IIT Kharagpur Admission Experience for PhD

My Ph.D. interview was for the Computational and Data Science department at IIT Kharagpur (Sping 2021)

So, firstly there were 3 professors in the panelist, 2 of them were from Computer Science Dept since I had a background of Bachelors in IT and also since my research area was from the CSE domain. (The interview was on Google Meet)

They asked me for my Introduction along with my GATE score. Then they asked me which preferences have I filled in the application form.

I told them I filled them as-

1. CSE
2. Computational Data Science
3. Nano Technology

I actually didn’t know about the cutoff for the CSE dept, so I mentioned this point, that I was not shortlisted for it. I had my B. Tech Project and some internships related to Information Security and Digital Forensics, so I mentioned them the same along with some of my Research Publications. I mentioned this point explicitly since they told me that very few apply for Direct Ph.D. after B.tech without doing Masters.

They had already intimated about the syllabus of Ph.D. Interview –

Data Structures & Algorithms, Operating systems, Computer Architecture

1. So one of the professors started with the Data Structures question and gave me a C program to write.

   Write a C code to find the longest run of 1’s in an array (considered 1-D array for explanation)

   I took the approach of defining a binary array containing 0’s and 1’s and then counting the longest run of 1’s or 0’s using the count variable (for loop 1-D  array), as this was the simplest approach that came to my mind at that time.

   Meanwhile, as I was writing my code in the chatbox of Google meet I also had to simultaneously explain it for different instances they gave.

2. Now, another professor asked about have you prepared Computer Architecture, I said yes, and then asked me about Cache memory, it’s functioning, and why it is used.

   I explained them the same.. (Along with the different types of Cache mappings like Direct, Fully associative and Set Associative)

3. Then they asked me about the number of caches misses in the following code:

   for ( int i=0 ; i<100 ; i++)
   A[i] = A[i] +2;
   cache size=20

   line size=1 word 2-way Set associative

   They wanted to see my approach only towards the question, as they stopped me in between I was writing the answer.

4. Then, they asked what I want to research in Computational Data Science. I told them about Data Analytics.
5. As they knew my research background was from Information security so they asked me the name of the Standard Cryptography book that I studied.

   I couldn’t remember the name at that time and told I couldn’t recall it now,

6. At last, they asked in which more IITs have I applied. I told them the truth.

They told me they will communicate the results, but I am still awaiting them.

Anyways, I think my interview was quite good. Hoping for the best!!