My Journey From NIT to NISER -Deepak Kumar Sharma

Hello Everyone!! I am Deepak Kumar Sharma presently studying at NISER (1^st year   Int.Msc). I am here to share my experience on how I cleared NEST (entrance for getting into NISER and UM-DAE CBS) while studying at NIT Rourkela. I hope you all are in your BTech 1^st year and I wish this blog will make you reach closer to your dream.

Eligibility Criteria

Generally, if you are in you BTech 1^st year, I think you must be eligible for this examination but still you can verify your eligibility at this site – https://www.nestexam.in/

When is application Released?

The application for applying for Nest exam and the Brochure is uploaded in the month of January (but this year due to corona nothing can be predicted). You can visit the given site above to remain updated with all the details.

How I prepared for the exam?

Before starting I would like to inform you that for getting into NISER you need to clear SMAS (Section-wise Minimum Admissible Marks) in all the four subjects (PCMB). Yes, you need to study Biology for getting your name into merit list for NISER. The level of questions of NEST are much above mains but below JEE advance.

So, while I was preparing for JEE and other entrance exam I had made up my mind that I will be joining a research institute as I was very much interested for taking a deep dive into physics, but the situation went against me. I was good at physics and mathematics but my chemistry was not that good so due to this I was unable to clear the subject cutoff for chem in JEE advance and eventually failed to crack it. Still I had hope left with NEST exam but that too gave me a thunder shock when I discovered that biology was compulsory for qualifying into NISER. I had all my hopes shattered and I also could not think of taking a drop as I was already in my drop year and further not qualified for JEE Advance, also I had not studied biology in my whole 3yr preparation and I can’t risk one more year just for it. But the situation improved a bit and luckily, I got a seat in electronics branch at NIT Rourkela and further I came to know that I was still eligible for giving NEST exam. So, I decided to prepare for it while staying and studying at NIT.

I had finally decided that I will be studying biology, improve my chemistry and just do problems of physics and mathematics so that I don’t forget the concepts. When I went to NIT I realized that there was quite sufficient time which you can use for studying and that to biology was also there in my first semester. You will also see that in the first year the courses are not that tough and you could easily score by studying 10 days before semester examination.

So, I had set up a daily routine, our classes would end around 4 or 5 pm and after that I would take rest for around 1 hour and give 1 hour daily for biology and 1 hour for rest of the subjects. For biology I used to study from Neela Bakore tutorial on youtube l and refer NCERT and make notes so that I could memorize and remember things. I used to toke 1-2 week break from these preparations when there was exam. These all went on steadily then came corona era, I got a lot time to sharpen my concepts and practice during this long vacation. Then came   the day when there was exam. I was nervous, I calmed down myself and thought that this is the last attempt where I can enter into a research institute or I would have to take a long and resistive path (physics after engineering) for pursuing a career into physics. I sat in the exam and when I saw the questions of biology, I got tensed up but I had already made up my mind that I will not go by guess, so I only attended those questions which I was able to solve. Finally, came the day when the result was out and boom!!, I saw that I got quite decent rank of 261. I was happy because as per previous year trend I could easily get into NISER. Finally, now my admission is completed and I am going to leave for NISER as the offline classes are going to start.

So, now concluding my blog I would like to say you that cracking the cutoff of biology is neither that tough( SMAS is 20% of the highest marks in that subject so it  also will not exceed 10, as the full marks for each subject is 50 ) nor  that easy ( due to negative marking). You need not work too hard for this, work steadily and you will get the result. For biology it is not necessary to cover all the chapters (first start with cell and then genetics whole and then move to other chapters as per your convenience). Practice all previous year questions (which you can obtain from there site) so that you can get an idea what type of questions they ask. They will focus more on your concepts than your calculation skills.

I hope that this blog would have helped you.

Best of luck for your coming future and may you achieve all your dreams.