing data made me see that I was capable of accomplishing a coding task I was given in the real world, but I also realized that it wasn&amp;rsquo;t very interesting to me compared to the research projects my fellow interns were working on. Trying to solve research problems as opposed to engineering problems was much more exciting to me. I also talked to some other teams in the company who were working on exciting technologies such as those that enable self-driving cars, and I realized there was so much cool stuff I could do within computer science besides just parsing data. However, I realized I would need a PhD to tackle most of the questions I wanted to. PhD or no PhD, my coworkers biggest piece of advice was to take a lot of math.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Being me, I decided to map out an 11 year plan - basically, what my 4 years of college, a gap year, a 5 year PhD, and then options after could look like. Everything after college and my gap year was very vague, but it&amp;rsquo;s funny that a lot of things I wrote and started to map out in my plan - &amp;ldquo;add a double major in math&amp;rdquo;, &amp;ldquo;do a Fulbright or something like it after college&amp;rdquo;, &amp;ldquo;TA more CS classes&amp;rdquo;, &amp;ldquo;get an internship at a good tech company that has strong software engineering and research divisions&amp;rdquo; - ended up happening.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As I went through the rest of college, I didn&amp;rsquo;t closely follow or even revise my 11 year plan much, but I used it as a framework to explore if a PhD was right for me. I prioritized taking important CS and math courses, going after opportunities that would allow me to explore academia and work closely with professors, and checking in with myself to see how I felt about different experiences. A lot of opportunities that I could never have planned for came up - research positions, working on the CLRS Algorithms textbook with Professor Cormen, being a teaching assistant for a brand new class, and studying abroad in Budapest. Having all these wonderful experiences not only strengthened my application, but also showed me that more time in academia was right for me. I loved many aspects of all of these experiences - getting to work closely with professors on interesting problems, doing work that would be published and put out for others to use, walking students through problems, taking courses at an institution other than my own - and realized that the process of a PhD would probably be enjoyable to me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also thought more carefully about what my future would look like with a PhD versus without one. Interning at a tech company where I could see firsthand the differences between software engineers and research scientists with PhDs, and also getting to know some professors well was extremely helpful for this. I realized that with a PhD, I could either get a cool industry research position or go into academia and make a huge impact. I respect software engineering, but it just wasn&amp;rsquo;t for me or aligned with the kind of problems I want to spend my life solving. While a PhD might result in less money earned over my lifetime, especially if I end up in academia, the lifestyle was more appealing to me, because I would get to be creative, solve problems I think are important, travel to conferences, and hopefully be a positive influence on future generations of students.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Given that a PhD seemed to align well with my long-term life goals, and that it also seemed like it would be an enjoyable and valuable experience in and of itself, I decided to apply to PhD programs. I ended up doing a Fulbright research scholarship in Spain first, which ended up being a much more valuable experience than I expected it to be. I had a lot of space and time to think, and I also got to do research full-time for the first time in my life. This was a frustrating experience at times (more on this in a future blog post), but it also gave me a taste of life as a PhD student and made me feel even more confident in my decision and excited to start my PhD in the fall!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other considerations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re maybe considering doing a PhD, but not sure if you want to, here is some advice that I&amp;rsquo;ve taken away from my experiences:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Be informed about exactly what a PhD is, what your 4-6+ years in grad school will entail, and what kind of opportunities you will have after your PhD. You can do this by reading pages that colleges have put up (like 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://web.cs.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/graduate-school-advice&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; by the Dartmouth CS department), talking to professors, talking to students going to graduate school, and reading blogs like this.
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A great way to get to know older students is through an identity-centered group for your field, such as Women in Computer Science. Dartmouth WiCS has hosted several panels about topics such as this one.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Figure out what kinds of undergrad activities will prepare you for grad school, and as importantly along the way let you explore if grad school is for you. Research is the most important activity in this category, but other opportunities such as being a TA, taking hard classes, and other projects with professors are great too. Also, if you&amp;rsquo;re considering an alternate career path (like how I was potentially considering software engineering), try to gain some experience in that area to see if you like it as much.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;After every experience, be honest with yourself and reflect on what you liked and didn&amp;rsquo;t like about it. As I went through undergrad, I learned a lot about my strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, and interests. Out of the options that were available to me, a PhD seemed like the most exciting and best-fitting one, so I decided to go for it.
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Consider both the possibilities of what your career/life will look like after your PhD, but also what the process of actually doing a PhD will feel like.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Take time after undergrad, especially if you&amp;rsquo;re not sure. Undergrad was crazy and busy, which made it hard to have the time and space to properly reflect and think about my ambitions, while being away from Dartmouth gave me a new and clearer perspective. Getting to do research for a year in Spain also really helped me see that a PhD was right for me, but it could have gone the other way too. In 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/phd_gap_year_options/&#34;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, I talk about pre-PhD gap year options, which might be especially helpful to consider if you are done with college and want to pursue an opportunity that could strengthen your PhD application and/or decide if a PhD is right for you.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Some Podcasts I Like</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/podcasts-2020/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2020 20:38:47 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/podcasts-2020/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Over the past year, from frequent rides on the tram in Zaragoza to lots of walks along the river next to my house in Minnesota, I&amp;rsquo;ve started to really enjoy listening to podcasts. Here are some of my current favorites:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510318/up-first&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Up First&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Every episode of Up First has 3 short news stories and takes me just a little over 5 mins to listen to on 1.5x speed. It&amp;rsquo;s a great way to stay informed about the most important current events without feeling overwhelmed or putting too much time into constantly reading the news.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Code Switch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This podcast, which is hosted by journalists of color, explores the intersection of different areas in society with racism. It&amp;rsquo;s a great way to get a fuller perspective on current events and systems in our country.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Ten Percent Happier&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I discovered this podcast before the pandemic, but as the world has become less and less certain it has become more and more comforting to listen to. One of my favorite episodes was about 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ten-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821?i=1000461888705&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;sleep and how important it is&lt;/a&gt; - listening to it made me really happy that I was sleeping a lot in Spain, and I&amp;rsquo;ve continued that trend into quarantine.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Hidden Brain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hidden Brain covers human psychology in a very compelling and scientifically-backed way. I&amp;rsquo;ve learned so much about why we make the decisions we do, our biases, and interesting psychology experiments. They also have a series called You 2.0 on how we can use psychological insights to better understand ourselves and improve our lives, which I appreciate.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/podcasts&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Intelligence Squared&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This is one of my favorite podcasts, but be warned that you do really have to pay attention to it to get the most out of listening to it. In each episode, there is a resolution such as &amp;ldquo;Coronavirus will reshape the world order in China&amp;rsquo;s favor&amp;rdquo; or &amp;ldquo;Two cheers for the two-party system.&amp;rdquo; Then, two experts in the field (professors, people who have written books on these topics, etc.) team up to debate each side. The debate is always very well structured, and many episodes have helped me see both sides of the resolution in a nuanced way. As an added fun way to interact with it, the audience of the podcast can also vote on the resolution before and after listening, and the side that gains the most support wins the debate.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s important to note that &amp;ldquo;Intelligence Square US Debates&amp;rdquo; (which I linked above) has the debates, while &amp;ldquo;Intelligence Squared&amp;rdquo; is British and has many more interviews, which are also very interesting!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/science-friday/id73329284&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Science Friday&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Science Friday is a great way to hear short stories on various scientific breakthroughs around the world. I think it&amp;rsquo;s great to stay informed about what&amp;rsquo;s on the cutting edge in other fields, and it&amp;rsquo;s also nice to hear about computer science advancements from a high level to get a broader perspective on my own field.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #13: My Last Weeks in Spain</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-13/</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2020 11:03:42 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-13/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Shortly after I drafted my post about mid-year, I had to leave Spain due to the pandemic. From here on out, all of my Spain posts are retrospective. In this one, I&amp;rsquo;m going to talk about my last couple of weeks in Spain.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thinking back to the end of February in Zaragoza (which truly feels like another lifetime), I was having a wonderful time. I guess spring comes early in Spain - the weather in Zaragoza was getting warmer, and cherry blossoms were blooming.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-this-photo-was-taken-on-february-11th-right-outside-of-my-apartmentspring-comes-much-earlier-in-spain&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz_flowers.JPG&#34; data-caption=&#34;This photo was taken on February 11th right outside of my apartment&amp;hellip;spring comes much earlier in Spain&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz_flowers.JPG&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    This photo was taken on February 11th right outside of my apartment&amp;hellip;spring comes much earlier in Spain
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I finally felt at home in my lab and was getting closer every day with my labmates. Miguel was gone from the lab due to a broken leg, but everyone else was still around. Work days consisted of learning lots of new things (and even changing GPUs in computers and some other basic hardware stuff, with the help of labmates), long lunches and lots of coffee breaks (we had a conversation about how to improve lab dynamics given that we were split up into two separate buildings, and the solution was to drink more coffee in the two buildings, resulting in about 3 coffee breaks every day), and frequent trips to the vending machine with Manu and Adrian. Some other fond memories from my last couple of weeks: a lovely, long chat on a Friday afternoon with Johanna, a postdoc from France, about work life balance in academia, and getting a new fancy coffee machine in the lab. Also, going out with Adrian and a bunch of his Spanish friends on a Thursday night and experiencing &lt;em&gt;machacados&lt;/em&gt; (shots of a mixed drink that you cover with a plastic lid and all simultaneously slam on to the bar, hard - success involves breaking a glass - before drinking).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Weekends consisted of sunny afternoons, failed hikes and crazy nights with my &lt;em&gt;auxiliares&lt;/em&gt; friends, a trip to the &lt;em&gt;pueblo&lt;/em&gt; of a labmate for a 7 hour lunch (that is not an exaggeration, and this is the norm for &amp;ldquo;lunch&amp;rdquo; at someones home), and more time spent with Aiko and Aparna&amp;rsquo;s class. As you read about in my last post, I had a lot of plans for the rest of my time in Spain, which I was looking forward to. It wasn&amp;rsquo;t until early March that I started to suspect that maybe those plans wouldn&amp;rsquo;t happen.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A few of my Fulbright friends had promised to come visit. In particular, Ash and Libby were planning to come from Madrid. We were debating between the second and third weekends of March, and thankfully they decided to come on the second weekend, otherwise they would not have made it before the pandemic hit.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We had a wonderful time. I took them to my favorite tapas bars and restaurants in Zaragoza and went to some museums I had wanted to go to for a while but was saving/procrastinating going to. A fun fact I learned in the Roman Forum museum - Zaragoza used to be a Roman city called Caesar Agusto. Then, they dropped the &amp;ldquo;cae&amp;rdquo;, and &amp;ldquo;sar agusto&amp;rdquo; became &amp;ldquo;Zaragoza&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-zaragoza-is-famous-for-being-windy-my-friends-really-got-to-experience-that&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/windy_zgz.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Zaragoza is famous for being windy. My friends really got to experience that!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/windy_zgz.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Zaragoza is famous for being windy. My friends really got to experience that!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;




