Greatest fears

The whirlwind inside me has been increasing the pressure lately and all the stable and concrete things inside of me seem to revolve around with equatorial speed, but one thing that has kept me sane and has kept me “intact” for so to speak is a belief. Yes, a belief.

A belief that doesn’t let me loose my temper, a belief that keeps me sane for most of my day in 24 hours/day, a belief with which when I walk, I can hold my head high, a belief that makes me believe that I will smile cheerfully again even though I don’t remember when was the last time I did laughed my stomach out, and a believe that I will see the morning again.

I consider of myself & everyone around myself as a person of great integrity and character values. For myself, I hold myself to the highest levels of expectations every minute of everyday of every month of every year. I have a reading target, an exercise target, a networking target and to much a surprise to many people – a spiritual target as well.

Ideally, I would hold myself to the highest standards and then fret about not completing them if I end up not meeting them. Over the years I remained ferment and versatile, yet restless & hopeful.

I wanted to become more, I want to learn more, do more, give more, contribute more, read more, explore more. But all I can see myself is to remain reduced to nothing but a mere mortal. I would love to define what a mere mortal stands for in my terms, but I rather not. There is not one day I feel, I should be doing more than what I have been doing, there is no one moment, I think I should be writing more than I have been doing lately, not one second passes feeling that I can be the greatest achiever of all, but all I have is some lame schedule around me.

It is quite clear that I am frustrated and deeply moved by this present state of my mind.

How are we doing yet? Still hanging in here or left? — Part II

Continuing from my previous blog post,

3. Prepare a list of word templates you will need to react, reply and respond to the kind of answers you get from Professors.

Personally I had three prepared for myself

The first one was a more generic template. It expressed my interest in clear, concise and crisp grammatically correct English. You have to make changes regarding the research section, papers and your interests, etc.

The second one was a thank you reply! Unfortunately some professors will not “click” with your mails and profiles as some other will. As one of my friend who already got into the Phd program at New Zealand’s University of Auckland Dept of Imaging Science, he told me

Only 20 percent of the professors you approach in all, will acutually reply back.

The point here to be noted is that it is just a reply. It can be the most obvious one

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. You should apply through the admissions office at ZZZZZ@akd.edu

this one takes the cake!

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. Unfortunately, I am not taking any more students And/or Not teaching at the school anymore and/or Not full time faculty at the time
and/or I am on Sabbatical
(No offense. This kind of replies,make my day actually. You push me down. I will keep on coming up even with more force. The more you push me down, the more I will come up again to fight back)

So, if you get one of these replies, please don’t forget to send them a courtesy emails thanking them for time. Because you didn’t ask them before flooding their email inbox(s) and you wanted to see if you reach a common ground!

I know I do this everytime. And I know I would like to see a thank you note(atleast) from the person who sent me the first horrendously complex introductory emails. But that is just me

And the last tip for the post, don’t forget to keep your profile ( Academic Resume, Summary of interests, Linkedin Profile, email accounts, phone numbers, etc.) updated!!

Keep sharing and following! Have a good day! As again, I would love to read your stories

Share your stories and follow. I need motivation so does everyone So, just keep it on !!

Have a good day!

Country/Schools update – New Zealand first

Fair day people! In last two weeks or so, I have applied to various universities around the world ( See my previous blog on which countries I applied). Even though I started and spent most of my learning (how to approach professors and schools) time for US schools such as Cornell and Yale, I am glad to inform that I have completed my first round of phd e-mails to

New Zealand – (1) – University of Auckland

Remember my last post about countries short-listing, for the most part University of Auckland at New Zealand (Business School) ranks low on the catch part for me. As you know I want to research in the field of “the strategic implementation and supply chain integration of information systems”. I applied to the head of the Department since I was unable to find/locate any relevant and descriptive research interests for any of the faculty members. (Tip#1)

On the other note, there are some schools that you think are easy for you and some are tough. This is the easy one. I am sure that my profile makes it very competitive for them to not select them. This is a good thing, as I see for now.

The information systems department is associated with the department of business at UoA and I approached one of the ranked professors at this school. Simple method! Show your interest in the program and professor’s research. Don’t forget to send your latest updated academic resume attached!

Note: Please remember faking your research interest won’t take you anywhere. You are going to be out even before you got in to the school. Since Phd is a very serious affair, do what you really like. It is okay to be confused (for now) however, but liking for the sake of liking will not go very far. Take time to explore Professor’s latest papers and his research interests. In my exploration experience ( as I say it), for ninety percent of the professor’s, their homepage or faculty page will have a separate section called Research Interests which will clearly say what his/her interests are. Now, all you have to do is to figure out if your research interests match upto his/ her research interests. I think even if it is remotely similar, you stand a shot of getting a good reply. So don’t worry if that is not exactly what you are willing to do, just go ahead and write a note to the professor asking for details on his research interests and also don’t forget to write your interests!

Stay tuned for more schools/countries update next!

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