BARC & IIT Bombay RA Experience

Went to Bombay a day before. Stayed in IIT Bombay because I had few facebook friends. To my luck , even they had BARC Interview. We all went there.  There was initially a check up of all the certificates and to and from tickets for travel allowance.  The interview went on like this 

1. Graph of Voltage across capacitor vrs time with different values of R,L,C in series RLC Circuit.

2. Super Diode

3. A lot of confusing questions on whether some Mosfet is depletion or enhancement type.

4. Set up and Hold up time

5. Signals and Systems questions were mostly on finding the Fourier series and transform based on symmetry.

6. Some quality Control System questions.

With this.. My tour of India completed. 

Starting from Bangalore to Madras to Delhi to Bombay.....................

Before putting some thing else, I want to summarize as to what all offers I had in my hand

1. IIT Bombay - Communications ( 1st round) and Electronics Systems ( 4th round)

2. IIT Madras - Communications ( 1st round)

3. IIT Delhi - IEC, VDTT

4. IIT Kharagpur - Micro Electronics

5. IISC Bangalore - Communications and Networking

The below given experience is by my friend K. Bharadwaj. I needn't had to go to IIT Bombay RA. He have put his thoughts. He tasted the success in IIT Bombay RA and I have put his experience.

M.Tech (EE)IIT BOMBAY (RA) Experience

                                                                                                                                       

It is usually very difficult getting VLSI in old IIT's for ranks above 200(my rank is 295 and score 803 in EC).For such people,IITB provides a golden oppurtunity with M.Tech  as RA(Research Assistant).It's a 3 year course but is nowhere different to two year M.tech as TA(Teaching Assistant).Curriculum,Coursework and placements are all same except that RA has to spend one more year.As an RA,one has to take less courses per semester(3 as against 5 for TA) but has to spend 20 hours of work  per week as against 8 hours of work for TA.There are two kinds of Research assistants

1.Institue RA

-One has to work in labs like electronics lab,VLSI lab to help undergraduate students in performing experiments.These are concerned with day to day activities of lab including maintainence.Even System administrator comes under this RA.

2.Project RA

-Professors have funded projects from various sources.As a project RA,one has to assist these professors in project and in administrative work also as told by respective guide.

Now,the difference between them is in chosing guide.Project RA will be assigned a guide at selection and cannot be changed.He is expected to do his thesis work in same area as project alloted while Institute RA has the freedom of choosing guide.

Selection Process :

Cutoff is put in gate score and are called.This year(2015),cutoff  is 660(GEN),596(OBC),440(SC/ST).It means ranks upto 1200 can also be called in GEN

There will be a written test and Interview as part of selection process.

Written Test:It has objective type questions in which some may require answers in one or two sentences.Time duration is 2 hours

Consisted of 3 sections

Section 1 consists of MATHS,APTITUDE,CONTROL SYSTEMS,ELECTRICAL MACHINES (50 marks as far as  i remember)

Section 2 consists of LINUX Basics(commands,networking ),Communication,DSP questions(50 marks ..or may be 60.. i dont remember exactly)

Section 3 consists of Analog ,digital and electronic devices (50 marks)

There is no need to attempt all sections.Because it is not expected for a core electrical guy to know communications and vice versa.It is essential to score in the area for which you gave preference.Questions level were easy-medium but time was the constraint.this year,paper was lengthy enough that scoring 50 in whole paper is great.I guess my score would be around 45

Now shortlisting happens on following criteria

Institute RA- 50 % gate score ,50 % written test

Project RA-75 % gate score,25 % written test

Till last year 2:1 people were called for the interviews for the number of positons available.But this time it was 3:1.This year number of positions for institute RA are 36(5 were for only electrical)

and 21 for Project RA(5 were pure electrical projects).120 odd people were shortlisted for Institute RA whereas 63 for project RA(around 300 people gave written test).Your name can appear in both lists but will be interviewed only once in which you have to indicate preferences.

This is atleast 2 day process in which first day will be written test.Resullts will be in website by Night.Next day,we assembled at hall and we were given forms for giving preferences in Institute RA(Electronics lab,VLSI lab,System administrator,Communication lab).Projects(abstracts were given to us) seperately for institute RA and Project RA.we were  then addressed by HOD who surprised us with a new proposal this year to check laboratory skills for people who preferred electronics lab in 1^st or 2^nd choices.We were taken to WEL lab and were given an experiment to perform.It was implementing 3 bit counter using a 4 bit counter  (not the usual kind but its easy.just that idea has to strike)and connecting it to a DAC circuit given in question and verifying with theoritical values.

INTERVIEW :There were 16 panels and we are alloted based on our preferences in the form filled earlier.Each panel had 2 members.If you are shortlisted for both institute as well as project(and dual degree (mtech +phd )also had interviews in same timings.You have to write same test as RA if u have applied and have been invited for that also),the panel asks you preference .I preferred project RA as i had interest in a proj 'chip design for Physiological monitoring(healthcare)' and had previous experience with my mini project in same area.I was asked to introduce myself and  I told about my education and projects I did as major and mini.They were interested and asked me about the circuit i used for mini project which had biasing,filtering and amplication.I was asked about the opamp used in my project and why was it specifically used(it was noiseless).We basically had a discussion rather than being interviewed.Then the professor asked me a basic RC filter question and asked me to draw outputs on R and C for a square wave input.Then asked when it would function as Integrator and differentiator and what happens if the case is opposite(RC>>T,RC<<T).All this took around 30 mins .Only one prof asked me all this.I got to know that other prof is asking about digital questions if we mentioned digital as interest.They asked me what I was doing for the last one year as i was already passout last year.Thats all.They said they were done.So simple it seems na ;).It was the simplest interview of all the ones i had.They were asking only basic questions.So if you have good gate score and performed reasonable well in written test and interview you can get seat easily.If you have less  gate score,dont worry but perform well in written test and interview.Results will be annouced in a week or two.

I am here by putting up few links that may be useful for students

http://mobileelectron.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/iisc-and-iit-interviews-for-m-tech-admission/

http://sarthakparui.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/iit-interview-experience-part-i/

http://www.gatecounsellor.com/alumni.php#krishnan

http://www.careerlauncher.com/gateday/ecequestions.html

http://iitsinterviewquestions.blogspot.in/2012/01/future-course.html

http://www.gatecounsellor.com/interview_EE.php

http://asic.co.in/Index_files/Digital_interview_questions1.htm ( Some very good questions with explanations for Digital electronics. Will also help you clarify your concepts )

http://asic-soc.blogspot.in/ ( Digital questions )

http://www.allinterview.com/Interview-Questions/Electronics-Communications.html ( Open in Mozilla or IE )

http://www.geekinterview.com/Engineering/Electronics/tab2

Go and have a blast @ GATE.

Finally, hope this journey was good.....

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