Meet Computer Science Grad Student Abu John Rahat Chowdhury

Meet Abu John Rahat Chowdhury, a UL Lafayette international graduate student from Bangladesh. Abu will finish his PhD in Computer Science next year. After attending the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Abu began attending UL Lafayette and fell in love with the diversity of the community here. He currently works at CGI Technologies and Solutions, in its newly constructed 50,000-square-foot Lafayette facility. CGI, the world’s fifth largest independent IT and business process services company, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Research Park is home to its state-of-the-art technology center. The new center will bring in over 400 IT jobs and is estimated to generate more than $90 million annually over the course of the next five years.

Why did you choose a graduate degree in your field?
UL Lafayette’s Master of Science in Computer Science degree is very well known and was the first program of its kind in the United States. I have also received financial support from UL Lafayette as a graduate assistant through my involvement with The Center for Advanced Computer Studies (CACS), the research arm of the School of Computing and Informatics.

What do you like most about being a graduate student at UL Lafayette?
The people are very knowledgeable and friendly, and the teachers are very helpful to assist you in any kind of trouble you may face. You could reach out to almost anyone here and they would be willing to help.

What do you plan to do with your degree?
I plan on staying at CGI. It’s an amazing company and there are actually really good opportunities to grow because there are so many branches. For example, the oil industry went down and there was a significant drop in the need for petroleum engineering students, but computers will always be relevant because new things are continuously coming up and providing new opportunities. I really am hoping to stay at CGI and in Lafayette for a long time if everything goes well. While students are especially prepared for the abundance of opportunities here, they are also prepared for diverse opportunities along the west coast and beyond.

What new opportunities have you had inside or outside of the classroom?
Rather than just studying and learning theories, here we are actually able to implement them—the algorithms, the programs. Other than that you get to use new technology, both inside the Graduate School and at the CGI building—it’s beneficial learning about things I will actually use. Sometimes you don’t learn the complete language for each new project, but you do work on several different projects where one may be with one language, one project with another language. But  when you start on another project with a new language, because you have some basic knowledge of how the other projects work, you still can pick it up because you already know the theory and background, and you can implement the theories into these new challenges.

What would you recommend to undergraduate students who are interested in applying?
Try to learn different computer languages, but specialize in one. Try to be open to different opportunities and languages so that you are not bound by one, but at the same time you are strongest in one. Other than that, get through your projects yourself and try to get to the mechanism inside. Once you come to a good company they can always help you and assist you with where you need to go next.

What are some of the projects you have worked on?
One of my projects is on an Indoor Localization System. Something we call “Internet of Things” is where any device you own you can connect it to a computer or a “wearable” thing. So the idea is that you use GPS to get from one place to another, but GPS coordinates won’t work to get you from one place to another in a large area such as a mall or an airport. For example you can’t see how to get from Macy’s to JC Penney. My work is related to indoor localization. There are other projects currently with “Internet of Things” but this is one of the latest, and something very new I would love to venture more into.

Learn more about UL Lafayette’s Master of Science in Computer Science program >>