  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-interior-of-the-aljaferia-palace-in-zaragoza-which-inspired-the-famous-alahambra-and-is-truly-stunning&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_wall.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The interior of the Aljaferia palace in Zaragoza, which inspired the famous Alahambra and is truly stunning&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_wall.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The interior of the &lt;em&gt;Aljaferia&lt;/em&gt; palace in Zaragoza, which inspired the famous &lt;em&gt;Alahambra&lt;/em&gt; and is truly stunning
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-we-loved-these-doorways&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_friends.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;We loved these doorways&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_friends.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    We loved these doorways
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-i-am-so-nostalgic-for-the-details-of-spanish-architecture-like-these-beautiful-ceilings&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_ceiling.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;I am so nostalgic for the details of Spanish architecture, like these beautiful ceilings&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aljaferia_ceiling.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    I am so nostalgic for the details of Spanish architecture, like these beautiful ceilings
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I really appreciated my city and loved showing my friends around. It&amp;rsquo;s so good I got that they came when they did, because I definitely wouldn&amp;rsquo;t have gone to Aljaferia again or hit all of my favorite tapas bars one last time!&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-taking-my-friends-to-eat-my-favorite-champi-tapa&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/champi.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Taking my friends to eat my favorite champi tapa&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/champi.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Taking my friends to eat my favorite &lt;em&gt;champi&lt;/em&gt; tapa
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-a-dinner-we-made-out-of-tapas-at-a-place-that-specialized-in-cheese---pan-con-tomate-truffled-manchego-artichokes-in-cheese-and-migas-or-breadcrumbs-a-dish-very-typical-to-zaragoza&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/tapas.JPG&#34; data-caption=&#34;A dinner we made out of tapas at a place that specialized in cheese - pan con tomate, truffled manchego, artichokes in cheese, and migas, or breadcrumbs, a dish very typical to Zaragoza&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/tapas.JPG&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    A dinner we made out of tapas at a place that specialized in cheese - &lt;em&gt;pan con tomate&lt;/em&gt;, truffled &lt;em&gt;manchego&lt;/em&gt;, artichokes in cheese, and &lt;em&gt;migas&lt;/em&gt;, or breadcrumbs, a dish very typical to Zaragoza
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-i-really-wanted-to-see-this-view-from-the-tower-of-the-basilica-photo-generously-provided-by-my-friend-shani-and-show-it-to-my-friends-but-sadly-it-was-closed-that-weekend----one-of-so-many-reasons-i-have-to-go-back-to-spain&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilar_tower_view.JPG&#34; data-caption=&#34;I really wanted to see this view from the tower of the Basilica (photo generously provided by my friend Shani) and show it to my friends, but sadly it was closed that weekend -  one of so many reasons I have to go back to Spain!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilar_tower_view.JPG&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    I really wanted to see this view from the tower of the Basilica (photo generously provided by my friend Shani) and show it to my friends, but sadly it was closed that weekend -  one of so many reasons I have to go back to Spain!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-i-was-able-to-take-them-inside-the-basilica---this-is-its-ceiling&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilar_ceiling.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;I was able to take them inside the Basilica - this is its ceiling&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilar_ceiling.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    I was able to take them inside the Basilica - this is its ceiling
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-zaragoza-is-so-stunningim-really-happy-i-was-able-to-rediscover-it-with-my-friends-and-appreciate-it-one-last-time&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz%3c3.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Zaragoza is so stunning&amp;hellip;I&amp;rsquo;m really happy I was able to rediscover it with my friends and appreciate it one last time&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz%3c3.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;700&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Zaragoza is so stunning&amp;hellip;I&amp;rsquo;m really happy I was able to rediscover it with my friends and appreciate it one last time
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That weekend felt like a very distinct point in which life went from pre pandemic to pandemic. I had talked about coronavirus with my lab mates, but they laughed at me for wanting to buy a mask to wear, and it wasn&amp;rsquo;t a main conversation point. But Ash and Libby and I couldn&amp;rsquo;t stop talking about coronavirus - would it become a pandemic? Would it spread to America? Would Fulbright let us stay here? Ash is brilliant - she had just gotten into Harvard med school and she&amp;rsquo;s very interested in epedimiology, so she was the perfect person to talk to about this (and still my go to person for covid-related questions, months later).&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-we-spent-our-last-hour-together-hanging-out-in-the-park-by-my-house&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/park_hanging.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;We spent our last hour together hanging out in the park by my house&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/park_hanging.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;700&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    We spent our last hour together hanging out in the park by my house
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-zaragoza-spring--ash-was-such-a-good-aesthetic&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/park_flower_aesthetic.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Zaragoza spring &amp;#43; Ash was such a good aesthetic&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/park_flower_aesthetic.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;700&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Zaragoza spring + Ash was such a good aesthetic
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While there was a nagging feeling about coronavirus, we still had a lovely time, but as soon as Ash and Libby left, things went downhill. On Monday at the lab I kept on refreshing the Spain coronavirus map and watched the numbers in Madrid triple in a single day. I started to have a sinking feeling as I faced the reality that I probably wouldn&amp;rsquo;t be allowed to stay. That evening, I went with my labmates to &lt;em&gt;cien montaditos&lt;/em&gt; (a chain in Spain) for sandwiches and beer. They made fun of me for my paranoia about the virus and fears about having to leave, and even for washing my hands before the food came! Clearly, they didn&amp;rsquo;t think coronavirus was anything to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The week kept on devolving into more confusion and anxiety. Things were very bad in Italy, so I asked the Comission what happened to grantees over there, and they told me that Fulbright Italy was cancelled, and that depending on the region everyone was either encouraged to go home or Fulbright was cancelled and they were required to leave. With Spain quickly devolving into the next Northern Italy, it felt like things were getting worse and worse, but the Department of State wasn&amp;rsquo;t updating Spain&amp;rsquo;s travel advisory level (which would mean we had to leave), and Fulbright wasn&amp;rsquo;t telling us anything.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I couldn&amp;rsquo;t focus on work at all - I was consumed with wondering if we were going to get sent home, if the program would let us stay, if the numbers in Spain would continue to go up like crazy. It felt like I spent all day WhatsApping my Fulbright friends, trying to figure out what was going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I had booked a trip to visit a friend in Asturias for that weekend, which would require me to travel to Barcelona on Thursday, and I had no clue if it was safe or reasonable to go or not. On Wednesday night, I woke up at 4:30 am, and saw a bunch of WhatsApp messages and texts from my family. Trump had said that Americans had 48 hours to come back to the country, and Fulbright still hadn&amp;rsquo;t told us anything. I woke up again a few hours later, and Fulbright still hadn&amp;rsquo;t said a word, and I had many more text messages. I&amp;rsquo;m not a spontaneous person normally, but I felt like I needed to be with my friends. So I booked a train ticket to Barcelona, packed enough clothes to suffice for a few days, and left my apartment.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Neerja&#39;s Blog</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/start/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/start/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Thanks for making your way to my blog! If you&amp;rsquo;re a first-time reader, or just want an overview of the contents of my blog, this is a great place to start.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As a quick intro, I graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. From 2019-2020, I did computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship. This fall, I will be started my PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley, doing research in digital forensics, computational photography, and computer vision.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I started this blog so I could document and share my wonderful Fulbright experience, and also to answer questions I&amp;rsquo;ve gotten about applying to Fulbright/grad school, doing research, being a woman in CS, and other topics.  I have been incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful mentors and access to resources at an elite institution, and I would love to share what I&amp;rsquo;ve learned with those who may not have as easy access to this information, especially women, first gen, and BIPOC students considering computer science or doing research. For more information about me and my blog, you can read this 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/intro/&#34;&gt;introductory post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re interested in the Fulbright program or reading my experience about Spain, I have documented my Fulbright experience in my 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/tag/fulbright/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Neerja en España&lt;/a&gt; series. I also wrote a series of posts on applying for a research Fulbright:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/&#34;&gt;Part one&lt;/a&gt; covers establishing a relationship with your host institution and deciding on a research project&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-2/&#34;&gt;Part two&lt;/a&gt; covers the different components of a Fulbright application&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-3/&#34;&gt;Part three&lt;/a&gt; goes over my recommended application timeline and some other advice I have.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have also written several posts that could be helpful for anyone interested in doing research or applying to grad school. So far, these include my thoughts on:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/why_phd/&#34;&gt;Why I chose to pursue a PhD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/rec_letters/&#34;&gt;Getting letters of recommendation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/getting-involved-research/&#34;&gt;Getting involved in research before your PhD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/gre/&#34;&gt;The GRE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/phd_gap_year_options/&#34;&gt;How to spend a pre-PhD gap year&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve also recieved many questions on tech recruiting, so I wrote a series on my recruiting experience and advice on different parts of the process:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_1/&#34;&gt;How to have a strong resume and apply to jobs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_2/&#34;&gt;How to study for and nail the interview&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/tech_internships_3/&#34;&gt;How to pick an internship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I will be writing more posts in this vein, and if there is a topic you want to hear about don&amp;rsquo;t hesitate to reach out to me!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have also written some other posts about my life, and will be writing about my PhD once I start it. You can keep updated with my blog by 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/blog&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;subscribing&lt;/a&gt;, and the archive of all my posts can be viewed 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Letters of Recommendation</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/rec_letters/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 25 Jul 2020 11:02:56 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/rec_letters/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Letters of recommendation are probably the single most important component of a PhD application, and critical for many other purposes. Getting strong letters of recommendation consists of both forming strong relationships with professors and asking in the right way. In this post, I&amp;rsquo;ll break down how I got to know professors who ended up writing for me for scholarships, fellowships and grad school. I&amp;rsquo;ll also talk about how to approach asking for a letter.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forming relationships with professors&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Doing well in your classes and going to office hours will give your professors a good impression of you. However, for a stronger letter, you should try to get to know a professor even better outside of class. This can be through research, being a TA, or another type of project. Here are the interactions I had with some professors that wrote letters for me throughout college:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Did research with for 2 years&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Took 2 hard classes with, and then TAed one of those classes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Worked with on writing the solutions manual of a textbook during an off-term&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Took 2 classes with, then did a year of research with&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Professors love to see students who take initiative and go beyond what is expected. If you think you might want to get a letter from a certain professor, put in extra effort in their class, especially in areas such as a final project where you can stand out. If you&amp;rsquo;re working on research or another project outside of class with a professor, show up to meetings prepared and try to make consistent progress. Don&amp;rsquo;t be afraid to ask a professor how they feel about your work - it&amp;rsquo;s better to get feedback early on and then act on it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was lucky to go to a smaller school where professors prioritized teaching, so this definitely doesn&amp;rsquo;t apply to every professor, but in my experience many professors are very happy to answer questions about their field, research careers, and grad school. Telling them about your goals and ambitions helps them get to know you better, and has also been extremely helpful - a lot of advice I provide in this blog was learned from professors.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Asking for a Letter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Give your letter writers ample time to write for you - especially around busy letter-writing times, a couple of months is ideal. Be sure to remind your writers about the letter 1 month before the deadline, and again a week before if they haven’t submitted it&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Check the personal webpage of your letter writer before you ask them for a letter. Some professors have specific guidelines for letters, ranging from how much time they need to write it to who they will write for to what information they want from you when writing a letter.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reach out to ask (reminding them of who you are/how you know them if they might not remember), and when they say yes, respond with your CV, a summary of what program and kind of research you are applying for, and a list of things you would like them to talk about. You should absolutely mention small details or accomplishments that feel minor which the professor might not recall - the worst thing that can happen is that the professor chooses to not mention it in the letter&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;When I was applying for fellowships/grad school, I made a Google drive folder that had my CV, GRE scores, transcript, and drafts of essays for my letter writers to refer to as they wanted to. I also pointed out sections where I wrote about the work I was doing with them, so that they didn&amp;rsquo;t have to read my entire essays, and to ensure consistency among what we were writing&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #12: Mid-Year</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-12/</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 11:03:42 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-12/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written March 2020&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In mid-February, Fulbright gathered all of the grantees in Murcia, Spain for 3 days of workshops, presentations, conversations, and festivities. These few days ended up being a huge highlight of my time in Spain so far! &lt;em&gt;(Now I  see them as by far some of the best of 2020&amp;hellip;it&amp;rsquo;s crazy that they happened in the same year as today.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Before mid-year, I told my labmates that I was going to Murcia, and they were shocked that I was willingly going there. They kept on telling me that Murcia is the worst place in Spain, there&amp;rsquo;s nothing in Murcia, and that even the people there are not great. While I didn&amp;rsquo;t pay too much attention to the Spanish perception of the city, my expectations for Murcia were not high - little did I know that every part of mid-year, even the location, would be wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The journey to mid-year itself was a fun adventure. I got on the AVE from Zaragoza to Madrid Atocha (Puerta de Atocha is a major train station in Madrid). As soon as I stepped off of the train, I saw one of my friends, a Fulbright Master&amp;rsquo;s candidate in Salamanca, and my orientation roommate. The train to Murcia that most of Fulbright was taking wasn&amp;rsquo;t leaving for a couple of hours, so we had time to buy some food. We walked into a cafe in Atocha and immediately saw a group of people that somehow struck us as American (though them all being about our age helped too), and it turns out they were all ETAs in La Rioja. We had a great time meeting them and learning about how their grant had been going. Soon enough it was time to go to the meeting point, so we headed down to the main level of Atocha. I was immediately overwhelmed with excitement at seeing all my Fulbright friends - the ones I had seen just a couple of weeks ago in Barcelona, but also ones from Madrid and other places. We all made our way to the platform, and it was crazy with about 150 excited Fulbrighters all catching up with each other.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was assigned a seat on the train next to a friend, and two other friends were right in front of us, so we had a great time chatting and watching the scenery. The train ride soon turned into me walking around our train car to talk to everyone I knew, making new friends in the car, and then venturing with a friend into the cafe car. I was shook when I walked into this car and it was literally just a full on mobile bar. Within moments of walking in someone offered me some wine, and I easily spent an hour of the train ride sipping &lt;em&gt;rioja&lt;/em&gt;, talking (well, shouting) to friends new and old, and watching the beautiful landscape of Spain change as we traveled South. (&lt;em&gt;The specific thought of drinking rioja on a train is making me so incredibly nostalgic for Spain).&lt;/em&gt; And then all of a sudden we were in Murcia!&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-main-cathedral-of-murcia&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/murcia_cathedral.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The main cathedral of Murcia&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/murcia_cathedral.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The main cathedral of Murcia
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Mid-year itself was a wonderful whirlwind with very little sleep but a lot of fun. In format, it was very similar to orientation and the research seminar. It consisted of presentations, workshops, cocktail parties, exploring the city we were in (Murcia may be unimpressive by Spanish standards, but as an American I was pleasantly surprised), and lots of time to socialize. While the Fulbright name tags and printed out schedules were similar to orientation, the feeling was completely different. Before, meeting people and talking to them felt like awkward networking. Now, it felt fun and relaxed, but also exciting. I enjoyed conversations with people that now felt like friends, where we got to share our experiences, talk about our research, and get to know each other better. Before, the presentations were endless information coming from the Commission, but now they were talks from my friends about their work. Before, the cocktail parties felt exhausting, but now they were a really fun chance to see everyone and enjoy free unlimited wine.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-university-where-mid-year-took-place&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/universidad_murcia.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The university where mid-year took place&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/universidad_murcia.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The university where mid-year took place
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The other Fulbrighters, especially the researchers (who I spent the most time with), definitely made mid-year what it was -  I am absolutely blessed to be among these incredible people. They are so cool, deeply passionate and intelligent people with really interesting life stories and experiences. We have a lot of respect for each other intellectually and an understanding of each others desires to dive deeply into our disciplines, but also a lot of love for each other, and so much fun together going to bars/clubs until way too late or exploring new cities. Honestly, while I made a lot of incredible friends at Dartmouth, I was disappointed by how many students were only there to spend time in their Greek house before getting a job on Wall Street. Finding my people at Dartmouth took some time, whereas out of the group of about 30 researchers/master&amp;rsquo;s students here, I genuinely liked and had fun and even enlightening conversations with every one of them. &lt;em&gt;(I was video chatting with a couple of Fulbright friends yesterday and we were talking about how cool it is that we are all starting grad/med school in the fall and generally how impressive everyone we met through Fulbright is - the friendships I made have persisted, as has my awe of them!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some highlights of mid-year (or more like small details I don&amp;rsquo;t want to forget):&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Exploring Murcia with some friends right after we got in - the river was beautiful to walk along, there&amp;rsquo;s a casino that&amp;rsquo;s actually a beautiful building that was fun to explore, and afterwards I was able to enjoy a glass of my new favorite drink, vermouth&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;




  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-exploring-the-casino-with-some-friends&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino_me.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Exploring the casino with some friends!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino_me.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;300&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Exploring the casino with some friends!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-im-always-so-amazed-at-how-beautiful-the-details-are-in-european-architecture&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;I&amp;rsquo;m always so amazed at how beautiful the details are in European architecture&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;300&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    I&amp;rsquo;m always so amazed at how beautiful the details are in European architecture
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-obviously-seeing-a-mirror-merited-a-mirror-selfie&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino_friends.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Obviously seeing a mirror merited a mirror selfie&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/casino_friends.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;300&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Obviously seeing a mirror merited a mirror selfie
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Group lunches that weren&amp;rsquo;t scheduled with enough time (we had 1.5 hours to find a place and eat, in &lt;strong&gt;Spain&lt;/strong&gt;, where lunch is supposed to be a 2+ hour affair) so we were all late to everything but collectively so it was fun. We really should have broken up but we didn&amp;rsquo;t have the heart to eat in groups smaller than a cool 16&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;How hard Murcia tourism tried to sell us on the city of Murcia -  they showed us a video of Murcia (after about 18 hours in the city at this point I already recognized many of the places), gave us free stuff, and tried to convince us to come back. Professors at the university also tried to recruit several of us for graduate programs or in my case a research internship&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Watching two close friends of mine give amazing presentations on their research - Anna on complex systems and modeling ants, and Ash on developing an HIV vaccine. My friends are so brilliant! Other Fulbrighters I want to get to know better also gave great presentations on topics such as using social media to learn languages, indigenous languages in Spain, and the role of touch in education for young children&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Attending some pretty cool grantee-led workshops. One of them was on sustainability in Spain, and it was interesting to explore ways we have observed Spanish culture being more or less sustainable than American culture. I also attended a session where we discussed how we have been adjusting to and enjoying life in Spain, which gave me a lot of new ideas that I want to try here!&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A workshop where a male professor was pretty condescending to me and a few of my female friends, but we stood our ground and clapped back&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A market in Murcia with a lot of cool food options (there was some vegetarian Murcian food that was actually very good, surprisingly) that we ended up going to on multiple nights. The market also had a secret bar that you opened a window to get into - on the last night, all of Fulbright went there (the Comission included), and then to a bar/club with &amp;ldquo;erasmus&amp;rdquo; in the title&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The Fulbright talent show! A bunch of the ETA regions gave entertaining and funny performances, which was great - everyone in La Rioja took their own bottle of wine up on stage and had a very well done and enthusiastic performance. A research friend of mine did some hilarious stand up&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The cocktail party to end mid year - unlike the orientation cocktail, where I was exhausted and hungry, it was fun to dress up for this cocktail, enjoy the free unlimited wine, and see all of my friends at once. I will say, Fulbright has made me a lot better at navigating cocktail parties&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, Mid-Year was a lovely, wonderful time.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-barca-gangs-cocktail-photo-i-really-am-an-honorary-barcelona-researcher&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_cocktail.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The Barca gang&amp;rsquo;s cocktail photo (I really am an honorary Barcelona researcher)&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_cocktail.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The Barca gang&amp;rsquo;s cocktail photo (I really am an honorary Barcelona researcher)
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Valencia is on the way back from Murcia to Zaragoza, so I convinced five friends to stop by, and we spent 24 hours in Valencia on the way back! We were all so exhausted (going out until 3 am 2 nights in a row when you have to wake up at 8 am the next day is not ideal) and knocked out for a good 10 hours that night, but we also had a great time. Valencia is beautiful - with its Catalan-esque language (this is actually very contentious, according to two taxi drivers we had), palm trees, and beautiful architecture, it feels like a smaller, warmer and less touristy version of Barcelona. We had a great time eating &lt;em&gt;paella&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;horchata&lt;/em&gt;, seeing the modern arts and sciences center, and exploring  the city center.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-valencia-is-beautiful&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/valencia_fountain.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Valencia is beautiful&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/valencia_fountain.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Valencia is beautiful
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-arts-and-sciences-center-at-night-with-my-friends-ash-olivia-and-miranda&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/valencia_sciences.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The arts and sciences center at night with my friends Ash, Olivia and Miranda&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/valencia_sciences.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The arts and sciences center at night with my friends Ash, Olivia and Miranda
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;




