Souradeep Sengupta gives a brief overview of the 'CASILab Webinar' held on August 23, 2020, where various career opportunities for the undergraduate and postgraduate physics students were discussed.
Posted by: Souradeep Sengupta, Research Scholar, Ashoka University, New Delhi
Email: souradeep.sengupta_phd20@ashoka.edu.in
Since its very inception, the Centre for Advanced Studies and Innovation Lab (CASILab) has not only tried to foster an interdisciplinary academic space for fruitful collaboration among the researchers of south Assam, but has also tried to provide the exposure of cutting-edge science and academics to the young higher secondary school, undergraduate and postgraduate students of the region. Keeping with that philosophy, CASILab organized a webinar “Careers in Physics for the UG and PG students” on 23rd August, 2020, on Google Meet. Over a hundred students (higher secondary school, undergraduate and postgraduate) and teachers registered for the event, from South Assam, Tripura, as well as West Bengal.
Prof. Surajit Sen, the Moderator of the Webinar, began the proceedings by introducing the main speakers:
1. Prof. Biswajit Chakraborty (S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata)
2. Prof. Biman Nath (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore)
3. Prof. Bimalendu Deb (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata)
4. Prof. Pintu Das (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)
Prof. Chakraborty of SNBNCBS, who had first raised the idea for this webinar, delivered the first talk. He mentioned his own personal background, having spent much of his early life in Silchar and Shillong, before moving to the University of Delhi for his bachelors and masters in physics. Having strong ties to South Assam, he lamented how a combination of poor infrastructure, geographical isolation and the prevalence of incorrect stereotypes and rumours was discouraging the bright students from the Northeast from a career in basic sciences research. He mentioned how, as a young student, he did not receive adequate educational ambiance & guidance in Shillong. He also advised that physics education in this region should refocus itself on classic texts – Halliday-Resnick for high schoolers, Feynman Lectures for undergraduates and Landau-Lifschitz for postgraduates – to enable students to develop strong fundamentals and compete at both the national and international level in research and academia, and counselled that teachers of the region have to take the initiative to include these texts in their pedagogy.
He also inspired the young student attendees by saying that hailing from remote areas has never been a stumbling block for physicists and often students from mofussil towns shone brighter than most – he also mentioned that the students from the Northeast should compete seriously for national exams like the CSIR/UGC NET and JEST etc – and that it was only a matter of passion and self-belief. He also reassured the young attendees that despite the conventional wisdom that there was no career “scope” in physics, he had found that the opposite was true – faculty hiring boards were not finding enough truly qualified candidates to fill positions, and there was abundant avenue for growth in a career in research. He also counseled students to pursue summer schools and internships at research institutes and science academies to get hands-on training and exposure to research.
After a vigorous Q&A session, Prof. Biman Nath of RRI began his talk. Being an astrophysicist, and also hailing from this region, he first mentioned the various universities and institutes in India which had strong astrophysics programs, e.g. Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Presidency University Kolkata, Raman Research Institute (RRI), University of Delhi (DU), as well as a number of IITs and IISERs.
He also mentioned the world-class observational astronomy facilities and telescopes that India hosts, like the Giant Metre Wave Radio Telescope operated by NCRA, Himalaya Chandra Telescope operated by IIA, Devasthal Optical Telescope operated by ARIES, as well as satellite telescope ASTROSAT, as well as the upcoming LIGO-India facility for gravitational astronomy. He advised interested students to apply to attend the Radio Astronomy School at NCRA for BSc, BTech students, as well as to the Joint Astronomy Programme (JAP) through IISc’s PhD program. During his Q&A, he was often asked about prerequisites for studying astrophysics – his answer was that all a passionate student had to do was to have strong fundamentals in UG-level physics. Prof. Nath also said that a grounding in physics prepares you for a career in many different areas of research - whether in biology or data science, etc., because of the problem-solving abilities acquired through a training in physics.
