Mission IIT/IISC part 2(Interview part 4 at IISC,EC)

After ED, there was EC (Electrical Communication), MSc (Engg) interview.

This department had excellent and world recognised qualified faculties.I was seriously intersted in this program.EC department sent you interview offer letter consisting of technical topics. You have to underline your preferred topics.

Ec department asked me to come with preparation of atleast mathematics 2 topics from 5 (these topics are different than technical topics)which were as follows:

1) Discrete Mathematics

2) Probability and Randon processes

3) Transform theory

4) Linear algebra

5) Differential equation (am not sure)

I had chosen probability and linear algebra.Refer standard books to prepare for interview.

I referred Popoulis for probability and Gilbert Strange for linear algebra.Both are enough for preparation.

I will directly write only the questions.Interview panel consists of 3 people. Interview was scheduled at 2pm, but began at 4 pm.

They began with informal questioning. For example what is the meaning of "Kalamkar" which is my surname.My CGPA, rank in class,etc. So they started with linear algebra.

1) What is linear independence of vectore?

2) What is orthogonality?

3) If 2 vectors are orthogoal,prove that they are also linear independent.

2) Rank of the matrix

5) Permutation matrix (Indirecty they asked on it)

6) Inverse of permutation matrix

7) Example of matrix with zero rank

8) Guass elimiation

Then they turned towards probability.

1) Suppose there are 2 possible oucomes of a random variable. Probability of one outcome is p, what is

the probability os 2nd outcome.

2) Indirect derivation of Binomial distribution.

3) Some questions on mean,variance of Binomial distribution.

4) Autocorrelation

Then they came to my technical interest "Information and coding theory".

1) Entropy

2) Mutual entropy

3) Mutual entropy for independent random variables

4) Prove that mutual entropy is greater or equal to 0.

5) Channel Capacity theorem.

6) Shannon's first channel coding theorem

Interview lasted for about 30 minutes.They first test your maths thoroughly.If they find your maths is very very good,then they turn towards

technical questions. I cleared maths test.Also i answered technical question well.Still i could not make for EC.So remember questions in this interview was simple,basic but highly tricky than other interviews.They believe strongly in maths. So well prepare any 2 topics very very good for the interview.

If you want to research in communication or signal processing,MSc at EC,IISC is the best place in India.

Mission IIT/IISC Part 2 (Interview part 3 at IISC Bangalore)

I was called for M.Sc. (Engineering) for research program at IISC. I had given my preferences as

1) Electrical communication (EC)

2) Electronic design (ED)

I was initially not going to apply for M.Sc. But i thought what the hell problem in applying, just waste of 500/-. So i applied and i think that decision was quite right and clever one.

If you want to do Ph.D. it is better to M.Sc. in IISC. It is wholly research oriented and sometime it is considered better than ME in IISC. Many people don't apply for M.Sc. IISC call almost all people applying for the interview. So even if you do not get good rank in GATE it is the best opportunity.

So my both M.Sc. interview were on 10th June.

ED was at 9 AM and EC was at 2PM.

In this blog i will talk about ED interview.

I was not so much willing to go for ED interview as initially i thought it is only in VLSI domain and i did not want VLSI, i was intersted in communication. But later i came to know ED department offers "Communication networks" besides VLSI and power electronics. So i decided to go as an experience.

I was late already half an hour, but luckily me turn was yet to come. After going there, i was given a form in which i had to tick my only preference and the work i had done before. Environment in the waiting room was quite tensed and it has to be! At the last you are competing for IISC which is the best science and technology institute in India. Many people had come to interview who had 2-3 years job experience. So i was little bit tensed thinking i had to compete with these experienced people. But i was not so much serious.

After half an hour, i was called in the interview room. There was 2 people in the panel. They were belonging to Communication networks. Both asked me to relax and not to take tension. They saw my application and became very happy as a fresher come for a research program and not taking his 6.5 lakhs job in the recession period.

They began informally, asked whether final year result out or not. For what i am applying M.Sc. or Ph.D? In the research program one can apply for direct Ph.D. also if he or she wants. i wanted to do M.Sc. only and Ph.D. abroad., so i said "fr M.Sc.". Then thay asked me "Why M. Sc. and not Ph.D?". Remember at IISC, in every research interview you will be certainly asked this question. I said,"I am not s much motivated to do Ph.D. and do not know which field should i choose for Ph.D.,so for a now M.Sc. only". One of them argued,"What do you mean by motivation?". I told i am little bit confused about my field for Ph.D.

Then real interview began. Typical question. "In which field you are interested?"

Mistakenly i said "Signal processing" which belonged to EC department. They said that ED does not mean for signal processing, go for EC which was my the first preference. I said immediately i would also love to work in communication networks.

Let me told the interview as a first person. Call interviewer "Int"

Int: OK. What courses did you take in your under graduation?

Me: Computer networks,

Int: Which books did you refer?

