Mathematics after engineering

In this post, I will be telling you about my preparation journey for all the entrance exams like JAM, GATE, TIFR and NBHM. For those who wanted to know about my journey from engineering to mathematics can have a look ( Journey ). First, starting with the list of books. For every book below, you will also find the reason why I chose that particular book. 1. A Basic Course in Real Analysis by S.Kumarsen : This book is written in a way that students of different caliber, students preparing for different exams and interviews can refer it and this book will serve their purpose.  Each question in this book comprises of 2 parts : First is strategy which deals with how to approach the question and the second is the formal mathematical solution of the question which is motivated by the strategy.  For engineers it is like you develop an algorithm for your code. Let me give you an example : suppose you want to find limit x as x tends to a. In strategy part you would find something like ...

There seems to be a lot of confusion about master's courses at ISI, so, I have asked a few people who have either completed or currently studying at ISI to describe their courses. I and our 200+ MAE community members are extremely thankful to them and we wish for a bright future for them. This is incomplete as of now, details of other courses will be posted soon. Some common information related to all courses : Generally, the admission to any course starts with a written test that contains an objective paper and a subject paper followed by an interview and declaration of merit lists. One can bypass the written test if they have a score above a set threshold in (say) exams like JAM, GATE, etc., ISI, since its inception, has adopted no tuition fee to most of its courses and all masters courses fall in that umbrella. Also, a decent stipend and a yearly book grant are given. Apart from that, each semester, scholarships are given to the best performers in academics. 1) Master of Statis...

"Top BSc Maths colleges| THE ONLY STUDENT-MADE LIST ON WEB" Ok, the title might not be 100% accurate because I obviously can't go through the whole of the Internet to confirm if there isn't any other student made list. But from my so far seen internet, there wasn't anything I could find that is student-made nor something that could remotely match the quality of this post.  Unlike the manipulated and paid lists you find in popular websites, this is a list of best places to do a bachelor's degree in mathematics in India as opined by students who actually lived and studied in those regions. Based on the information I've gathered from my friends, and our PAE(Physics After Engineering) community members and the internet, I have put up the names of some of the good institutes that (we felt) are  actually worth  spending a few years in, to study Mathematics. It'll answer questions like How to become a mathematician in India? How to become a mathematician aft...

What is JAM : JAM stands for J oint A dmission Test for M .Sc. Every year JAM is conducted by one of the old IITs. Registration starts in the first week of September and continues till the first-second week of October. Each year the exam is held on the second Sunday of February. For engineers like me who wish to pursue higher studies in Mathematics, JAM is the most useful (and arguably perhaps the easiest) examination. With a valid JAM scorecard, you can apply to all IITs, all IISERs as well as IISc. As of now, however, NITs don't allow B.Tech degree holders to seat for the counseling. In this blog post, I will discuss how someone might start preparing for this exam from engineering backgrounds as well as I would address some general questions I often receive regarding this exam. When should one start preparing: Of course as early as possible. In my personal case, I started preparing seriously in my fifth semester, which means I got roughly 2 years before the examination. However,...

Introduction : First let me tell you something about myself. I am a 4th-year undergraduate student pursuing BE in ECE from NSIT, Delhi. I liked Mathematics from my school days. I used to solve math problems for hours in a day. During JEE preparation also, I was so focused on Math and Physics that I could not give much time to chemistry. During JEE preparation days, we learned Fermat’s last theorem and I was so astonished by the fact that it took decades to prove this simple result. For me, this Theorem was the first example to demonstrate the Beauty of Mathematics. I wanted to pursue math right after my 12th but due to societal pressure and lack of knowledge about BSc. courses, I ended up joining NSIT. At that time, I was also not aware about the pure science courses in IISER’s. First 5 semesters in college (THE PLAN) : After joining NSIT, I tried to build my interest in ECE(I wasn’t interested in coding at all which is the reason why I didn’t go for CS stream). I tried exploring di...

Disclaimer: I'm an engineer turned Physicist, so, all the information I've written is from what I found on the Internet or by speaking with people who have given those exams, to whom I'm forever indebted. Also special thanks to my 3 roomies for lending me their laptops to do this thing wherever I needed them. I'd like to start off by classifying exams into groups rather than viewing them individually, I'd strongly recommend readers to do the same, otherwise might lead to confusion-given the huge number of exams one can give.    The mathematics entrance exams can be divided into two categories broadly based on the education level of the students they're designed for, BSc level and MSc level. Do read the blog post [ How to do MSc Maths after B.Tech/B.E? ]  below to find out all the exams we can give. Here I'll be classifying and analyzing all of them to see which of them suits whom. BSc Level Exams These exams are Screening tests for BSc grads to...

Btech Days and the start of a mathematical journey. From my school days, I loved mathematics, getting selected in RMO/JMO, attending their math camps, solving challenging geometry problems; I liked all of it as a child. But eventually, after 12th I got into VSSUT, Burla, a govt engineering college in Odisha in the Computer Science department. As a state board student neither I was taught a subject related to computer science in school nor I was even familiar with the use of laptops or computers during the initial days of B.Tech. Again the practice in the college was to mug off and vomit. So very soon I realized computer science, mainly coding, was not my cup of tea. This resulted in poor grades and attendance shortages and backlogs. In four years of B.Tech, I had a total of 18 backlogs and in the final year during summer vacation I cleared 10 backlogs in one shot. So going back into the story in the second year my aim was to only get a job in the placement and get out of the colleg...