Prof. Pintu Das of IIT Delhi spoke next, and described the many interdisciplinary research opportunities for physics students at IIT Delhi. He mentioned opportunities like B.Tech Engineering Physics (4 year program) at IIT-Delhi, which can be qualified through the JEE, as well as masters degrees like M.Tech in Optics and Optoelectronics. Prof. Das mentioned the various pathways through which students may get admission to bachelors and masters degrees in physics and interdisciplinary physics-allied areas like optics, electronics, materials science etc. These admissions usually happen through JEE for bachelors programs, and GATE/JAM for masters programs, and NET/GATE for PhD programs, as well as interviews afterward - all they really ask for is strong fundamentals in basic physics. Prof. Das also mentioned how the low exposure level of students in this region about career paths and options is very difficult for them. Basic science research is often discouraged by society. More awareness and outreach by professors and researchers from this region would be helpful to change the culture about this. Prof. Das also explained his research - broadly experimental condmat, and specifically using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to study electronic behaviour at atomic scale, to characterize (or look at) microscopic surfaces and structures at few Angstroms-length scales, as well as studying magnetism at nanometer scales - nanomagnetism.
Prof. Bimalendu Deb of IACS, Kolkata, delivered the next and final talk – he spoke about research opportunities in what is called AMO – Atomic, Molecular and Optical physics, an area on which much good work is being done at IIT Kanpur, RRI Bangalore and IIT Delhi. Prof. Deb also mentioned Cold atoms as a vibrant field of study - a good way to get into these fields is by doing a national or international summer school like Les Houches, or at least a research internship. He mentioned how we are currently in the midst of the second quantum revolution – related to lasers and quantum information/computing - after the first quantum revolution of the 1920s led by Heisenberg and Schrodinger and Dirac.
IACS, where Prof. Deb works, is a research institute and a deemed university under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), as well as the oldest research institute in Asia, established in 1876 through donations by educationists like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The Nobel Laureate CV Raman did a lot of his work at IACS, discovering the 'Raman Effect' there. There is an integrated B Sc-M Sc program, as well as integrated M Sc-Ph D and a standard Ph D program at IACS, which he encouraged the student attendees to apply for. He also mentioned a summer school on AMO physics, which is being planned at International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore in May 2021, which also he encouraged students to apply for.
After the talks by the senior academics, some younger physics students and scholars hailing from this region spoke about their perspective and experiences.
Rupayan Bhattacharjee, a student from the undergraduate section of IACS, Kolkata, spoke about the 5-year integrated BS-MS program at IACS, Kolkata – admission is through the UPST exam which quizzes students on high school physics, maths, chemistry as well as either biology or computer science – for first 3 semesters, students study courses across disciplines, after which they pick a specialisation, and write a dissertation during the final year.
Saptarshi Biswas, a student from IISER, Kolkata, also spoke of the similar 5 year integrated program at the various Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), in Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal etc. He then went into detail about the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) scholarship offered by the Government of India to the promising and motivated undergraduate students in Basic Science courses. This scholarship has multiple entry points; the students can qualify through a written exam, either during Class XI, or in Class XII, or in first year of undergraduate degree, followed by an interview. Every year around a lakh students apply, about 4000 qualify for interview, and about half are offered scholarships, and these students are then accommodated at various institutes around India depending on their ranks.
Various other academics like Prof. Ratan Das from Tripura University, Anindya Sundar Paul from Technion, Israel, Abhinandan Bhattacharjee, IIT, Kanpur etc. also briefly mentioned their experiences in pursuing a career in physics and encouraged the young attendees to pursue their passions. Prof. Tushar Kanti Dey, a former teacher of Guru Charan College, Silchar and CASILab offered a vote of thanks to conclude the event.
Overall, it was a greatly illuminating and helpful session for the young students, and it can only be hoped that many will be inspired by the encouragement and example of so many role models from their region, to take up the baton and forge new and daring paths in the great and never-ending human endeavour in scientific research.
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