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Learn, Bond, Grow @ Precog!
Back in 2020, I was as perplexed as any other second year student when I had to make a choice for a lab and an advisor to pursue my honours. My interests lay in working on applied NLP and real world problems that could have a direct impact on people’s lives and society. After elaborate considerations and weighing my options amongst the many brilliant labs at IIITH, I decided to work WITH Prof. PK at Precog. I’m sincerely thankful to my really cool seniors at Precog who introduced me to the lab, explained to me about the spectrum of work that happens, and guided me in making the right choice.…
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Precog: a low risk, high return investment
Precog has been a constant throughout my college life. Having spent three-plus years at Precog, it is much more than a work experience or research experience on my resume. It is what has defined me and my work interests. In this blog, I will take a shot at the impossible task of summarizing my experience, learnings, and the indelible effect PK and Precog have left on me. Before joining my college, I was very well aware that there existed this majestic lab headed by this mystical professor. My first introduction to Precog was through my brother when I was still in 12th grade. He had applied to Precog but got…
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Precog : A Journey to Remember
Ahh, the precog journey is reaching a logical conclusion with this blog. The blog is going to be a thank you letter, a thank you letter for three beautiful years at Precog, working with PK and fellow precoggers, learning and growing from the wonderful experiences. I will highlight the different projects and experiences at Precog and focus on how they shaped and taught me. Before I begin a piece of advice to anyone thinking about joining/knowing more about Precog culture and work, read these blogs !! (At least that’s what I did while deciding, all of these are experiences straight from the horse’s mouth and will give you excellent insights).…
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Precog: Where Magic Happens
During the end of my 5th semester, I started searching for professors to do an independent study under. The reason for this search was simple – I needed an LoR as I planned on going for higher studies. After talking to seniors and batchmates, it became very clear that Precog was the best place for this purpose. As I sit now, 1.5 years later, recollecting my journey in Precog, I realize I have gained so much more than an LoR – in fact, I realize that I have gained more than I could have ever imagined in December 2020. My first interaction with PK was in the last round of…
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Why working at Precog is totally different!
My journey with Precog started right after my second year. PK wasn’t a full-time IIIT-H prof at that time, but I had already heard a lot about him. I was pretty excited to have got the opportunity to work with him, but looking back I had no clue how unique and life-changing my two years with Precog would be. I use the word “unique” because my experience at the lab was totally different, in many special ways that make me proud to be a #Precogger! Q: Give reasons why your journey with Precog was so different: Reason 1: Freedom That’s right, freedom. Probably my favourite thing to talk about when…
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Made in Precog
Hi there, Welcome to my blog! This one is going to be detailed, so let me give you an overview of what I plan to talk about. I will introduce myself, tell you the story of my life, how Precog fits into the picture, and it’s role in making me who I am today. As an incentive for you to read, I will try to summarize what I learnt along the way, and give you some tips 🙂 Who is Daksh Shah anyway? I am a really enthusiastic kid who is super passionate about computers and finance. I recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree from IIITD (in 2021). I am…
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The long winding road of a research project …
Every research project has its journey, and this is the story of one of them. My (5th year Dual Degree CSE student) tryst with this research project titled ‘Suspended Accounts’ started way back in July 2019. It’s been over two years since the project’s inception. It took over two years to complete this project, a sign that it wasn’t the smoothest of rides. I am using this blog as a medium to pen down some takeaways that I took from my first experience leading a research project. Again I will emphasize that these are my takeaways and are not universally applicable. Prune the Project: We went into the project with…
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How to become a Precogger? And Perks of being one…
I joined Precog starting from my 3rd year, and it has been an amazing learning experience for me, since then. It might sound intimidating to most of us, to work with a professor, who has over 8000 citations or to even become part of such a large research group. But trust me, there is nothing to be afraid of. Being an introvert, I myself had a lot of reservations before joining the group. I was scared of petty things like, will I be able to make a good first impression, how will I talk to Ph.D. level students, what if PK doesn’t like my work, yada yada yada. However, my…
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Learning to be part of a group : My Journey with Precog
It dates back to my fourth semester in IIIT when I first came to know about PK. During that period I was exploring various research labs and was looking for advisors for my honours project. While talking to one of my fellow Precog seniors, he suggested that an advisor like PK would be the perfect option considering my interests and future plans. Luckily, all this happened in the evening just before the deadline day, which left me with a night to prepare my application as I also had an exam the following day. So, I spent the night writing my SOP and updating my resume, submitted the application, got an…
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Precog: From FOMO to a Learning Mindset
If there is one thing that would describe any student’s life in India, it would be FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). FOMO makes you do something you might not even want to do. The engineering decision you took, the various competitions you participate in, the effort you gave to get your dream intern. You do a lot of things just because your peers are doing it. And we find a hundred ways to justify our decisions rather than admitting the herd mentality. Don’t get me wrong, and I’m no guru who’s here to enlighten you. I’m also guilty of being a trend-following guy for the better part of my college…