If you are just preparing for GATE, you should solve more and more questions. And for that I would recommend GKP Publisher's Question Bank. Although there are some mistakes in the book for solutions to some problems, but I recommend this book solely for the huge collection of problems it has.
On the destined date I reached Bangalore for my IIIT-B interview. Bangalore is quite a happening city. Contrary to the fact pointed out by my acquaintances that you will have language problems in Bangalore, everyone seemed to understand Hindi and English. On 5th morning at 7AM I boarded a bus from Majestic for Electronics City. It took around 45 minutes for the AC Volvo called Vayu Vajra by BMTC, to churn out 15KMs, traffic being a bottleneck. I was greeted by the Electronics City flagship Infosys campus. It is very huge and a live example of engineering and architectural excellence. After asking a few passers-by about the where-abouts of IIIT-B we finally found the campus which has an HP go-down(housed in Infosys campus) in its front, Siemens to the left, Infosys to the front right. As I entered the campus I noticed a gathering of several GATE qualified padhaku students. I took an stroll around the campus with inquisitive eyes, and then entered into the academic block from the rear!!! As I entered inside, I was awestruck at the beauty of the interior. After I detected my goof, I went to the main entrance and got my attendance marked. Then I was directed to head towards Main Class Room 106. There, lots of students and their guardians were seated, and catered by the student volunteers. The main class room had four large projected screens and the student volunteers were running presentations about the college on them and helping the candidates with the interview process. They were all very co-operative. Some YouTube videos were also being played. The internet connectivity through WiFi was extremely fast there and I saw a 4 minute video getting buffered in less than 30 seconds.
At around 12 I went for my documents verification and was then carried to the interview place. There were around 20 cabins in which 20 people were interviewing the candidates. After a couple of minutes I was directed towards a cabin. I asked for the permission to enter and went into the chamber. The man inside offered me a seat, I thanked and seated myself onto the chair.
My interview session lasted for around 15-20 minutes. The first thing he asked me was: Tell me about yourself for three minutes. I started off with the by hearted answer that consisted of Name, Location, Schooling, Current activity, Hobbies and Interests in that order. Instead of 3 minutes, I ran out of data in 1 minute only!!!
Then he asked me about my blog, about which I had stated in the hobbies category. I spoke. He cross-questioned, how many followers do you have? I said two, as of now, but I receive 100+ unique visitors per day according to log stats. He asked me why don't you concentrate on converting visitors to followers? I said, I didn't have this idea earlier, my main motto was to acquaint people with my experiences with computers, but now as you have told me I'll concentrate on this thing too.
Then he asked me. Ok, start with the technical topic you have prepared and continue for five minutes. I started off with my Socket Communication topic and explained things bringing everything down to basic level. During the course of describing the UDP server I forgot something and stopped, then asked him for a few seconds to recall and reorganize all the data inside my brain. He gave me time and after 3 seconds I resumed.
After I finished, he said you can communicate well, but not because you have a very good command over spoken english but because you have a deep understanding of the topic you are explaining. I said yes sir, my mothertongue is not english and I have spoken english very little so I don't have very good command over spoken english. He told, who says you can't speak? You spoke perfectly well. Communication means when you speak socket, I should hear it as socket not ice cream! I agreed!
Then he started looking at my academics. He said you're having nice academics. Your GATE score of 614 and marks 42.33 is very high and you're probably in the 98th percentile. I said yes, 98.59 to be precise. He said, it is a very good score. I replied, not very good but it is just fine, I could have scored 60+ if only I hadn't made those silly mistakes which I realized while matching the solutions on v-day evening. Then he said, which subjects you were most excited about in your B.Tech. I replied DBMS and Networking. He said, ok you've been given a table, can you say whether it is in third normal form and if it is not, then can you convert it in 3NF? Backed with my expertise in Functional Dependencies & Normalization I said, yeah with hundred percent surety, and proceeded ahead.
After this he asked me, how do you spend your time. I said, I am not into arts so no music, no singing. But I play chess, do some photography and most of the extra time I spend managing my site. Then he asked me about the site. I explained about IndiFun using the word Mobile Social Networking. He stressed on the phrase and said me to explain it. I explained about GPRS and tiny browsers and mobile markup languages. He said, how does this site connect people. I narrated all the features of IndiFun like an advertiser!!!!
Then he said, according to your academics and your extra-curricular activities you are a very deserving candidate. I would love to have you here. But the interview is a very tiny part of the whole selection process. My best wishes for you.
And said, if you have any questions then ask me. I asked, please tell me about yourself. He said, I run a company called Radix Learning which works with IIIT-B and also I teach here data structures in PGDSD course, not in M.Tech course. I said, I would like to keep in touch with you after I get selected. He said no! I don't interact with M.Tech students!
