Academics

How Do Academics Work?

This is a important question and it’s good to know what you are getting into before hand:

Q1. How many courses do I have?

A: In the first year, you’ll have 6 theory courses and 4 laboratory courses. The theory courses are in Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Earth Science. You’ll have lab courses in Physics, Chemistry and  Biology and Computer Science. You’ll also have one humanities course per term.

In the second year, you’ll be choosing 3 subjects out of the 5 as pre-majors. You’ll have much harder courses, as in you’ll explore the subject in a lot more depth. You’ll have labs depending on the subjects you choose. There are no humanities courses in the 2nd year.

From the 3rd year, you’ll choose to major in one science. You’ll have compulsory courses and elective courses (which you can choose from your department or take a course from another department)

The 5th year is dedicated towards your thesis.

You’ll have 29 credits in the 1st year, and this will decrease as you enter higher years.

Q2: How do classes work?

A: The institute designs a time table where you’ll know all about the classes and class hours.

However, in the 1st year, your schedule will work somewhat like this:

9 am – 12pm : 3 theory courses, 1 hour each

12 pm – 1 pm: Lunch

1pm – 2pm: Tutorial

2:30 pm – 5:30 pm : Labs

Post 5:30 pm : Free Time

In the later years, it’ll change depending on your courses and subjects.

Q3: Do the classes have attendance requirements, how does it work?

A: The institute requirement is minimum 70% attendance. Without this, you won’t be able to sit for exams. There are however, some professors who’ll tell you point blank that they aren’t bothered if you attend their classes or not, if you feel you can learn the material, they are okay with it. It’s a funny thing that these classes see really high attendance. :P.

Even though there is a minimum, it doesn’t mean you miss classes. Take it from personal experience, missing classes can be disastrous. Yes, there are those classes where you’ll have continuous tests in every class for your internal marks. But, that isn’t what I’m talking about.

By attending the class and paying attention, you actually learn things well. Not just that, but you understand those areas where you may struggle.

For instance, one of my close friends attended almost every lecture in the last semester. He knew exactly what places he was struggling to understand, and consistently worked on them when he could. What was the end result, he got a really high GPA.

You may find the odd examples of people who don’t attend classes and do well, but I can assure you, you’ll find countless examples of people who attend and do exceptionally well.

Q4: What is a tutorial?

A: The tutorial is an hour meant for doubt clearance and clarification. It is also meant for discussion. It is normally conducted by a tutor (who is a professor) and a TA (Teaching Assistant). Normally each subject has a tutorial for 1 hour each week. The class of 200+ people will be divided into around 5 groups of 40 each. You can use this one hour for discussing your doubts with the tutor and TA. It may also be that the course instructor will assign some sort of problem solving assessment for you to do in the tutorial hour.

Q5: How does the college test the students?

A: The college testing is broken into 2 major exams; a mid-semester exam and an end-semester exam. The general break up for each course is 20% of your grade from the mid-sem, 50% from the end-sem and the remaining 30% comes as “internal assessment”. This can be form of class tests, projects, assignments etc.

Lab courses generally have both mid and end semesters or just an end semester exam. You’ll also be graded for things like your record, attendance and whatnot. Don’t miss lab courses.

Q6: How is grading done?

A: The norm is absolute grading. There are fixed ranges of marks to which a grade is assigned. However, the course may also be graded relatively if the course instructor feels there is a need to.

The scales are something like A+ : 90-100 , A: 80 – 90 and so on so forth. Each grade then corresponds to a point average. A+ is 10, A is 9 and so on.

Your CGPA is an average of you grades in all courses taking into account the number of credits for each course.

Q7: How are the professors?

A: In one word, excellent. . They place a huge emphasis placed on learning and understanding at IISER-K. I’ve written very few exams, where I’ve been required to memorise anything. Instead, the exams all test your conceptual understanding. This is a welcome change from the rote based system that we are all used to in schools. And the professors know you are victims of the horrible school system. So they often take extra efforts to make the course interesting. And it turns out to be awesome.

Q8: How hard are the courses?

A: Hard is a relative term. What you may pick up in 5 minutes, your friends may take an hour to do so, and vice versa. Anyhow, I request you don’t come in with any pre-conceived notion. Take each course at face value, and don’t neglect any course. You’ll do absolutely fine.

Q9: What subjects can I major in?

A: You can major in any one of these 5 subjects; Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Sciences. You can also take an minor and audit courses from other subjects, if you want more interdisciplinary learning. There is also a wide variety of humanities and courses such as Entrepreneurship, Film Appreciation etc. offered in the 3rd year onwards.

Q10: When do I do research?

A: Sorry to burst your bubble, but research is not the same as the stuff you see on TV. It involves a lot of time and serious commitment. But on a lighter note, you can start research almost immediately. That’s how the  course is designed. You may even, like a lot of people do, choose to work with a professor in a lab after your 1st year, and complete an internship. Or you can choose to chill out entirely.

Q11: Okay, what’s an audit?

A: Well, assume you are studying as a physics major, and realise you want to learn about Graph Theory, which is a course offered by the math department. Because you are interested in it. Then you can talk to the professor and sit in the classes and learn. You may also choose to take the exams to test your understanding, if the professor agrees. You will however not get any credits for this course. This is called auditing a course. If you want an audit course to appear on transcript, you can officially audit the course, after informing the Academic Affairs department. It’ll only mention the course on your transcript, but again, you will not get any credits for it.

Q12: What do I learn in each course?

A: That is mentioned in the teaching plan. You can check it out here : Teaching Plan

But the course is set to change for the incoming batch. So I’d wait until they update it.

Q13: Okay, I’m still confused. 

A: It’s all right. You’ll have a proper academic orientation conducted by the various departments on your second day here. It’ll clarify things for you. Till then, don’t worry too much. Just relax.