  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-tasting-some-paella&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/paella.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Tasting some paella&amp;hellip;&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/paella.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Tasting some &lt;em&gt;paella&lt;/em&gt;&amp;hellip;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-and-horchata-with-fartons-food-is-a-true-highlight-of-this-city&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/horchata.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;and horchata with fartons! Food is a true highlight of this city.&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/horchata.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    and &lt;em&gt;horchata&lt;/em&gt; with &lt;em&gt;fartons&lt;/em&gt;! Food is a true highlight of this city.
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;rsquo;t believe that I only have 3 months left in Spain, but I&amp;rsquo;m absolutely going to make the most of them. My best friend is coming and we&amp;rsquo;re going to road trip around Mallorca for a week. My family (including my sister this time) is going to come to do Andalucia and a couple of days in Portugal. I&amp;rsquo;m determined to make it to Northern Spain - &lt;em&gt;pais vasco&lt;/em&gt; and Asturias both seem incredible, especially once it gets a little warmer. A few more friends from the US also want to try to make it over - I am blessed with visitors! It&amp;rsquo;s going to be busy and crazy and I will literally travel every weekend for a month or two, but I&amp;rsquo;m so excited for all of the places I want to explore and people I want to get closer to. &lt;em&gt;(Okay, so obviously none of that happened&amp;hellip;.except for getting closer to people. More on that soon)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #11: FAT*</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-11/</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2020 11:03:42 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-11/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written February 2020&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I closed out the insane month of January with a 4-day trip to Barcelona for the FAT* conference, which pulled together computer scientists, lawyers, people in the tech industry, and social scientists to talk about fairness, accountability and transparency in computing. This was my first academic conference ever, and I had an incredible time!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I decided to go to the conference because it was conveniently a 1-hour train ride away, Fulbright was going to fund my attendance, and it seemed important and relevant to my interests. It ended up being much more meaningful than I had anticipated -  I&amp;rsquo;m so happy I had the opportunity to go! Beyond just talking to CS academics and people in the tech industry, I got to talk to lawyers and professors in non-CS fields. There were so many cool talks that exposed me to ways of thinking I had never experienced before. There were also a handful of Berkeley PhD students there and it was great to meet them and learn about ways I can be involved in similar discussions once I go there. I&amp;rsquo;m definitely excited for what&amp;rsquo;s ahead!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve always understood that thinking about the implications and ethics of CS is important, and put effort into educating myself in those areas, but I&amp;rsquo;ve never learned as much about bias in computing, or how to make AI explainable, or challenges in creating AI policies, as I did during this conference. The talks I attended definitely changed my personal evaluation of different AI systems I encounter - right now, neural networks optimize for some loss function that minimizes error, but what they instead were optimized in a way that penalizes bias? I also thought AI explainability was an extremely interesting and important area, since frequently a neural network will give us a result and but we have no idea why it is returning that result, and as a result neural networks lead to all sorts of problems (read 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.08864.pdf&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; about how a single pixel change can completley fool a neural network).&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-me-miranda-and-anna-at-fat&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/fat*.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Me, Miranda, and Anna at FAT*!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/fat*.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Me, Miranda, and Anna at FAT*!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Beyond the conference, being in Barcelona and with the other Fulbright researchers was incredible. There&amp;rsquo;s a cohort of about 10 Fulbright researchers in Barcelona and they are all amazing people. We had a lot of fun group dinners in the 3 nights I was there, including one with most of us crammed into the corner of a tapas bar and being unnecessarily crazy after one round of beers. At some point in this visit, the Barcelona crew officially adopted me as one of their own, adding me to the group chat and everything, which was adorable. Audrey, a neuroscience researcher who is going to go to med school next year, very graciously hosted me the entire time I was there, and we bonded incredibly. It&amp;rsquo;s rare that you can spend 6 hours one on one with someone, have nonstop conversation the whole time, and then be shocked that 6 whole hours have passed. I attended the conference with Anna and Miranda, the two other CS researchers (both of who are so cool and brilliant and wonderful), and while none of us have explicitly done research in AI fairness or related fields, we had a great time exploring the conference together and talking about how our views on our own research changed throughout it.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-for-some-reason-our-group-photo-after-dinner-one-night-involved-me-being-carried&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_din.HEIC&#34; data-caption=&#34;For some reason, our group photo after dinner one night involved me being carried&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/barca_din.HEIC&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    For some reason, our group photo after dinner one night involved me being carried
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Getting Involved in Pre-Phd Research</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/getting-involved-research/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Jul 2020 11:03:32 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/getting-involved-research/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Research experience is extremely important for anyone considering a PhD (or for anyone who simply wants to explore an academic field, connect with a professor and learn valuable skills). However, for many students, getting involved in research isn&amp;rsquo;t straightforward, so in this post I&amp;rsquo;m going to break down how I got involved in my various research experiences throughout high school and college, and some additional advice for undergraduates.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My first research experience was the summer after my junior year of high school, when I worked at an immunology research lab at a local university, assisting a PhD student with wet lab research. This experience helped me both in the college application process and in getting involved in research at college. I continued with this kind of bench research when I started college, assisting an immunology professor at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. I soon realized that I wasn&amp;rsquo;t as interested in bench research, but wanted to do computational research, so I switched to computational biology research, utilizing my immunology knowledge and newfound computer science skills. As I went through college and took more courses, I realized I was more interested in other areas of computer science, so I started research in visual computing, a field which I then continued in during my Fulbright and into my PhD.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Getting involved as a high schooler&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Getting involved in any kind of research as a high schooler is extremely difficult - professors have their PhD students and plenty of undergrads who already want to work with them, and as a high schooler you have much less experience and coursework. I would recommend cold emailing several (by several, I mean many) professors in an area that you&amp;rsquo;re interested in, describing the STEM courses you have taken and any relevant extracurriculars, and expressing a willingness to learn and be helpful in any possible way. Also, if your high school has any connections with professors at a local university, try to use those - ask your science teachers. If you hear back that there are no positions in the lab you contacted, ask if the PI could recommend another lab.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My experience: I cold emailed several (more than a dozen) professors at a local university. I think I ended up hearing back from only about three of them, and two of them were emails indicating that they didn&amp;rsquo;t take high schoolers, but one of them did let me into their lab and it ended up being an invaluable experience!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Getting involved as a college student&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are a few ways I would recommend trying to get involved in undergrad research. I have done the following:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reach out to a professor who taught a class that you enjoyed. Introduce yourself, remind them of the class you took with them and anything special about your performance in it (ex. a final project), and tell them about your other relevant experience in their area. Express interest in doing research with them and ask if they would be open to meeting with you to discuss their research and the possibility of you working with them&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cold email a professor who you have never met and send them a similar email as above&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Use connections - if there is a professor you are already close with, see if they can introduce you to another professor and vouch for you&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here are some other ways you can get involved that I didn&amp;rsquo;t utilize personally, but many friends have:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;When you start college, look for programs for freshman and sophomore students to get involved in research - these often exist especially for women, underrepresented minority and first gen students.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Look for summer research programs (ex. UROP) at your institution or others. While it can be tempting to only look for internships in industry, research is the single most important thing if you are seriously considering a PhD, so consider spending a summer doing research.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Also keep your eye out for other opportunities! Professors often ask for people to apply for research positions or contribute to databases of available research projects&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My experience: I was lucky to go to a college with a huge undergraduate focus, where it was relatively easy to get involved in research, so a disclaimer that I didn&amp;rsquo;t have to try very hard to get involved in research. Here&amp;rsquo;s how I got involved in my 3 undergraduate research experiences:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;First research position: immunology research with a professor at DHMC. When I told the PI of the lab I worked at in high school that I was going to go to Dartmouth and intended to continue immunology research, she offered to introduce me to a few of her colleagues. This ended up with me working with an immunology professor at DHMC starting my freshman fall.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Second research position: computational immunology research with Professor Chris Bailey-Kellogg. By the middle of my freshman year, I realized I wanted to pursue research more closely related to computer science (but didn&amp;rsquo;t completely want to abandon biology yet). I decided to leverage my immunology experince and reach out to a professor doing computational immunology research. I cold emailed him, introducing myself and describing my immunology research experience/the computer science courses I had taken. Our conversation went well, and he was happy to have me join his group.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Third research position: undergraduate senior thesis in visual computing with Professor Wojciech Jarosz. I took Professor Jarosz&amp;rsquo;s Computational Photography class my junior winter and loved it. A few weeks into spring term, I emailed him to ask about the possibility of being advised by him on my senior thesis. He ended up having the capacity to take me on, and I started brainstormining topics with him over the summer.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of course, getting a research position is far from the hardest part of research, but definitely a crucial one. For my thoughts on acquiring research positions pre-PhD but post-undergrad, read 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/phd_gap_year_options/&#34;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>How I&#39;m Spending Quarantine</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/how-im-spending-quarantine/</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2020 21:49:32 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/how-im-spending-quarantine/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;When I first came home from Spain, I was overwhelmed by the craziness of having to suddenly pack up and move back to the US, sadness at my Fulbright suddenly ending and not getting to say goodbye to my new friends, and exhaustion. It took me some time to adjust to a new lifestyle, but since then, I&amp;rsquo;ve been staying busy and having a good time. I&amp;rsquo;ve enjoyed continuing some things I started prioritizing in Spain, and learning new things!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s nice to feel like I&amp;rsquo;m still living a fulfilling life, even if it&amp;rsquo;s different from the life I thought I would be living right now. It&amp;rsquo;s also been great to finally do things I wanted to do at some point but never would have made time for otherwise. I can honestly say I haven&amp;rsquo;t been bored once since the pandemic started. Here&amp;rsquo;s what I&amp;rsquo;ve been up to:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Research + Learning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The bulk of my time has been spent finishing up research I worked on during my Fulbright grant and also starting to meet with my future PhD advisor and joining in on lab meetings. In addition to spending a lot of time on research projects, I have been trying to stay up to date on current work in my fields by reading papers and attending conferences virtually (so far, ICCP, and parts of Eurographics and CVPR). I&amp;rsquo;m also doing an online course on how to get more familiar with various tools that computer science students and researchers use, which has so far been insanely useful - there will likely be a blog post to come on it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Family + Friend Time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m loving all of this time with my family - we were definitely not expecting to have this much time together ever. It&amp;rsquo;s nice to eat all of our meals together, even lunch in the middle of our workdays, and to all go for a walk together every evening. I&amp;rsquo;m very close to my little sister so I have especially adored all of this extra time for us to truly be a part of each others everyday lives! She is a rising sophomore in college and also studying computer science so we have been taking that online course together.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have also really valued staying in touch virtually (or on socially distanced walks) with friends from Fulbright, college, and my childhood. In some ways, the pandemic brought me and my Fulbright friends closer together, since we never would have had the crazy shared experience of suddenly leaving Spain and then grappling with the pandemic in the way we faced it otherwise. In general, it&amp;rsquo;s been nice to have time to reconnect with friends I haven&amp;rsquo;t talked with in a while.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prioritizing Health&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve been loving consistently getting a solid 8 hours of sleep every night and never having any super late nights, as fun as going to Spanish clubs until 4/5/6/7 am was. I&amp;rsquo;ve been eating healthy and going on walks every day to get plenty of fresh air. I do miss my gym in Spain a lot, but I&amp;rsquo;ve gotten back into a consistent running/HIIT workout schedule and have also started doing yoga regularly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learning Hindi&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I never learned Hindi as a child, but my parents are fluent in it (as well as English and 2 other Indian languages - they are incredible) and I&amp;rsquo;ve grown up watching Bollywood films, so learning Hindi has always been something I wanted to do but never had time for. I&amp;rsquo;ve been enjoying learning the alphabet and basic phrases, and then practicing with my entire family and asking them questions, making for another bonding activitiy. Having an excuse to watch some more Bollywood has also been an added bonus.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Photography&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I know a lot about how photography works, since a lot of my research for the past year or so has been in computational photography, but I haven&amp;rsquo;t had access to my parents&amp;rsquo; DSLR for an extended period of time until now. It&amp;rsquo;s been so nice to learn new tricks and practice. My photos mostly only consist of the flowers in my backyard, objects in my house, my family, and a few long exposure waterfall shots, so not the most variety, but definitely a lot of fun.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Community Involvement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I did a lot of sexual violence prevention work in college, which I&amp;rsquo;m happy that I was a part of, but also became very exhausting, so after college I needed a break from activism. Especially after George Floyd&amp;rsquo;s death just a couple of miles away from me, I&amp;rsquo;ve tried to once again take a more active role in doing helpful, and it&amp;rsquo;s been so nice to have the energy and time to do so. I have been trying to better educate myself and my family/friends, doing research on where to donate, and wrote 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://iamn.org/documents/2020/saari/Youth%20Letter%20to%20IAM.pdf&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;this letter&lt;/a&gt; with some of my friends to try to better mobilize the South Asian community in Minnesota. If you are reading this, you should go 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://blacklivesmatter.carrd.co/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gwl9omY8l5dUCkK4Y2llKAsfx5asES9zWn4Tr27QhTU/mobilebasic&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; to sign petitions, find ways to help, and better educate yourself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Writing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve consistently kept a journal for a while, so it&amp;rsquo;s been nice to keep that up, but starting this blog has been a very different adventure! It&amp;rsquo;s fun to write with a little more purpose and try to write about topics that would hopefully actually be helpful for others, or that friends might want to read about.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #10: The Longest Winter Break</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-10/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Jun 2020 13:51:02 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-10/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written January 2020&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was so happy to go home for the holidays, even though I had to experience a taste of Minnesota winter. It was incredible to be with my family and see friends back home, as always, but it felt especially comforting to have the familiarity and ease of being around the people I&amp;rsquo;ve grown up with who speak English the same way I do. One of the biggest highlights was food - as a vegetarian, traditional Spanish cuisine is not the best for me, and Spain also lacks good Asian food, so I relished in going to all my favorite restaurants back home and eating my mom&amp;rsquo;s food. Another highlight was trying out a free week of hot yoga with my sister and generally getting to spend time with her. Overall, I  realized that there are things in America I love and feel more comfortable with, but there were things about Spain I missed too, and I wasn&amp;rsquo;t ready to leave Spain (and I&amp;rsquo;m still not&amp;hellip;it&amp;rsquo;s going to be a hard transition back to America). &lt;em&gt;(My transition back ended up being so premature and jarring in a very different way from how I expected.)&lt;/em&gt; Right after New Years, I stopped in NYC for about 48 hours on the way back to meet up with some friends for a truly glorious 48 hours. I&amp;rsquo;m impressed at how much food I was able to consume in those 48 hours. We also discovered a really cool speakeasy and overall had the best time! &lt;em&gt;(Rip NYC - it&amp;rsquo;s crazy that I was there so recently. Definitely happy that I enjoyed it while I could.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-enjoying-some-ethiopian-food-in-nyc-with-my-best-friend&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/ethiopian_nyc.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Enjoying some Ethiopian food in NYC with my best friend&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/ethiopian_nyc.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Enjoying some Ethiopian food in NYC with my best friend
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I went back to Spain on January 5 so that I could spend January 6, &lt;em&gt;Dia de los Reyes&lt;/em&gt;, with my friend Cristina and her family, who live just outside of Madrid. &lt;em&gt;Dia de los Reyes&lt;/em&gt; is the most important day of Christamas in Spain - the day where everyone opens their presents, and then eats &lt;em&gt;roscon&lt;/em&gt;, a traditional cake. It was very cool to experience Christmas as they do. My family doesn&amp;rsquo;t do traditional Christmas gifts, so it was fun to do that with her family (they were very generous!). Her family is the sweetest and I had a lovely time despite the jet lag.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-cristinas-familys-christmas-tree&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/christmas_tree.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Cristina&amp;rsquo;s family&amp;rsquo;s Christmas tree&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/christmas_tree.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Cristina&amp;rsquo;s family&amp;rsquo;s Christmas tree
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-roscon-it-has-a-little-toy-baked-into-it&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/roscon.JPG&#34; data-caption=&#34;The roscon. It has a little toy baked into it&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/roscon.JPG&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The &lt;em&gt;roscon&lt;/em&gt;. It has a little toy baked into it
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I went back to Zaragoza for 5 days before I was off to India for a whirlwind 6 day trip! Those few days were truly a warm, crazy fever dream. I didn&amp;rsquo;t really sleep but I did eat so much good food (I really forget how amazing Indian food in India is) and saw an insane amount of family members. My family in India consists of a few hundred people and so the majority of my trip was just me trying to remember the names of the relative I was talking to&amp;hellip;we really need a pocket family tree.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-reunited-with-my-favorite-person-after-a-whole-week-apart-and-also-with-some-of-my-favorite-food&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/nitya_swatis.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Reunited with my favorite person after a whole week apart, and also with some of my favorite food!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/nitya_swatis.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Reunited with my favorite person after a whole week apart, and also with some of my favorite food!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There were two major highlights of the trip:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First, going to Ahmedabad, where my nana (grandfather on mom&amp;rsquo;s side) grew up and my mom frequently went as a child. We have some family there that I haven&amp;rsquo;t seen that much, so it was nice to see them. Some of them live in a house that has a backyard with trees that grow little baby guavas and real peacocks that hang out there! There was also a kite flying festival when we visited, where all the kids (and many adults) fly kites all day and night. During the day, people try to &amp;ldquo;cut&amp;rdquo; other people&amp;rsquo;s kites out of the sky (the kite strings are made with broken glass and so you can also easily cut yourself while flying a kite), and at night, people string lanterns on kites. Lots of safety/fire hazards, but still an amazing time, and very pretty.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-flying-kites-with-my-sister-dad-and-some-uncles&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/kites_daylight.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Flying kites with my sister, dad and some uncles&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/kites_daylight.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Flying kites with my sister, dad and some uncles
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-the-kites-at-night-were-so-beautiful&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/kites.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;The kites at night were so beautiful!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/kites.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    The kites at night were so beautiful!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then, the wedding, which was mostly why we were there. Indian weddings are INSANE. This wedding was only 2.5 days long, and it was the shortest Indian wedding I&amp;rsquo;ve ever heard of - it&amp;rsquo;s not unusual for most weddings to take place over 5 days or even a week. There were 4 different functions, so I of course had to wear 4 different outfits. One of my favorite parts was the &lt;em&gt;baraat&lt;/em&gt;, where the groom&amp;rsquo;s family dances in the streets directly before the actual wedding ceremony. My dad is such a child at heart and it&amp;rsquo;s adorable - he especially enjoyed a lot of the wedding. Overall, it was fun to be surrounded by so much family, and to see my dad with all the people he grew up with!&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-we-love-a-family-photo&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/family_wedding.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;We love a family photo!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/family_wedding.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    We love a family photo!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-all-the-wedding-outfits-are-a-lot-of-fun&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/neerja_wedding.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;All the wedding outfits are a lot of fun&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/neerja_wedding.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    All the wedding outfits are a lot of fun
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-my-dad-had-a-great-time-at-the-wedding-with-his-cousins&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/dad_wedding.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;My dad had a GREAT time at the wedding with his cousins&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/dad_wedding.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    My dad had a GREAT time at the wedding with his cousins
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-maybe-13-of-the-cousins-on-my-dads-side-my-grandmother-on-his-side-is-one-of-7-sisters&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/cousins_wedding.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Maybe 1/3 of the cousins on my dad&amp;rsquo;s side (my grandmother on his side is one of 7 sisters&amp;hellip;)&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/cousins_wedding.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Maybe 1/3 of the cousins on my dad&amp;rsquo;s side (my grandmother on his side is one of 7 sisters&amp;hellip;)
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

