I am at the CMU New Students Reception on July 18, 2015,\u00a0sharing some life-changing experiences that I had at CMU. The reception\u00a0was at Mint Masala in Bengaluru. It is about 9pm, a 20 some years old\u00a0person walks to me and says \u201cAre you PK, the one who is going to give\u00a0a talk at IBM – IRL later this week\u201d, I said, \u201cYes\u201d Then he introduces\u00a0himself saying, \u201cI am Varun, I work at IBM – IRL, I am a friend of\u00a0Samarth, I saw an email from Samarth about your talk at IRL.\u201d Varun\u2019s\u00a0sister is going to CMU for her graduate school. I was so surprised,\u00a0and happy that people walk to me and connect to things\u00a0that I am doing otherwise. That was a very satisfying feeling. When I went to IRL\u00a0to give the talk, Varun helped me with all the logistics of entering\u00a0the building, setting up the room for the talk, etc., as Samarth (Ph.D. student of IIIT Delhi), my host was busy in a meeting. Samarth, Varun, and I ended up spending\u00a0some time together after the talk.<\/p>\n
It is about 1100pm in the same CMU New Students Reception on July 18, 2015,\u00a0and a teenager walks up to me and stops me, and says \u201cAren\u2019t you PK?\u201d I am like, what is going on! I say, \u201cYes\u201d, he replies, \u201cI am a student of DPS Bangalore (North), I have attended your “Stay Safe Online” workshop in my school.\u201d I ask him for his name, he says \u201cGaurav\u201d (I hope, I remember this correctly!) and he was so happy to connect with me at the hotel and I was completely bowled by this experience, very humbling. I saw his parents waiting for him to leave, as it was already late. I told him, thanks for connecting and he left.<\/p>\n
As usual, I walk out of the cafeteria in Adobe after lunch on July\u00a021, 2015, and a young lady stops me and says, \u201cWhat are you doing here? I\u00a0saw you in the CMU New Students Reception last week!\u201d I replied, I am\u00a0doing my summer sabbatical here. I did not meet her during the CMU\u00a0event, so full credit to her for stopping and reaching\u00a0out to me! She is going to CMU for her graduate school. We left after these few minutes of interaction. Usually, I forget names after the first interaction, but thankfully this time I got it! So back in my room, I reached out to her and decided to have lunch on 23rd (that was the only day we could\u00a0have met, before I leave for Delhi). We meet for lunch and I understand\u00a0about the program that she is joining, it turns out that she is\u00a0joining the Masters in Information Technology – Privacy Engineering<\/a>.\u00a0I laugh and say, this is the program that\u00a0my Ph.D. thesis Advisor (Lorrie Cranor) Co-Directs and then she goes onto the say that she will be doing an RA with her and we talk a lot about the courses that she can take in the program, etc. Below is the selfie that we took before we bid adieu!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/precog.iiitd.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/IMG_32511-e1437910234627-300x225.jpg\" "\\"PK-Harishma")
<\/a>Moral of the story: The world is so small! And I think being a faculty also adds to it, more so, in India. One can do so many interesting things, participating and sharing the experience from our alma mater, giving talks in research labs, sabbatical life, reaching out, etc. I am loving the fact that I am able to enjoy my life as a faculty in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"