Study Abroad Stories - Sourajit's Experience

Sourajit Saha is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from BRAC University.

During the initial phase of his undergraduate years, Sourajit spent a significant amount of time on competitive programming. He learned a lot during this time and enjoyed the sport for about a year. However, he eventually quit competitive programming and was unsure about what to do next in life.

During his final year at BRACU, Sourajit researched suitable topics for his undergraduate thesis and discovered two of the most popular fields in Computer Science: Deep Learning and Computer Vision. As he delved deeper into these fields, Sourajit became so passionate that he wanted to immerse himself in research. This process helped him grow as a person, a thinker, and a researcher.

After completing his graduation, Sourajit joined Independent University, Bangladesh as a Research Assistant. Eventually, he ended up teaching undergraduate courses there. He gained valuable research experience at IUB with his research supervisor, publishing papers in major conferences and journals. With a desire to continue working on those ideas, Sourajit was certain that he wanted to pursue a career in academia and/or research. It was an obvious choice for him to start working towards obtaining a Ph.D.

One of the major steps in Sourajit’s study-abroad preparation was taking the GRE and the TOEFL. To stay on track, Sourajit scheduled his GRE examination date first and then began preparing for it. He utilized all the free and paid resources offered by ETS and practiced for about 2 months. Three days after taking the GRE, Sourajit took the TOEFL. TOEFL is generally considered easier than GRE, so the preparation Sourajit did for GRE was more than enough to tackle TOEFL. Additionally, he took all the free and paid mock tests for TOEFL provided by ETS.

Sourajit began his Ph.D. journey at UMBC this year. He is receiving top-notch teaching and feels that any bottlenecks he encounters while working on research will be resolved in class.

“Good luck and be true to yourself. And my advise to other students is that don’t whine, plan well and work towards it. Simplify things to their core and be clear in your mind about why do you wanna study abroad and how that aligns with your goal. Life can sometimes feel overwhelming, but like a sine curve it sure does get better. It’s not just a cliched thing to say, it actually does get better and when it does be sure to make the best out of it.” ― Sourajit Saha

Special thanks to Sourajit Saha for taking out the time to share his experience with me.