</description>
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    <item>
      <title>The GRE</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/gre/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2020 11:07:36 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/gre/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Before I delve into how I studied for the GRE, I want to point out that it&amp;rsquo;s crucial to understand the importance of the GRE for your application process before you plan how much time you want to allocate to studying and which sections you want to study the hardest for. Some graduate programs might potentially require certain scores or stress that a specific section is important. Other programs, however, see the GRE as relatively unimportant and just more of a sanity check that everyone has decent scores.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From what I had understood, CS PhD programs were definitely in the latter category - I heard that I should not give the GRE a lot of importance, and that my course selection/grades, letters of recommendation, and research experience carried far more weight. Therefore, I didn&amp;rsquo;t take the GRE too seriously or sacrifice time spent on research to study, and I would strongly recommend you do the same if the GRE is relatively unimportant to your program.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Also, this post is far from comprehensive, and there are many other wonderful resources on how to study for the GRE that I would recommend you consult. A lot of people have asked me how I studied for the GRE, so I simply wanted to provide my two cents. I was incredibly busy around the time I was taking the GRE, so I ended up only having 4 days to study for it. Thankfully, I ended up with scores that were more than sufficient. Here&amp;rsquo;s my recollection of how I went from having no idea what the GRE was to sitting for it in under a week.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Resources used&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I ended up studying completely independently (using no prep courses of any kind), with the help of three resources. I used the two free official GRE practice tests available online through ETS, the free Magoosh vocabulary app, and the Manhattan Prep 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.amazon.com/lb-Book-GRE-Practice-Problems/dp/1506247598/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=&amp;amp;sr=&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;5 Lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My approach&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I started with one of the two free practice GRE tests online. While taking it, I was reminded of the SAT, but I was incredibly confused by the GRE format. Thankfully, upon opening my prep book, I was able to start diving into the different sections (see below for a breakdown of each section).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The remainder of my 4 days consisted of 6-8 hours a day spent alternating between focusing in on the different sections of the test. Then, the 5th day was the day before the test. I reviewed some more vocab, took the second free practice test online (which felt a lot more comfortable this time), and gave myself the rest of the day off.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Math (Quantitative Reasoning)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I majored in math in college, so math tests were a very familiar feeling for me. The GRE math topics, however, were basically all ones I hadn&amp;rsquo;t explicitly been tested on since middle school, so I did have to spend some time reviewing formulas such as the calculation of standard deviation. Then, it was just a matter of becoming familiar with the unusual format of how math questions are asked in the GRE and looking out for certain tricks - I did this by going through every problem that was a multiple of 5 in the book. Doing a few more than 20% of the practice problems would have been ideal, but since I had very limited time, I focused more of my efforts on other sections.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Essays (Analytical Writing)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are two different essays you have to write, both with different kinds of prompts, and I wanted to become aware of and familiar with what the graders look for in both of these essays.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To get familiar with the essays, I read a few prompts and example essays with grader comments explaining what was good and bad about them. Then, I fully wrote out 1-2 practice essays for each category, and also outlined essays for 2-3 more prompts. I focused my energy on critically assessing my drafts/outlines and making sure that each practice trial was closer to what the GRE readers were looking for.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reading/Vocab (Verbal Reasoning)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I definitely studied the most for this section, since I was the least well versed in this form of thinking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One major concern was the vocabulary, so I used my flashcard app to learn 3-5 words at a time. I wrote sentences that used those words and wrote them down, and then moved on to another chunk of 3-5 words. I can&amp;rsquo;t say I remember many of those words today, but thankfully I did remember many of them when I took the test.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The verbal section itself reminded me a lot of the much-dreaded critical reading section of the SAT, which I had studied for a lot 6 years prior, so I tried to harness that part of my brain again. The format of the verbal GRE was different from the SAT, so I did a lot of questions to feel comfortable with the format and find a thought process that worked for me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I hope the study methods that worked for me are helpful for you in navigating your study process. But again, I want to reiterate that the GRE to grad school applications is not necessarily the same as the SAT/ACT was to college applications. Therefore, make sure you understand its role in your application as you plan out your studying!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #9: December in Spain</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-9/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2020 16:01:37 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-9/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written December 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Holiday season in Spain was incredible! I could feel the spirit in the air in a much more visceral way than when I was in America. This was definitely due to everyone&amp;rsquo;s joyful attitudes, but also in part due to the Christmas markets and decorations - all of the cities put up gorgeous lights.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-heres-a-taste-of-what-zaragoza-looked-like-for-all-of-december&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz_lights.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Here&amp;rsquo;s a taste of what Zaragoza looked like for all of December&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/zgz_lights.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Here&amp;rsquo;s a taste of what Zaragoza looked like for all of December
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-and-heres-one-of-my-favorite-plazas-in-madrid&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/madrid_lights.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;And here&amp;rsquo;s one of my favorite plazas in Madrid&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/madrid_lights.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    And here&amp;rsquo;s one of my favorite plazas in Madrid
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Over their winter break, more of my Dartmouth friends came to Spain. Two of them came to visit me in Zaragoza, and then we went to Barcelona together and met up with a few more friends! By that point, I was very comfortable in Zaragoza, so it was a blast to show them around the city, introduce them to my Spanish friends, and take them to my favorite bars for &lt;em&gt;juepincho&lt;/em&gt;. It is so special to share a place you love with people you love.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Barcelona was a blast, as always. &lt;em&gt;(And it would just keep on getting better&amp;hellip;that city has a very special place in my heart).&lt;/em&gt; We ate a lot of good food (finding great Korean food in Barcelona was a dream come true), did a Freixenet &lt;em&gt;cava&lt;/em&gt; tasting and tour, and explored some parts of the city I hadn&amp;rsquo;t seen before. The highlight was definitely taking my Dartmouth friends to a party with all of the 10 or so Barcelona Fulbright researchers. Now that I&amp;rsquo;ve had a chance to actually see and get to know them more, I adore the other Fulbright grantees. We had a ton of fun that night just talking until it didn&amp;rsquo;t even make sense to leave my friend&amp;rsquo;s apartment and go to a bar, and it made me very excited that I&amp;rsquo;ll be returning to Barcelona in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thanks for visiting friends, I had the best time with you guys! Here are some photos from our adventures in Barca:&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-it-took-me-going-to-la-sagrada-familia-3-times-to-get-a-photo-in-front-of-it-by-the-way-its-just-as-impressive-every-single-time&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/sagrada.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;It took me going to la Sagrada Familia 3 times to get a photo in front of it. By the way, it&amp;rsquo;s just as impressive every single time&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/sagrada.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    It took me going to &lt;em&gt;la Sagrada Familia&lt;/em&gt; 3 times to get a photo in front of it. By the way, it&amp;rsquo;s just as impressive every single time
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-cava-tastings-are-always-fun-but-a-little-less-so-when-its-11-am-and-you-were-at-your-friends-apartment-until-very-late-the-night-before&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/freixenet.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Cava tastings are always fun, but a little less so when it&amp;rsquo;s 11 am and you were at your friends apartment until very late the night before&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/freixenet.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    &lt;em&gt;Cava&lt;/em&gt; tastings are always fun, but a little less so when it&amp;rsquo;s 11 am and you were at your friends apartment until very late the night before
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-showing-my-friends-around-the-gothic-quarter&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/gothic.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Showing my friends around the gothic quarter&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/gothic.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Showing my friends around the gothic quarter
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-watching-the-sunset-from-the-bunkers-del-carmel&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/bunkers.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Watching the sunset from the Bunkers del Carmel&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/bunkers.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Watching the sunset from the &lt;em&gt;Bunkers del Carmel&lt;/em&gt;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After my friends left, I had a little over a week in Zaragoza before I headed home for the holidays. In this time we had a lab Christmas dinner, which was a lot of fun - after a blissfully early 8 pm dinner we all went to a bar for 4 full hours. I had an amusing conversation in Spanish with the head PI of my lab about the Minnesota Vikings (which he became a fan of during a year abroad in the Midwest but I know very little about - but my dad is a huge fan so when I told him about this he was thrilled) around 2 am. In addition to festivities with the lab, one of the woman in Aiko&amp;rsquo;s class who is from Vietnam opened an incredible Vietnamese restaurant, so we all started going there a lot. We also had a group Christmas dinner there -  I guess people are really into Christmas dinner here.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then I was all of a sudden back in Madrid for a night before an early morning flight back home! By a stroke of luck there ended up being a Fulbright party the one Wednesday night I was in Madrid, so I got a chance to see a lot of my research friends, as well as meet a bunch of the english teaching assistant grantees. This year has already made me a lot better at navigating parties/cocktails where I don&amp;rsquo;t know a lot of people - I used to be very shy when meeting new people, but now I have a blast.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, the end of 2019 in Spain was a great time. I also did some work that month too, but for once, not that much work.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #8: Enjoying Life in Spain</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-8/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:02:21 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-8/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written December 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Wow, so much has been happening, that it&amp;rsquo;s been hard to keep up with regular emails. So here are some highlights from the end of October to November:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My parents visited! I guess they are coping with now being empty nesters by traveling more? The timing worked out nicely because I got to spend my birthday with them, the weather was nice, and it wasn&amp;rsquo;t too touristy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Our first stop was Barcelona. They did all the touristy stuff, and on my birthday we went to Montserrat and then the Sagrada Familia which are both absolutely stunning, so we basically went to the prettiest places in the world that day. That night, we had some amazing &lt;em&gt;paella&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;vino&lt;/em&gt; for dinner, and then after a little too much wine I ran to the train station and thought I was going to miss my train, but turns out the train station was shut down due to protests (from the Catalan independence movement), so that was a bit of an adventure.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some photos from our time in Catalunya:&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-we-loved-this-catalonian-wine-that-is-made-out-of-volcanic-ash-my-parents-and-i-have-a-shared-love-of-wine&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/ash_wine.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;We loved this Catalonian wine that is made out of volcanic ash (my parents and I have a shared love of wine)&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/ash_wine.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    We loved this Catalonian wine that is made out of volcanic ash (my parents and I have a shared love of wine)
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-exploring-the-nearby-city-of-girona&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/girona.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Exploring the nearby city of Girona&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/girona.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Exploring the nearby city of Girona
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-montserrat-is-beautiful&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/montserrat1.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Montserrat is beautiful&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/montserrat1.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Montserrat is beautiful
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Next, we went to Zaragoza. Zaragoza isn&amp;rsquo;t that big so I already felt like I knew at least the center of the city really well, and it was so fun to be able to show them around. Apparently my dad was at first very skeptical of Zaragoza, but after seeing it and doing the few touristy things you can do here, he &amp;ldquo;was very impressed&amp;rdquo;. Both of my parents ended up loving the city. &lt;em&gt;(Wow, I miss Zaragoza.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Finally, we went to Madrid, which was so much fun. We had a nice dinner with the host families me and Nitya had when we did a Spanish exchange program in high school, and overall had a great time in the city! One highlight was going to a Thai restaurant - I had been craving good Thai for a while, since most Spanish cities really lack Asian food of any type. I love discovering more cool spots and delicious new restaurants every time I visit Madrid and Barcelona, which has ended up being quite a bit already. &lt;em&gt;(And it would just be more and more - I really miss both of those cities now, but I&amp;rsquo;m also really happy with how well I know them now.)&lt;/em&gt; Also, we went to Toledo, which is absolutely breathtaking - I would highly recommend going there.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-me-outside-the-palacio-real-de-madrid&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/palace_madrid.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Me outside the Palacio Real de Madrid&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/palace_madrid.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Me outside the &lt;em&gt;Palacio Real de Madrid&lt;/em&gt;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Once my parents left, a lot of other events and new friendships made Zaragoza really start to feel like home, and led to a lot of fun memories being made!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I went to Logroño, the capital of &lt;em&gt;La Rioja&lt;/em&gt;, the region of Spain where &lt;em&gt;rioja&lt;/em&gt; wine is made. Aiko and I roadtripped with Miguel, one of my lab friends. We all bonded a lot singing along to random songs and going to a &lt;em&gt;bodega&lt;/em&gt; tour/wine tasting together, tried &lt;em&gt;pinchos&lt;/em&gt; typical to &lt;em&gt;La Rioja&lt;/em&gt;, and overall had a very lovely day.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-aiko-and-i-touring-the-bodega-with-miguel-thankfully-there-to-translate-the-half-of-the-spanish-tour-i-didnt-pick-up&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aiko_logrono.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Aiko and I touring the bodega with Miguel thankfully there to translate the half of the Spanish tour I didn&amp;rsquo;t pick up&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aiko_logrono.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Aiko and I touring the &lt;em&gt;bodega&lt;/em&gt; with Miguel thankfully there to translate the half of the Spanish tour I didn&amp;rsquo;t pick up
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I met a new friend from Florida through mutual friends and we immediately hit it off. She&amp;rsquo;s here through the &lt;em&gt;auxiliares&lt;/em&gt; program, which is similar to the english teaching branch of the Fulbright program. As much as I have appreciated and enjoyed primarily spending my time with Spanish people and other non-Americans, it&amp;rsquo;s nice to have other people who better understand what you&amp;rsquo;re going through. She also knows a lot of people through the &lt;em&gt;auxiliares&lt;/em&gt; and erasmus programs, so I&amp;rsquo;ve met a lot of new people through her. One highlight of this was eating pizza that Italian erasmus students made&amp;hellip;it was very good pizza.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I started to get closer to people in Zaragoza. Aiko&amp;rsquo;s Spanish class hangs out a lot and we started doing frequent Sunday potluck lunches. I started going to &lt;em&gt;juepincho&lt;/em&gt; (extra cheap &lt;em&gt;pinchos&lt;/em&gt; (tapas) hopping on Thursday, 1-2 euros for a drink and food!) almost every week. My favorite vegetarian pinchos are &lt;em&gt;croquetas de boletus&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;queso de cabra&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;champinones&lt;/em&gt; (grilled mushrooms with garlic and salt on bread), and any of the selections of cheese at a bar entirely dedicated to different kinds of cheese.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thanksgiving made me feel a bit homesick &lt;em&gt;(now it seems weird that I felt homesick, when now I&amp;rsquo;ve been home for much more than I thought I ever would)&lt;/em&gt;, since that&amp;rsquo;s normally the one time I&amp;rsquo;m always home, but knowing that I was going home for the holidays just 3 weeks later made it better. On Thanksgiving day I had dinner with some friends at a Mexican restaurant in Zaragoza - that describes the absurdity and magic of this year and I love it. I also had a lovely friendsgiving with my new American friend and some other &lt;em&gt;auxiliares&lt;/em&gt; that weekend where we cooked an amazing meal!&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-our-friendsgiving-spread&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/friendsgiving.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Our friendsgiving spread&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/friendsgiving.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Our friendsgiving spread
