Here is how I had prepared for my Ph.D. Interviews in India: Sharing my experience

Hello friends,

I had appeared my Ph.D. interviews in 2018, though already two years have been passed but the process & idea should remain unchanged.

I had appeared Ph.D. interviews in nearly 10 Research institutes, two IITs and One NIT.

So here I am going to share my experience which can be very helpful to you if you know it in the early stage of your preparation.

#1 Don't try to cover the whole Syllabus, Be Specific

Generally in most of the viva, the interviewer is going to ask you about your favorite topics or in which area you want to work, then they will start their questions related to it.

So instead of breaking your head in covering the whole syllabus, You can choose some specific topis in which you feel more comfortable. Since it is practically impossible to be really good in each and every topic.

Now you may ask me... Tanmay, How many topics should I cover exactly?

Most of the time, It depends on your Stream and specialization.

If you are from Physics Background, then the most important subject is Quantum Mechanics,
You can expect Questions from it in most of the interviews.

Then If you are interested in Material science then you have to choose solid-state physics, If High energy-related area then, of course, High energy physics & So on.

If you are from other streams similarly you can do but in most of the cases, you need to be good in at least 3 subjects.

#2 Don't ignore the subject you had taken as your specialization

In some places, the interviewer can start from this subject. It happens with me in IIT Madras.

I had not done any projects during my M.Sc. but if you have done any, then you should go through it thoroughly.
If your interested research area matches it, then sometimes even 75% of questions you can get from your project, which can be a great advantage for you.

#3 Don't forget to be good at Graphs 

In almost every interview, you can expect to get one to two questions on Graphs. (From this book, I had prepared, Really a good one !)


For more details, You may go through this YouTube Video

Being a Physicist

Here I am going to share exactly what was the topics that I had covered.

From my M.Sc. Quantum Mechanics, Electrodynamics & Nuclear Physics (My Specialization) were my favorite.

So I had started with these three, then I found that most of the interviewer is from Condensed Matter background, so I had also cover some part of it.

For modern Physics, you may go through  Concepts of Modern Physics by Arthur Beiser

Here you can go through the questions they had asked me to have a feeling.

You can also visit our YouTube Channel for similar content.

Thank you for your time.

Tanmay Das

Ph.D. Scholar, 

Department of Physics,

IIT Bhilai, Raipur, India.

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