Maclagan Edition 3

VOL. 3 | APRIL 2021

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PECFest 2021 - An Online Trailblaze

By Piyush Gulati

By the time you’ll be reading this, chances are that you would have witnessed a complete online fest unfold by. While the fest wasn’t exactly “sugar, spice, and everything nice”, as attested by the countless memes, confessions and “dank” people of PEC, it was in its entirety a trailblaze.

The trail of this fest dates back to last year.

Crushing people’s hopes and lungs throughout the world, the Covid-19 pandemic did not leave the fest behind too. PECFest 2021 (deemed to be 2020-21) hit various personal and technical roadblocks in its online inception.

OVERVIEW: PECFest 2021 - An Online Trailblaze Book Review : The Tower of Nero Cultural Comment : Venture Mars with Vandi How To : Intern Edition Yes, But Why? The Life Of : J.K. Rowling

The last quarter of the previous year saw varying cases and states of panic with the dips and peaks on the covid graph. The ever-changing situation of the pandemic created random bouts of hope that people might just have a shot at enjoying the essence of the fest offline but only to fall out, ultimately stripping their motivation bit by bit.

While there are many layers of despair, confusion, and acceptance that ultimately led to the fest being online, it wasn’t soon after that people in different committees started getting the hang of organizing the online fest - the first of its kind, that too.

Demotivation and uncertainty never left the side of students and faculty of PEC alike, creating moments of tension. Against all odds, the week before the fest induced a newfound sense of vigor in everyone, as the core committee announced a solid artist lineup; one of the finest in the fest's history. The lineup comprised goliath stand-ups such as Zakir Khan, Abhishek Upmanyu, Rahul Dua, prominent actors including Rohit Saraf and Gagan Arora and two amazing music composers, Anuv Jain, and Ankur Tiwari. This barrage of stars gave immense traction to the fest right before its start and got everyone talking. Another major win for the fest was the virtual tour of the college. The virtual tour gave everyone access to live streams of ongoing events at different locations on the campus, replicating the experience one would hope to have offline.

Finally, the fest flagged off on 9th April and saw immense participation from various colleges around India. The mega-shows were a great success, with both the musicians resonating with the audience and striking all the emotional chords. While attendees overlooked minor glitches and lame RJ’s, Zakir Khan’s event on the third day was a breaking point for many. Owing to a very high flow of attendees in the zoom call, the meet was filled to its entire capacity within minutes of the link circulating WhatsApp groups. This led to many people being removed in between the show from the call. As expected, the fest ended with uproar from the agitated students voicing out their complaints over the zoom call limit and supposed bias to outside college people and alumni over the current students.

But this article is not a first-hand account of how the subsequent events unfolded, the PR team is enough for that (or maybe not). It is about the online fest being a trailblaze, primarily because of the precedence which was set. By the time the next fest arrives, it is highly unlikely that people remember the glitches but that PEC as a college pulled off a completely online fest with a colossal artist lineup of seven stars, alongside already securing the stars for the next offline fest. Hence our trail ends at the legacy they leave behind for the reputation of PECfest in the upcoming years, which is radical at the very least.

Book Review

The Tower of Nero

By Alabh Raj Taru

Beautiful endings are often compared to sunsets and although the cessation of ‘The Trials of Apollo’ pentalogy is immensely beautiful, it is because, Apollo, the sun-god, rose again.

Rick Riordan once again delves into the deepest and most forgotten greek myths and gives it a modern day touch, something which he specializes in and has been doing for the last 15 years.

This series about how Apollo, the Greek sun god, is cast onto Earth, all-human, as a punishment and has to face his past godly sins, ends through this book in a conclusive manner. The culmination of the adventures, sorrow, lessons and Apollo constantly whining was delivered excellently in ‘The Tower of Nero’. Though it was quite obvious that Apollo would take back his place on Olympus again, everyone was curious of how he would feel and behave right after. Well, Rick Riordan did not disappoint. We are all very familiar with the way that he portrays gods- arrogant, powerful, dumb and utterly annoying yet hilarious at the same time.