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, I started taking Spanish lessons at a language school here, which has been extremely helpful for grammatical concepts I had forgotten. It&amp;rsquo;s truly a throwback to high school with all of the worksheets and conversation/listening activities, and has helped me noticeably improve my Spanish!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Applying for the Fulbright Part 3</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-3/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2020 21:36:08 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-3/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This is the last post in my series on applying for the Fulbright. In it, I cover a recommended Fulbright application timeline and some other thoughts that I haven&amp;rsquo;t yet covered. If there&amp;rsquo;s anything else you would like to hear about regarding applying for a Fulbright please don&amp;rsquo;t hesitate to contact me!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My first post is 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the second 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-2/&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Timeline&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;(Assuming an early October deadline)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As you&amp;rsquo;re applying, keep in mind that it can take a long time to contact professors abroad, wait to hear back, schedule meetings (especially given time differences), and iterate on a research proposal.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Spring: Start the process of deciding on a country/program/research field and reaching out to host institutions - see 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/&#34;&gt;my first post&lt;/a&gt; for some thoughts on how to go about this.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;June: Decide on a host institution, do background research, and talk to your advisor in the host institution about your research proposal. Start thinking about your personal statement and brushing up on the language of your host country, if necessary.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;July: Draft your research proposal and personal statement. Continue practicing your language. Reach out to letter writers.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;August: Iterate on your research proposal with your host institution and continue to work on your personal statement.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;September: Take your language evaluation. Ask friends and family to look over your essays and suggest changes. If you have to translate your statements into another language, give yourself ample time and see if you can find native speakers to proofread. Revise, revise, revise!&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;October: Proofread and submit your application at least a day or two before the official deadline, since the system gets slow towards the end&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fulbright Advisors&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Many universities have a designated office/advisor for fellowships such as the Fulbright - look up your school&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;fellowship office&amp;rdquo;. Dartmouth has a designated Fulbright advisor, and she was an invaluable resource for me through the process. She was able to give me guidance as I found a host institution, wrote my personal statement, and developed my research proposal. She also provided me with statistics on past applicants from my school and other useful information. If you have such a resource available at your institution, definitely utilize it - any fellowship advisors at your school are there to help you.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After you submit the application&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After I submitted my application, I didn&amp;rsquo;t hear anything until the end of January, when I found out that I was selected as a semi-finalist. At this point, I didn&amp;rsquo;t have to do anything, but I have heard that some countries require more information or interviews (potentially not in English) from semi-finalists.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then, at the end of March, I heard that I was a Finalist (aka I had received the grant)! One important thing to know is that once you get a Fulbright, you have to make a decision about if you want to do it relatively soon, so that you can start the visa process. I was on the fence for a bit while waiting to see if I could defer grad school, and this led to me being a bit behind on getting my visa at first.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Fulbright often selects alternates. I have no idea about how many alternates end up being selected, but I do know anecdotally that some definitely are, so don&amp;rsquo;t lose hope if you are an alternate.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Best of luck if you choose to apply for Fulbright grant!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #7: The Fulbright Research Seminar</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-7/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2020 09:53:49 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-7/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written November 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In late November, the Fulbright research seminar gave me an incredible weekend in Madrid. &lt;em&gt;(Wow, I have a lot of nostalgia for that weekend.)&lt;/em&gt; The Spanish Fulbright Commission brought us all to Madrid for a couple of days to talk about our research and hang out, and it was a ton of fun.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My weekend started on a Thursday: two of my college friends visited Spain, so I got to Madrid a day early to hang out. It felt surreal to hear stories that mentioned &amp;ldquo;flitzes&amp;rdquo; (a flirty blitz - asking someone out via email), a term that only exists very specifically within the Dartmouth bubble, after so many weeks without even talking to any Americans. We spent a great afternoon and evening walking around the city, going to museums, and getting tapas. Three highlights: getting some delicious sangria at a tapas bar, finally going to the &lt;em&gt;Museo Reina Sofia&lt;/em&gt;, and discovering the best chocolate croissant of my life the next morning at my friend Jiachen&amp;rsquo;s recommendation to try out the famous and very crowded Madrid bakery La Mallorquina. &lt;em&gt;(I definitely made it back to that bakery in future trips to Madrid).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After I parted ways with my friends, it was time for the research seminar! Everyone was arriving at different times, so after checking into the hotel, me and a few other Fulbrighters walked around and discovered an amazing place with great healthy, vegetarian options. Then, after a quick cafe con leche, we made our way to the university where the seminar was held.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The seminar consisted of a mix of remarks from alumni, people at the commission and even someone from the embassy, small group workshops, poster presentations, and individual presentations. It was great to reconnect with everyone, hear about the research they were getting into, and hear about how they were adjusting to living in their various cities in Spain. I loved learning about my fellow grantee&amp;rsquo;s research projects, spanning disciplines from the implications of fashion in Spanish history to using complex systems to model the behavior of ants.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Compared to orientation, I felt a lot less overwhelmed, and that I actually knew people better this time, so gatherings felt much less like networking events and more like a wonderful chance to hang out and catch up. The moments throughout the seminar where we got to talk and the big dinner most of us went out to didn&amp;rsquo;t feel like nearly enough. Every conversation felt meaningful, whether it was about marathon training or interdisciplinary research or Spanish politics or adjusting to our host cities. I had assumed that the other grantees would be very accomplished and interesting, and that assumption was proved extremely true as I got to know them, but I also got to see how passionate, caring and kind the other Fulbrighters are.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the second day of the seminar, I got to present my research. I don&amp;rsquo;t love public speaking and felt a bit nervous, but this was a really great opportunity. After I presented many friends, even some with non-STEM backgrounds, told me that felt like they had an idea of what I was doing with my research, which was pretty awesome :)&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-me-during-my-presentation&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/fulbright_presentation.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Me during my presentation!&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/fulbright_presentation.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Me during my presentation!
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The seminar ended with a Thanksgiving lunch, which was the sweetest ending note possible.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The night after the seminar, I stayed in Madrid and hung out with Fulbright friends. One of my new Fulbright friends who is doing her Master&amp;rsquo;s in the city graciously hosted me, and I had a lovely time getting to know her better. A bunch of us went out to the famous &lt;em&gt;Teatro Barceló&lt;/em&gt; until 6 am (I said I would do it once, and now I never want to again) and it was a fun experience. Not quite as fun, but still an experience, was waking up at 11 am the next morning for the Spanish Civil War tour. A Fulbright grantee who is currently doing his PhD in Spanish history led us around Madrid and showed us places of significance in the Spanish Civil War - so cool and a unique view of a city I&amp;rsquo;m getting to know and love. Overall, lots of memories were made and much bonding occurred that weekend!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Applying for the Fulbright Part 2</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-2/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 21:26:08 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-2/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this post, I break down the most significant components of the Fulbright application. My 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/&#34;&gt;first post&lt;/a&gt; on applying for a Fulbright research grant covers focusing your application.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Personal Statement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This statement is your chance to present who you are and why you deserve a Fulbright grant. The people I met through Fulbright were not only extremely intelligent and accomplished, but they were all incredible humans - caring, passionate, kind, and determined to do good in the world - and I&amp;rsquo;m sure that their personal statements showed this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the content of your statement vary greatly depending on who you are. When brainstorming, consider a wide variety of questions such as:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Who you are? Where you are from?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What is important to you? What are your values?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What unique experiences have shaped you?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What you have done in and/or after college?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What do you want to do with your life?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then, craft a cohesive narrative about yourself. There are a lot of fantastic sources of advise for personal statement writing, so I won&amp;rsquo;t go too in depth, but a few thoughts relevant to Fulbright in particular:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;While you don&amp;rsquo;t need to discuss Fulbright or your host country in this statement, think about the culture and values of Fulbright and the country you are applying to, as well as the research you are proposing, and make sure that they align with what you propose and show you fitting in the Fulbright community.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This statement should complement your Statement of Grant Purpose - make sure that they paint a cohesive and complete picture of who you are, both intellectually and personally. When revising, you can move some information from one to the other.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Statement of Grant Purpose&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this statement, you should explain the research you&amp;rsquo;re going to do during your grant, and also convince the readers of why a Fulbright grant specifically in your country will help you do your research.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One very important thing to keep in mind is that the audience of this statement will probably know nothing about your research area, so you will have to make it extremely accessible. This statement is only two pages, so this will mean that you leave a lot of details critical to your project out, and while this can feel very weird, it&amp;rsquo;s completely okay in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You should also include some information about how you plan to engage with your host country, since your grant isn&amp;rsquo;t just about your research, but also about cultural exchange.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;rsquo;s a broad outline of the statement I wrote:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Broad, accessible introduction to problem/research area&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;More detailed technical description of research area/problem&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Overview of previous work and limitations/room for future work&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Description of what I will be doing and the methods I will use, and a breakdown of how I will spend the 9 months of my grant year&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Explanation of why I need to be in Spain and working with this lab in particular for this project&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Other things I will do in Spain to engage with the community, explanation of my Spanish skills and how I plan to improve them before moving to Spain&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;How my experience has given me the skills and positioned me to be successful at this project&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;How this grant ties into my future career goals&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Letters of Recommendation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cultivating close relationships with professors can only happen far before you apply for a Fulbright, but there&amp;rsquo;s still a lot you can do as you apply to ensure that your letters are the strongest they can be.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Give your letter writers ample time to write for you&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reach out to ask (reminding them of who you are/what classes you took with them if they might not know), and when they say yes, respond with your CV, a summary of what program and kind of research you are applying for, and a list of things you would like them to talk about. You should absolutely mention small details or accomplishements that feel minor which the professor might not recall - the worst thing that can happen is that the professor chooses to not mention it in the letter&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Be sure to remind your writers about the letter 1 month before the deadline, and again a week before if they haven&amp;rsquo;t submitted it&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Language Evaluation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Different programs have different language requirements. I was recommended to demonstrate intermediate Spanish proficiency, but this varies by country/program - some have strict requirements and some don&amp;rsquo;t even have recommendations. The evaluation itself likely varies a lot by language and school and program, so I can only speak to my experience. I had studied Spanish in high school, so I knew a lot at one point, but I hadn&amp;rsquo;t spoken it in almost 4 years by the time I applied for Fulbright. I brushed up by using Duolingo, watching Spanish TV, and speaking it with friends who spoke Spanish. My actual evaluation consisted of a 15 minute conversation with a Spanish professor at Dartmouth, and since I also used past and future tenses, I ended up getting an advanced rating. I didn&amp;rsquo;t realize that different levels had different requirements, so check in advance with whoever will be conducting your evaluation in order to tailor your practice.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Tips for Working From Home</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/work-from-home/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:39:49 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/work-from-home/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Due to the pandemic, a lot of us who are fortunate to have jobs where we can work from home have been dealing with a new normal. This was an adjustment for me, but after I got used to it, I actually love working from home. Of course, there&amp;rsquo;s a lot going on, so it&amp;rsquo;s really important to prioritize taking care of yourself and being okay with not always being at your most productive right now. There are some days where it&amp;rsquo;s really hard for me to focus, but more and more where I&amp;rsquo;m getting a lot done. Here are some things that have really worked for me when working from home:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First, a few things to think about in advance.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Invest in your work space.&lt;/strong&gt; (Or, get your company to.) Buying a monitor made it much easier to stare at my computer for hours. I also bought an ergonomic keyboard, and I have a kneeling desk chair. My back feels so much better compared to when I was a student and lugging around textbooks/studying in a not ideal posture.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Try to have a distinct work space.&lt;/strong&gt; Then, only do work in this work space, so that you associate it with work and the rest of your home with rest and relaxation. I used to do work in my bed in college, and this was probably horrible for my productivity and my sleep. I&amp;rsquo;m lucky that I was able to take over the spare bedroom in my house, but even if you don&amp;rsquo;t have enough space to physically shut a door on your work at the end of your workday, designate a corner as your &amp;ldquo;office&amp;rdquo; and only go there to do your work.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Communicate with your family or housemates.&lt;/strong&gt; Let them know that during your work hours, you need to focus and aren&amp;rsquo;t able to hang out. Come up with a system that works for you guys and gives you the space that you need. This obviously varies a lot depending on your personal situation, but is definitely worth discussing!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now, here are some habits I&amp;rsquo;ve found to be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wear real clothes.&lt;/strong&gt; I love wearing comfortable clothes, and my sweats have gotten a lot more use during this time. However, I find that wearing clothes that are a little less comfortable than and least distict from my pajamas is really helpful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don&amp;rsquo;t let your phone in your work space.&lt;/strong&gt; I leave my phone in my bedroom while I do work, and only check it when I take breaks. It&amp;rsquo;s amazing how much this simple action impacts my productivity! I also recently got an Apple Watch and appreciate the ability to filter only important notifications into my watch, so that even if I&amp;rsquo;m expecting something important, I don&amp;rsquo;t need to have my phone nearby.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Take frequent breaks.&lt;/strong&gt; Try to stand up and stretch at least once, if not multiple times, each hour. I take a little extra time after lunch every day to go for a short walk, and this time away from my computer often helps me think through my work with a different perspective, and give me a break that then helps me focus in the afternoon.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Give yourself set work hours.&lt;/strong&gt; Decide what hours of the day you&amp;rsquo;re going to do your work, and then constrain yourself to these. I have found that this makes me much more productive when I&amp;rsquo;m doing work, and much happier when I am not.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some of these ideas were taken from the book 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Deep Work&lt;/a&gt; by Cal Newport, which I would strongly recommend reading.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #6: Fiestas del Pilar</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-6/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2020 23:29:04 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-6/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written October 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fiestas del Pilar,&lt;/em&gt; commonly called &amp;ldquo;&lt;em&gt;pilares&lt;/em&gt;&amp;rdquo; is an ~11 day long citywide festival in Zaragoza. For these 11 days, there are concerts and events from 8 am to early into the next morning (basically 8 am to 7 am). The biggest event happened towards the end, on Saturday 12/10 (look at me using European dates now - that&amp;rsquo;s October 12) with the &lt;em&gt;ofrenda de flores&lt;/em&gt;, but there were countless social, religious and cultural events throughout.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve never experienced anything similar in the US. Let me start by describing the city of Zaragoza a bit more, to situate &lt;em&gt;pilares&lt;/em&gt;: Zaragoza seems to be optimized for socialization. One central tram line runs down the city, and along it, there are endless plazas surrounded by restaurants with ample outdoor seating. You can walk through the main center of the city in about 20 minutes. One major plaza, Plaza España, leads into the &lt;em&gt;casco antiguo&lt;/em&gt;, or old town, known for its narrow, windy streets full of tapas bars. There are very few tourist attractions in this city - it&amp;rsquo;s all about the locals.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Except maybe this weekend, when hordes of people from the surrounding region of Aragon, and also Madrid, Barcelona, la Rioja and other places, came down for &lt;em&gt;pilares&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Pilares&lt;/em&gt; was a much bigger and culturally-rich version of Green Key, Dartmouth&amp;rsquo;s spring music festival, or any other music festival I&amp;rsquo;ve been to in the states. Instead of being 3 days, it was 11. Instead of being limited to a college campus, it was in the whole city, and you could walk for 45 mins through Zaragoza and hear different concerts throughout the whole walk.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Instead of just college students celebrating, it was everyone. Entire families, elderly people, literal babies with their parents, college students, people of various ability levels, actually everyone. I loved how so many more partook in Pilar than I normally see when I went to bars/clubs in the US. &lt;em&gt;(This pattern holds for bars in general in Spain - it&amp;rsquo;s normal for whole families to go out together, young children included.)&lt;/em&gt; The amount of people that came out and filled the plazas was genuinely amazing. It was also funny to literally see a beer bottle on the ground next to a child in a stroller. Probably a consequence of people being around alcohol literally since infancy, the people here actually seem to party much more responsibly than I&amp;rsquo;m used to at Dartmouth. I expected everyone partying all the time to be gross, but I didn&amp;rsquo;t see any excessive trash on the ground or vomit or anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, some highlights of Pilar:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First weekend: checked out some concerts and went to a food/music festival close to the city center.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;During the week: Went to more concerts, hung out in the plaza, etc, but mostly tried to conserve my energy. One valuable thing I did take away from Dartmouth is to treat festivals like a marathon, not a sprint.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-me-and-aiko-at-a-concert-held-by-the-city-wearing-the-red-and-black-bandanas-that-all-women-traditionally-wear-during-pilares&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/neerja_aiko_pilares.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Me and Aiko at a concert held by the city, wearing the red and black bandanas that all women traditionally wear during pilares&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/neerja_aiko_pilares.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;400&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Me and Aiko at a concert held by the city, wearing the red and black bandanas that all women traditionally wear during pilares
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So many people were out at all times like wow look at this PACKED plaza: &lt;em&gt;(It&amp;rsquo;s crazy remembering this, the biggest crowd I ever saw, now in the time of coronavirus)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure &gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilares_plaza.jpg&#34; &gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/pilares_plaza.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;



