IISC - Interview Experiences

Hi Every one ..

So this is the post where in I will be sharing with all of you my CEDT written test experience.

Just like others, don't just have a negative opinion about IISC Bangalore that it has only research guys and no placements. It is very good institute and if you want to study peacefully, it is the best.

Be prepared for some good knowledge sharing during the two years of Mtech in IISC.

So the written test was scheduled on April 20th 2015, I arrived 1 day before. I have one friend there Satya Narayana who is studying there as CEDT student. He got 699 rank(OBC) last year ( When I got 751 Rank in General ).  Last year, I accompanied him to IISC because I had a call from Computation sciences with my last year rank. So due to this, It didn't take much of time for me to go to IISC after getting down at the Bus stop.

I will share few questions that I remember.

1. How to make mux with de mux and vice versa.

2. 5 to 8 questions on Embedded Systems ( Strange experience for most of the students )

3. Simple Biasing question on BJT Transistor

4. Simple question on Flip Flops and Micro Processor

5. Question on Sub Threshold Region in MOSFET

6.  Easy 2 questions in Mathematics

7.  EM Theory about trasmission

8. Design from 15V to 5V un regulated power supply

9.  1 question on IPV4 and IPV6. It had one question also about router working.

10. Little Endian and Big Endian question.

11. Rise Time and fall time question and graph of output voltage vrs time when you have a capacitor and resistor connected in the output stage of a transistor

12. Design a circuit for Chess board type of K-Map. Find the minimum number of xnor and xor gates.

I will keep on updating few other questions.. as and when I remember them or get it from few of my friends.... But mostly I have done it.

Some how after the Exam, I felt I would be in with 60% chance and 40% out.
     
               Unfortunately - the 40% came true.....

So immediately took a train to Hyderabad and came back...

                     Next Journey is to the Ultimate Madras after 1 week gap...

                                                                                      Check it out next. . 

What all I applied .............

1. IISC Bangalore - 
       The preference order went like this
                                                                1. ME Micro Electronics
                                                                2. ME Communications and Networks
                                                                3. Mtech CEDT

I got call for Mtech CEDT Written test/ Interview. 
I got direct admission for ME Communications and Networks in the first counselling.


2. IIT Delhi
        The preference order went like this 
                                                               1. IEC
                                                               2. Computer Technology
                                                               3. Communications
        Interdisciplinaries that I applied
                                                               1. JTM and JVL

I got call for IEC, Computer Technology, JTM, JVL  Interview

3. IIT Bombay
        The preference order went like this 
                                                                1. TA - Micro Electronics
                                                                2. TA - Electronic Systems
                                                                3. TA - Communication Systems

         I applied even for RA, Mtech+Phd also in the same preference order

I got call for RA, Mtech+Phd interviews and direct admission of TA-Communication Systems in the first counselling. I waited upto 3 rd counselling, I got Electronics System.

4. IIT Kharagpur
        The preference order went like this 
                                                              1. VLSI
                                                              2. VIPES
                                                              3. Communications 
I got VLSI in the first round

5. IIT Madras
    The preference order went like this 
                                                                    1. VLSI
    I applied for MS, Texas MS, direct Phd.  I got call for MS of both types and direct Phd.
   I didn't get VLSI in IIT Madras in the first 2 rounds.

The rest of the IIT s I didn't apply.

GATE Preparation

Having posted all this stuff, the next responsibility would be from my end would be to put up the information about how I prepared for GATE and get a rank of 70 in Gate 2015 inspite of working in Infosys.

Although, I got AIR 751 in Gate 2014, sincerely I had put more efforts if not pain. But Gate 2015 was put more pain inside into.

I would put forth the links to the books to be downloaded shortly.

 1. SemiConductor Physics - Prof. Karmalkar NPTEL Videos & Neamen
            Read concepts well but mostly the formulae are very important in this subject. Be thorough with the proofs of each formulae because they may ask for different situations. This can happen only if u know the formulae derivation. Like in GATE they can ask u like what if the length is doubled then you tell what will be the current. If you just remember the formulae with constants, you will not be able to do so.

