Ranking #1 on the JEE Exam with Sanjeev Arora (2011 ACM Prize in Computing)

Hello maths fans. I'm back in H Highleberg with another laurate. It's my great pleasure to be joined by Sanjie Aurora who was awarded the 2011 ACM prize in computing. But we're not going to start there. We uh we are here to talk first about the J exam. We're going to take you back to your school days, Sanjie, because you were ranked the number one uh student candidate in all of India in 1986. Um, and I get a lot of comments and I'm sure lots of people watching this video will want to know, um, how hard is this exam and how on earth did you manage like how did you practice, how did you train, any tips and tricks for any for any aspirants who I'm sure are watching this video. So uh it was a very different exam back then. I believe these days it's basically an industry and they push people through these coaching institutes and so on. Actually the town uh I was in at the time just my two years of high school was Kota which afterwards became this factory — for J coaching. — Um that's after my time. But uh okay, just to keep it short um yeah um uh the year before me my brother had gotten into IIT and maybe a few years before that I'd become well I knew about IIT because my father got a PhD there — and I was very little when we lived there. Uh but then so I remember that campus very nicely but u but then uh yeah it wasn't like something you would aspire to you know like uh — yeah it was considered this very elite thing — um and then um — around maybe when I was probably 8th or ninth grade and um I started hearing about people who got in and actually did well. So suddenly it became something you might aspire to. — Yeah. But uh yeah, just uh back then you would study at home. You would get these materials uh by mail and you would study and that was it. And I showed up at the exam and I thought I did well. — Uh but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that was worth. Yeah. — Yeah. Okay. So, so it was just do you think there was an element of you enjoyed it, you were particularly driven or did it just feel like additional school work the next step in your education like — um I think maybe potentially that's when the research thing started you know like — okay interesting — uh because yeah you didn't have any coaching on I think you were it was self study which is the best kind of study if you can do it. — Yeah. And uh you get these materials in the mail, you'd study them and figure it out on your own. And — so you almost feel like that as you said self-study process possibly then like set you up or got you really interested in self-arning, studying, research and — yeah and um another thing that used to happen in Indian schools was that and this probably happens even today and everywhere where the which are underresourced that the smart kids would teach the other kids in class. — Yeah. And so there was a lot of that, you know, students would always be asking from an early age. And so just teaching others also — helps you understand so much better. — Yeah. Yeah. And do you still do a lot of teaching now given your incredible research history and everything that you're doing? — Uh yeah, as a professor. Yeah. But I think the bigger part of learning is teaching others how to do research and that's when you really — get good insight. Yeah. And so you have a PhD students at the moment from India. Yeah. Many — many and postocs and the whole team because you've just — is it a reasonably new lab or initiative group in Princeton that you've just sort of heading up? — Yes, we started in 2023 Princeton Language and Intelligence. — Uh and we'd been trying to convince the university that something was happening in AI — and then Chad GPD hit and they said, "Oh yeah, you were right. " And here's an — You're like, "We told you. Yeah. — Okay. And so that in a sense that explosion and sort of media global media attention helped you well I guess it's unfortunate it took that for the university to kind of like listen to you but that then did help you set up the lab and grow to everything where you are now. — That's right. — Okay. — Yeah. We are very lucky that we have a reasonable amount of compute — to do the research which is very rare. Yeah. — Oh brilliant. Um okay so now we've brought up research. Um so you studied in the US first is this correct? So you were talking about the exams in India. Did you but then you went to MIT. — Okay. So that again is a story. So um — when I was in high school I discovered that this cousin of mine was off at MIT

getting an undergrad degree. I said oh that's possible too. So I asked him and he said, "Oh, there's these exams, the SAT and so on and you take them and apply. " — So but my sense was it's still very expensive and because I think his parents were paying and they were better well off. So — so I thought again it's not for me. But then um okay one of the things that happened at IIT you know when you know those the people who would send you the study materials — if you got a high rank they would give you some award money — just for their own publicity. So probably it still happens. So when I got that award money I thought oh maybe I can afford to go to the US — right — because there was some amount of money you needed to put in. I mean you would get a scholarship. So then I applied to go and yeah I got into MIT and then uh I went yeah halfway through actually I got in after my first year but then I stayed another year and to work out the visa and then went after my second year. — Right. And then it was MIT over the other side of the country to Berkeley. — To Berkeley. Yes. — For the PhD. And was that straight out of you finished the bachelor's degree at MIT and then went straight over to the PhD? — Oh yeah I was totally hooked in research by then. Yeah. at MIP. Yeah. — So you were doing research as a — undergrad. That's right. Yeah. — Oh wow. And was that as part of the course or was that sort of your own research in your spare time? Did you find a particular adviser or professor who kind of guided you through that as an undergraduate? — Uh yeah. So at MIT it was quite common for right — uh undergraduates to join some lab uh as a kind of part-time job. So I did that and then at some point it transitioned into actually doing research and helping them and — uh and then they were working on some problem and I made a lot of progress on it. So — Right. — Yeah. So that's how the addiction begins, right? — Yeah. I like describing it as an addiction to research and solving problems. That's the best addiction. — Yeah.