IISc PhD interviews (2018) CSA & CDS

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to share my experience regarding the recent PhD interviews in IISc, so that anyone who is interested in pursuing research in Computer Science at IISc can get some sort of intro/prelude before they get to the process.

I'll break it up into important titles so that you can pick what is relevant for you.

Application Dates:

The portal for the research admissions open sometime in 1st week of Febraury and I think it'll be open till Mid March.

link: https://www.iisc.ac.in/important-dates/

Shortlisting Criteria:

So for the Computer Science Department, there were 2 ways of getting shortlisted which were relevant to me, I'll list them below.

1. GATE score (should be valid at the time of applying)
2. M.Tech qualified. (Should have completed the degree)
3. ERP (External Registration Programme) should be sponsored by a company in which you are working

My GATE score had expired,  so I managed to qualify in the second category and got shortlisted.

Here's the link below explaining the shortlisting criteria.
link: https://www.iisc.ac.in/admissions/

What to fill in the application:

In the online application portal, you get to choose 3 departments and order them according to your priority (your interest in research)

I had chosen CDS as first, CSA as second and CDS-CP as third.

Also, I highly encourage that you visit the faculty profile and the department website to check for the ongoing research areas. This is important because at the time of the interview they'll check whether you really are interested, if you managed to check any of the work that is being done currently in the department and so on.

So take some time before filling the department preference.
You can even interact with the existing students to find out what is happening in the department.

Shortlisting, Written tests and interview:

1. If you are shortlisted you get a mail from the departments individually. ( I got from both CSA and CDS)
2. Written tests at the institute on the scheduled dates.
3. Interviews for the ones who cleared the written tests.

P.S: If your interview dates are clashing, you can mail them and ask for rescheduling, they are kind and they will oblige :)

CDS - Written Tests & Interview:

CDS had a written test for around 30 minutes, the written test had 5 questions and you are expected to clear as many as possible. The questions were from probability, permutation, C programming and general math.

Overall the questions were medium in difficulty, GATE preparation is sufficient to clear the written test. It was on 23rd of May for me, morning session, I'll list down the questions I had got.

1. Given LCM of 2 numbers can you find the GCD? (both LCM and the 2 numbers will be given)

2. 10 people (5 men and 5 women)  are sitting in a table, table has 2 sides, each side 5 people can sit, in how many different ways can 10 people be seated in that table.

3. A question on probability, independent events related question. given probablity when both events A and B happen, given probablity that both A and B do not happen, can you find p(a) and p(b)?

4. C program question, character pointer, post increment of pointer in the printf statement and print the output. (don't correctly remember the question).

char *ch = abcd;
printf("%c",*ch);
printf("%c",*++ch);
printf("%c",*ch++);
printf("%c",*ch);

Something like the above.

5. Number of zeroes in (25!) in base 8 system.

About 40 to 50 had appeared for the test (both M.Tech (research) and PhD) for CDS

I think I could answer all of them correctly! :) , not sure if few things were wrong, they didnt disclose the marks.

After about 40 minutes, they will call out the names of the shortlisted candidates. I was scared because my name did not feature up until the last 4 names.

Most of them were shortlisted, I'd say at least 30 were shortlisted.

Interviews:

My interview turn came after a nerve wracking 90 minutes of waiting!
There were a panel of 3 professors, who ran through my mark-sheets and degree certificates and my previous employment.

So it started, one of the prof started by saying lets start with basics and started with algorithms.

Algorithm Questions:

They asked me what is connected component in a graph.
Strongly Connected and Weakly Connected component.
Write an algorithm to find out the connected components.

Next, they asked if I have prepared any subjects relevant to the department's research.
In that lot I picked Operating Systems.

Operating Systems:

They said, lets start with a basic question, a classic text book problem.
Readers-Writers problem! (I had prepared but out of nervousness I forgot it!)
So, I was asked to explain the problem and write an algorithm for Reader and Writer.
Explain mutex and semaphore.

Questions related to my Project:

I had done my project work in distributed systems in my masters and I was quite inclined to pursue research in that only.

Prof gave me a marker pen and asked me to go to the board, he asked me to draw the project architecture, it took some time to draw it.

Meanwhile, prof kept asking questions on why we had taken some decisions during our project. After some questioning and answering, prof stopped and asked why are you interested in leaving the job and other joining related questions! ( I sighed that I finally scraped through the technical part :D)

And then the prof said that the tentative list will be announced in a week, and asked me to talk to the students and find out more about what they do in the department!

One week later, the tentative list was out and my name was there :)
About 10 days after the tentative list, the final merit list was announced and the  admission offer was made, and one of the best moments of my career had finally arrived!

I made it to the final list despite some hiccups and nervous breaks in the interview!

Final Thoughts:

Sometimes even if you don't know the answers, you need to relax take a moment and at least explain what you are thinking in a clear manner. And more often than not, you'll figure a way out :)

Hope this helps! Will update on the CSA interviews in the next part :)

P.S:  Shout out to my project team (Shweta and Munmun!) and our prof Vivekananda Velanki with whom I was very lucky to be a part of. I had no idea that all that we had done for about a year ,would be useful somewhere down the line an interview!