Look Who's Talking!

Adventurous, intelligent, and cool, undergraduate Vikram Manjunath's going places...find out more about his uncensored opinions about CS, his daring future plans, and even catch a peek at his sketch of David Eckhardt!

Can you tell me a little about yourself?
I was born in Michigan, then I moved to India in middle school, and my family finally moved there in ’92. I lived there until 2000 when I came here as a freshman—and I’ve been in Pittsburgh since.

What’s your favorite class (CS/non-CS)?
That’s a hard one. So almost every semester, I’ve taken an interesting class and it’s been my ‘favorite’ class. Looking back, one of my favorite classes would have to be Compilers [15-411]—the material that was taught was very interesting and I learned a lot. 312 [15-312, Foundations of Programming Languages] was really fun, Bob Harper was an awesome teacher, and now I’m currently TA-ing [Teaching Assistant] it. Before that I think my favorite class was 251 [15-251], and as everyone knows 251 is Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science, taught by Steven Rudich, and it’s one of the courses that makes the Carnegie Mellon undergraduate degree in Computer Science what it is.

If you could add another class to the schedule, what would it be and why?
I don’t know how realistic this is, but some of my friends and I were thinking it would be very cool if we had this one class which spanned one or two semesters, and you’d have lots of people getting together: business majors, computer science majors, and other majors—and you’d start a company—a real company. So you have actual CS majors writing real code, for a real product. You’d start the company when the semester starts in the fall, and you’d bring it through the whole year. And you’d do it for credit too, except this company makes money, and whoever is in the class is a part of it. And you don’t really need that much money because it’s a class, so you could use school facilities…I don’t know how this would work legally…but it would be really cool if you could actually start a real company, go through the whole life cycle—where you come up with the produce, you design it—you have business people taking classes and could market it and all that goodness, and here you’d have a real company and you’d come out with a real product and sell it. That would be really cool! How awesome would it be to throw a bunch of students together—there’s no lecture, no homework, nothing, and there’d be this professor who is a CEO, and you’d just run this company!

How many, and which classes have you TA’d?
I started with CA-ing 15-100 [Introductory Programming], since then I’ve TA’d 212 [Principles of Programming] twice, and I’m TA-ing 312 this semester.

Since you mentioned you liked 251 so much, have you ever thought about TA-ing it?
Well, I’m not sure if I would like to TA 251 because even though it was great class, I don’t feel as comfortable with that material as with stuff that I have TA’d

What do you like most about Carnegie Mellon?
I really like the environment it gives you—from the point of view of the people you’re around—you’re around some of the smartest, most intelligent, most brilliant computer scientists in the world. This summer I worked here as a research assistant with Bob Harper and Karl Crary, who are amazing professors, and they gave me an office on the 8th floor [of Wean Hall]. As I walked down to my office down the hallway, I’d look on either side and I’d see all these awesome names, and I thought, ‘wow, I have an office for the summer in the same hallway as all these amazing people’—just being able to interact with people of that caliber is really nice! And you do actually get to work with these people—it’s not like they're just here and that’s it—you work with them and you learn a lot from them. The peer group here is also very good. You learn so much from your peers, and Carnegie Mellon does have a pretty high standard for acceptance, and so people you end up taking your classes with are actually the people you learn the most from. There are a lot of people you can learn from…and I think that’s one of the best parts of Carnegie Mellon…or at least CS at Carnegie Mellon!

If you could change one thing about Carnegie Mellon, what would it be?
About Carnegie Mellon in general, or CS?

Let’s go with both—Computer Science first
Well, I’d put 151 back—151 is basically discrete math, and it’s a starting level of 251, and it was the coolest class! And Klaus Sutner has to teach it! 151 with Klaus was the greatest freshman experience. And I think that most people who took the class with me would agree—we actually filled out a petition and all to keep it—I don’t know if they did anything with the petition, but we really think it’s missing. I’d definitely put that back! I really like the way 151 and 251 work—they’re really hard—but they were awesome and we learned so much!

And what would you change about Carnegie Mellon in general?
If I had to change something…I’d move it to California. Not actually, better yet, I’d move it to the Bahamas!

So you don’t like…?
I don’t like the weather here in Pittsburgh. I don’t know…the weather is just very depressing.

Do you like Pittsburgh?
I don’t know if I can say that much about Pittsburgh. Because not having a car, you don’t really get to see too much of the city—like most undergrads here—I haven’t seen too much of it. So I don’t really feel like I should be saying whether Pittsburgh’s great or not, because I don’t really know too much about it. But the weather sucks.

