Things to expect from online semester….

Congratulations all for getting good colleges for your Masters.

All the best to the ones who are still waiting for your turn. Make an informed decision.

You all know that the previous two semesters were online, so to the new upcoming batch….do not expect your seniors to know everything. They will tell you what they have experienced and what they have heard. We(your seniors) are learning the rules as and when they are implemented or imposed on us. Its better to check with some faculty whenever you have some doubt related to the policy being followed at your respective institutes.

The most important decision that you will face just going and starting your master’s is choosing subjects. Every institute has its own policy and set of subjects that repeat every year. Sometimes some new subjects might be added, and some old ones might be deleted.

For those joining IIT Hyderabad: Last year, it was compulsory for everyone to take at least two subjects from each bucket of Systems, Theory, and Data Science in the CSE department. There will be one subject that will be compulsory, i.e., Advance data structures and algorithms. Choose your subjects wisely. For next semester there will be some subjects that might require subjects from semester one as pre-requisite. For example, Introduction to Machine Learning will be a pre-requisite for deep learning and Natural language processing. You can always convince faculty to waive off the pre-requisite if you think you know the subject already, but this will depend only on the faculty. Therefore try to find out such combinations beforehand. This information will be available in the academic portal. Professor is the one to allow you to sit in his subject. There are no standard rules applied for every subject. Faculty have complete power to define pass and fail for their subject.

The second thing that I would like to say is…some subjects are lightweight and easy to score in, while some are difficult to score….but the level of difficulty depends on personal interest. Some seniors might say the course was challenging but blindly following the notion of difficulty of the subject from someone else’s point of view is wrong. Try to attend few lectures during the add/drop period and decide for yourself. Difficult subjects give a good learning experience. Try to form a balance between your subjects.

The third thing is choosing partners for course projects. Having a good partner makes a project easy and exciting to work on. Luckily, I got good partners for every subject that I took, but choosing someone with whom you are not comfortable talking and working might lose interest in the project. Making friends in online semester is not easy for many of us. Most of us are introverts but try to make the best out of our current situation. There is no better option right now than leaving your comfort zone and talk.

One more thing….I was in two different IITs for the previous two semesters, and I observed this one thing…no one will take the initiative to organize a video call and group call just to interact. We all tend to wait for others to go ahead and make efforts. Even when someone tries…there are only a few to join. Such calls are awkward at first, but I think they are necessary. Otherwise, the result will be that you know only 1-2 students even after spending one year. Like I know only 2-3 students studying with me. Some who went to college before the second wave are at an advantage here.

Some students have a fixed reason for MTech, i.e. getting a good placement. They start doing leetcode questions from semester one. But if you are still exploring your interest between research and placement, then I think Mtech RA and MS course is a good option for that. You get more time to explore your interest.

So if I share my story now, I was getting MTech TA at IIT Ropar and MTech RA at IIT Hyderabad. I choose Hyderabad because they have better placements than Ropar. There was no restriction on time for me…some have certain family issues and can’t wait for 3 years to start earning, but I have no such problem….so I choose Hyderabad. I joined with the interest of pursuing some research in Natural Language Processing. Then I took one subject called Information Retrieval. I loved that subject and interviewed at IIT Delhi with an interest in pursuing NLP and IR together. I took a course in Advanced Information Retrieval. I got introduced to cross-modal retrieval, which involves working with text and images. So now, I again refined my working direction. For those who feel that they don’t really know what they want to work on for their MS, I will suggest reading more and more research papers….that is the only way to find your interest. Try to implement something or run some paper implementation available on GitHub. You will undoubtedly know better and choose your interest for yourself and don’t follow someone else’s point of view blindly. Other people can only guide you but cannot take your decisions. I know I was so anxious about this when I was filling forms for MS. Choosing a topic for research is a process, and you will get better at it when you start reading research papers.

In MS, there is no compulsory course at IIT Delhi. You have to first discuss your courses with your potential guide, and then you have a choice to follow their decision or choose on your own. I made a mistake denying to choose a subject that my guide told me because I heard from seniors that the course was really difficult for them. I thought I won’t be able to score good marks in that. That’s why I feel…taking your decisions based on other’s pov is not good. Many will tell you that Machine learning courses are difficult to score in….I agree they are challenging, but If you are interested in learning that topic, definitely take the course and don’t think about grades beforehand.

Special topic courses generally involve research paper reading and presentation; also, they have a project which is no less than implementing at least one paper. Assignments are really good at top IITs, and they are generally to be done in groups of 2 or 3. Be prepared to work hard and even fail sometimes. I literally tried one assignment over a month and at last got zero results. That was heartbreak, but at least I learned something…so it is okay. Plagiarism policy is very strict for the coding assignments and even for term papers or survey papers that we write as part of the course. It’s better to learn from online sources but never copy stuff directly. TAs use software to catch similarity(MOSS). They themselves are students like us…so they know all the sources and ways to copy anyway.

My other batchmates may have different views but this is something I felt and I experienced. I thought someone might get a feeling reading this, that he/she is not alone being confused. Many people still don’t know what they want from life….and they (including me) are exploring as they go. Its okay to be confused but take your own decisions. Blame it on yourself later and not on others.

