Out of sheer laziness, I am not writing a new post but simply copy pasting an old email of mine. I had sent this across to a favorite teacher of mine at school and I think it should be an interesting read to all.
Dear Sir,
I very well remembered my promise. In fact I had also told you that give me a month's time so that I can understand this place better. I am not using that as an excuse to write in so late, but still, its been only 3 days over a month, I have been here. :) I guess thats too lame an excuse, but you know me too well to take offense to that!
Its no doubt been an awesome month for me. I am so glad I decided to come here. I guess I didn't tell you this, but I had offers from 3 places to chose from. The first was with the company with which I had interned last year, BHP Billiton. They were relocating me this time to Perth and I am sure it would have been a wonderful experience. The other one was from Bielefeld University in Germany. My mom was initially very keen for me to go for this, simply because it was giving me the additional opportunity of having a fun filled "Eurotrip". But when the MIT offer came along, there were absolutely no doubts for me. I think you will also agree with me on this.
Coming to the place itself, I should try to explain to you what exactly I am doing here. I am working at MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.(MIT-ISN). Its a very advanced research laboratory which is funded by the US Army, in fact the technologies being developed here are all put to use by the US Army. My guide here has 2-3 patents to his name, all of which have been used in developing technologies for the "war against terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe what I am doing here will also affect the ongoing conflict in some way or another, however small or insignificant that may be. I do not know whether I should be happy or sad for that.
To describe my work in a nutshell, I have been assigned 2 projects. The first deals with developing and designing fuel cells which can offer an alternative and cheaper option to other non renewable energy resources. In all previous fuel cells designed, Platinum was used as the primary catalyst for the reduction of oxygen to water. This has 2 major problems. 1.Its way too expensive to be used on a commercial scale. 2 Platinum gets poisoned very easily by dust particles, so the cell also has longevity issues. Our team here is working on using Multi walled Carbon Nanotubes coupled with 3d metals as an alternative to Platinum. So far the results are pretty promising and I have already have had a paper written, which should find its way in to the Journal of American Chemical Society. However that isnt my head ache, so I am not really bothered about that.
My second project is on developing electromechanical actuators using again MWCNTs, which can then be used as artificial muscles in prosthetic limbs and other similar attachments I haven't had the time to start my work on this, but I am so engrossed in my previous work, that frankly I don't have the energy or inclination to start something afresh all of a sudden. If only IIT allowed us 6-8 months for internships, as they allow here abroad. Thats one thing I really hate about the IIT system....they are far far too rigid, and are never ever open to changes that might benefit the student fraternity. I seriously believe that students in their final year should be allowed to pursue interns for at least 6 months. They would play a much bigger role in developing our academic careers rather than making them go through the monotonous routine of classes and labs and mid terms and quizzes and end terms. But this is a separate issue, best not discussed here.
This Sir, is the end of my introduction to what I have been sent out here to do. In my next email, I shall be describing the place in more detail.I know I would not have been able to do justice to it in just 1 email, so I am going to break up my letters. But do not worry, the next one wont be as delayed as this one. It might come out within a few hours or a week at most. That is my promise.
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