My Journey- Soumya Jahagirdhar

Details: By Sony Thomas; 25.Jun

“A research student's university experience can be challenging yet rewarding. Engaging in research projects, collaborating with peers and faculty, attending research seminars and workshops, juggling academic responsibilities, writing research papers and theses, and balancing research work with coursework, exams, and other academic responsibilities can be demanding for research students. However, overcoming these obstacles and achieving research milestones can be immensely gratifying. ”

Sony Thomas

Time management and prioritization skills are crucial to handle stress and be successful. Overall, a research student's experience at the university is a transformative period that hones critical thinking, problem-solving, and research skills essential for a career in academia or industry. It is a journey that fosters intellectual growth and contributes to advancing knowledge in their chosen field.

When Soumya Jahagirdhar joined CVIT in July 2021 she was prepared for the challenges accompanying research. While considering options to pursue a master’s degree, Soumya’s undergraduate professor, Dr. Shankar Rangi Shetty, connected her with Anand Mishra, one of Professor Jawahar’s students. Soumya was working on Scene Text and the CVIT lab at IIIT-H was known to be the best in India for the Lab, culture, and achievement of students' post-graduation. Professor Jawahar was working on interesting topics, which caught Soumya’s attention. Along with the encouragement of her friend Sindhu Hegde Soumya joined the CVIT lab. As she prepares to graduate in July, she shares her experiences at CVIT.

My Research Experience

The first semester was simple research. Then Prof. Jawahar advised me to create a plan on what to work on. He encouraged me to be part of a project and introduced me to Prof. Dimostheniz Karatzas from CVC, Barcelona. The most difficult part for me was coming up with a new dataset since I did not know how to build one. I also was unsure of how to explain my work to the annotators. It was a huge responsibility, but I received support from everyone. I was fortunate to do a 3-month internship at CVC, Barcelona under the guidance of Prof. Dimos. The international exposure has given me life-changing insights and opportunities. It helped me develop cross-cultural communication skills and adaptability, improving resilience, independence, and self-confidence.

I initially had difficulty writing papers for conferences but with the guidance of my senior, Minesh Mathew, I was able to submit several papers to different conferences.
The following are papers accepted at conferences:

Title: Watching the News: Towards VideoQA Models that Can Read. Authors: Soumya Jahagirdar, Minesh Mathew, Dimosthenis Karatzas, C. V. Jawahar. Conference: Winter Conference on Application of Computer Vision, 2023(WACV 2023).
Title: Understanding Video Scenes through Text: Insights from Text-based Video Question Answering. Authors: Soumya Jahagirdar, Minesh Mathew, Dimosthenis Karatzas, C. V. Jawahar. Conference: Video and Language Algorithmic Reasoning (VLAR) Workshop, 2023 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision Workshops (ICCVW).
Title: Prompt2LVideos: Exploring Prompts for Understanding Long-Form Multimodal Videos. Authors: Soumya Jahagirdar, Jayasree Saha, C.V. Jawahar. Conference: Computer Vision and Image Processing (CVIP 2024).

My Advisor

All the projects Prof. Jawahar takes up have a social benefit and he ensures they can be useful. His reasons for the approaches inspired me. He has a different perspective, a completely different way that none of us ever think of. He integrates with the resource
and makes sure it somehow helps others. Initially, I struggled to deal with criticism but with time, I understood that the criticisms and harsh times made me independent and more capable.

The Campus

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The picturesque IIIT-H campus enhances the university experience, enriching the research experience. Although away from my home in Karnataka, the CVIT Lab provides a warm and positive environment, essential when facing difficulties. My fellow students are very supportive and cooperative in research and personal struggles. IIIT-H also offers free mental health support for students to maintain their overall well-being, sustain productivity, and ensure the quality of work. I am also touched by the benevolence of the university for funding around 15 stray dogs on campus to be fed and vaccinated. Volunteering for the Campus Canine Club is delightful and immensely rewarding since I am fond of dogs.

My transformation

I have become more critical of research, and more immune to stress. I am now stronger mentally and realize that it is okay not to get the results all the time, as long as I understand the mistake and am willing to correct it. Dealing with failure is a skill that can be developed over time. We can turn setbacks into opportunities once we approach them with resilience and are willing to learn. Over time I accepted that it is okay to have papers rejected even after days and weeks of running experiments and getting the wrong results multiple times. Rejection with inputs should be taken positively; Always improve and resubmit to another conference. I felt the happiest when I submitted my work, not when I got accepted because submitting a paper after much perseverance gives a sense of achievement.

What Lies Ahead

I submitted my thesis, “Text Understanding and Videos”, in December 2023 and defended it in March 2024. I am currently working on a project with Meta and eagerly waiting to travel abroad to begin my PhD under the guidance of Professor Hilde Kuhene, after my graduation in July 2024. The internship in Barcelona inspired me to explore the opportunities and cultural diversities. Working on my PhD abroad will help me to gain global perspectives and career advances.

I thank the CVIT team for all their support. My advice to the new students is to have some basic understanding or do a project on Computer Vision and Deep Learning and have an idea of what area you would like to work on. Plan ahead of time to overcome challenges and celebrate success.