Testimonials

The Scilab Textbook companion internship, which I pursued between the years 2012-2013 as a B.Tech student in Chemical Engineering at SASTRA University, was my first major exposure to systematic and large-scale computing efforts and firmly established my preference to pursue computational research in Chemical engineering for my Master’s and PhD. In addition to this, I was very fortunate to be able to develop the Textbook companion for Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics by Y.V.C. Rao, which furthered my interest in thermodynamics and in pursuing it through the course of my graduate education and career. Additionally, an established track record of working on endeavors such as this also opens up many career opportunities, as was the case with me. I got to work for my Master’s advisor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (USA) on a slew of projects related to thermodynamics, because I could present work done as part of the Textbook companion internship to both pad up my CV with regards to interest in thermodynamics, and more importantly coding knowledge. I also found the Textbbook companion internship to be a great way to work on things that were of interest to me beyond just the usual undergraduate curriculum. I hope that undergraduates in the future will take up this great opportunity to gain valuable computing skills, and also as a potential gateway to greater opportunities in their own professional careers.

I am Akshay Garg, currently pursuing my 4th year Chemical Engineering and Technology at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli (NIT Trichy), India. I was part of your FOSSEE Textbook Program in the Summer of June 2011.I want to convey my best regards to you for accepting me to this project when i was in search for an internship. The FOSSEE Textbook Program was an excellent opportunity for me to gain some hands on experience in the engineering field.Textbook program was a platform for me to enter in the field of research.I have referred to many of my friends and juniors about this program and many have benefited from your program like me. Sir, on this note i would like to tell you that i underwent a Summer Internship at Institute of Space and Astronomical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan This might not have been possible if i did not have FOSSEE Textbook Program in my Resume. It feels proud to have my name in the Scilab.in website with the book i coded.The title of the book coded by me : “Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics” by J M Smith, C Van Ness , M M Abbott

I learnt Scilab from spoken tutorials which were recommended to me while doing my B.Tech at IIT-Bombay. I then used Scilab extensively for my research work and hence became an expert in it. This internship was very helpful to me because taking up the task of writing Scilab codes forced me to go out of my comfort zone and actually code the examples of the book which I would not have done otherwise on just reading the book. By coding, my understanding increased manifolds because unless the codes were perfect and every small bit was addressed the answer would not come. Through this detailed process of learning I could start appreciating the different concept spread throughout the textbook and my confidence increased a lot. Since I had to anyways read the book, by taking up the task of writing codes, not only did I learn the book better, I even stand to get paid. So it is a win-win situation. I will definitely recommend other students to take up writing codes for the textbook companion project.

I Learnt Scilab from help topics, online pdfs and by downloading completed books codes and interpreting them. I have benefited in a lot many ways. I got to learn something new and its good to be a part of this emerging language. It also helped me understand my book subject thoroughly.

I hope you may get plenty of useful feedback from all over India. You have done a great job, Starting from five books in 2010 to more than 500 books in 2013.