2. Micro Electronics - Sedra and Smith & Prof. Radha Krishnan Videos
          Read concepts well and practise a lot of problems. Identify which regions of operation is BJT,MOSFET is in. I will add shortly few links of videos regarding JFET, which are helpful.
Formulaes regarding Pinch off is important because students often miss the poliarity and end up doing it wrong.

3. Electro Magnetic Theory - Prof. Shiv Goenkar Videos and Alexander Sadiku Book
         Often the most difficult subject. Yes it is but then if you have practised the solved problems of Alexander Sadiku Book, you will surely get goot understanding.

4. Control Systems - Ogata and Nagoorkani for Practise
         It is the easiest subject and often the scoring subject. Understanding the 4 things - Polar Plot, Nyquist Plot, Bode Plot, Routh Hurth Criterio and their special cases is very important. Also the block diagram to Transfer function telling.

5. Signals and Systems - Openhiem
         This subject may seem to be difficult for few students initially but as and when you go on understanding Communications, you will be understanding thiings here in a better way. But read things well and often few direct questions from Openhiem will be given, that says the std of the text book it is

6. Communications ( Analog and Digital ) - Taub and Schilling, B.P. Lathi and my friend Harish ( Mtech IIT Hyd pursuing)
Difficult subject. But then you have to practise a lot of problems. Understanding about modulations schemes is not easy. You have spend some quality time and then you have to understand the things in a crystal clear way. Take a lot of time for this subject. Don't just run away with formulae

7. Engineering Mathematics - Few Videos in the You Tube and also few lecture notes
    Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Calcilus, Approximations are the important things. Practise few problems. It will be easy.

8. Network Theory - Alexander Sadiku Network Analysis and few un covered topics from the net. 
           If you are done with the whole book of Alexander Sadiku, then you can assume you are done in all aspects apart from Graph Theory which is not there in this book. Practise few problems in Power anaylsis. Try to understand the difference between the real and apparent power.  Take units seriously. Power factor correction is often neglected by students. Transient analysis is very important. Try to solve few questions from the placements of Texas, because they are known to be the masters of Transient analysis.

9. Digital Electronics -  NPTEL Videos of  Prof Srinivasan and Marris Mano.
Easiest subject may be if u understand and toughest if you don't. I would recommend local author book first like Anand Kumar and then practise questions from You tube and then later on read marris mano. Don' forget to read logic families. There will be few easy questions, why miss them.

Kanodia Practise Book was very helpful and I recommend you to solve it mostly for practise.
But there are many unnecessary questions in it and few wrong explanations. Don't mind them.

Planning

See, read upto November. Keep December for only practicing old question papers. Buy a hard copy book that consists of last 20 years papers. Solve each paper and see how much you are getting. Then understand the solution and see the topics again which you feel you are not comfortable.


Do it 3 times atleast so that it will be such a huge advantage that the moment you see a question from some topic then you will surely get an idea as to what or where in this question , will the questioning person will try to fool or trap us.

The next thing is to buy a test series that can be really useful for practicing.

For those who start preparing for gate after this. This should be your road map.

                  1. Up to November - Prepare to the best and pratice as good as possible.
                   2. December - Only test series and Old question Papers. Solve and Learn
                     3. January - Revise and revist things. Don't learn new things. Perfection is important.

So, with this. I will go forward with the way the journey went on.

I am reminding you about my details

                                             Gate 2015 ECE Rank:   70
                                                                    Score :    899
                                                               Category:    General

MY GATE 2015

Many people who are reading this blog might have asked themselves what is this person doing now??

So, having being frustrated with the work, I along with few other friends have started preparing for GATE. Four of us prepared and all four of us being from Infosys managed to prepare well and end up getting good ranks.

Shivananda Rapolu – AIR 303 ( AIR 400 odd in Gate 2014 ) - Seat in IISC DESE now in 2015.

Sreenu Kakunuri – AIR 141 ( AIR 500 odd in Gate 2014) - Seat in Kgp VIPES now in 2015.

