Posts by Darshan Karwat

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Posts by Darshan Karwat

Opening Up to Inspiration By Questioning My Assumptions

May 10, 2012 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

The time has come for me to think about what life might be like after school, for I am hoping to defend my dissertation in August. As I mentioned previously, I came to Ann Arbor not knowing much about adult life in the U.S. But that does not mean I did not have assumptions about the place. I thought that America was about celebrity, materialism, and binge drinking in college. What Ann Arbor did, though, was question these assumptions. I realized that America was also about lovely bluegrass music, stunningly beautiful landscapes and decaying urban cores. While I haven’t gained…

Published in: Student Voices

…coming out clean…

April 5, 2012 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

(Spoiler alert (?): The thoughts below are a coalescence of observations of those around me, of fellow graduate students’ rants over beer, of a few PhD comics, and of a wonderful metaphor to compare graduate school with.) The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie, ever, not least because the movie’s depiction of Shawshank Prison provides a superb metaphor for graduate school. (No. I have not been to prison…yet…) There is the warden (your advisor), and being on his/her good side allows you luxuries that may not be afforded to others; there are those inmates (older graduate students) that enrolled before…

Published in: Student Voices

Why I Came to the University of Michigan: Naïveté Gives Way to Love

March 2, 2012 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

Since I was probably four, I knew that I wanted to do something related to spaceships and planets and stars, and aerospace engineering seemed like a logical study path. (Things have changed since then, but that’s not the point right now…) The only place I knew of in India that taught aerospace engineering was the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), and getting into it is a bazillion times more competitive than getting into any school in the U.S. I know people that studied for four years (eighth grade through twelfth grade) just to take the entrance examination for IIT. The…

Published in: Student Voices

Winter Memories in Ann Arbor—Sameer and I

January 27, 2012 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

Fresh from watching my first Truman Capote play, Holiday Memories, I too, would like to write about some memories I haven’t really thought about in a longtime. My freshman year of undergrad, I lived in the backwoods of the University in Baits II dorms on North Campus (“Where the hell are those?” many students ask.) with an eclectic bunch of undergrads, mostly music majors and engineers. My suitemate was a guy named Sameer…a big, portly fellow with a fro. Sameer I bought a winter jacket earlier that fall—beige and frankly, drab. But I’ve never really been fashionable. It was my…

Published in: Student Voices

Faculty Connections: It Pays to Be Honest

November 7, 2011 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

I remember walking into my advisor’s office as an undergraduate, having been accepted to both Michigan and a school in Massachusetts, wondering how I would decide where to go to graduate school. I was incredibly naive. I did not know about my funding situation, yet had to have the faith that it would all work out. But by senior year of my undergraduate days, I knew what I wanted my doctoral work to look like, and so I also remember being completely upfront (with my now advisor) about what I wanted to pursue in graduate school—I said that what I…

Published in: Student Voices

Balance: How You Balance Your Work and Life in Graduate School

October 10, 2011 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

Each Ph.D. is unique, and my experiences as an engineer on North Campus are not easily translatable to the doctoral student culture on Central Campus. The nature of an experimental engineering Ph.D. is one of constant collaboration – with my labmates, with the building supervisor, with the trusty machinists, with custom part suppliers in other parts of the country. On the other hand, with a philosophy Ph.D., for example, one’s interactions within and without the university are likely different. But there are three common threads that unite all Ph.D. experiences – the student-advisor relationship, our individuality, and Ann Arbor, the…

Published in: Student Voices

Meet the Bloggers: Darshan Karwat

September 12, 2011 | By Darshan Karwat, Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering

Welcome (back! for some people) to the University of Michigan, in this picturesque town of Ann Arbor, in this unique and wonderful state of Michigan. Another summer has flown by, and I am hoping that yours was as enjoyable as mine has been. My name is Darshan, and I am a fourth-year doctoral student studying combustion chemistry, air pollutant formation, and sustainability ethics in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. It seems that Rackham Graduate School has chosen me, among others, to give you my viewpoint on on-goings on campus and communities. I take this responsibility seriously, and I am hoping…

Published in: Student Voices

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