Erudite Talks with Alumni-Article 3
Jitin Singla(2015-Btech-CSE), Graduate Researcher @ the University of Southern California (USC)
Introduction
- Tell us briefly about yourself.
I am Jitin Singla and I am currently enrolled in the Doctorate program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. I am also a Visiting Graduate Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). With regards to my Ph.D. I ended up getting involved in multiple centers and projects on the USC campus.
I graduated from IIT Roorkee with a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2015. Even though I was a CS student at IITR, I was inclined towards studying and pursuing life sciences in my career. From the very start of my undergraduate, I never saw myself getting an IT job and as I moved ahead in B.Tech, I got more and more consolidated on not ending up in an industry job. This was unusual for me at the time, as I was a high CGPA student and that too from CS major, so I was expected to get a high paying job.
I am working under the supervision of Prof. Frank Alber (UCLA) and Prof. Raymond C. Stevens (USC). My lab is also affiliated with The Bridge (Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience) @ USC, which is working to bring various fields of science, engineering, and media together to tackle 21st-century challenges. I also lead an Image analysis meeting as a member of the Pancreatic Beta Cell Consortium, which is a team of more than 15 labs around the world that came together to build a multiscale whole-cell model of human pancreatic beta-cell to design better therapeutics for diabetes. As a part of this consortium and ambition of my supervisor to bring Art and Sciences together for better understanding and communicating science to the public, I also get affiliated as a Scientific Advisor to “World In A Cell” project which is a collaboration with Cinema School at USC to create a fully experiential virtual world of a single Pancreatic Beta Cell, using the metaphor of the complex systems of a city.
The decision to go for Further Studies
- When did you realize that this is what you wanted to do?
During my stay at IITR, I got in contact with multiple seniors and a few professors, who guided me figuring out the right career choice for me. I had some idea about heading for further studies but my interaction with them made it an easy decision for me. I am saying easy because I am aware and have seen students scratching their heads around what exactly they want to do after graduating from college. But I think it’s not that hard of a decision. One can have multiple options from UPSC, MBA, Job to Start-up, but one should hit one road instead of wasting time and energy at the junction.
- Your motivation for giving higher studies more importance than securing a job through placements?
Of course, the execution of your decision might not be easy, given parental and peer pressure, lack of skill set, and also lack of information on how to pursue that path. But the decision of which path you want to walk should be made with confidence first and with your passion in mind. For me also, I had to convince my parents a bit of why I am leaving job offers. But instead of spending a lot of time convincing them for what I want to do, I went ahead applied for the universities and once I got an offer, they were a little relieved. I am saying this as an example, that one should out-weight these factors with their passion and career goals.
A lot of my classmates from CS batch, who ended up getting jobs in India have left jobs and applied for either Masters or Ph.D. programs in the US, or have done start-ups or gone for UPSC. I can’t say definitely that whether they had these plans already charted out in the first place or it was the boredom with the job. But one thing is clear that many ended up doing things where they could express themselves much better in terms of creativity and freedom.
For me, getting a Ph.D. was also important as a prerequisite for what I wanted to do 10 years down the line. I was getting into the idea of becoming a faculty member at one of the IITs. It ended up aligning amazingly well in many different ways. I could follow my passion for research, teaching, and mentoring undergraduates. It comes with the freedom to pursue your research interests. I could work for research and development in India, which I think is one of the most important things in the list of making India a better society again. And if I could do something in computational biology, then it will benefit both my inclination towards life sciences as well as serve the shortage of Computational Biologists in India.
- Things you finally ended up doing to land yourself at the university for further studies?
As I got aware of what I wanted to do after B.Tech (however vague), I started preparing myself in terms of prerequisites and skillsets. Although both my internships (after sophomore and junior year) were in experimental zebrafish labs, I never left behind my required attention to computer science courses. This was of immense help later when I started applying for my Ph.D. Sometime during my 3rd-year internship in Germany when I was interacting with few professors, I realized it will be foolish to leave such a powerful skill set in computer science behind and go for complete experimental biology. So when I returned I ended up doing my undergraduate thesis in cancer informatics, which was the first time I had done something in the domain of computational biology. And because I finished my project by early November, I could show that on my Ph.D. applications, along with my experience in biology labs and my good grades on computer science courses. I think all of these worked together in landing me at USC.
Another important thing worth pointing out is regarding the field of research I applied for. Most students naturally want to do things they had experienced in the past, which I think is delusional many times. Yes, we feel comfortable and confident about projects or fields like that, but getting a little loose on those criteria might be a good choice. For example, because I worked on a cancer informatics project for my undergraduate project, I thought that’s what I want to do and should apply for. So I ended up applying to universities for Ph.D. in cancer informatics, which means the list of professors I browsed online was also in a similar field. Finally, when I chose USC because of the few options of professors working in cancer, I ended up working in a completely different field of Structural Cell Biology. And now I think this is for me :)
Concluding Paragraphs
- Future plans
In the future, after I graduate from my Ph.D. program, I am planning to get research experience in another area of computational biology for a year maybe and then go ahead and do which started it all. Apply for faculty positions at IITs back in India.
- Advice to the campus junta
Lastly, I want to point out a few of the takeaways from my experiences through this process.
● Start planning about after-B.Tech. plans by the end of the 5th semester if possible. This will help you start building necessary skill sets and prerequisites during the rest of the 3rd year and internship.
● Even if you don’t have a clear idea of what to and what not to, take your time at IIT to honestly investigate and explore available options. Many times we start liking things once we have honestly dug into them. Being at IIT is one of the benefits you have as it provides you the freedom to pursue whatever you want.
● Always be in contact with relevant and mature seniors, who can guide you through thought turmoils. Don’t afraid to reach out to Alumni as well.
● One of the most important factors, I think is, to try to align your passion with what is required in the field and society. That way no one will be able to stop you and all other opposing factors will fade out slowly over time.
Good luck with your endeavors.
Personal website link:-https://www.jitinsingla.in/
LinkedIn ID:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/singlajitin
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OBXIcNAAAAAJ&hl=en