Mahendra Mundru – AIR 22 ( CSE )  ( AIR 300 odd in Gate 2014 ) - Seat in IIT Bombay in 2015.

Raghavapudi VNK Neeraj ( Myself ) - AIR 70 ( AIR 751 in Gate 2014)- Seat in IIT Delhi VDTT in 2015.

You can claim that all of us have improved our ranks but then we had to write Gate again because we didn't knew many things like the Mtech RA of IIT bombay which is super for our ranks last year ones,

IIT Madras TI MS and regular MS in VLSI which are just awesome, IIT Delhi Computer Technology, JTM, JCA, Hyderabad RA and Direct Phd programmes in all IITs

Don't take rest post gate. Travel a lot. Appear for a lot of Interviews... Run Run. Run.. 

But we all had to take the pain of writing GATE again while working .

My biggest gratitude to My Parents, who have been always with me and supporting me, My Philosopher, my guide - Mr. Sudhakar Reddy ( My college HOD ), All my friends and in specific  my buddy - Harish Kumar ( studying Mtech Communications in IIT hyd).

Without Harish, a lot would have not been possible. Thanks to him from the bottom of my heart.

By now, you would have got the reason why I blogged this information. I don’t want any one to miss things because he has no information regarding it.

Hope this helps....

Getting AIR 70 didn't stop my struggles..  I travelled to many IITs still........... 

Keep viewing and get the rest of the story - Of how I failed in IISC CEDT and how I was out smarted by the Texas and How did I outsmart the Delhi Professors.. 

Keep Viewing. . 

                                  

The Unknown Mtech degrees ?

1. IIT Madras Regular and Texas M.S are very good and often people over look it. Don’t do it.

 2. IIT Delhi VDTT

 3. IIT Delhi JTM   and Computer Technology  

                                                                   

M.S. in India........

          Its been few years that research is getting good boost up in India. M.S. is one of the prominent courses to have got started in IITs. Not all IITs over it. IIT madras, delhi, kgp offer M.S. All the three are good.

Though the degree is equal academically with Mtech, the duration will be round 1.5 to 2.5 yrs. It is more of research oriented and less of courses.  It is like MINI Phd. as one of my friend Karishma (M.S. @ IIT kgp) says

Don't compare Mtech and MS that IITs offer. Both are different courses meant for different purposes.

Admission is mainly based on written test and Interview. But GATE is mandatory

Shortly I will add a write up regarding MS in IITs and about research. It will be from my friend Karishma, pursuing her MS in IIT Kgp.  

Why not Direct PHD...

Yes, many don't know about this. There is provision of direct PHD in India and few IITs have integrated course like the IIT Bombay which has Mtech+PHD course. Again Admission is mainly based on written test and Interview. But GATE is mandatory.

Understand Yourself First before deciding whether to take research or conventional courses

M.S. vrs Mtech

Both are good. MS is research oriented. If your research is in commercially viable areas, surely you will get placed in Companies in R&D sector. If not, you can go for Phd and plan for an academic career.

                  

 Mtech  RA good or bad

Institute RA

 1. You will work in any one of the laboratories (System Admin lab, communications and DSP lab, microelectronics lab, power electronics and machines lab, electronic circuits lab) of the institute. Your work may be heavy or light depending on the lab you get.
2. You are free to choose your final year project and guide based on your interests.
3.For shortlisting for interview, 50% weightage is given to GATE score and 50% weightage to your marks in the written test

Project RA

1.You will be assigned  a particular project under a particular professor. This may be an institute sponsored project or a project sponsored
2.Gate Score weightage is 75%
3.You are not free to choose your final year project and guide

More information about IIT Bombay RA is given in the later posts where I have shared one of my friends' experience and I bet it is totally worth it reading.

As I said that there is no difference in the degree you get. All are same and it depends on you  as to how well you do.

With this, I will end up telling you things and now start telling you things that made me get good rank in GATE 2015.
 What all did I study? 
        How did I manage time inspite of working in a company?
                   What books did I study?
        
