How Hard IISc Hit Me....

Hard to the power infinity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me give you little background. I did my M. Tech from IIT Kanpur, SMD. The first month was like hell. Things were going above my head. I was not able to cross single digit in any of the quizzes. Somehow things became manageable close to mid-sem and by end sem I was confident that I am not going to at least fail in any subject. However I manged to do well in end term. Now things looked pretty enjoyable and I decided to take the toughest courses in the department. It felt like now I can crack anything.

I did my M. Tech project with Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta and Dr. Bishakh Battacharya. Both of them did their PhD from IISc. Dasgupta Sir had a habit of coming to lab post dinner and use to stay in lab till 3/4 am. Most of us use to join him for tea/coffee around 11.30 or 12. We use to chat a lot, a lot mean a lot. Most of the time about IISc or about Math. He use to motivate all of to join for PhD, in India or abroad. In the mean time I got a job in Ashok Leyland. I decided to join the job and take time for preparing GRE.

In the very first month I learned that I can not continue in the job and only option available are either go back to IITK for PhD or IISc. I decided to try my luck with IISc. I thought if I have survived IITK then what worst can happen? (read this carefully) I will finish PhD from IISc in 3 years and then will go for 2nd PhD outside India. I was targeting double doctorate. I did not knew what I am getting into.

When I started attending classes at IISc initially it did not felt difficult, everything seemed calm and peaceful like the institute climate. But who knew there is a strong and powerful current beneath this? The basic difference in courses in any IIT and IISc is, mostly in IITs the course has a syllabus which needs to be covered wheres as in IISc you are trained to be a researcher so though courses had syllabus the teaching style of professors was more open ended. We were more involved in the class, we discussed things which were not in any book, sometimes a research article or notes from a Russian author.

Slowly, it became clear that even after IITK I have just scratched the surface, there is a lot, a lot to learn. I do not know when and how 6 years went by. I do not exactly remember when I forgot about my double doctorate. What I do remember is two exams

a) Dr. Chaterji mailed us the final term question, yes mailed us, and gave 7 days to solve the paper,

b) Dr. Harursampath took an exam with open time. We started around 5pm and there were students who were siting till 10 am next day. Some of us went to hostel, slept for 2 hours and came back to write the exam

IISc is one of a kind institute in India. None of the IIT can come close to that level. Most of the IISc graduates are professor in IITs so you can imagine.

- Srikant Sekhar