Friday, May 4, 2018

An option, now evolving opportunities


Graduating out from a good engineering college, with a good-paying IT job offer in hand, is a dream come true for most of the bachelor’s degree students in India. Although the process itself is not too tough, but the competition makes it a struggle and introduces too much randomness. I was one of those people 3 years back. There was a topping with it, I was into the R&D unit of the company, at-least what they had designated! I found thrill for a month or two, I learned a lot, but soon the excitement faded with no work-life balance and my responding with a resignation after just a year. One more year of trial at the largest IT Company of the world too did not work and then I felt that I am not good with repetitive work that has very less scope for exploration. Thanks to a heartbreak, I finally then took step to my long-awaited but forgotten desire, a pursuance of higher education abroad, Taiwan.

I would say I got lucky; I did not have too much information about the destination, NCTU. I only knew the world rankings, but I was unaware of all the Goodies that NCTU was about to offer. I applied to the International Graduate Program of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (IGP-EECS) department and the whole application process was unexpectedly smooth! I received instant responses to my queries, even though I was still applying. Furthermore, I received offer to join year-long internship with Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), thanks to the prestige and great record of the NCTU alumni. Now, this was a real topping that I received!

I landed in Taipei on September 3rd last year and I experienced something beautiful there itself. I was not sure about my journey to NCTU, Hsinchu from Taipei, and I was reluctant to ask for help, as I was not sure about response. Out of nowhere, a person came to me and asked me if I needed help. I explained him but he was having trouble understanding English. He brought another person from some distance and with his help, he understood me. He helped me buy tickets and board the bus and then left. This was new to me and in the first impression itself I felt the truly helpful nature of Taiwanese people.

A small temple at the entrance of  NCTU


After reaching NCTU, I had all my admission formalities completed with the help of an old friend from India. I must say, every step was clear enough and the staff very much helpful. My dorm was allocated. I was now ready to explore the large and beautiful campus of NCTU.

My dormitory, Graduate Dorm-2

View from my dorm top floor


My first spot was the Waffles house; hunger caused this! They offer more than 50 types of waffles and teas. I am a big fan of it and I still visit it at-least thrice a week to have some tasty chocolate waffles and the cold Assam milk tea. I was overwhelmed at first to see so many varieties of tea being offered, but now I know that Taiwanese are really too much into teas! You can see the beautiful Waffles house in the image.

Juice and snacks shop near Female Dorm
Pink house, I love their Japanese Curry chi


My next destination was NCTU library. It is an eight-floor building, with book galleries and study carrels (peaceful individual study rooms) up to the 7th floor. It has an enormous collection of technological books and journals, both in English and Chinese languages. There is literature section too, but the books are mostly in Chinese. I have been using the study carrels since I joined and I feel it is the best thing about NCTU library.

NCTU Library

NCTU campus also has a beautiful lake at its entrance itself. It has trees on all its sides. I have occasionally been doing yoga on one of its sides in the early morning time. There is a small fountain at some distance from the lake. It has a lot of small as well as large gold fishes. It offers the most romantic view at the nighttime; perfect location for a date!

Garden behind the library

So many fishes!
Beautiful lake at the entrance, my yoga place

NCTU is great at sports and extra-curricular activities too. It has a 400m running track. I was initially amazed to see so many people running on the tracks; they really are very much health conscious.



One of the many Lawn tennis courts


There is a swimming complex, which has a 50m outdoor pool and a 25m indoor pool. Summers become enjoyable because of these. I have also used the badminton court, the tennis court and the gym. Apart from these, the campus also hosts basketball courts, volleyball courts, and baseball and softball fields. NCTU campus is really a heaven for sports persons.

Open gym near the running track

External 50-m swimming pool



Billiards tables in the Student Activity Center






Smoking area, separated from crowdy spots


Academic buildings are divided based on departments. My EECS department building is right in the center of the campus and is very near to my dorm. The labs are very hi-tech. One major difference between my earlier labs and here is the availability of enough resources to for practical experimentation. Every lab has a dedicated lab assistant committed to management of these resources and this reduces and avoids any delay in doing any project one wants to do. Labs are accessible 24x7. Another add-on is the provision of lab-funded snacks and drinks, completely free for lab members! For me, this has been a motivating factor to work in the lab, instead of my dorm, many a time. Taiwanese snacks are too tasty!

ED, my department building

Chinese Learning Center building, too much fun in Chinese classes


NCTU offers a lot of scholarships and grants based on student’s performance. I myself have been offered 100% tuition fees waivers for the 1st two semesters, based on the previous semester performance. Apart from this, there is a generous monthly stipend, though it is too competitive for international students. This is another motivation to score high percentiles in each of the courses. Labs also provide Research Assistantships, based on lab work performance. Overall, the financial security provided to the deserving students is much better and stable in comparison to those of other well-known universities all over the world. I feel this is another important reason that we are finding more number of international students’ admissions every semester.

One of the weekly seminars in progress


I must say the courses here are good one and at a high level. The courses are mostly upgraded ones and at par with the current research in the domains. A perfect mix of theoretical study as well as practical projects are added in each course. Handling even 2 courses in a semester becomes tough here! But the support is available from Teaching Assistants and they do try their best to help solve our confusions. Still, a careful selection of courses is necessary in order to successfully score every semester.

Red bus, between Hsinchu Science Park and the markets, passes through NCTU campus


Close proximity to the Hsinchu Science Park is another advantage of NCTU. A large number of NCTU alumni are senior Executives in the Park and this helps the internships as well as the after course job search. NCTU alumni are highly employable in the industry and a degree from NCTU seems to be almost a guarantee for a job. The Professors also support their students to get a reference in the industry.

Hsinchu Science Park, visible from top of my dorm. Realtek and TSMC!


I hope to have many more great experiences being a NCTU student. I joined as a Master’s student and by the middle of the 2nd semester itself, I have decided to transfer into a PhD course, owing to so much opportunity and such a supportive research mentor Professor present here. Keeping it short for now, I will update on my other experiences @NCTU in my next blog.

1 comment:

  1. it was so good to read and very useful to update my skill as updated one.
    Chinese Learning Center

    ReplyDelete