                                              Come on explore more for all the secrets.

The Others

IIT Roorkee and Guwahati

Both have only Mtech courses (TA).  They conduct counseling for their seats and few times interviews. They have VLSI, Communications, Signal Processing branches.

Check out with the seniors before you join them.

As it is counselling based. it is tought to estimate. 

AIR< 300 ( General Category )   - VLSI

AIR< 450 ( General Category )  - Communication and Signal Processing.

Newer IITs

Of all the Newer IITs, only IIT Hyderabad is promising and is very super in terms of standards. This I am saying because of lot of reasons. I had done my Internship in IIT Hyderabad. It is very good in terms of research and placements and facilities, inspite of being a new IIT.. 

I have lot of friends who are studying and none of them have raised any negative point regarding it and all of them are getting into good companies. 

IIT Hyderabad

It offers MTECH TA and RA, Direct Phd. Since 2015, It started Counseling for TA seats. Until 2014, it used to have direct admission for TA and Written test for RA.

1. MTECH - TA

AIR< 250 ( General Category ) – VLSI

AIR < 500 ( General Category )  - Communication and Signal Processing

2 MTECH – RA

AIR < 1000 ( General Category ) will get call for written test and Interview

3 Direct Phd

AIR < 4000 (General Category )  - Call for Written test and Interview

Upto now, I have discussed maximum number of specializations of Post Graduation in IITs for ECE guys.

With this I will summarize this discussion and discuss a bit about other things.

IIT Kharagpur

The oldest IIT and often called as the best for ECE. It has direct admission for Mtech

6.1 Mtech – TA

        AIR < 100 ( General Category )  - VLSI

        AIR < 300  ( General Category )  - Communication Signal Processing

        AIR < 250 ( General Category )  - VIPES – Video and Image Processing

        AIR < 400 ( General Category ) – RF and Micro Wave

        AIR < 500 ( General Category ) – Multimedia and Image Processing

There are few Mtech – TA  specializations which have written test/ Interview. Kindly get noted regarded it.

6.2 MS and Direct Phd

Same Arguments applicable as any other IIT

If you have any specific doubts regarding things, you can comment here and I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge regarding rank and other doubts.

Let us see the remaining IITs. I will be putting information regarding only only top IITs. I haven't included IIT bhuvaneswar, indore, gandhinagar and so on...

IIT Delhi

Often the second best place after IIT Bombay in terms of placements. It has lot of inter disciplinary courses and often ECE people find interest in here.  

Again IIT Delhi also offers Mtech ( TA Only no RA ), MS By research , Direct Phd.  The arguments and information about the latter two are same.

IIT Delhi conducts written test/ Interview for all its branches. No direct admission. Often it has high weightage to Gate score.

5.1  Mtech TA - Interviews

AIR< 80 ( General Category ) - IEC – Integrated Electronics and Ckts   Call for Interview

AIR < 150 ( General Category ) – Communications and Signal Processing

AIR < 900 ( General Category ) – Computer Technology ( No Gate score weightage here)

5.1.1 Interdisciplinary Mtech Courses for ECE Guys :

AIR < 300 ( General Category )  - JTM : Telecommunications and Management.

AIR < 200 ( General Category )  - JVL – VDTT ( VLSI Design Tools and Technology)

JTM : It is communications branch which is very good in terms of placements in software industry.

VDTT : It is a sponsored programme where in the first round of interviews are conducted by the IIT Faculty and the second round by the companies who have come up to sponsor you.

It is best programme in India in terms of knowledge because it has industrial tie up and you will be getting a pre placement offer and also an opportunity to intern after your first year in their company. It has no Reservation. 

Computer Technology – Very good for those who want a software placement.

 5.2 MS by Research

 In all allowed specializations

5.3. Direct Phd

In all allowed specializations

The advantage with IIT Delhi is that apart from the academics, it is the best place to be in for IAS and other Civils Coaching. 


If you have any specific doubts regarding things, you can comment here and I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge regarding rank and other doubts.

Next IIT is the one that was established the first.