It is rare that he portrays them as intelligent and thoughtful creatures that the myths tell us they are. Though Apollo had been whiny right till the end, his demeanor when he was changed back into a god was nothing short of satisfying and heartwarming. The way he feels awkward back in his chiseled body, how he gets flustered when meeting other gods, hesitant to try his own powers, it was all delivered to us in such a perfect manner that I could not help but smile as I read the last few pages.

The book concluded the arc of all other characters just as well. Meg, Apollo’s 13 year old demigod partner/master, found her place in the world. She didn’t give in to Nero’s manipulation, which showed how far she had made it. Fighting against abuse is nowhere near easy, but Meg’s character shows how to go about it in an inspiring but never unrealistic way. That’s probably the best aspect of any Rick Riordan novel- he teaches. He educates his readers, a majority of which are teenagers, about so many things. He inspires them, makes characters that makes every kid feel included and not alone.

The way Rick delivers the fight scenes, the one liners, the comic punches and the ever-favorite sarcasm is all perfectly timed and never seems too much or too less. His genius with words is almost unparalleled in the whole of fantasy genre. And although, everyone loves his hilarious portrayal of gods, it did get a bit repetitive and annoying when even in the final battles, Apollo, who has learnt and grown so much in the last four novels, still cribs about his unfair situation and wanting to run away. But then again, who knows how gods will act if trapped within a human body?

‘The Trials of Apollo’ comes to an end with this last novel. The whole thing started as a punishment for Apollo, but it ended with him learning so much about life that he never had in his 2000 years of existence. He learns to love others instead of just himself. He learns to understand other’s pain. He learns humility, kindness, self-sacrifice. Yet he didn’t fight with Zeus for his tyranny. He doesn’t try to change other gods. He makes peace with the fact that they are how they are and that it is him who shouldn’t let go of the way he is. He found peace. And as he had promised Jason, Apollo did not forget how it was ‘to be human.’

Cultural Comment

Venture Mars with Vandi

By Dolsi Varshney

A “30 seconds and counting. T-25 seconds. Twenty seconds and counting. T-15 seconds, guidance is internal. 12, 11, 10, 9… ignition sequence starts...6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0... All engines running. Liftoff! We have a liftoff… 32 minutes past the hour, liftoff on Perseverance. Tower clear.”

This zeal and enthusiasm kick-started one of the most awaited Mars Exploration missions. But who was the mastermind behind it?

“Searching for personnel by the name of Vandana Verma Perseverance lands at La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States 34°12ʹ6.1ʺN and 118°10ʹ18ʺW Coordinates: 34°12ʹ6.1ʺN 118°10ʹ18ʺW. Jet Propulsion Lab Science Division, NASA. Enterprise is clear to dock!”

Vandana Verma, popularly known as Vandi, a proud Chief Engineer for the Robotic Operations Team, has contributed as a space roboticist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and for driving the Mars rovers, notably Curiosity and Perseverance.

Born and raised in Halwara, Punjab in India at the home of an Air force officer, Vandi always had an inclination towards space. Little did the child, who once received a book on the solar system for her birthday, know that one day she would drive a rover on Mars. From driving a tractor at 11 on the coarse Indian soil, she drove the Rover at the rocky terrain of Mars with the same enthusiasm and devotion.

“I really think I have one of the coolest jobs in the world,” said Vandi, her interest in space fueled by her love for one of the most popular sci-fi TV series Star Trek. Vandi was simply fascinated and intrigued by the working of the universe.

Speaking of fascinations. What can be more fascinating than walking through the lands of another planet. "Curiosity Rover mission" which began on 26 November 2011 became the legs and eyes of the scientists of NASA. Intending to find if Mars was ever a habitable place, Curiosity has been functional for almost 3092

sols now. According to data collected by Curiosity, giant flash floods once washed through Gale Crater on Mars' equator around 4 Billion years ago. This hints at the possible planetary habitability. To accompany our "Curiosity" another rover named "Perseverance" was launched on July 30, 2020. The "Perseverance mission" is a major step in the exploration of Mars' mission aimed at looking for signs of ancient life. The rover is facilitated by a coring drill for sample collection which is then docked and sealed. A total of 37 samples are to be collected.

