An introduction of the writer to the reader, if you will

My head faces a dilemma presently. A part of me wants me to do well in my work or research without an explicit announcement on the internet about my arrival. The other understands the power of putting-myself-out-there and conversing about my interests, ideas, and analyses. This dilemma has been there for a while, but initially, it started out with a sense of under-fulfilment to the image of a confident technical writer. Now I think I want to write.

I want to write for the sake of anything I read or watch that takes me a while to catch or comprehend deeply. That wants me to prove if I get it after all. So here comes an attempt that hopefully takes my side.

I am Geetika, and as of April 2024 - I am a penultimate undergraduate pursuing a major in Computer Science Engineering and specialising in Artificial Intelligence. I wouldn’t exactly say that I wanted to be an engineer all my life, or I was coding and making chips since third grade because I hadn’t been that certain till pretty recently.

In my first semester of college, taking a course on Intelligent Systems (very introductory), I realised computer science is pretty cool. I started holding the idea that, at the end of the day, humans just want to create something as complex as them. I started loving CS. There began my exploration of Artificial Intelligence. It took me from Natural Language Processing to Game Theory to Computer Vision to Reinforcement Learning. I never found much passion for CS in my part of town, so it always seems like a contrarian way of dealing with the subject. But then I gradually understood that that’s the slower, more sensible way of knowing something. I am so glad I understood that by the end of the second year.

I started reading amazing research papers, following amazing researchers, and reading about their journeys through CS, and I am always very inspired. I am also an avid reader. Agatha Christie kindled the habit that has taken me from Stephen King to Brian Christian to Vaclav Smil. As Mark Twain said, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” This helps pretty well. I sketch+paint a few times a month to justify the overloaded art supplies drawer somehow.

Through these blogs, I’d want to document what I have learned, explore the craft, and chronicle how I break and fix stuff. This is definitely more of a personal journal than something I need readers for. Feel free to accompany though; I’d love to hear from you.

With admiration and gratitude,

Geetika