Data, Decisions and Infrastructure

The first ‘aha moment’ for me when I realized that I want to pursue a career in telecommunication came in the 11th grade, when I was studying about sensors and telemetry in an applied electronics course. Our teacher told us that data is the new gold; everyone- from economists studying supply chains to scientists studying climate change- relies on data to make informed decisions, and telecommunication engineers are responsible for building and maintaining the world’s “data infrastructure” required to collect, store and communicate useful data to anyone having to make important decisions. This description of telecommunication engineers has made me realize their potential to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems, like climate change, global health and disaster management.

Since the past 5 years, I have been studying electronics and telecommunication in high school and college. In 12th grade, I scored 96% in Applied Electronics, and in my B.E. (Electronics & Telecommunication) degree, I scored a CGPA of 8.05. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I got the opportunity to get certified in many great technical courses on Coursera: I learned about the Arduino platform and C programming, data science and Python programming, digital signal processing, electrodynamics, embedded systems and IoT. Apart from academics, I also participated in Smart India Hackathon 2019, in which I and a team of 4 other students spent 2 months developing a web-based dashboard for the national accounts of India. Again, this hackathon made me realize the importance of telecommunication engineers in shaping decisions, in this case macroeconomic decisions.

While my undergraduate degree in electronics and telecommunication has provided me with a solid foundation for the field, I believe that an M.S. (Electrical & Computer Engineering) degree- with a focus on communications, networking & signal processing– can help me work on more ambitious projects. For example, when I learnt about wireless sensor networks (WSN) in my undergraduate degree, I was excited; these can be used for many applications, such as environment monitoring, healthcare monitoring, and threat detection. But, in order to work with the WSN, one needs knowledge of networking. In order to deal with the noise or interference when data is being collected by the sensors, one needs knowledge of signal detection, estimation and filtering. In order to deal with distortion of signals during wireless transmission, one needs knowledge of digital communication. All of these courses are part of the communications, networking & signal processing curriculum.

My immediate plan after the master’s degree is to work on projects related to telecommunication engineering, electronics engineering or technical writing. My long-term goal is to become a network architect, where I will create plans and layouts for data communication networks, ranging from building small connections between two offices, to accessing vast networking capabilities on a cloud infrastructure that customers can connect to across the globe.

Studying at NYU Tandon School of Engineering is very attractive to me, for multiple reasons. One of the research areas offered by the university is “Communications/IT”, whose goal is to create fast, secure and reliable communications. There are many groups that fall under this research area, such as NYU Wireless, the CommIT (Communication and Information Theory) Group, and the High Speed Networking Lab. I am looking forward to getting in touch with the professors and students in these groups, and getting to know better what tools and technology they use. Also, because the university is located in a megacity, one also gets the unique opportunity to work on communications and networking projects related to urban life. For example, the SONYC (Sounds of New York City) Group at NYU uses wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to collect audio clips from all over New York City, and then uses machine learning technology to annotate them. Coming from a big city myself (Mumbai), I realize the vast potential which such a project can have to improve the community, and make people’s lives measurably better.

Apart from academics, I am also interested in participating in a few student clubs at NYU. There is the Tea and Philosophy Club, a collaborative reading and discussion group. There is Letters at NYU, which aims to connect NYU students through handwritten letters. There is NYU Tandon MakerSpace, a cutting edge lab created to foster collaborative design projects. And finally, there is NYU Effective Altruism, which is a group of students who use evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the world. I believe these student clubs will not only provide me extra-curricular knowledge and skills, but also a sense of community.

It would be my privilege to study at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. I am not only excited that I will get a cutting-edge education here, but also that I will be surrounded by people from a variety of cultures, perspectives and walks of life. I cannot wait to be immersed in the rich and vibrant environment of New York City, and I am sure that in these two years, I will grow immensely, not only as an engineer, but also as a human being!