After that he said go happy, you seem to be a very promising candidate. I thanked him, shook hands and left the cabin.
Some photos that I took, follow:
On the destined date I reached Bangalore for my IIIT-B interview. Bangalore is quite a happening city. Contrary to the fact pointed out by my acquaintances that you will have language problems in Bangalore, everyone seemed to understand Hindi and English. On 5th morning at 7AM I boarded a bus from Majestic for Electronics City. It took around 45 minutes for the AC Volvo called Vayu Vajra by BMTC, to churn out 15KMs, traffic being a bottleneck. I was greeted by the Electronics City flagship Infosys campus. It is very huge and a live example of engineering and architectural excellence. After asking a few passers-by about the where-abouts of IIIT-B we finally found the campus which has an HP go-down(housed in Infosys campus) in its front, Siemens to the left, Infosys to the front right. As I entered the campus I noticed a gathering of several GATE qualified padhaku students. I took an stroll around the campus with inquisitive eyes, and then entered into the academic block from the rear!!! As I entered inside, I was awestruck at the beauty of the interior. After I detected my goof, I went to the main entrance and got my attendance marked. Then I was directed to head towards Main Class Room 106. There, lots of students and their guardians were seated, and catered by the student volunteers. The main class room had four large projected screens and the student volunteers were running presentations about the college on them and helping the candidates with the interview process. They were all very co-operative. Some YouTube videos were also being played. The internet connectivity through WiFi was extremely fast there and I saw a 4 minute video getting buffered in less than 30 seconds.
At around 12 I went for my documents verification and was then carried to the interview place. There were around 20 cabins in which 20 people were interviewing the candidates. After a couple of minutes I was directed towards a cabin. I asked for the permission to enter and went into the chamber. The man inside offered me a seat, I thanked and seated myself onto the chair.
My interview session lasted for around 15-20 minutes. The first thing he asked me was: Tell me about yourself for three minutes. I started off with the by hearted answer that consisted of Name, Location, Schooling, Current activity, Hobbies and Interests in that order. Instead of 3 minutes, I ran out of data in 1 minute only!!!
Then he asked me about my blog, about which I had stated in the hobbies category. I spoke. He cross-questioned, how many followers do you have? I said two, as of now, but I receive 100+ unique visitors per day according to log stats. He asked me why don't you concentrate on converting visitors to followers? I said, I didn't have this idea earlier, my main motto was to acquaint people with my experiences with computers, but now as you have told me I'll concentrate on this thing too.
Then he asked me. Ok, start with the technical topic you have prepared and continue for five minutes. I started off with my Socket Communication topic and explained things bringing everything down to basic level. During the course of describing the UDP server I forgot something and stopped, then asked him for a few seconds to recall and reorganize all the data inside my brain. He gave me time and after 3 seconds I resumed.
After I finished, he said you can communicate well, but not because you have a very good command over spoken english but because you have a deep understanding of the topic you are explaining. I said yes sir, my mothertongue is not english and I have spoken english very little so I don't have very good command over spoken english. He told, who says you can't speak? You spoke perfectly well. Communication means when you speak socket, I should hear it as socket not ice cream! I agreed!
Then he started looking at my academics. He said you're having nice academics. Your GATE score of 614 and marks 42.33 is very high and you're probably in the 98th percentile. I said yes, 98.59 to be precise. He said, it is a very good score. I replied, not very good but it is just fine, I could have scored 60+ if only I hadn't made those silly mistakes which I realized while matching the solutions on v-day evening. Then he said, which subjects you were most excited about in your B.Tech. I replied DBMS and Networking. He said, ok you've been given a table, can you say whether it is in third normal form and if it is not, then can you convert it in 3NF? Backed with my expertise in Functional Dependencies & Normalization I said, yeah with hundred percent surety, and proceeded ahead.
After this he asked me, how do you spend your time. I said, I am not into arts so no music, no singing. But I play chess, do some photography and most of the extra time I spend managing my site. Then he asked me about the site. I explained about IndiFun using the word Mobile Social Networking. He stressed on the phrase and said me to explain it. I explained about GPRS and tiny browsers and mobile markup languages. He said, how does this site connect people. I narrated all the features of IndiFun like an advertiser!!!!
Then he said, according to your academics and your extra-curricular activities you are a very deserving candidate. I would love to have you here. But the interview is a very tiny part of the whole selection process. My best wishes for you.
And said, if you have any questions then ask me. I asked, please tell me about yourself. He said, I run a company called Radix Learning which works with IIIT-B and also I teach here data structures in PGDSD course, not in M.Tech course. I said, I would like to keep in touch with you after I get selected. He said no! I don't interact with M.Tech students!
After that he said go happy, you seem to be a very promising candidate. I thanked him, shook hands and left the cabin.
Some photos that I took, follow:
