A Future Researcher Perspective Of IISER Bhopal

The curriculum is well structured and the difficulty increases as the study year increases. The curriculum is structured for research students and that is what attracted me to this college as compared to other science colleges. The college provides a lot of scholarships as well. The curriculum from the third year onwards gives us an idea of what topics we should do our PhD in and also the professors help us in finding colleges to do PhD from. We have two internal tests one mid sem and one end sem examination. The internal test have a weightage of 20% together the mid sem has a weightage of 30% and the end sem has a weightage of 50%. The grades in the first two years are relative while from third year onwards it becomes absolute grading. the curriculum is purely research based and all the topics taught have various experiments which has to be done to be understood. All the books used are of great researchers and professors like gilbert strang, JD Lee, shriver atkins, cunningham so on.

The internships given are research-based and given by the professors of the college. The professors put the projects they will be carrying out on the college website and the interested students can send the professor an email with their SOP and CV. After that, the professor will have an interview and choose the students he wants. All internships are on campus and a hostel is provided. The internships are basically assisting the professor in doing the experiment like collecting data doing on field work and so on. You will get a stipend of 5000-15000 per month depending on the difficulty of the project.

Placement is taken only by the students are who doing engineering and economic sciences and our placement is not that good as our average package is 5 lakhs per annum and max being 8-12 lakhs. Almost all of the engineering and economic students try to go IIM's after IISER to get an MBA degree. All the natural sciences students after their 5 year course go to various universities in India and abroad to pursue their PhD degree and after go to work in various labs as researchers.

Our college is a government college and the course fees per year are around 66800 and since it is a hostel only no day scholars allowed we pay 12000 for the hostel every year and 18200 for amenities like sports labs and library and mess or canteen fees of 24800 per year. So overall it comes to around One lakh Twenty-one thousand Eight hundred per year for a 5 year course which is really cheap compared to other colleges and the facilities are better than many other government colleges. They barely increase the fees and even if they do it is a small increase only. We have a lot of scholarships which are provided most of them have restrictions and conditions like income cap of 2 lakhs should be of SC and ST and much more. DST-INSPIRE scholarship is scholarship which given to students only based on merits and nothing else. I get 60000 per year as scholarship from the government through the DST-INSPIRE scheme. The college does have summer internships and gives 5000-10000/month stipend.

Campus life is amazing as people from all over India come to this college and bring with them a diverse culture. Our Annual cultural fest is Enthuzia and our Literary fest Arts n Letters happens in January, Mahua our environmental fest as well as Singularity our Science fest happens in February, Armageddon our tech fest and Sangharsh our sports fest happens in March. We also have IISM an inter-college sports meet that happens in December and IICM an inter-college cultural fest also in December. All research-based books are present in the library with a lot of research papers and we also have a lot of PC systems to do coding and programming in the library. We have 6 councils and each council has its clubs. We have clubs like music drama movies sports coding physics biology economics chemistry maths and ees. The sports facilities are some of the best found in government colleges and each of the coaches is highly qualified. We have a well equipped gym which is used by a lot of students.

The hostel given to us is new and spacious. It is double occupancy up to the fourth year. The other hostel rooms are really small and not meant for two people. the room comes with two cupboards and two study table and lamp along with two chairs and two cots and one fan. There is no attached bathroom only common bathrooms. We have three blocks and each block has 4 shower blocks and 4 toilets block. The hostel room is cheap and affordable as it is 1500 per month for all the hostel facilities. We have a common room which has an AC TV caroom boards and much more to chill and hang out with friends. The Mess is a hit or miss as it depends on the contractor. In our mess, the breakfast is really good and the dinner on some days is good and the other days ok but lunch is horrible all the days except Sunday as we have Chole Bature.

To join the college an entrance exam called the IISER Aptitude Test has to be given and the test has Physics Chemistry Biology and Maths in it. out of 50000 students who take the exam around 2000 are selected. We have 8-10 rounds of counseling during the admission and you get to freeze or wait for a better college. The application form can be found on Google by typing IISER aptitude test forms are available from March end to May second week and the exam takes place on June second week just after JEE advanced. You can also join the college based on your JEE advanced rank. The cutoff varies each year and it is different for every reservation. If you have reservation you get two ranks one CRL and one reservation rank. Counselling process and cutoff will be according to your reservation rank. You have to pay 2000 to give the exam and it is a CBT exam with all MCQ's only. It is a yearly exam and you can give the exam a maximum fo three times. The difficulty level is same as JEE mains.

In our first year, all 400 students who joined the college were in one class so it became hard to ask doubts and the professors were less interested in us and just taught gave us the notes, and left the class. From the second year onwards they pay attention to students and help them with all of their queries. All the professors have some of the best credentials that any professor in India has as all of them have done their postdoc and have multiple degrees. The Biology and Physics professors are the best in the college as they are outstanding in teaching theory as well in labs and make fascinating and nice exam papers. The Maths department is the worst as the professors are really strict and amny dont understand that well as our maths syllabus is hard compared to what we learnt in school and they make the papers so hard that only a few students in third year pass. The chemistry professors in labs are really great but a few of them are not good in teaching in class.