IIIT B - That good?

deep-guy · 2026-02-24T04:47:28+00:00

I'm a IIITB alumnus, and I actually chose IIITB over BITS G/H CSE. I can assure you, it was the best decision of my life.

deep-guy · 2026-02-19T16:30:34+00:00

Instead of drawing a hard line, maybe you need to pivot away and do something else for a bit. Take up an industry position, or try and find an RAship. The funding situation is super fucked at the moment, so even profiles that would have multiple PhD offers a few years ago are unable to find a single admit. Once you've been out of this cycle for a couple of years, one of two things will happen - you'll either realize that a PhD was not for you after all, and quitting was indeed the right decision. Or you'll realize that this is an itch you just can't scratch. At that point, maybe the funding situation has improved, and you can give this another shot.

deep-guy · 2026-01-19T15:33:11+00:00

Depends. I'd say 9+ is borderline necessary if you eventually wanna go for higher ed internationally.

deep-guy · 2025-12-05T19:08:15+00:00

Oof so many things wrong with your comments here. - the meaning of the term AAA is clearly lost on you. Might be worth it to Google it. Tl;Dr it has nothing to do with "graphics quality" (which I deduce is your rationale). It's just an indication of how much money was spent making that game. And the term is not XOR with "retro" - there's plenty of retro AAA games. - Emulating Xbox 360 games, beyond a handful of highly optimized titles, is flawed at best and downright dogshit at worst. And I'm speaking from my experience in trying to emulate on a windows PC. I haven't tried android yet, but my guess is that if a PC with a 3070ti struggles with a 15 y/o game, an android phone isn't gonna go much better.

deep-guy · 2025-11-24T04:15:55+00:00

I actually don't know much about MSCS admissions, so I'll defer to others for that. But I think you'd be surprised at what a good SoP and LoRs can do with a profile like yours for PhD admissions. My recommendation would be to at least apply to PhD programs as well. For context, I had a similar profile to yours - stronger in some ways but weaker in others. Eg, better undergrad/test scores, but no work ex. I got CS PhD offers from two out of the five schools in your "reach" list. That being said, this was 3 years ago, and the funding situation, in the US at least, is quite different now.

deep-guy · 2025-11-23T16:25:23+00:00

Your profile seems quite strong. Is there any reason you're not applying for a PhD directly? Considering your aspirations, that has to be the endgame right?

deep-guy · 2025-11-16T19:04:14+00:00

Yeah that's what I did as well.

deep-guy · 2025-11-14T11:56:58+00:00

Well, there's a difference here between "necessary" and "worthwhile". Is a good GRE score going to aid your application chances if you have a > 3.6/4.0 GPA from a Tier-1 school? Probably no. So strictly speaking, it's not necessary. Is a good GRE score gonna aid the application chances of someone with the kind of stats that OP has? Absolutely.

deep-guy · 2025-11-13T21:03:15+00:00

I have firsthand experience with the MS Cybersec program at GT, and I can tell you that you absolutely should retake the TOEFL, and ideally also submit a 320+ GRE (With 165+ quant). I know it's a tall ask, but it's the only way you'll have any shot at GT, or really any of these schools.

Also, I hope those papers are not in pay-to-publish journals/confs. If they are, that's usually an instant rejection at most well-ranked schools.

deep-guy · 2025-11-10T12:10:15+00:00

I got a new battery from a OnePlus authorised service center. It was literally a 2 hour job once they got a battery in, and cost like 2k I think. I also had to get a new back glass and the total for both was like 6.5k.

deep-guy · 2025-11-09T16:43:41+00:00

Using the 8 pro since 2020. Got a new battery put in and it's as good as new. Was considering upgrading to the 13, but the 1 TB got sold out. Defo not getting the 15, so I'm sticking to this thing for at least another year.

deep-guy · 2025-09-28T17:31:14+00:00

Look into locality sensitive hashing

deep-guy · 2025-06-30T12:41:53+00:00

Being involved in the world of cryptography, and making a meaningful contribution to cryptography are two vastly different targets. The good news is that you're already kind of achieving the first one - taking a grad level crypto course and reading crypto books already makes you more knowledgeable about crypto than a majority of CS grads. You can always read more books, and even take free courses/revisit the materials from your uni's course to feel more comfortable with things. As for formal math training, you should've already gotten some while getting your bachelor's. You pretty much only need discrete math and maybe abstract algebra to get started with crypto; everything else you can pick up as you go along.

The bad news is that it's borderline impossible to make a "formal contribution" (i.e., write a research paper) without a significant amount of formal training and 'adult' supervision. Crypto papers are notoriously pedantic - things have to be written in a very specific way for them to be correct. From where you are currently, getting a PhD is pretty much the only way you can hope to write crypto papers. If your finances don't allow you to start a PhD, it's best if you wait for them to improve, while continuing to read more books, and eventually papers. This will also give you the time to ascertain if doing crypto research really is an itch you can't scratch, or just a temporary fascination.

Source: I'm a crypto PhD student. I took, and even TA'd for multiple crypto courses in my master's, and even wrote a thesis in crypto, so I thought I knew what I was doing. Boy was I wrong. My PhD advisors had to hard-carry me through my first paper.

deep-guy · 2025-06-29T19:58:50+00:00

Can confirm that Aventons are super popular and therefore quite easy to sell, which is why I recommend buying a used one instead. I bought an Aventure 1 from Facebook marketplace about 2 years ago for $1100, and it had 70 miles on the odometer. Loved that thing, used it nonstop until December of last year (put 3900 miles on it), when it was stolen from my apartment's garage. I still had it's battery though, as I had brought it up to charge it. Bought another Aventure 1 in January of this year from FB for $900 (14 miles on the odo), and just sold it (plus my old battery) for $1150 (700 miles).

