IISC MSc Engg continued…

On the very next day, 6th June, it was time for SERC interview. There was also a small written test followed by the interview. Here they selected candidates based on their performance in written, unlike CSA.

In the written exam, there were 8 questions among which 5 were to be attempted in 30mins. Very basic questions were there, but little tougher, rather more lengthy, than the CSA warm up. Questions were like,

1. Form a binary search tree with the elements of an array given
2. Probability problems (Bayes theorem)
3. Fill in the blanks in a linked list reversal pseudo code. Was to place the pointers properly.

… I could attempt only 4, but got selected for the interview.

Here also we had to give our lab preference, in which all lab we would like to work and interview questions were supposed to be in accordance with that. This time the interview started with data structure by default.

• Draw an arbit binary tree
• Represent it using an array (with out caring about wastage of memory)
• postfix and prefix notation
• can construct the tree back?
• why not?
• With infix? why?
• made it a expression tree. Now why with postfix we can evaluate?
• draw a 4*4 grid. In how many ways one can come from (0,0) to (4,4)?

So, it finished within 30 minutes and I realized in interview confidence and faith on yourself really matters, specially comparing with the last day’s one.

Again IISC.. MSc (Engg)

After a long month it was again time to roam around a bit with the excuse of interview. By God’s grace, I got interview calls for MSc (Engg) from both the departments, CSA and SERC in IISc. Former through JEST and later through GATE.

First, it was CSA on 5th of this June. I was pretty sure that I wont clear the written paper like last time, the SERC M Tech exam. Actually, I was so sure that I would not clear the written and hence would not get the chance of appearing for interview, that I didn’t prepare at all for the interview. And there was subjects like Discrete Math, Linear algebra, Probability for interview.

The subjects for interview are in accordance with the research interests you select, like I selected mostly from intelligent systems, machine learning, pattern recognition and got those subjects for interview. They send a interview note,via email, before hand, so that candidates can select there area of research interest and prepare the subjects for interview accordingly.

Now this time,with all my surprise the paper was easy and they gave enough time to finish it. There were 10 question for 30 minutes. As they said, it was for warm up,

1. How many number <100 has odd number of factors?
2. Uniform distribution, P(X>0.3)?
3. Rank of a matrix, a (i,j)=0 ,if i+j odd, else 1
4. Difference between Divide n Conquer and Dynamic Programming
5. Recurrence relation and worst case time complexity of Merge sort

Rest was also easy, n I dont remember them  🙂

With in few minutes they called everyone (I guess everyone was called) for interview in three panels. And I was taken upstairs directly into the interview room. Profs were smiling n I kept saying myself, “am I going to make a big fool of myself?” I think this is something you should never do. You should always go for the interview with a confident face, confident mind. Anyways, it stared with Discrete Math followed by Linear algebra, followed Probability.

1. Define relation and function
2. Difference between them
3. Cross product of a set
4. Write definition of reflexive, symmetric, equivalence relation in mathematical expression
5.  Number of symmetric relation

6. Eigen values, define, write n mathematical expression

7. Define random variable

I was so very struggling for most of the answers, specially the definitions, that they finally asked me about a subject choice and again I said Data Structure and Algo.

8. What is min heap
9. Build one from an array
10. How heap sort works using min heap

Finally they let me go.

A Journey

Hi everyone. This is the first time I am trying to write a blog, a Big-LOG from the server inside my head. 😀

This time I choose to write because, may be, I have a lot of things to say, but very few people to hear. So why not say it to the world. I may get some audience. 🙂

Now you must be wondering what the topic is. This is about my journey towards doing my Masters. It’s been almost two years I am working with an IT organization and finally planned to move on for higher studies which was actually my initial planning after B.Tech.

Firstly, I did really bad in GATE 2012 and ended up with a rank of 1025. AIR 1025, that too in 2012 where people who ranked 70, was doubtful to get IITB. But somehow I got few interview calls, God’s grace.

It started with IISC Computational Science M. Tech. This was the one and only call for M. Tech I received. I was at Mumbai, my base branch. Thank to God that there were bus services available from Mumbai to Bangalore, I did not have to fight for railway tickets and I could manage a place to stay. Unfortunately IISC does not arrange for any accommodation.

16th April,It was supposed to be a written test followed by an interview. My test was in 2^nd half and I found 1^st half test had started so late that our test got delayed by few minutes. “No problem, stay calm and give it a try”, I said. Well, as was expected, it was full with +2 mathematics and that became enough to kill me. The question paper was like,

1. Lim (x->inf) integration (0 to inf)1/(1+(x/a)^n) dx

2. coefficient of the term with out x (sqrt(3x)+/(2.x^2))^10

3. n*n matrices AB, eigen values lambda, eigen value of lambda*BA?

4. F(x) = integration (0 to x) (x-t)f(t)dt. F'(x)?

5. |z-1|=5*|z-i| represents an equation of circle?ellipse?

6. No of functions from a set of cardinality m to n. mn

7. System of linear eqn, no of roots?

8. logx base 2 = |x|. No of solutions?

9. log base 2(log base 3(log base 4 x))) = 2. x?

10. Probability f having only one odd number.dice rolled 5times.

11. hexagon n square of same perimetre. ratio of area?

12. Square of area 6, rotated along its diagoanal. area covered by rotation?

13. [ -sin(alpha) -cos(alpha)]

    [ -cos(alpha) sin(alpha) ], mutiplied to a vector.then, rotation about orgin?

 translation?reflection?

14. simple array ques

15. Harmonic Oscillation, eqn given, phase lag between phi and d(phi)/dt?

There was 30 questions for 45 mins which seemed to go very fast.

Finally, the result came out at 5pm on SERC website and I was not selected. Booked a bus for next morning and back to Mumbai.

Hey, are you thinking this is the end of the story, no dear it has just started.