Me: Kurose and Ross.

Int: What is MAC layer?

(I did not study computer networks by heart in my under graduation. I did not know MAC layer which was very basic. I felt shameful.)

Me: Sorry sir, i do nor know.

Int: That is basic.

Me: Sorry.I am weak at computer networks. I know only UDP,TCP and like that. But i know about wireless networks.

Int: Ok. Have you heard of wireless lans? Have you seen them?

Me: Yes. I do know and i have seen them, they are in our hostels.

Int: Good. Now suppose there are 10 transmitters, how they will communicate with receivers?

Me: I told some "Back off phenomena" and collision avoiding related stuff.

(They looked impressed the first time. I relieved some what.)

Int: What is the probability that only transmitter no. 2 will transmit the first? Each one consist of counter up to 32.

Me: There should be minimum count on Tx.2 that the others.

Int: Right. You are on the right way. But prove it mathematically.

(Remember at IISC, you have to be very very good at Mathematics, specially Linear algebra and random processes.)

I started deriving. It took me almost 15 minutes. In between whenever i went wrong they used to give me hint. Finally i came to final equation and suddenly one of the interviewers excitedly shouted "you have derived very correctly". They were very very cool and they were very patient in that 15 minutes.

Int: You seem to be good at probability. What is CDF?

(I answered.)

Then they draw a sinusoidal CDF and asked me to comment on that.

Me: It's wrong. CDF can not be sinusoidal as CDF is nondecreasing.

Int: Why is CDF nondecreasing and not increasing?

Me: As probability may be zero.

Int: How will be the CDF of discrete random variable?

Me: Staircase function.

Int. Thank you. You can go.

Me: Thank you.

Comment: This was the best interview till then. Profs were very very cool. From questions you can see that they were stressing on the basics and mathematics. I got admit from IISC within 10 days for ED.

Mission IIT/IISC Part 2 (Interview part 2 at IIT Bombay)

My M.Tech. interview at IIT Bombay held on 17th May.

I just gave my IIT Kanpur interview and that was an average interview.

So I was little bit tensed for IITB.

At IITB, there was 4-5 panels, each consisting of 2 people according to different streams (Communication,microelectronics,etc.). Selection criteria was 70% to GATE score and 30% to interview. Out of almost 20seats, 14 people were offered direct admission and for the other 6 seats interview were being held.

I had given my only preference viz. Communication.

So interview began like this:

Initially interviewers asked what have you prepared for the interview (a typical question)?

I said "Error correcting codes", same what i said at IITK.

They asked:

1) What is Hamming distance?

2) What is the significance of Hamming distance?

3) What is the relation between error correcting capability and hamming distance? Derive the relation.

4) What is the hamming distance of Hamming code?

Then they asked me for my B.Tech. project report. I did my final year project at GMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope), TIFR. Both had done some work there. So they asked what had i done,what part i contributed the project and how did i successfully executed my part.

My project was related to Radio frequency interference for GMRT antennas. So from that, they asked me which digital modulation scheme is suitable for minimizing Cellular mobile interference.

Then they turn towards Mathematics. Initially they asked some very basic questions on Probability. Then i was asked to find complex intergration (that we have for GATE syllabus).

Output:

Interview was better than that of IITK. IITB professors were also too cool. Still I couldn't make for IITB. I do not know exact reason. As usual IITB interview was based on very basic things and asked on projects too.So be specific and speak specific!

Mission IIT/IISC Part 2 (Interview part 1 at IITK)

Hello everybody,

I am back after my all M.Tech./M.Sc.intervew sessions at IIT/IISC.

In total i have given IITK,IITB(M.Tech.) and IISC (M.Sc. Electrical Communication,M.Sc.Electronic Design).

I will give interview session as a real time story.

I start with IITK interview.My interview was scheduled on 11th May 2009.There were 4-5 panels,each having 3-4 people.So i begin interview session.I had 3 people in my panel including a lady professor.Let them call A,B and C (lady professor).

(Time:4 pm,wiating room:Outside 202B room)

A: Sanket Kalamkar

(I enter in room,formalties completed.Happy seeing that I was from COEP,they knew my college).

A:What's your interest?

Me:Communication

A:Ok.One of the type of response is Impulse response.What are the others?

(Me confused.Told "Transfer function".I did not get other type.First sorry.)

A:For time-invariant LTI system,relate input-output.

Me:I write convolutional equation on the white board.

A:Given mean of input random variable,find mean of output random variable.

(I derived it on board).

B:Now find output auto-correlation.

(I derived.15 minutes were over).

B:Any specific interest?

Me:Error correcting codes.(I prepared this topic specially for intrview.)

C:Tell about Linear Block coding,generator matrix and syndrome.

(I explained everything with equations.)

A:Ok.You can go.Thank you.

Me: Thank you everybody.

(Interview was over).

My feelings about interview:

Be confident.This is the most important thing.Profs test only basics.Also in that,they do not expect exact answer.they check your approach towards the problem and clarity of your thinking.

Never ever say lie in front of panels.If you do not know answer,tell them frankly.Otherwise they will certainly will catch you.They were very cool to me.And i got admit within a week.Thank god!

Mission IIT/IISC part 1

I have started this blog as i know how much difficulty one has to face while getting into IIT/IISC. We do not get proper books to study as many of us had not studied engineering from good and standard books. So they face problems while preparing for GATE. 

First of all let me introduce about GATE. GATE stands for "Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineering". This exam is an entrance examination for post graduation in engineering and have been opted by almost all engineering colleges in India for recruiting students. I will not give all the details about the exam. One can get all these details at http://www.iitb.co.in/ or can get from any IIT website.

I am now going to concentrate on preparation of GATE for Electronics and communication stream as i am from the same. I kicked off the study in November end. Believe me, two months of sincere study is more than enough to crack GATE. It may vary from person to person. You choose according to comfortability. Remember be comfortable. Unless you are comfortable, you can not be able to concentrate on your study.

So i started in November end (2008). Actually i had given GATE once in my pre-final year, but just as an experience. It is better to start with the Mathematics, as it has huge syllabus and you need maths in each and every field of other subjects. At a time go with 2-3 subjects parallaly and don not concentrate on only one.

I am giving the books i referred for the preparation of GATE. Generally all people use them only. These books are quite good,conceptual and standard.



Mathematics: 

1)Higher Engineering Mathematics-Grewal
This book is sufficient for the prepararion of the whole subject.Stick to the syllabus.

2) GATE Mathematics by R.K.Kanodia (Only objective questions)

Check out GATE syllabus and stick to it only.Nothing is asked outside of syllabus. Search for the points from Grewal and do them. Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice! 

Electronic devices and circuits:
1)Electronic devices and circuit-Millman & Halkias
This book is good for semiconductors,BJT,power and feedback amplifiers,power supplies.
2) Electronic devices-Boylstead
This is a very good book which i preferred.Very simple and basic explanation about all types of transistors and their biasing is given.
3)Microelectronics-Smith & Sedra
A very good book for MOSFETs
4) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.

Digital Electronics and microprocessor:
1)Digital electronics-R.P.Jain
This book has covered all fundamentals,but time consuming and difficult to understand counter concepts.
2)Digital electronics-J.S.Katre
You might surprise on hearing this name.Actually he is a local author and this is the only book written by local author i admire.He has given sufficient examples with the theory in a very simple language.

3)Microprocessor-Ramesh Gaonkar

This is the only book you need to refer.The best book!

4) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.
Control system:

1) Control system- Nagrath & Gopal 
Go in deep.Read it carefully as a lot difficult,tricky and indirect questions can be asked on this subject. In this subject almost all the topics are related to each other. You may be asked to find a quantity of a topic, giving reference of the quantity of the other topic. This book covers almost all the syllabus.

2) Control system - Godse & Bakshi (Another good local book) 

This book is good for the revision.To be used at the last time only.

3) Control system - Ogata (Only some specific topics)

This book is quite good for polar plots and PI,PD and PID controllers. Also some part of Time Domain Analysis can be done from this book. Very simple language and shortcut methods.

4) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.
Electrical networks:

1) An introduction to electrical networks-Hayt and Kimmerly

A very great book with extremely simple language which covers all the topics except graph theory.

2)Any electrical network book covering Graph theory

Electromagnetics:

1) Electromagnetics-Hayt

Very good book, but somewhat difficult language and derivations

2)Electromagnetics-Sadiku

Very simple language, but better to refer Hayt for the wave theory.

3) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.

Tip: Don't stress a lot on initial topics like electric and magnetic field theory. Concentrate on topics Maxwell's equations,wave theory and wave propagation. But concepts all the chapters should be clear. Go for this subject if you have enough time, but questions on this subjects are quite simple and formula based.

Siganl & Systems:

1) Signal and systems-Oppenheim

Conceptual book.

2) Signal and systems-Hsu

Very good book for the revision and to save time.

3)Digital siganl processing-Proakis

This book should be used for the preparation of DFT and FFT.

4) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.
Tip:This subject is quite mathematical,but very important subject. Practice the problems a lot.

Communication:

1) Analog and digital communication- B.P.Lathi

This is the best book to study. It covers almost all the topics as the subject is quite vast.

2) Any digital communication book

For digital modulation

3) GATE-R.K.Kanodia
Once a topic is over, solve objective questions from R.K.Kanodia. It has given a very good set of examples with solutions.A great book for practice!Use this book for all remaining subjects.
Tip: This subject is quite vast as both analog and digital communication are involved. Do not go in deep. Stress on basic concepts. A large variety of questions can be asked. So see the previous years question papers.It will give you a broad idea.