Invest in understanding the fundamentals. Apply what you’ve learned to solve the problems you encounter. Fill the gaps in your understating by continuing to learn, experiment, and invent.

A subsequent mission involves the collection of these samples followed by launching them from mars into orbit going to rendezvous with that and bring those samples back to earth. The whole mission is exhilarating as for the first time the laboratories will have samples from mars to examine. Now, keeping stats for the nerds aside.

Vandi is an amateur when she says, “I can be found backpacking the John Muir Trail, climbing the Royal Arches, flying an airplane to Castle, skiing, cooking and dancing with friends, or hiking our favorite trails in the Sierras with our toddlers.”

She did her undergraduate in electrical engineering at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. She did her Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in the Robotics field.

This scholar received a huge number of awards and accolades, including six NASA Honors Awards and two MSL awards since 2008.

Vandi, an Indian woman who made our heads rise in pride cannot be a better role model for today’s gen who thrive for knowledge and wish to dedicate their lives to the advancement of science. Vandi pitches in her share of motivation for them by “Invest in understanding the fundamentals. Apply what you’ve learned to solve the problems you encounter. Fill the gaps in your understating by continuing to learn, experiment, and invent. Learn to communicate your ideas to others and understand theirs. Work in a team to solve even larger problems. Gain a breadth of knowledge in an area you’re passionate about by serially delving deeply into different aspects and you’ll have a tremendous time.”

Roger that!

How To : Intern Edition

Demystifying CS Internships

By Hamza Ali Rizvi and Interviewed by Arushi Aggarwal

Rising in popularity over the past few years with the surge in AI and Machine Learning, Tech internships and jobs are, to no one’s surprise, highly sought after. Coupled with a cushy job, the brand value of most of these companies and buzzwords like “Data Science” and “Deep Learning”, you’ve got yourself a package which markets itself.

Here’s the misbelief that somehow gets passed down from each year doing a summer internship before your 6th semester will help during the internship cycle. It might impress the interviewer, but the trail stops there.

Here’s why: an 8 week summer internship doesn’t provide the student time to learn enough. In a common scenario, the intern spends their very 1st week onboarding and familiarising themselves with the code base. Similarly, the last week goes by in handovers and closing out any pending tasks or delegating them to relevant Person of Contact. Effectively, there’s 6 weeks of actual internship experience. Most companies simply don’t think that’s enough time to learn a lot, a fact reflected in how most on-campus companies hire for the entire semester. As much as we pretend it doesn’t exist, brand bias is very real and start-up internships fail miserably in this cycle.

This definitely shouldn’t deter you from finding a summer internship, but the crux of “cracking it” lies in your preparation - namely, DSA (Data Structures and Algorithms) and projects in the domain you’re interested in. Maintain an active GitHub profile: - it goes a long way for interviewers to view your source code and contributions over the year.

A myth that deters most students during the internship process is the possibility of not being selected due to low CGPA. As long as you sit above the threshold most companies have (typically 6/7) for cut-offs, you don’t have to worry about your CGPA playing a role in rejection. Tech interviews usually hone in on your ability to problem solve and explain your intended solution in a way convincing enough that they agree with your analysis.

Most people stick to one domain - boxing themselves in only one area of expertise, a mistake in your early career. Don’t be afraid to try out new things even if you fail at them. You don’t have control over the type of internship you get and you cannot wait out your entire internship cycle waiting for the, say, far and few Data Science roles. In my first year, I came to the college aiming to hone my skills further in Game Development. Once I realised that game development is very limited in India, it led me to pursue another domain I had always been curious about Machine Learning.

During my 2nd year, I interned at a startup, SpaceNos, to explore the different roles that CS offered. I was a Technical Product Manager and my job entailed me to design the blueprint of the product and perform market research on similar products. At the end of my research, I had to put all my findings in a handbook to be used by the developer team for production.

