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 Statistics [M Stat]
The course is good for both people looking to stay in the research field and for those looking to secure a job after the course.
- Career Prospects: About 50% of students go to Ph.D., and almost everyone who chooses to go for placements will be placed and with a handsome package (An average of 20 LPA with a min of about 15 LPA is reported from inside sources).
- Faculty: Most are ISI alumni who went on to do their PhDs in premier universities abroad(like Stanford, UC Berkeley, Waterloo, Purdue, Penn State, Cornell, etc)
- Specializations: You’ll have 3 choices of specializations (Probability, Theoretical, Applied) in the second year (None in the first year actually). Apart from specialization courses, there will be some electives you can choose from.
- Research: About 10 out of the 60 people in the batch (about 35 of them are from B.Stat+M.Stat course) publish during the course. Those are usually the ones looking to do a Ph.D.
- Internships and exposure: Like with placements, students into research don’t go for internships, but those that go for Internships will get good ones (with a pay of about 70k per month in avg with a minimum of 50k, again from inside sources) for 2 months in summer break.
2) M.Tech in Quality, Reliability & Operations Research [M Tech (QROR)]
The Mtech QROR course comes under the SQC-OR unit of ISI Kolkata. So most of the subjects are also related to quality control and operations research.
- Faculty: Most of the Faculties are ISI alumni. So no doubt about knowledge. But only a few are helpful regarding projects if you want to pursue it.
- Research: There is not much hype regarding further research in this department. I’d say that less than 10% of students go for a Ph.D. after completing their course.
- Internships: There’s an opportunity for two internships in the course, a two months internship after the end of the first year, and another 6 months internship for the entire fourth semester. In both of them, there are options for doing research or industrial internships. Most of the interested students get an industrial internship opportunity from campus only.
- Placements: It’s almost the same for any other department. All the students get placed with at least one offer from campus placement and the median CTC is around 19-20 LPA. The roles get offered are mainly data scientists and data analysts.
3) MS in Quality Management Science [MS (QMS)]
The course started in 2014 is conducted by ISI Bangalore (First and Second Semester) and ISI Hyderabad(Third semester) SQC and OR unit. And Final semester is reserved for Industrial Internship.
- Eligibility: Students from any BSc degree having a mathematics as a subject and any B.Tech/B.E graduate can apply for the entrance exam.
- Course structure: The course started to help all the manufacturing industries out there but given the current market scenario course curriculum has been changed significantly in the past few years and more and more AI and ML oriented subjects have been incorporated. All the fundamentals of statistics, Machine learning, and Deep learning are covered in the course. And students get hands-on experience with R, Python, Minitab.
- Internships: Students get the opportunity for 2 months of summer internship after the 2nd semester and 5 months long internship during the 4th semester as a part of the course. There is a huge tendency that after 5 months of internship students get Pre Placement offer from those companies.
- Placement Statistics: Most of the students appear for Placement. 90% of the students get placed with an avg salary of 14 LPA and a maximum of 20 LPA. Profiles offered by the company are mostly Data Scientist/ Data Analyst. Anyone can pursue a career in Quality management also. But for Quality management, the number of companies is quite low. The above-mentioned placement statistics are based on last year only. It varies from year to year.
- Research: Even though most of the students go for Job, few students opt for Research. MS QMS students having 75% marks in the course directly interviewed in the QROR Ph.D. exam. Otherwise, students can pursue a Ph.D. in abroad on Industrial engineering or any statistics related subject.
4) M.Tech in Cryptology and Security
The course is balanced and it’s in student’s hands to shape it for research-oriented or job-oriented but not just with the choice of electives. No.of electives are high but freedom of choice is a little less due to constraint in the number of faculty.
- Faculty: The faculty is too good to handle!! Very approachable except maybe 1 or 2.
- Research: The final semester of the course is dedicated to the Dissertation/Project. A few of the papers are to move for publication.
- Internships: Good opportunities for internships through a centralized placement cell and through professors. In the first batch, For Summer internships, 8 out of 12 students got the opportunity to do internships outside the country and 4 people chose to do a project on the campus premises. For the Winter internship, half the students went for industry internships and remaining for academic dissertations (mostly in European countries).
- Placements: It’s well explained here. In the first batch, Out of 12 students, 5 students are going for a PhD and 7 students are going for Job. In the second batch, Out of 16 students,7-8 students are towards Ph.D., and remaining are towards Job.
5) M.Tech in Computer Science [M.Tech (CS)]
The intake for this course over the past few years is about 30-35 and generally, students with various backgrounds can be seen. To cater to the needs of this diversity, for the first time since 2020, the curriculum has been changed and now the students are grouped as CS and NCS during their first semester. Also, from 2020 onwards, specializations and double specializations are being offered in M.Tech (CS). Various details about the CS/NCS and specialization can be found in this.
- Faculty: Computer science, in fact, any course at ISI, doesn’t have a department. We have various units and course instructors are assigned to a particular subject offered to a particular branch based on their interests. Generally, students (a group of four to five is just sufficient) would approach an instructor and ask if he/she is free to take a course and fix their elective preferences. Otherwise, the teacher committee would fix a list of electives and assign instructors based on their preferences.
- Research: Most of the students would start picking up their area of interest in their first year itself and work out to do a project with the faculty and generally end up with publishable work. About one-third of the students go in pursuance of a Ph.D. after their masters.
- Internships: Just at the end of the first semester itself, an internship drive is conducted through the centralized placement cell for interning at various reputed industries, and most often at the end of the internship period PPOs too are offered. Provided one has done a course under a faculty, generally, the faculty would refer for an academic intern, given the student is interested in doing one. Also, students opt to intern at ISI itself.
- Placements: Almost all the students who sit for placement will get placed. The median salary package is about 20-21 LPA with the minimum being around 15 LPA. Many companies generally offer Data scientists or similar kinds of profiles.
6) M.Tech in CRS
The course is balanced and it’s in students’ hands to shape it for research-oriented or job-oriented but not just with the choice of electives.
- No.of electives available: No. of electives is high but freedom of choice is a little less due to constraints in the number of faculty.
- Faculty: They are too good to handle!! Very approachable except 1 or 2
- Placements: It’s well explained here in the below Quora answer by Sourav Sarkar
- No.of students going for PhDs and jobs in each batch: The share is almost half-half. In the first batch, Out of 12 students, 5 students are going for Ph.D. and 7 students are going for Job.
In the second batch, Out of 16 students,7-8 students are towards Ph.D. and the remaining are towards Job. - Research & publishing during masters: Final semester of the course is dedicated to a Dissertation/Project. Few of the papers are to move for publication.
- Internships & Exposure: Good opportunities for internships through centralized placement cell and through professors. In the first batch, For a Summer internship, 8 out of 12 students got the opportunity to do internships outside and 4 people chose to do a project on the campus premises.
For the Winter internship, half the students went for industry internships and the remaining for academic dissertations (mostly in European countries).
1 thought on “Brief reviews of ISI master’s courses (Placements, Scope & Internships)”
Which univs do MTech CS students usually go for a PhD?