May 6, 2011
School of Engineering, Coimbatore
 

Every year, over one lakh aspirants from across India apply for admission to one of India’s premier research institutions, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.
 

This year, after the national-level entrance exam, only 68 candidates were shortlisted and invited for a technical interview in March.
 

S. Bharadwaj, who will graduate soon from the Amrita School of Engineering, with a B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering was one among those 68 candidates.
 

“I was interviewed by the panel members for a little over two hours,” he shared. “I was extensively tested in all areas related to Probability Theory, Matrix Algebra, Linear Algebra, Transform Theory, Signals and Systems, Information Theory and Coding.”
 

Bharadwaj was seeking admission into the integrated Ph.D. program in Systems Sciences at TIFR.
 

His interviewers were all eminent academicians.
 

Dr. Sandeep Juneja, formerly Professor, Stanford University with a doctoral degree from Stanford and a B.Tech. from IIT Delhi.
 

Dr. Onkar Dabeer, having a doctorate from University of California, San Deigo and a B.Tech. from IIT Bombay.
 

Dr. Rahul Vaze with a Ph.D. from University of Texas, Austin and a masters from IISc, Bangalore.
 

The three-member interview panel grilled Bharadwaj in engineering mathematics, asking many open-ended questions to test his approaches to and modeling assumptions for reducing the complexities of given problems.
 

“I can say that the questions of the interviewers were certainly thought-provoking,” stated Bharadwaj.
 

It was only two weeks later that he learned that he was selected. He was one of three candidates who had made it to the highly competitive integrated doctoral program!
 

The final list of all selected candidates was posted in the TIFR website.
 

For the next five years, Bharadwaj will have an opportunity to pursue his academic goals at TIFR. “It is like a dream come true for me,” he said.
 

“I take this opportunity to thank all my teachers at Amrita for their valuable guidance.”
 

“My heartfelt thanks also to the Amrita Vidya team for maintaining Amrita’s excellent digital library which has been of immense help.”
 

“Last but not the least, my humble pranams to Amma, whose blessings made everything possible.”