IIT Kharagpur

After IIT Delhi, the next institute to visit was IIT Kharagpur. IIT Kharagpur is the oldest IITs and considered as a very good institute for computer science.

Selection Criterion

IIT Kharagpur shortlisted the students based on GATE score and the shortlisted candidates were called for interviews at the institute. The cut off GATE score for CS at IIT Kharagpur was around 735 which was around 450-500 rank. There was no written round for IIT Kharagpur. The interview was scheduled on 19^th, 20^th May and those who had their interviews clashing with some other institutes, they could give interview on 17^th May. I gave my interview on 17^th May as I had M.Tech Computer Applications interview at IIT Delhi on 19^th May.

About Course

The courses I applied for at IIT Kharagpur was M.Tech in CS and M.Tech in IT. There was only one interview for CS and IT.

Travel and Stay

Kharagpur is a small town and doesn’t has an airport, so I took a flight from Delhi to Kolkata. I reached Kolkata on 16^th May and stayed at my friend’s house. The next morning at 6, I had a 1.5 hour train journey to Kharagpur, a journey that I can’t forget. 

We took a train from Howrah station to Kharagpur. The train moved smoothly for about an hour and then there was large sound of sparking and the train stopped at Haur station about 40 Km away from Kharagpur station. I was very afraid whether I would be able to make it for the interview or not. We waited for 15 minutes and then we got down from the train. The TC told us that the overhead line of the train had broken and it would take around 2-3 hours to fix it and get the train moving.

I couldn’t wait for 2-3 hours as I had to report for interview in 2 hours, so I decided to take a taxi or bus from there to Kharagpur. Haur was a small village. I couldn’t find any transport from station to Kharagpur. A nearby shopkeeper said he would arrange a taxi, we waited for it for about an hour but we didn’t get any taxi. I called the institute and informed them about the train breakdown and they said that there is no problem and interview will start late at about 10.

A family was going from the station to somewhere so I requested them to give me a lift to the highway so that I could get some transport from there. They gave me a lift and dropped me at the highway. I thought getting a bus or taxi would be easy from a highway, but I was wrong. There were 2 more people standing with me who got down from the same train to Kharagpur. I waited for some time, asking for lift from many people and then a bike came. All 3 of us got on to the bike and the biker took us about 3-4 Km ahead and dropped us at a bus stop.

I waited for about 15 minutes for bus but couldn’t find one. I asked for lift from many people and finally an ambulance stopped. YES an ambulance. Ambulance gave me a ride from the bus stop to a bus depot where I got a bus to Kharagpur railway station. I took an auto rickshaw from station to the institute. I reached the institute at around 11 am, the interview had not yet started. I marked my attendance and waited for my turn.

The institute had made arrangements for staying at hostels. I was there for only one day so didn’t need hostel.

The Institute

IIT Kharagpur has a large campus. There were many hostels. I saw LBS hostel. It was a new hostel and was better compared to Kanpur and Madras hostels. The hostel rooms were on sharing basis, 3 people shared one room. The room had enough space for 3 people. there were 3 beds, cupboards , study tables, balcony.

The Interview

There was a lot of mismanagement at interviews as they had not expected so many candidates would turn up on 17^th. Most of the candidates had IIT Delhi or IIT Bombay scheduled on 19^th May so there were many who had come on 17^th May. 

My interview started at around 2 pm. There were 2 people taking my interview. They started by asking me my favorite subjects, to which I replied Data Structures, Algorithms and DBMS. They sent me to white board and asked me to explain on the white board. He asked me questions about sorting. Which is the sorting algorithm I would prefer (heap sort), why would I prefer this. The time complexity of heap, merge, quick sort, which out of these is the best and why. If both heap and merge have same time complexity why I chose heap. How we calculate different time complexities i.e. average, best and worst case. I answered all these correctly.

After this he asked me questions from TOC. He focused on finite automata. He asked me how to find complement of the language, give an example. And conversion from NFA to DFA etc. To these also I answered properly.

Now they came to engineering maths, they asked me about vectors, basis, vector space most of which I did not knew. Then they switched to operating systems and asked me about system calls, how they are made, when are they made, examples of system calls, how they are implemented, what is difference between normal function call and a system call. I had minimum idea about system calls so this also did not went well.

The interview lasted for about 20 minutes and I was free at about 3 pm. We had lunch at dreamland restaurant in the campus and then I went to see hostels.  I left for Kolkata around 4 pm.

My Trip

I really enjoyed my trip to Kharagpur. I enjoyed the awesome journey from Howrah to Kharagpur. Later that evening we went to a floating hotel Floatel, floating in the Hooghly River. Next day I left for Delhi.

Selection

The result of the interview was announced about 3 weeks after the interview. I got selected for IT and I took admission here.I may have been upgraded to CS but I withdrew admission from here and took admission at IIT Delhi in Computer Applications program.