Hello

As u all know that one to one and half year of all the research scholars is spent in completing the course work and comprehensive exams. So this is how much relevant for research scholar who already know the topic has to complete the course work necessarily which time can be utilized in the research. 

Smriti

yes, there should be some changes in the present criterion of course work......that must also be helpful to the reseach area of the particular student.

manoj

I'm just a UG student, but I think this is one of the best issues brought up on Think Tank, something that really touches the very basis of IITR's "excellence." Hopefully, more knowledgeable people will reply to this.

Why do you say that 18 months are spent in coursework and comprehensive examinations. Nobody prevents you from completing the coursework within the first semester of your joining the programme and then taking the comprehensive examination immediately thereafter, if you feel that you are upto the mark. Just impress upon your supervisor that you would like to finish these tasks as soon as possible.

The choice of courses that you register for should ofcourse be relevant to your broad area of research. In my opinion the system of earning credits for pre-PhD coursework by way of seminars is futile and so are the so-called self-study courses. 

My two-pennies worth!

Manish Shrikhande

Doing Pre-Ph.D courses is relevant provided they are choosen properly which justifies the final aim of the thesis. This is world-wide phenomenon, which is justified as these help to create a certain benchmark in terms of knowledge base before you embark upon your journey as a Ph.D scholar, as people entering this Institute come from varied academic background therefore a sort of normalisation is absolutely necessary to improve the quality of research. I sincerely feel that these course work, if choosen properly and done deligently (by the student) would bring about a sea change in the perception of a prospective research scholar.

Sudeb Dasgupta