Confused about MTech Res interview at DESE
So yesterday I gave my interview for MTech Res at DESE. I had chosen Topic 1 from the list of topics they gave (Neuromorphic circuits). My interview was taken by Chetan sir and Arup sir. Initially both seemed to be impressed with my BTech project and my acad work, they asked abt my college placements and my interest in this research area. Chetan sir also suggested me to take a look at Project Associate role at IISC and mail him if interested.
They then proceeded to ask me questions. I was asked to draw a graph, I drew it quite quickly and explained my reasoning and they were satisfied, then Arup sir gave me a similar graph, I had started drawing it by taking values but Chetan sir interrupted and said we can move to technical part. He then gave me an NMOS circuit with a capacitor and asked me to calculate steady state across it, I was able to jot down equations and write down equations for it, I wasn’t able to solve it completely tho but they didn’t cross question and Chetan sir moved on to an FSM question, it was based on a overlapping sequences detection, I hadn’t touched this kind of stuff after GATE so struggled a lot here, he then proceeded to ask me to do in Mealy style (after I had done some work on board) I tried to but couldn’t do it satisfactory and Chetan sir told I didn’t take all states in consideration. He even remarked and said u didn’t prep Digital well.
He then said that he was done and asked Arup sir whether he wanted to question me more, Arup sir then gave me a LC ckt with a switch closed for some time with a diode and independent voltage source, I needed to calculate steady stage voltage across the capacitor and current across the inductor, I was able to do this correctly and explained my reasoning using equations, he then asked if I could draw the I vs t curve across the inductor (here I struggled coz of the diode placement), he tried to help me by saying “see how fast the current goes down to 0”, still wasn’t able to solve completely, he said its fine and my interview ended. Both of them again reminded me on the Project associate role.
The thing is they kept talking behind me when I was solving these problems and discussing smtg (dk what it was), didn’t cross question me on my project as I had expected or even on the nmos question. Also I was inside the interview room for 41 mins!! Didn’t know how that much time passed.
After coming out I got to know that a majority of interviews were below 10-15 mins ( some went for 20 at max) and majority were asked 1 graph and 1 technical question (some were asked 2 technical), so almost all of them were asked 2-3 questions at max. My interview duration and the no of questions were very unusual.
The thing I wasn’t able to solve some questions completely and truly messed up the FSM question, so in my opinion the interview was mixed at best, but they didn’t end my interview after 1-2 questions as they had done with others. So I’m genuinely confused at this, idk if they were seriously considering me or just testing me a bit more.
Would love to hear any seniors thoughts on this and other experiences. Coz I’m stressing out on messing the FAM question up.