After that intern, I was still none the wiser about my interests and wished to explore further, leading me to intern at Harvest Inc (Remote) as an ML Engineer.

As part of my role, I built production models and web scrapers. This internship gave me valuable experience in the role data cleanup, formatting and procuring data takes in Machine Learning as opposed to modelling.

During my 6th semester, I interned at Airbus (Bangalore). Airbus was looking for interns experienced in Machine Learning Theory and Web Development - both of which I had dabbled in previously. The interviews focused on how well you understand the different models and techniques involved in Machine Learning and the practical application of the same in hypothetical scenarios. I was in the Simulation department where engineers of other departments would theorise possible features which I had to build a prototype for and demonstrate it to the team.

My very last tip would be a question that you should ask yourself :

Do I want to do core CS? Do I see myself writing code, reviewing others’ code and putting in constant long hours over 20 years?

Yes But Why?

By Atulya Mani Tripathi Hopefully, this article leaves your knowledge of Shakespeare with a lot more substance, the way the Bard did with English literature.

William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest writer in western literature, a seat perhaps challenged only by Sophocles. As universally accepted as this statement is, the rationale behind it often amounts to the quantity of his work alone, which, while important, is merely a part of the true evaluation of his genius.

Since we value what we haven’t known, let’s have a look at the generic nature of plays written before Shakespeare. You had a hero, a villain, a damsel-in-distress, a father (who must turn to the hero to save his daughter from the villain, with the promise of giving him her hand) and a comic relief (as unrelated to the play as Johnny Lever in 90s movies)

Shakespeare brought into the mix a fresh whiff of complexity of characters coupled with moral conundrum. Let’s get into the nuances of these terms. Even one of Shakespeare’s supposed worst plays, Merchant of Venice, had a complex antagonist in the form of Shylock. His obvious tyranny isn’t enough for the reader to condemn him without considering society’s treatment of him. His quandaries also intended to make the reader think twice before deciding: What is right and what is wrong? Is it right and is it wrong? Where do you draw the line? One of the most quoted lines of Shakespeare, “To be or not to be”, essentially boils down to this same dilemma.

In a similar fashion, the sonnets before Shakespeare focused on unattainable love in a rather courtly way, whereas Shakespeare paved the way for romanticism with his complex and sometimes (for the era) controversial description of love where he played with gender roles with openly sexual references.

In an enormous vocabulary of over 20,000 words, his works provide the first use of over 1,700 words in the English language. Apart from the influence on the language and style, what a posthumous legacy! Romeo and Juliet, along with Comedy of Errors, influence the foundations of most plots used in theatre and cinema. Works like Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello are adapted into critically celebrated pieces of art in languages completely unrelated to English 400 years after his death.

The Life of

JK Rowling

By Ishaan Verma This article visits the rags-to-riches life of the world's first billionaire author, and the genius behind the Harry Potter series - JK Rowling. Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being named the world's first billionaire author by Forbes.

years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms.

Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, born 31 July 1965 to a science technician and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer The “K” in her professional name stands for Kathleen—in honor of her grandmother—but is not actually her middle name (she doesn’t have one) Friends and family call her "Jo." Rowling has said that her teenage

Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths, and Siouxsie Sioux, adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black eyeliner, a look that she still sported when beginning university.

She was on a four-hour delayed train trip from Manchester to London when the idea "came fully formed" into her mind for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry.

Rowling initially penned the ideas for Harry Potter on a napkin, while on the train from Manchester to London in 1990.

The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

In December 1990, Rowling's mother died. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channeled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's grief in greater detail in the first book. Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her first marriage and told that her then husband had slapped her and did not regret it.

She was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Her depression inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.

Her headmaster at her primary school was the inspiration for the headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Rowling said she based the character of Hermione Granger on her 11year-old self.

In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which was typed on an old manual typewriter.

The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later, she was finally given the green light from Bloomsbury. The decision to publish Rowling's book owes much to Bloomsbury's chairman's daughter, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.

Rowling was the runner-up for Time’s title of Person of the Year in 2007, losing to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

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