An Unsuccessful attempt at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for seat in Ph.D. / M.Sc. (Engg) in Electrical Engineering Department, June 2010

Somehow or the other, my experience made me prove that failures are the stepping stones to success.

Not many days passed since I was selected in TCS, I was quite comfortable in writing GATE 2010. I don’t know if I’d have prepared better, had I not got through that TCS interview. I had equal interests in both software and core fields. My GATE score was 552, and was good enough to get a call from EE department of IISc (ECE Dept. had a much higher cut-off, I wasn’t selected in it) to appear for an interview for seat in Ph.D. / M.Sc. (Engg). Of course, that also needed a good percentage in B.E., SSC and inter (+2). There is IISc entrance test in mathematics; it may be taken optionally. I didn’t take it.

I was really unaware of how the interview usually goes. I thought, as our marks already reflect our knowledge in the subject, it might be rather more like a personal interview, to test whether our attitude suits the nature of our (research oriented) study there. They mentioned to be familiar with at least two topics in mathematics. But I had other works to do at home during that period, and I hardly had sufficient time to study.

On the day of interview, I dressed up myself in complete formals (which I found out later to be merely useless) as if I were going to a job interview. We were given forms to select our preferences to areas of interest. I entered the interview room. I could almost see all the senior faculty members of the department, I guess around 10 members. They told to put all my certificates, project reports and all those stuff aside (they didn’t even touch them), gave me a chalk and duster, and directed me straight to a blackboard.

One of them started, “So have you prepared well in any two topics of mathematics?”

“Yes, sir,” in a fearful surprise, I said. I had never expected this blackboard scene.

“Select one,” was their obvious reply.

I wasn’t so perfect in any of them, I hesitatingly said, “Transform Theory.”

“That should be obvious for an electrical engineering student. Okay anyway, what is impulse response of a system?”

I answered.

“The difference equation of a system is given as y(n) – 0.5y(n-1)=x(n). Can you find the impulse response of the system without using Fourier or Z transform?”

They were giving me clue that when x(n) is equal to delta(n), then y(n) becomes h(n). I was stumbling. They made me do it, giving clues, up to some extent, and then asked me to do it using Z – transform. And to my disguise, the basic inverse Z transform formula didn’t come to my mind. I was even surprised of that. I was in confusion with the CTFT formula.

“Okay, you are confused. Select another topic.”

“Linear Algebra,” I thought I was pretty good in that.

“Okay, define rank of a matrix”

I knew what it was, I tried to explain, but they wanted the exact definition.

“Okay, fine, what is independency of two vectors?”

I studied it on the previous day, so I could tell.

“Is there any relation between orthogonality and independency of two vectors? Are any two independent vectors always orthogonal?”

I didn’t know the answer. I said “Yes, two independent vectors are always orthogonal.”

“Then prove it!”

I didn’t know what to do. I tried on the board, but it didn’t come to me. I said I can’t.

“Okay, you can leave.”

I came to know afterwards that if they are satisfied with our performance in two topics of mathematics, they would proceed finally to our area of interest and ask questions. Final selection will be based on the performance in it. The five topics of Mathematics mentioned are: 1. Real Analysis and Differential Equations, 2. Matrix Analysis, Linear Algebra, 3. Fourier, Laplace and Z-Transforms, 4. Probability Theory, 5. Discrete Mathematics (combinatorics, graphs, and discrete probability). Further details can be found on IISc website.

I really had no idea of how higher education or research interviews are conducted, so I had this kind of experience. But I must say this was extremely helpful in making me prepare very well enough to get selected in IIT Madras (M.S. admission).

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