&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Second weekend: More concerts and hanging out. The highlight was on Saturday, with the &lt;em&gt;ofrenda de flores&lt;/em&gt;, where lots of people participate in a parade that ends up with offering flowers, which is then arranged into a literal floral mountain. The flowers were incredible. Aiko decided to walk with the Japanese society of Aragon, so we met a bunch of people through that and ended the day at a cafe with new friends, which made for a very fun day.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure &gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/flores.jpg&#34; &gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/flores.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;



&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On Sunday, we went to an event with giant caricatures of famous Spanish people that we realized had a target audience of children aged 2-7, but was nonetheless still fun.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-caricatures-and-an-audience-of-children-with-their-parents&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/caricatures.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Caricatures and an audience of children with their parents&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/caricatures.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Caricatures and an audience of children with their parents
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The final day of festivities ended with some of the best fireworks I&amp;rsquo;ve ever seen. What a wonderful end to an amazing 11 days!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of course, the next week we were all exhausted and got sick but it&amp;rsquo;s okay because basically from the beginning of October until New Year&amp;rsquo;s is lots of holidays (I have a long weekend for Halloween and a 4 day weekend at the beginning of December&amp;hellip;I love Spain).&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #5:  Adjusting to life in Spain</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-5/</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 23:18:39 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-5/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written October 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now, here&amp;rsquo;s an update about everything in my non-work life, which for once is actually a very significant part of my life!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m loving my apartment. We got a 4th roommate and her name is Genesis. She is from Venezuela but has lived in Spain for a few years and knows so much about life here that I am clueless about. For example, one night she suggested ordering in food, which I had somehow not realized was something you could do in Spain. And then she proceeded to show me 4 or 5 different apps that I had no idea existed.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-me-aiko-and-genesis-bonding-on-our-way-to-dominos---turns-out-dominos-is-a-roommate-bonding-mechanism-worldwide&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/flatmates.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Me, Aiko, and Genesis bonding on our way to Domino&amp;rsquo;s - turns out Domino&amp;rsquo;s is a roommate bonding mechanism worldwide):&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/flatmates.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Me, Aiko, and Genesis bonding on our way to Domino&amp;rsquo;s - turns out Domino&amp;rsquo;s is a roommate bonding mechanism worldwide):
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In terms of other friends, I&amp;rsquo;ve gotten to know Aparna, a woman in Aiko&amp;rsquo;s intensive 20-hours-a-week Spanish class. She&amp;rsquo;s a professional yoga instructor from India and here to learn Spanish to take her yoga business to other countries (I&amp;rsquo;m being exposed to so many meaningful things people do with their lives that would have never occurred to me back at Dartmouth). Aparna, Aiko and I all go to the same gym and have had fun exploring the city together.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-yoga-in-the-park-next-to-my-apartment&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/yoga.jpg&#34; data-caption=&#34;Yoga in the park next to my apartment&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/yoga.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    Yoga in the park next to my apartment
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;






  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-tapas-y-cerveza&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aikoaparna.JPG&#34; data-caption=&#34;Tapas y cerveza&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/aikoaparna.JPG&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;400&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    &lt;em&gt;Tapas y cerveza&lt;/em&gt;
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s interesting how everyone I hang out with is at least about 4 years older than me - such a change from college! I&amp;rsquo;m enjoying meeting new people, but I still feel pretty connected to people far away (my favorite times of the day are tied between when I have my afternoon cup of coffee and when my family and close friends Sarah and Sean wake up and text me every day without fail). I&amp;rsquo;m also enjoying having more time to myself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It has been so cool to live and work with people from completely varied backgrounds. Almost every day at lunch with my labmates, we fall into talking about a given subject and how it compares in Spain vs the US vs France (we have a postdoc from Nice) - meal sizes/times, how leaders are elected, mushrooms, coffee, PhD programs, cheese, really anything&amp;hellip;it&amp;rsquo;s funny how the smallest things can be so different from place to place. And the small things really matter. For example, I&amp;rsquo;ve noticed that people here care more about waiting for others. If we&amp;rsquo;re walking back from a group meeting or lunch and someone for any reason wants to have a quick conversation with someone, we all wait for them and then walk back to our lab together. While this action is unnatural to me after a lifetime in America, I love the concept and practice of treating people like they are more important than maximal productivity.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Today during our post-lunch coffee break (a daily ritual here), we were talking about stereotypes people have about other countries. Someone said that Spain is known as being all about &amp;ldquo;siesta and fiesta&amp;rdquo; and honestly&amp;hellip;not an inaccurate way to describe my life. I&amp;rsquo;m actually learning how to chill! (I do have some problems with the concept of &amp;ldquo;chill&amp;rdquo; the way it is frequently used, but I think that relaxing is nice.) When I was in college, I would do work all the time, even on breaks. But now, I&amp;rsquo;ve actually decided to stop working when I leave work, and to relax over the weekends, and to prioritize my sleep and health and friendships over or at least on par with work. I know that there&amp;rsquo;s so much more to life than work, but I haven&amp;rsquo;t always lived my life that way, and right now is the perfect time for me to develop a sustainable balance. I left Dartmouth so burnt out and don&amp;rsquo;t want to feel the same way during/after my PhD, because life is too short to be exhausted and stressed out all the time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking Spanish has been an adventure. I have a certain sense of humor in English, and I also have a sense of humor in Spanish (or maybe I just make people laugh by sounding stupid), but they&amp;rsquo;re distinct. The way I form thoughts in English is so different from how I have to think through Spanish, and speaking a lot of Spanish has deepened my appreciation of the ease of speaking in my native language. I feel like my Spanish is improving but not as much as I want it to. When I speak with groups of Spainards, I still have a hard time understanding what they are saying, and coming up with responses in the pace of the conversation. When I speak one-on-one with people, I can have a pretty full conversation and am sometimes surprised at perfect phrases I whip out, but there&amp;rsquo;s a depth at which I can&amp;rsquo;t express myself that I can in English. I feel like I can&amp;rsquo;t connect with people when speaking in Spanish in the same way that I can with English-speaking friends, which is a bit frustrating. I&amp;rsquo;m considering taking Spanish classes to improve my language abilities. &lt;em&gt;(I&amp;rsquo;m so happy I ended up taking classes!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Things have been inevitably frustrating at times: when I misspeak in Spanish, or when I think I said something correctly, but someone still speaks English back to me. When I realize I&amp;rsquo;ve been doing something one way but there was a much easier way. Having to deal with Spanish bureaucracy (don&amp;rsquo;t get me started on empadronamiento or tarjeta identidad extranjeria). But it&amp;rsquo;s kind of cool that my first time adulting for real is here, because it&amp;rsquo;s going to be amazing to go back to America and know with conviction that the bottled sauce I bought is indeed for pasta, or negotiate a lease in my native language, or to be able to find things like tofu and edamame easily. Things haven&amp;rsquo;t been always easy, but I am so grateful for these experiences.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In terms of what&amp;rsquo;s ahead - my parents are visiting soon and we&amp;rsquo;re going to go to Barcelona (or maybe not, because there&amp;rsquo;s a lot of protests happening there right now&amp;hellip;we&amp;rsquo;ll see) and Madrid and I&amp;rsquo;m so excited! Down the line, some friends are going to be spending part of their winter break in Spain which I cannot wait for. I might also make a trip to La Rioja with Aiko to basically just do a bunch of wine tasting sometime in November. Basically, I&amp;rsquo;ll be traveling a little more than every other weekend and then coming home for Christmas, so the rest of 2019 is going to be crazy in the most wonderful way possible. &lt;em&gt;(I&amp;rsquo;m happy that I traveled while I could.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Deep Compressed Sensing for HDR Image Acquisition</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/iccp_2020_poster/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2020 13:28:44 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/publication/iccp_2020_poster/</guid>
      <description></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #4: My Research Grant</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-4/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2020 11:07:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-4/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written October 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;rsquo;t believe that I&amp;rsquo;ve been in Spain for over a month. It&amp;rsquo;s flown by, and strangely feels like this is my life now, and I&amp;rsquo;m loving it! There&amp;rsquo;s a lot of exciting non-work related stuff happening, but I&amp;rsquo;ll save that for the next update - I want to take this one to explain what I&amp;rsquo;m doing here work-wise.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m working in the 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://graphics.unizar.es/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Graphics and Imaging lab&lt;/a&gt; at University of Zaragoza. There are 3 or 4 professors in the lab, a handful of postdocs, and a decent amount of PhD students, making for a total of about 20 people, which is pretty large. The lab is full of incredibly smart, impressive people. &lt;em&gt;(In addition to being smart, they&amp;rsquo;re also very nice and fun - I ended up having some fun adventures with my lab mates and am still close to many of them).&lt;/em&gt; They publish at amazing conferences, collaborate with places such as MIT and Stanford (and Dartmouth), and the students intern at top graphics places in industry such as Adobe Research and Disney. I&amp;rsquo;m really honored to get to be working with people that know so much, and I&amp;rsquo;ve already learned a ton. They also seem to be very well-funded, and have encouraged me to attend a conference (there&amp;rsquo;s a few in France/Switzerland in the next few months), which is awesome and such a cool opportunity!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m getting started on a really interesting project here: combining deep learning and compressed sensing, and important technique in signal processing. Here&amp;rsquo;s the basic idea of compressed sensing: Normally when we acquire a signal (I&amp;rsquo;ll use the example of taking a picture), we get way more data than we can actually transport, so we immediately compress it. So an image is always immediately reduced to a JPEG or another form, by finding all of the unimportant information and getting rid of it. With compressed sensing, we only acquire a small fraction of the information (so for a 100x100 pixel image, instead of getting values for all 10,000 pixels, we might just get values for 1,000 of them) through a measurement mask, and then we can reconstruct the original image. There&amp;rsquo;s a lot of fascinating math that shows that we can with very high probability reconstruct the image if certain conditions hold, and we can perform these computations in a reasonable amount of time.&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-left-the-measurement-mask-used-to-capture-an-image-of-a-scene-middle-the-captured-image-with-missing-information-right-the-reconstructed-image&#34;&gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/CS_overview.png&#34; data-caption=&#34;left: the measurement mask used to capture an image of a scene; middle: the captured image, with missing information; right: the reconstructed image&#34;&gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/CS_overview.png&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;500&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;