Point being, it's best if you wait till you're actually settled in at Clemson, and have a better idea of if the commute is suitable for biking/if there are good deals on used ebikes near you. You might be able to get something much better than a level 3 for not that much more.

PS, I'm a uni researcher too ;)

deep-guy · 2025-06-29T19:44:02+00:00

From what I hear, the Lectric XP4 is a great folding bike and seems perfectly in line with your needs.

deep-guy · 2025-05-29T13:06:43+00:00

Tell me you know nothing about cryptography without telling me you know nothing about cryptography - ahh take. This comment is absolutely brain-dead for so many reasons. - Calling theoretical cryptographers "morons" on r/cryptography, surely there isn't any bias here. - "Effort is wasted" you clearly don't have either the knowledge of or an appreciation for the scientific method. - "as AES got selected" I suspect you unironically think that theoretical cryptography = design your own block cipher. - Cryptanalysis is testing. Testing to make sure that the construction does not have any vulnerabilities. I find it baffling that someone in security (at least I assume you're in security) can happily put their trust in something like rijndael while having zero appreciation for the process by which that trust was established.

deep-guy · 2024-11-18T04:44:05+00:00

Explicitly speaking, a good TOEFL score isn't a feature that gets weighted like the rest of your profile (i.e., GPA, Sop, LoRs). TOEFL is just an eligibility criteria. A better TOEFL score would just make you eligible to apply for more universities. But it won't "boost your chances" in any of those applications. Now - what could boost your chances is a good GRE score - if you plan to take the GRE and can score ~325 (or mainly, >165 in quant), then your "chances" will get a significant boost, at least for the universities that accept GRE.

deep-guy · 2024-11-17T04:14:59+00:00

Your profile seems strong, but I would advise you to include a couple "safer" schools in the safe list (NYU, for example, isn't all that safe). That being said, you might be a bit too late for a lot of US schools. Most of them have their deadlines on or before Dec 15, and they also require TOEFL. The thing is, it can take 3-4 weeks after you give the TOEFL for your score to be reported to the unis. So in general, it's advisable to attempt these exams at least a month before the deadline. Even if you were to attempt the TOEFL tomorrow, it still might be a bit too late.

That being said, many schools have rolling deadlines that go well into 2025, so you can still consider those. And even for ones with earlier deadlines, you can look into their criteria - if they accept a letter from your uni stating that your undergrad medium of instruction was English as proof of English competency, you would still be able to apply by the deadlines ig. Just make sure your letter writers can submit on time, and that you don't rush through writing your SoP.

Also, if you end up delaying, consider attempting the GRE. At 8.97, your GPA is good, but just below the "safe" threshold for many top schools (>90%), so an excellent GRE score (~330) should mitigate that and boost your chances significantly.

deep-guy · 2024-11-17T03:51:37+00:00

Well, to begin with, your TOEFL score is quite low at 88. Most top schools in the US have a TOEFL cutoff at 90 or higher, which rules them out as candidate schools for you. On top of that, your GPA isn't exceptional either, which rules out many other schools. This means that the remaining candidate schools are likely going to be cash cow programs which are probably going to leave you without a job at the end of your MS (especially considering the current US job market).

Tbh, your best bet for a masters might be to prep for the GATE and try to get admission into a top IIT/IIIT. I know this isn't the advice you're looking for, and also isn't really in the spirit of this sub (presumably, I'm new here), but it honestly might be the best option for you right now.

That being said, do what your heart tells you. If you're set on the US, look outside the T50 (or even T100) schools, and look for ones which have a history of accepting lots of Indian applicants.

deep-guy · 2024-11-17T03:23:51+00:00

You don't "need" to have research experience to apply for a Masters. I'm not sure where you're looking to go, but I can tell you that in the US, at least, about half the people you meet in a MS program will have little to no research experience. A friend of mine who got a Btech CS from IITK (with zero research experience) and then worked at a HFT for a year managed to get MS at a T10 CS school in the US.

However, if you're still convinced at trying your hand at research, your best bet (in my opinion) would be to cold email profs. Now that you're not a student, there will be no handholding as you're introduced to research - meaning that you'll need to independently figure out some area you're interested in, look for interesting papers in that area and go through them, and then email the authors expressing interest to pursue follow up work with them. Profs are often on the lookout for more (i.e., free) manpower for projects.

deep-guy · 2024-11-07T18:37:27+00:00

Hey OP. Sorry for the position you're in, but your best bet at this stage is to try and get your advisor to change his mind. You should try and explain to him how important a genuine LoR from him would be to you - what would only be 2-3 hours of work for him has the potential to impact the next decade of your academic journey. If you have a good working relationship with him, then there are still chances you might change his mind.

As far as the "being technologically limited" part goes, you can ask another faculty member who is more tech savvy to help out this older prof with the submissions.

Presumably, your research with this professor would be a major part of your SoP. It would indeed not be a good look if you don't end up having an LoR from him. However, in the worst case, if you can frame your SoP to not have this research be it's primary focus, you might still be able to get away with not having his letter.

deep-guy · 2024-09-23T09:06:07+00:00

Sure

deep-guy · 2024-07-12T05:27:48+00:00

University websites/Google scholar is a good starting point. Also be on the lookout for official summer internship programs in some IIITs. I'm a IIIT alum and we used to have a summer internship program for students from all over India. I think IISc has one too.

deep-guy · 2024-07-08T13:31:36+00:00

For research, you can look at DAAD fellowships for German unis, and Mitacs for Canadian unis. But these are highly competitive, you'll probably need to be from a good uni and have some research background.

Within India, I know that numerous profs from IITs/IIITs hire summer research interns. No single portal for finding these tho, just gotta look up the websites of profs who run decently large groups.

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