In 2018 one of my classmates gave a presentation about Quantum Computing at the University of Utah. I became familiar with quantum physics during my undergraduate program. Still, the presentation sounded very futuristic, and to be honest, somewhat fictitious. Because the computation advantages that were being claimed in that presentation were too good to be true and so it didn't really strike to me. Especially for someone like me, whose entire Ph.D. research is on reducing computation runtime for some specific optimization problems.

My second encounter with Quantum Computing was in the Silicon Slopes TECH SUMMIT 2020 in Salt Lake City, where I attended the talk about Quantum Computing. I heard for the first time about Qubits against bits in classical computation. This talk, to some extent, attracted my interest, and I became more curious about Quantum Computing. I guess it is the psychological impact that when someone as serious as a known industry expert talks about it, it becomes more serious and sounds more realistic. By the way, I also met Mark Zuckerburg in this summit, which is another factor that made the summit more memorable for me. This was February of 2020, and quantum computing is something that exists, maybe at its infancy, but is still a reality. However, how it exactly works and how it is really different from the classical computation was still no English to me. I mean I heard the expression "Quantum Computing being the future of computation", but I wasn't sure if that means in the future my laptop will be a Quantum based computer. I mean that would be cool, though!

It was about April when I heard about IBM's investment in Quantum Computing and how it is getting momentum among researchers. By this time, I was very eager to learn more about Quantum Computing but I wasn't sure if it isn't going to be a divergence from my own field of research which was developing tools for power systems. I mean it is nice to learn more about an exciting topic such as Quantum Computing, but I also had to make sure that it is not going to diverge me from my career.

In July 2020, I came across a post in LinkedIn which was the first time I learned about Qiskit and Qiskit Summer School. The post said the pre-requisite was knowing how to multiply matrices which is not only simple but also it's what I do for a living. So, I registered for the Qiskit Summer School school and did some reading about Quantum Computing. I found the Qiskit Textbook online which is very easy to follow and understand. I think this textbook will remain as my primary reference whenever I need to go back to Qiskit.

I will be honest, even though overall I was excited about learning quantum computing, the content was overwhelming. But the way the course was designed and its flexibility greatly helped me in catching up with the lectures and understanding the content at my own pace. Even though the course was great, I strongly recommend reading the textbook and practicing a lot of the examples. It is hands-on training and therefore, the lectures alone cannot be as useful and lasting as it would be otherwise. After completing the course and labs, I also participated in the final optional project. I also learned about the Qiskit Advocate Badge which has a test. This test was a great recap of the course for me. A great polish of my knowledge of Quantum Computing. I would say if you have completed the course and even if you are not planning to apply for the Qiskit Advocate badge, I would say go for the test because it serves as an awesome recap for the course. Just sharing my personal experience.

The Qiskit Optimization Module is one of my favorite tools that I have learned throughout the course. Maybe because it is directly relevant to my research. The course and the Qiskit overall served as a gateway for me to Quantum Computing. I have started writing the Quantum Computing algorithm for my research work. I feel like I have found an interesting intersection between Quantum Computing and my research. It is still ironic that in the span of one month I have gone from knowing almost nothing about Quantum Computing to writing optimization algorithms using Quantum Computing. I am hopeful that the new addition to my research direction will pay throughout my career in the long run.