Ending on a famous quote ” सुनो सबकी करो मन की ” 🙂

My GATE journey

Hello!!

I completed my B.Tech. from U.I.E.T. Panjab University, Chandigarh. I never heard the name of my college before filling the form for JAC Counselling for PEC University. Coming from not so popular college and with a dream to join IIT I knew only M. Tech. is the solution. My brother and my mother both are from IIT Roorkee and my father is a PhD., this fact always motivated me and simultaneously pressurized me to join masters program. I discovered my interest in core technical subjects of Computer Science though I was never good with their implementation part. Understanding the theoretical concepts was always easy for me but I always failed in solving numerical problems. Same thing happened with me in JEE mains and I repeated that in my Gate 2019 as well.

My Gate 2019 Journey

I decided to appear for gate in my 2nd year only and actually started preparing for it January 2018. I joined a coaching which one of my seniors joined and got AIR 2 in Chandigarh. But later came to know that the faculty here changes every year and I got the new faculty which was fine. Few subjects were really amazing and cleared all my concepts but few needed self study. I referred Standard books for all subjects and prepared good notes. One thing I lacked in my preparation was problem solving. I only solved GATE previous year once till August and that too very casually. One more thing that was lacking in coaching was tests. There were not enough tests and a competitive environment to study.

After August campus placements started in my college and I decided to sit for them. Another mistake that I did in my 2019 attempt, to focus on two things together and not making the best out of any. I sat in around 7-8 companies and gave their aptitude tests, programming tests and interviews and devoted my half attention there till 13th September, when I finally made it to Infosys Ltd. I wasted a lot of time here stressing out and my Gate preparation got neglected a lot by then. After being placed only at the package of 3.5 LPA, I somehow got satisfied and started enjoying my last semester in college, chilling with my friends. Gate prep was some where down in my priority now. I also chose to go for 6 Months internship in Infosys Mysore which started on 14th January, 2019. Joining my internship that too in January was my biggest mistake. I could have prepared well and given test series in December after my semester exams and continued my preparation in January. Well I went to Mysore and only 25 days were left for my exam. I got really busy there with the classes and could only score around 41.33 with a rank more than 5000.

I also appeared in IIIT H exam but could not qualify. I realized that I had no other option but to join my job as dropping was not my thing. I cannot focus for long hours and dropping was a bit risky.

My Gate 2020 journey

So I started my preparation again in June,2019. I was motivated this time. I was not happy with my placement as growth opportunities are very less in Infosys. I got my offer letter for training again and went to Mysore on 5th August, 2019. I took my books along and studied there as well. I had to choose my work location and I chose Chandigarh again. I was alone here this time, no friends and took a PG where I knew no one. I had no time to waste. I made no new friends in Chandigarh and only concentrated on my Gate prep. Luckily the project I got initially had little work and I could even study in my office. Infosys has a library also where one can easily study and no one will judge.

I solved all previous year problems by November end once and completed all my subjects. I realized i was weak in Algorithm, DM, LA and Probability. I prepared for them in December along with revising other subjects and solving previous year question again. I also made short notes like 4-5 pages for each subject and 1-2 pages of formula list for most subjects and pasted that on my wall. I used to revise all that daily and solve previous year (selected not all) during revision. I took two test series one from Made easy and other from Ace Academy. This time I gave like 20 tests and always used to analyse them and write down their mistakes in a notebook.

During January I took leave from my job and gave my 100% only to the my GATE preparation. I deactivated all social media accounts and was in contact with only one friend who was preparing for GATE along with his job. Preparing along with your job needs a lot of self motivation because sometimes one can feel that maybe I can switch job and then I will grow or doing 9-5 job was more easy than preparing all the subjects again and again.

Mistakes that I made in my Gate 2020

According to me my mistake was not forming a group with like minded and motivated Gate Aspirants and as I was not in contact with any of my teacher so problem solving was tough sometimes and finding a solution to the tough questions was not easy. I used to disturb Prashant every time I got stuck…Thanks for helping me with my doubts.

I used YouTube channels like Gate smashers, Gate Lectures by Ravindrababu Ravula, Knowledge Gate, etc. to study in my 2020 attempt. I had no time to study from standard books but I had my notes from last year for reference. This was also a mistake as I lacked in understanding the core concepts and idea behind those concepts. I only knew that this is the formula that I have to apply to solve these type of questions in some subjects like computer networks. I actually used questions to understand the concepts rather than understanding the concept first and then solving questions for practice.

Another mistake was solving fewer full tests and not preparing a good strategy to solve questions. I always solved questions in sequence and did same during the exam. I was not good in handling the exam pressure and got panicked during the last half an hour. I was not able to revise efficiently and solve the remaining problems at that time. One tip to future aspirants try giving more tests and give atleast one CBT if possible.

That’s my GATE journey from 5462 AIR to 616 AIR and I hope those who get stuck at a less paying job feel motivated after reading this and start preparing for GATE and score good marks. GATE needs consistent efforts of revising all the subjects. Its not that tough like JEE. Do solve previous year questions atleast twice before the exam. Anyone with dedication and determination can perform good in GATE.

ALL THE BEST!! 🙂