  
  
  &lt;figcaption&gt;
    left: the measurement mask used to capture an image of a scene; middle: the captured image, with missing information; right: the reconstructed image
  &lt;/figcaption&gt;


&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There have been some very cool results with this. One of my favorite is a paper where researchers took a single image, that to the naked eye just looks like a normal, slightly blurry photo, but were actually able to get pixels at slightly different times and then from that single photo reconstruct 30 frames for a resulting 1 second video! More recently, with the rise of machine learning, people are combining the mathematical basis of compressed sensing with neural networks to get amazing results in a lot of applications. So my research is generally within this area! I&amp;rsquo;ve only had one meeting for my project so far, but it went well, and I like the people I&amp;rsquo;m working with. &lt;em&gt;(It&amp;rsquo;s fun remembering the beginnings of my project, now seeing what it has evolved into.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In terms of my daily/weekly schedule, it&amp;rsquo;s pretty much what I want. We have a weekly lab meeting, and I have regular meetings for my deep compressed sensing project. Aside from those meetings, there isn&amp;rsquo;t any time I am required to be in the lab, but I&amp;rsquo;ve found a regular schedule to be helpful. I also have a lot of flexibility to work remotely and take vacation when I want to, as long as it&amp;rsquo;s not in excess, which is really nice. My daily routine is typically something like this:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;~8:15 wake up, get ready&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;9:00 head to take the tram to work&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;9:30 get to work, say hi to everyone, and start working. This involves a mixture of reading papers, coding, data analysis, and writing, depending on what I have to do for the day.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;1:30 break for lunch. We all go eat together and take a full hour for lunch or sometimes more. This is an early lunch by Spanish standards, but the cafeteria fills up at 2 so we try to get there before that&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;2:30 hit the coffee machine after lunch. There&amp;rsquo;s a vending machine that will make you any sort of coffee/hot chocolate beverage you want (very common in Europe, we need these in America), but I prefer these machines - 40 cents for some of the best coffee! My lab mates think it&amp;rsquo;s unremarkable and that the bad coffee in America has ruined my standards&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;





  











&lt;figure &gt;


  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/coffee_machine.jpg&#34; &gt;


  &lt;img src=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/coffee_machine.jpg&#34; alt=&#34;&#34; width=&#34;400&#34; &gt;
&lt;/a&gt;



&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;~2:45/3, depending on how long a coffee break we take: back to work! Often around now I&amp;rsquo;ll start getting distracted because all my friends/family in the US will wake up and start sending me messages :)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;5:30 head out, though sometimes I stay longer if I have more to do&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;6:00 go to gym or go for a run!&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;7:30 make dinner, I&amp;rsquo;ve been trying to eat at 8:30/9 but often am hungry much earlier&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;9:00 until bedtime: sometimes more work if I have to, oftentimes reading/watching Spanish TV/talking to friends in America. Sometimes I&amp;rsquo;ll go out for dinner or grab a drink with friends, which will always be at 9 pm or later&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m loving this lifestyle. I might try to join a club or take formal Spanish lessons soon, but for now it&amp;rsquo;s nice to just focus on work and then on enjoying life. I adore doing research full time. It&amp;rsquo;s nice to not have to put time into classes and to be able to make doing research/learning what I need to learn for research my top priority. I love spending my days making progress on my projects and learning a TON and having freedom in what to work on. I&amp;rsquo;m learning a lot about my research style and strengths/weaknesses, which I think will be super helpful when I pursue my PhD back in America. There are definitely stressful points, when code doesn&amp;rsquo;t work or something doesn&amp;rsquo;t make sense, or the fact that in research you&amp;rsquo;re literally trying to stretch the boundaries of knowledge which means a lot of times ideas won&amp;rsquo;t pan out. &lt;em&gt;(I ended up feeling these points a lot, but nontheless really enjoyed what I did).&lt;/em&gt; I&amp;rsquo;m also working on 2 projects right now, since I&amp;rsquo;m continuing a project I started at Dartmouth last year, but the intensity of Dartmouth prepared me well, and it&amp;rsquo;s so nice to focus on doing fewer things but doing them well. I also really like the lab environment - I&amp;rsquo;m so happy that I ended up here!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>How to Spend A Pre-PhD Gap Year</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/phd_gap_year_options/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2020 23:31:07 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/phd_gap_year_options/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;By the end of my junior year, I was firmly convinced that I wanted to do a PhD, but I knew that I wanted to take at least a year off before I started it. After taking a year off, I am extremely happy that I did so  - it allowed me to recover from burnout after undergrad, explore a new country, meet a lot of new people, and learn a lot that made me feel much more prepared to start my PhD. Therefore, I would strongly recommend considering a gap year. However, deciding how to spend a year off can be tricky. I considered several options, and talked to my professors and older students about them. Here are some bits of advice I gleaned and my thoughts on a non-exhaustive list of ways to spend a year or two before starting a PhD.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Work in industry&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pros: You can gain relevant experience and save a lot of money. You can also see if you enjoy software engineering or other traditional roles in tech companies - if you think you would be happier in those jobs, it&amp;rsquo;s probably not worth getting a PhD.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cons: Since you probably won&amp;rsquo;t be doing research, this won&amp;rsquo;t be as significant a boost to your application as other gap year possibilities. Once you get used to working at a tech company with perks and a large salary for a while, it can be hard to go back to a student lifestyle.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do research for a year&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pros: By doing research, you&amp;rsquo;ll get to figure out if you truly like research and want to make a career out of it. More research experience should also be a big boost to your PhD applications, especially if you can publish, and will help you be better prepared for your PhD. You will get to make connections in academia (which is surprisingly small, and can be a huge benefit when you are considering grad school).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cons: It can be hard to find research experiences outside of specific academic programs or fellowships, since many professors prefer to work with their PhD/Master&amp;rsquo;s/undergrad students.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do research for a year, on a fellowship&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pros: All of the pros of doing research for a year. Additionally, when you do research on a fellowship, you should have more choice in deciding what you do - you often get to propose your own research project. Through a fellowship, you will be able to make a lot of great connections with other people. You might also get the chance to live abroad, since many fellowships are international.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cons: The application process is often extensive and many fellowships are very selective.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Get a Master&amp;rsquo;s&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pros: Many of the same benefits as doing research for a year (be sure to look into a research vs course-based Master&amp;rsquo;s). You&amp;rsquo;ll get to take advanced courses of your choosing and hone your research interests.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cons: For most programs, you will have to pay (however, be sure to look into 4+1 programs at your undergraduate institution, which are sometimes discounted, and fellowships such as Fulbright that fund Master&amp;rsquo;s programs, and generally Master&amp;rsquo;s programs abroad, since American tuition is more expensive than that of many fantastic universities abroad). Many PhD programs will have higher expectations of you to have at least one, if not more, publications when you apply, compared to applicants with just an undergrad degree. Also, most PhD programs will still require you to take courses when you get there, and so you will likely add additional years of school.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Gap Year&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I navigated all of this by applying to my 4 top-choice PhD programs, and also applying to fellowships alongside them. I didn&amp;rsquo;t expect to get into any PhD programs, but I was hoping that a fellowship would work out so that I could do more research and strengthen my application. If nothing worked out, my plan was to try to work in industry for a year, or maybe do a Master&amp;rsquo;s program.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Luckily, I ended up getting into a couple of my top choice programs, and also getting a Fulbright fellowship. I committed to UC Berkeley and deferred for a year so that I could do the Fulbright. My year off was so much more than I expected it to be, and I would highly recommend considering a gap year (or a few) before jumping into a PhD. I&amp;rsquo;m now going into my PhD feeling much more prepared, well rested, and convinced that doing a PhD is right for me.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #3: Settling into Zaragoza</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-3/</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2020 23:29:41 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-3/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written September 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After orientation, I hopped on the AVE (a high speed train, we really need this in America) and got to Zaragoza! I was exhausted from the combination of orientation and traveling with 2 suitcases that together weigh about as much as me, so I was ready to eat some food and crash. Despite being really hungry, I didn&amp;rsquo;t want to go into a restaurant, a little bit because I have a fear of eating alone in public, especially in a country as social as Spain, and mostly because most restaurants don&amp;rsquo;t serve dinner until 9 pm in Zaragoza. Wanting to find a grocery store to make some easy pasta, I typed grocery store in Google maps, and nothing came up. Then, I tried translating &amp;ldquo;grocery store&amp;rdquo; to Spanish, plugged that word in to maps, and the only things that came up were sex shops&amp;hellip;.so not helpful at all. I gave up and had some McDonalds for dinner. (The next day I realized I needed to be searching for &amp;ldquo;supermarket/supemercado&amp;rdquo;, oops). So my start to living in Zaragoza was sitting in my Airbnb alone eating some fries - hopefully it&amp;rsquo;ll all be uphill from there. &lt;em&gt;(Thankfully, it was all very uphill!)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was busy the next several days with a lot of adult errands. I opened a bank account, and even before Fulbright had sent me my first payment, it was  exciting that my empty bank account said 0 euros instead of dollars - yay to no international transaction fees! I started the apartment hunt, going to places I had found on idealista. Thankfully, my Spanish somehow sufficed. The first 3 apartments I saw were: a place where 2 other Erasmus students lived (European college students that study abroad in other parts of Europe mostly so that they can party relentlessly for 6 months, and remember that the clubs are open until 7 am here), a place that reeked of cigarette smoke everywhere, and a place that had 4 boys living there (not for me). But then I found &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; apartment and luckily things worked out! I have lots of closet space, a dishwasher, a huge living room, air conditioning, and a kitchen that was gorgeous once we deep cleaned it. My roommates are awesome - there&amp;rsquo;s Miguel, a 29 year old from Madrid who is studying to become some sort of lawyer, and Aiko, a 25 year old from Japan who is here to learn Spanish so she can work in the ministry of foreign affairs in South America in a few years. We have a 4th roommate, and all I know about her is that she&amp;rsquo;s coming in a few days, but I&amp;rsquo;m excited to meet her!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I also found a really lovely gym right next to my apartment. It has 2 pools and a lot of fitness classes and even a spa all included and would probably be insanely expensive in America but since Zaragoza has a much lower cost of living I can easily afford it. I have absolutely no excuses to not work out a lot at this point, and am excited to try out the yoga and spin classes at the gym. I spent a lot of time cooking, which I&amp;rsquo;m loving - I&amp;rsquo;m slowly learning and able to make more advanced things, and it feels so great to cook healthy things for myself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So overall, even though there have been ups and downs as expected, I&amp;rsquo;m feeling good about my start in Spain. I&amp;rsquo;m actually loving the city of Zaragoza - it&amp;rsquo;s calm and non-touristy but also has a lot to do. It feels weird to have everyone I love thousands of miles away, and it can be hard to only speak in English some days over a WhatsApp or FaceTime call with a poor connection. There have been times I&amp;rsquo;ve felt a bit lonely, especially in contrast to the very social culture in Spain, but I&amp;rsquo;ve been grateful to always have my family or a friend to call. It&amp;rsquo;s been kind of nice to not know people (well, until I got roommates and started making friends) and have a good reason to just spend a lot of time with myself doing whatever I want to do - I can see why people like solo traveling. &lt;em&gt;(I remember that halfway through my Fulbright I reflected on this initial loneliness I felt as I walked through plazas in Zaragoza full of people socializing with each other, and being very grateful for all the new friends I had made that I explored the city with. It can be really fun to explore a place alone, but personally, I love having people to share the experience and grab a caña with.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have very few expectations and am excited to see where this year takes me. All I do know is that I&amp;rsquo;m going to do what I want to do and prioritize myself, and I&amp;rsquo;m really grateful to have this gift of a year in Spain to do just that!&lt;/p&gt;
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #2: Orientation</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-2/</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2020 23:29:41 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-2/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written September 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I arrived to Madrid pretty exhausted off of a red eye, and went to the Airbnb I was going to stay in for the night with another Dartmouth &amp;lsquo;19 who got a Fulbright to be a TA in Asturias, a region in Northern Spain. I was pretty dead, but decided to head with them to a bar for a pre-orientation Fulbright event. The bar consisted of a lot of people my age talking very loudly and I was soon overwhelmed and exhausted at having to scream to converse, a common thread throughout orientation. I opted to not drink, since I hadn&amp;rsquo;t really eaten or slept. I was able to meet some people and they were all really nice, but I was happy to leave after an hour to go meet up with Cristina.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cristina is my host sister from a 2-week Spanish exchange back in high school, and we&amp;rsquo;ve stayed in touch ever since. She just passed the exam to become a teacher, and she&amp;rsquo;s now teaching English to middle and high schoolers in Madrid. She&amp;rsquo;s one of the kindest and most genuine people I&amp;rsquo;ve ever met, and it&amp;rsquo;s so nice that I started my Fulbright with at least one friend within a 200 mile radius! We had dinner and went to a rooftop bar (which I enjoyed much more than the last rooftop bar that I went to, Mr. Purple, in NYC), and it was wonderful to catch up and talk about potential vacations &lt;em&gt;(I read the word vacations and first thought it said vaccinations - this pandemic is getting to me. Then I remembered there will be no more vacations for a long while)&lt;/em&gt; around Europe we could take together.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I then proceeded to knock out for 11 hours, which was very necessary because I had no idea how crazy orientation would be. Our days were packed with important info sessions and required social events from 7 am until past 9 pm, and then dinner time was after 9, per the Spanish eating schedule (a breakfast of basically just coffee at 7, a coffee break at 11, lunch at 2 or 3 or 4, and dinner around 10 pm + very little sleep - hence tons of coffee. This country seems a bit permanently jet lagged but so am I so it&amp;rsquo;s all good). I would drink at least 2 cups of coffee, but they make really strong espresso, and I more than once found my body literally shaking from caffeine. There were so many people to meet - it felt like college orientation all over again, except I knew I wasn&amp;rsquo;t going to see most of these people again since we are all living in different parts of Spain &lt;em&gt;(spoiler alert: I was very wrong about this)&lt;/em&gt;. Every day we had a mandatory 7-9pm cocktail event, during which we were drinking free tinto (red wine + lemonade, very delicious) and cerveza (beer) on empty stomachs since we were hungry for dinner. I was pretty overwhelmed and delirious, and felt ungrateful for feeling that way because I also recognize that this is an incredible opportunity and was excited to meet so many really cool and passionate people, but I guess a need for sleep is valid.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The makeup of the Fulbrighters was interesting. The researchers group is fairly gender-balanced and about as diverse as Dartmouth (so, not that diverse, but also not all white), but the TAs were largely composed of white women. I haven&amp;rsquo;t felt that noticeably in the minority in a long time. Clearly, it&amp;rsquo;s a privilege to get a Fulbright, but it&amp;rsquo;s also a huge privilege to be able to do a Fulbright and choose a year of personal fulfillment and travel over a higher-paying job, and that shows.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m happy that I took notes during a lot of the sessions, because while my brain was only half functional during orientation, the information we received was  important and interesting. We learned what Fulbright expected of us - it&amp;rsquo;s really strict in some ways, for example we can&amp;rsquo;t leave Spain for more than 21 days, but also laid back in others, such as the fact that we don&amp;rsquo;t need to deliver any final product for our research (so while I definitely plan to do good work, work doesn&amp;rsquo;t have to be my #1 priority at all times). Also, they told us we should definitely take weekends to relax and explore and definitely not do work - what a concept! &lt;em&gt;(I&amp;rsquo;m so happy that I used my weekends in Spain for things other than work.)&lt;/em&gt; We learned about a lot of differences between America and Spain. Everyone uses WhatsApp here, people are generally warmer, even in professional settings, drinking is a huge part of the culture in the way that people will even bring their children to bars, every region has festivals that last all night (and also clubs are open until 7 am - I don&amp;rsquo;t know if I can ever go clubbing here because they open at 2/3 am which is when I like to be solidly asleep).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Apparently Spain is quite progressive when it comes to laws around and percentage of people that identify as queer, especially compared to America, which was great to hear. But it&amp;rsquo;s also far from perfect - they told us that there&amp;rsquo;s a tradition in Spain as part of a festival where people wear blackface, and that it&amp;rsquo;s normal for people to joke about things that would be considered very offensive in the US. I have no idea how much of that is really true, and am interested to see what my experience will be like, especially since Zaragoza is not diverse. While the conversation the presentations started was not very in depth, I did approve of the message they promoted about trying to respect where other people are coming from while also asserting our own boundaries and explaining why certain things are not okay for us, when we feel comfortable engaging. I  believe that everyone has their beliefs in large part because of how they were raised and socialized, and that hopefully if I encounter anything unfortunate it can be a starting point for conversations where people can learn and grow.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I got to meet all the other researchers and hear about their projects, which was cool. Out of the 25, there are 2 other CS researchers. The split between humanities and STEM research is pretty even. A lot of the researchers are currently doing their PhD, and they know so much about what they are studying so it was super interesting to get to talk to them! &lt;em&gt;(It&amp;rsquo;s so fun to read this, now knowing the friends mentioned here so much better.)&lt;/em&gt; One is going to be excavating ceramics to search for signs of a plague before the bubonic plague in Barcelona. Another is going to collect nuts in a forest in Granada to get data for her ecology project. I spent a lot of time talking to this awesome woman who just graduated from Harvard law and knows so much about Spanish law and random facts about Spain (do you know that Spain is on the wrong time zone because Franco wanted Spain to have the same time zone as Nazi Germany? More support for this country literally being jet lagged). One guy who is finishing his biophysics PhD at MIT just got married to a Spanish woman he met when she did an exchange at Harvard! What a cool group of people - it&amp;rsquo;s too bad that I&amp;rsquo;m not in the same city as any of them, but we have an active WhatsApp group and a few more meetups than the rest of Fulbright Spain.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Orientation passed by in a blur, but the last presentation stuck out, from the American consulate in Spain. They said some stuff to scare us, but I really feel like Spain is much safer than America&amp;hellip;there are basically no guns here, and while Spain has a &amp;ldquo;medium&amp;rdquo; terrorism threat, the US is much higher. The really stupid things Americans have done in Spain was very entertaining. One guy took a lot of illegal drugs in Ibiza and is currently in Spanish prison, so basically do NOT take a pill in Ibiza. Another guy went to visit a friend, went clubbing with his passport, lost his passport and phone, got separated from his friend and didn&amp;rsquo;t know where his friend lived in and so he went to the consulate, but couldn&amp;rsquo;t log into his Facebook to message his friend or remember his mother&amp;rsquo;s phone number so she could wire him money. Thankfully, emergency contacts exist. Also, don&amp;rsquo;t go clubbing with your passport.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Applying for the Fulbright Part 1</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2020 23:29:37 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/fulbright-app-1/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Neerja Thakkar graduated from Dartmouth in 2019 with a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics. For the past year, she was doing computational photography research in Spain on a Fulbright research scholarship, and in Fall 2020 she will be starting her PhD in EECS at UC Berkeley.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When you look at the 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://us.fulbrightonline.org/&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;Fulbright website&lt;/a&gt;, you may notice that the amount of different programs you can apply to is huge. There are several axes of freedom where you have to make a decision: the &lt;strong&gt;country&lt;/strong&gt; you apply in, the &lt;strong&gt;program&lt;/strong&gt; you apply for (research/TA/masters), and if you do research, the &lt;strong&gt;host institution&lt;/strong&gt; you work with and the &lt;strong&gt;research project&lt;/strong&gt; you propose. It can feel overwhelming to decide which program to apply for and how to go about the process, so in this post I&amp;rsquo;m going to go over some things I considered and explain how I ended up making a decision. Most of this post will only be applicable for a research Fulbright as part of the US Student program, since that is what I applied for.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of things to consider as you narrow down what you want to do. Here are some things that I kept in mind:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The acceptance rate varies a lot by country and program. I was able to get some numbers from my school&amp;rsquo;s fellowship office (many universities will help you through this process - definitely use those resources if they are available to you!), and I realized that some countries had an extremely low acceptance rate for research/masters Fulbright&amp;rsquo;s (~2%), whereas others had a much higher acceptance rate (closer to a third of applicants were accepted)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Read the 
&lt;a href=&#34;https://us.fulbrightonline.org/countries&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;page specific to a country&lt;/a&gt; you are considering very carefully. There are many variations by country and by programs within a country, such as:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Some countries have specific requirements (for example, you may need a masters to do research at a particular institution within a country)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Some countries have a preference to fund certain kinds of academic fields, so you could be at an advantage or disadvantage&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Some countries have a language requirement or recommendation. Even if it&amp;rsquo;s a recommendation, it would be wise to only apply to that country if you have that competency&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Host institution selection
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What city is it in? Do you want to live in that city?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Who within the host institution would you be working with?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Can your host institution meet with you as often as you will need and give you the resources and support that you need?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Would you be happy in this environment for 9 months?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Research project proposal
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Even if your project is purely STEM, it needs to have some connection to where you are, since Fulbright is funding you for a project in a specific place&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Needs to be supported by host institution&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Does it meet your personal goals for skills you want to gain&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;With those considerations in mind, there are different approaches you could take. If you have a research project in mind that you want to undertake, you could think of a country/host institution where it would make sense to propose your research project to. Or, you could take the approach I did:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I knew I wanted to do a research Fulbright in the field of computer science (more narrowly, within computer vision/graphics and computational photography). I also wanted to spend a year somewhere in Europe. Narrowing down countries by their acceptance rates, so that I wasn&amp;rsquo;t applying anywhere that generally took less than 10% of applicants, and also by looking for those where language wouldn&amp;rsquo;t be a significant barrier, I decided to look for potential research labs in Spain and Switzerland.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I found professors in those countries by reading previous work that interested me, and asked my research advisor at Dartmouth if he could send an email introducing me to these professors - he knew many of the ones I wanted to work with, and even for the ones he didn&amp;rsquo;t know, a cold email from another respected professor in the field often has a much higher chance of being read than one from a random student. We contacted one professor at a time, and I soon hit it off with the lab in Spain that I ended up working at. Together, we brainstormed a project that I could talk about in my Fulbright application, and soon I was drafting my proposal - more on that in my next post.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Neerja en España #1: Hola!</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-1/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2020 23:29:37 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/neerja-espana-1/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Originally written September 2019&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The first 11 posts in my &amp;ldquo;Neerja en España&amp;rdquo; series will be very lightly edited emails that I sent my friends while I was in Spain. Since a lot has changed since I wrote them, I&amp;rsquo;m adding retrospective comments in italics to the posts that I wrote while I was living through them. Here&amp;rsquo;s the first email I sent:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The summer after graduation flew by between cherished time at home, travels to Europe with family, and a trip to the East Coast with my best friend to visit some of our college friends who started work. Now I&amp;rsquo;m in Spain, which has already been crazy, but I first wanted to explain what the Fulbright actually is and what I&amp;rsquo;ll be doing:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are two broad kinds of Fulbright grants: the English teaching assistant grant (ETA), and the research/masters grant (which I am here on). For both grants, Fulbright pays us a stipend for living expenses and facilitates us getting a visa into Spain and setting us up. Spain has the second-largest Fulbright program, with over 150 ETAs and about 30 research/masters students. The ETAs are all placed in one of 6 regions of Spain where they are assigned a school and teach classes for about 20 hours a week. The research/masters students are all over Spain, since we got to choose our host institution as part of our project proposals. The majority of us are in Madrid or Barcelona, but there are a few like me who are in other cities, such as Seville, Salamanca, Granada, and Leon. After a few days orientation in Madrid, we all go to our respective cities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m the only Fulbright student in my city, Zaragoza. Zaragoza is a medium sized city (~700K people), located right in between Madrid and Barcelona - it&amp;rsquo;s a little over an hour on the high speed AVE train to either city (&lt;em&gt;I ended up taking the AVE so many times, and loving it more and more each time)&lt;/em&gt;. Even though it&amp;rsquo;s smaller, it definitely has everything I need, and has a lot to explore, especially compared to Hanover. Also, apparently Zaragoza has the highest amount of bars/clubs per capita in all of Spain. Zaragoza is much less touristy than most other cities its size or bigger in Spain, which is really nice, since the cost of living is lower here and I&amp;rsquo;ll be able to actually immerse myself in Spanish culture. One of Zaragoza&amp;rsquo;s most famous attractions is the huge basilica - here&amp;rsquo;s a photo of it:&lt;/p&gt;





