Hello I'm

Soorya Rethinasamy

What really gets the gears running for me is to find something that no one else has done before and physics is a great field to do that.

B.E. Computer Science

M.Sc. Physics

CGPA: 9.51

EXPERIENCE

July 2020 - Nov 2020

VMWare

Member of Technical Staff

I worked on server virtualization and network virtualisation. The work was core computer science work and was more interesting than the same in DE Shaw.

Jan 2020- July 2020

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Research Collaborator

I did it independently on the topic- Quantum Error Correction- The last unsolved puzzle of QC. I knew good resources and I used to read books and research papers and summarized what I learnt. Unlike my 5-1 thesis, I didn’t do anything new. It was a literature survey. But there was one positive effect out of it -I now had every tool needed to actually do a project.

Aug 2019- Jan 2020

Louisiana State University

Research Collaborator

It was my 5-1 Thesis where I worked under Dr. Mark Wilde in the Hearne Institute of Theoretical Physics on Quantum Information Theory.

May 2019- July 2019

The D.E. Shaw Group

Intern

The company gets emails from analysts. My job was to create a program that extracts important information from these mails.

May 2018 – Jul 2018

Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad

Indian Academy of Sciences Fellow

This was my first research experience. I did a project based on Quantum Information Theory and Monogamy of Quantum Correlations.

QnA

In school, both the subjects, computer science and physics appealed to me. My dad introduced me to quantum computation and I happened to like it. Eventually in 2-2, I did this amazing course called ‘Quantum Information and Computing’ which piqued my interest in QC.

I secured this via cold emailing but I have to admit, this was the biggest golden egg in my life. He knew the field I was working in, the topic I was working in and knew the professor I had worked under at HRI Allahabad. So, when you pick your professor, don’t just select the best professors of that field. Do your due-diligence well. A great place to start is to send emails to the professors’ research groups. They’ll give you a lot of insights about the professor and the work currently going on in the lab.

I was active in Controls and FMaC but they didn’t contribute anything to my profile. For Ph.D. these extracurricular activities don’t matter, for Masters they do. If you are applying for a Ph.D. they expect you to know your field well enough to not depend on extracurriculars to do well.

Yes, I did two internships in IT: at DE Shaw (it's a FinTech company based out of New York) and at VMWare (virtualization company all over the world). Both of them had their advantages and disadvantages. One thought that occurred to me was that even if I have the most interesting solution that anyone has ever come up with, the only thing it does is it takes an email and gets an excel sheet out as the output. It might be interesting for some other people but it just wasn’t for me. The reach of physics is much higher. I understand the dilemma of pursuing research in physics where it is evident that even if I do advance research on black holes, it will not affect anyone. But, I’ve always felt like knowledge for knowledge’s sake means something, even if it doesn’t have any application.

In a corporate environment, they’ll give you a lot of perks because they value you. But when you are doing a Ph.D. you are not valuable to them. You are getting stuff from them and not giving much. You are paid less in Ph.D. and you would be living as a student. It takes time in a Ph.D to start getting perks.

If it doesn’t work I can always come back and join a software company and work again. Switch is possible but isn’t easy. You won’t be directly hirable after quitting Ph.D. but, this is easier than doing a Ph.D. in CS and then switching back to physics. It’s possible to switch to computer science at any point of time because that field is ever evolving. If you want to switch, simply learn the skills and make yourself marketable again.

If you try to make a decision with 100% information, you’re not going to make a decision. Also, don’t go blind anywhere and get as much information as you can. Thirdly, you should know your field by the time you apply as the more fields you have in mind- the more diluted your SoP can become. Lastly, don’t skimp out on your GRE and GRE Physics and try to finish them by 4th year.