What do you do for fun?
I play a lot of tennis, but that’s obviously not something I can do enough of at Carnegie Mellon because of the weather! I do a little bit of cartooning—just drawing pictures, and that’s basically it. I listen to a lot of music—I don’t play an instrument or anything because I just don’t have much musical talent—but I like listening to a lot of different kinds of music…I know that sounds really cliché, but…I don’t know, just sit around I guess. Since I got to Carnegie Mellon, I haven’t had much time to just pursue hobbies—but this semester, since it’s my last, I’ve been trying to take it a little easy!

From all the experiences you’ve had at CMU, what’s been your most cherished memory?
Umm…uh…it’s all just been one big…umm…ok, fine, you guys asking me to do this interview ;-) [winks]

What are you going to miss the most about Carnegie Mellon?
The people here…my friends, professors, the whole atmosphere…just like I was talking about earlier. The people here are pretty awesome and inspirational. I’m going to really miss that. I’m looking for a job now, and so when I graduate and when I start working, I don’t know if I’m going to find a similar group of people who I can learn so much from and be inspired by. Plus, you build real friendships over three years—three pretty hard years of your life!

Would you say that your experience here is what you thought the college experience would be—when everyone referred to the “college experience”—was this what you thought of?
It’s everything I expected. I expected to be working hard, which I think I have done; I expected to meet lots of interesting people, which I did; I expected to work with brilliant minds, again yes—so it’s been everything I expected—and then some! I’ve had a really awesome three years!

Where are you going from here?
I have no idea. Anywhere from working for Microsoft to flipping burgers at McDonalds. I have no idea—I’m looking for a job, I have some interviews coming up, but I have no idea what’s going to happen!

[This interview occurred when Vikram was waiting to receive job offers--he currently has offers from several companies, ranging from various local start-ups to Oracle and Microsoft]

I really like teaching though, and so that’s one of the things I actually might end up doing for a year or two—become a school teacher. I do want to go to graduate school, and come back to school, and so at some point I wouldn’t mind retiring as a teacher, so preferably at a college level where people actually care what their studying. Teaching is really fun, and I really like it. At some point I would like to do that. Hopefully one day I will be able to go back to India and start school there, and teach there.

Really?!?
Yeah, that would be really cool. I went to high school in India and I know so many people who are really really really smart. Those kids just don’t have the opportunities that we have in America, and I think it’s really unfortunate—they’re really smart kids, and I think they deserve a shot. I would like to go back to India and start a school that’s perhaps just as good as Carnegie Mellon—or maybe even something like CMUEast—or something like that, and just provide a good computer science education—we could move it even beyond India, and just spread such a good education across the globe!

Tell me more about your high school in India
It was really crappy. It was in Bangalore, and it was really really crappy. There were like 110 people in a little classroom the size of 5409 Wean Hall. It was like a normal middle class school in India—it wasn’t a public school—but I paid like $40 a year in tuition, so I mean, it was not expensive at all. I cut class all the time and had a lot of friends, but there were some really smart kids—it was supposed to be one of the best schools in the city, but it’s unfortunate that they just didn’t have the opportunity like I had to come here.

What’s your dream job like?
My dream job involves programming in ML—that’s all my dream job entails—writing code in ML and being paid to do it! I don’t know if I’ll find a job like that anytime soon, but that would be it!

So if you were to become a teacher, you’d just teach in ML?
Oh yeah, I’d probably teach everything in ML, starting with intro-programming, ending with networks, compilers, you know, whatever!

What’s your favorite color?
Purple

What’s your favorite place in the world?
Sydney, Australia. I’ve been there once, and it was the most amazing city I’ve ever been to. I’m going back there this summer for month, so that should be cool.

What’s your dream vacation like?
In the mountains, in India [the Himalayan Mountains], with broadband internet, and as many Linux machines as required. I want the basics—you know, bathroom, kitchen, and then broadband internet and the cluster!

What’s your favorite holiday and why?
I’m not really much of a holiday person. I’m kind of a grinch…but I like basically any day that will give me a day off from work!

If you didn’t go into a technical field, what would you have done in another life?
I’d draw cartoons—I’d create a comic strip.

What motto/philosophy do you live life by?
" F*** it dude, let’s go bowling." It’s from the Big Lebowsky

Complete this sentence: when the going gets tough I ...
When the going gets tough, I crack open a couple of beers and chill

When you think about the future, do you feel scared, happy, sad…?
Well, for the most part, it’s just like, there’s nothing you can do about it, so, let’s go bowling!

David Eckhardt,
Senior Research Systems Programmer,
by Vikram Manjunath

More Interviews