Mayank Bhargava
As a small child I remember trying to make a pyramid of cards and failing repeatedly. What I had always been missing those days was the need to focus on creating a strong base rather than abruptly rushing on to reach the top. With my undergraduate study at an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the best technological institutes in India with inarguably the toughest selection ratio (~2%) in the world I am sure that the strong base required to build the pyramid is laid and the next level to reach my goals would be to do my graduate studies at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Born in an era of technological revolutions, witnessing the advent of cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras, computers, laptops, internet, DVDs to name a few, I developed a strong liking for technology from my childhood. It was clear that Mathematics and Science were the subjects which fascinated me and my accomplishments in various quizzes and competitions in school fuelled my exploration of these subjects. It was in my eleventh standard when I got 12th rank in the Regional Mathematics Olympiad, conducted by NHBM, Govt. of India that I got exposed to elements of Discrete Mathematics, particularly Combinatory and Graph Theory, outside the regular school curriculum at an early stage. The intensive training programs we were put through for the Olympiads gave me a lot of confidence in dealing with abstract mathematical problems. I represented my region among around 200 students from all over India in the National Mathematics Olympiad. Next year my dedication towards my work got rewarded when I cleared the various prestigious national level examinations of India which made it further clear what I was meant to do in life. It began when I cleared the KVPY Examination, which is one of the highest valued and most competitive scholarship examinations conducted by Govt. of India and received a call letter from IISER Pune (Indian Institute of Science