THE BRAIN WRITES

So you've made up your mind to pursue a master's degree. The list of universities you'd be applying to is ready, you've either taken the required tests (GRE/TOEFL/IELTS) or are scheduling the dates for the same. And your letters of recommendation (LOR) are almost ready or done. It's time to address the elephant in the room: your statement of purpose or SOP. Table Of Contents Why have I written this post? What is an SOP? How long does it take to write an SOP? How do you prepare your SOP's first draft? The next steps once the first draft is ready. What is the ideal word limit for an SOP? Common SOP mistakes. Sample SOP format. Need my help with your SOP? Why have I written this post? I wasn't content with just a Bachelor's degree. Pursuing higher education from globally renowned institutes in the United States, Canada, Europe, etc. is alluring and rewarding. People may digress by citing eye-watering tuition co...

Image Credits: John Karel Indian news publishers are banking on a newfound recipe for delivering masala filled content—failed woke marketing campaigns by the big shots. For the audience not familiar with the woke model, it’s a strategy wherein brands leverage consumer sensitivity and opinions on current happenings for product promotion. The issue could be anything under the sky—entertainment, politics, socio-economic matters, etc. The  advertisements of Dove  are synonymous with this marketing strategy; the brand focuses on racial discrimination, a dark chapter in world history. However, viewers are split on the response with some thoroughly impressed by the bold initiative and others utterly disgusted by Dove’s gimmick. If this example has piqued your interest, then trust me, there are umpteen other stories on the internet you should read now.   Before diving in further, let me discuss woke marketing  briefly   to ensure the reader doesn’t go...

Automation is here to stay. The last five hundred years have been earmarked with significant milestones; progress and developments that have changed the course for mankind. The first industrial revolution, major strides in the field of computing, the mind-boggling evolution of technology, and hundreds (if not thousands) of other innovations and inventions have collectively redefined employment and everything under its umbrella in umpteen ways. The emergence of automation is a causal effect of these advancements and it’s here to stay. Rarely do life-changing technical innovations receive a warm reception at the beginning. People, especially self-proclaimed pundits, tend to be apprehensive and critical of new tech. Automation is no different—many view it as a double-edged sword that while saving time and increasing efficiency could leave many jobs redundant and millions across the globe jobless . It’s a hot-button issue that has caught the attention of several organizations g...

Crabs are known to display a peculiar behavior when you put a consortium of them in a bucket. While it’s relatively easy for either of them to get out of the bucket, the result is far from this. The creatures tend to pull down their mates persevering to get out of the makeshift hellhole. In short, the "if I can’t do it, then neither can you" attitude is exhibited by the brachyura . Having read this, it shouldn’t surprise you when I say that humans are akin to crabs—we become jealous and bitter upon seeing others excel and succeed. This ‘crab mentality’ is prevalent across the world, observed everywhere irrespective of gender, creed, or any other demarcation. India, my country, is reeling under the crippling effects of this psychological trait, and it’s saddening to see how its citizens, despite identifying the pitfalls, incessantly demonstrate and promote the "your success burns my eyes" frame of mind. The Indian political ecosystem is a case in point of...

A respiratory illness that started from patient zero in Wuhan, a city in China, has now engulfed the entire globe in its clutches. With over 2 million confirmed cases and deaths north of 100,000, Coronavirus, better known as COVID-19, is a challenge unfathomed. History is earmarked with infections and diseases that ravaged continents time and again—Black Death decimated Europe by claiming 200 million lives between 1347 and 1352, Smallpox killed 500 million over decades, bouts of Cholera outbreaks, the emergence of HIV/AIDS and whatnot—the list is huge and intimidating. But COVID-19 is cut from a different cloth, exposing various loopholes and the modern world’s inability to fend off pandemics and epidemics despite advancements in Science, healthcare, and technology. The COVID-19 pandemic has invoked an unprecedented seismic shift across segments—the world economy is declining, third world countries with underdeveloped healthcare industry are spiraling into poverty and darkness (read a...

Corporate Social Responsibility. Image Credits: Sophia Griffiths Supply chain management or SCM in short, easily qualifies as one of the most researched topics when it comes to business or management. Ever since Toyota adopted the lean SCM model back in the seventies, a noticeable paradigm shift was seen in nearly every organization that directly or indirectly added some value to this supply cycle, one that starts from the supplier and ends at the consumer. With the passage of time, new developments in the supply chain were instrumental in bringing about a change no less than some revolution. One such harbinger was the concept of ‘social responsibility’. Various permutations and combinations revolve around the accepted definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) but for the layman, it can be penned down as,  “giving back to anyone and everyone involved in the supply chain hierarchy, both morally and economically.”  Industry veterans like  Intel  are pub...

Having recently wrapped up my stint as an automation consultant with a Chicago-based consulting firm, I now have more time than ever to introspect on Robotic Process Automation, or RPA. Twenty months of working across a spectrum of automation use-cases and applications—from Excel to SAP, and document processing to complex data extraction—has given me a significant share of exposure and understanding as an RPA developer/consultant. Here are some takeaways which ought to benefit anyone directly or indirectly associated with the domain of robotic process automation: The kind and level of exception handling attest to your experience as an RPA developer. Build a comprehensive solution design document (SDD) so that the client/process owner can take care of basic troubleshooting and maintenance. Drag-and-drop won't work in every case. At some point, you'll have to create custom activities i.e. bring in the coding aspect to your workflow. Projects will be accompanied by stringent ...