  











&lt;figure id=&#34;figure-from-httpscommonswikimediaorgwikifileup_from_the_highest_tower_16079304178jpg&#34;&gt;


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    from &lt;a href=&#34;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Up_from_the_highest_tower_(16079304178).jpg&#34;&gt;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Up_from_the_highest_tower_(16079304178).jpg&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m pretty nervous to be the only one in my city, since I know literally no one here and don&amp;rsquo;t have an automatic cushion of American Fulbrighters to fall back on. I expect the first month or so to be a little rough. However, I think that it&amp;rsquo;ll overall be good for me, since I&amp;rsquo;ll hopefully form deeper friendships with people that are not American, which is important to me, and in the meantime I&amp;rsquo;m grateful FaceTime exists! &lt;em&gt;(I ended up befriending many non-Americans, and while I was apprehensive I am so grateful that I specifically ended up in Zaragoza)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In terms of my actual project, I will be doing research somewhere within the convex hull of graphics, vision, and computational photography. I&amp;rsquo;m not exactly sure what my project will be, but the lab I&amp;rsquo;ll be working in at Universidad de Zaragoza does a lot of very cool things, so I&amp;rsquo;m excited to get working! I&amp;rsquo;m not sure exactly what my schedule will be like, but I should be doing the same amount of work equivalent to a 9 to 5 job, working in the lab every day.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This year is really going to be what I make of it, in every way. In terms of work, Fulbright doesn&amp;rsquo;t expect us to create any sort of final product with our research, as long as we are working on it consistently. So while publishing a paper would be nice, it&amp;rsquo;s in no way required. I definitely want to get great work done and learn more about my research interests and style, but aside from near deadlines, I don&amp;rsquo;t plan to work as intensely as I will be during my PhD. In terms of the rest of my life, I have a lot of freedom, and I definitely want to use this year in a lot of ways. When I studied abroad in Budapest, I was essentially an American tourist in Budapest and only made friends with other American students, and I absolutely don&amp;rsquo;t want this year to be a repeat of that. My top personal goals/to-dos include:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Improve my Spanish (I&amp;rsquo;ve been pleasantly surprised at how decent it is, but I still have a ways to go in becoming totally fluent)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Improve my cooking abilities and make my health a priority - sleep a lot and work out regularly&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Make non-American friends and expose myself to new perspectives&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Travel to a lot of places in Spain! I&amp;rsquo;m only allowed to leave the country for 21 days, but there&amp;rsquo;s so much to see just in Spain that I&amp;rsquo;ll still be able to travel a ton. I already have the Asturias, southern Spain and the Canary islands at the top of my list&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(I&amp;rsquo;m really happy that I ended up achieving all of these goals to a pretty good extent, except for the places I traveled to ended up being different - I very sadly did not make it to Asturias, Andalucia, or Las Canarias)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hopefully that answers some of the questions you guys have been asking me and gives you a sense of what I&amp;rsquo;ll be up to for the next year!&lt;/p&gt;
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      <title>Balancing sensitivity and specificity in distinguishing TCR groups by CDR sequence similarity</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/publication/balancing-sensitivity-specificity/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2020 23:12:58 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Hello!</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/post/intro/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2020 23:29:37 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/post/intro/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Thanks for making your way to my blog! I am excited to see where this new adventure takes me.&lt;/p&gt;





  











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  &lt;a data-fancybox=&#34;&#34; href=&#34;https://neerja.me/img/neerja_photo.jpg&#34; &gt;


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&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;By way of introducing myself: I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota with my parents and my little sister, Nitya. In middle school and high school, most of my time outside of school was spent practicing the violin, doing bharatanatyam (a form of Indian dance), and being a part of the math team. In 2015, I moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, to start at Dartmouth College. There, I discovered computer science and fell in love with both a new way of thinking and the potential to make an important impact. I continued violin in my college orchestra and had a lot of fun spending time in the outdoors, getting into hiking and climbing. I also became very involved with sexual violence prevention, eventually serving as a chair on the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault. I graduated with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics, experiences both in academia and industry, and admission to the EECS PhD program at UC Berkeley.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was excited to start my PhD, but decided to defer for a year. After graduation, I moved to Zaragoza, Spain for a Fulbright research scholarship. I spent the most incredible 6 months in Spain before I had to leave early and return home due to the pandemic. I&amp;rsquo;ve been staying busy at home finishing up my Fulbright research remotely, and I&amp;rsquo;m trying to make the most of this time. I&amp;rsquo;ve been enjoying photography, running, reading, cooking, and now starting this blog.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve been good about keeping a consistent journal for years, but when I was in Spain, I started writing more for other people. I sent semi-regular email updates to several friends and family about my adventures in Spain, and really enjoyed sharing what I was up to. I&amp;rsquo;ve also been asked by several people about the process of applying to Fulbright/grad school/scholarships, and I want to answer those questions in a way that is hopefully helpful to others, especially to women, first gen, and BIPOC students considering computer science or doing research. I have been incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful mentors and access to resources at an elite institution, and I would love to share what I&amp;rsquo;ve learned with those who may not have as easy access to this information.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ll be posting lightly edited versions of the emails I sent to my friends (but I won&amp;rsquo;t omit things I have since changed my mind about - it&amp;rsquo;s been fun to reread them and see how things evolved) covering most of my Fulbright experience in Spain, several posts about research/grad school/applying to Fulbright, and other things that come across my mind. If there is anything you would like to hear about, don&amp;rsquo;t hesitate to 
&lt;a href=&#34;http://neerja.me/#contact&#34; target=&#34;_blank&#34; rel=&#34;noopener&#34;&gt;reach out&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;
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      <title>Neerja&#39;s Blog</title>
      <link>https://neerja.me/blog/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <guid>https://neerja.me/blog/</guid>
      <description></description>
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