Demystifying the PhD Program
26 December 2021 | Mihir Kavishwar, Sheel Shah, Pudi Seshasainadh
The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering is widely known for nurturing talented research scholars who play leadership roles in research and development, either in industry or academia. Of the 1100+ students in our department, we have over 400 PhD students who devote around five years of their lives to the department's research activities. The research contributions made by our PhD students have been crucial for advancing the state of knowledge in various specializations of Electrical Engineering. However, despite having such significant representation among students and an impressive research reputation, the daily struggles of the PhD community largely remain a mystery to the undergraduates who seldom get to interact with them. Therefore, through this article, we seek to demystify the PhD program of our department, and subsequently, we also highlight some key challenges our research scholars face. We hope that such discussions lead to more positive interactions among all students and a greater appreciation for our research scholars who push the boundaries of human knowledge.
What do we mean by a PhD, and when has a student earned a Doctoral qualification?
It is not an easy question to answer and requires intense deliberation. In 2014, a document titled "Goals and Roadmap of PhD Program - A Desiderata” was prepared within the department after thoughtful discussions among multiple professors and incorporation of feedback from research scholars. We encourage our readers to go through the entire document to gain interesting insights into the motivations behind the current structure of our doctoral program.
To quote from this document, "the degree of Doctor of Philosophy recognizes a clearly discernible advancement in the state of knowledge in a particular branch of learning, clearly attributable in the large, to the recipient of this degree and acknowledged by representatives of the peer community in that field. At the end of the PhD program, a student should be an independent researcher. He/she should be able to stand alone and work in some area of choice. He/she should be a creative thinker and should be able to analyze and assess research work. The PhD program should have instilled enough confidence in the student so that he/she has the courage to venture out to some new frontiers of knowledge."
Admission Categories
PhD students in the department are majorly admitted under the teaching assistant or research assistant categories. A limited number of teaching assistant (TA) positions are available which are funded by the Ministry of Education. Teaching assistant positions through sponsored projects may also be open sometimes and these are called teaching assistantship through project (TAP). All teaching assistants (whether TA or TAP) are required to assist course instructors in grading, conducting tutorials and tests for the prescribed hours in a week. They may also be assigned any other academic or administrative duties related to the department such as admissions and examinations. PhD students under the research assistantship through project (RAP) categories are usually funded by sponsored research projects being undertaken by faculty members of the department. In such cases, research work leading to a PhD, is in general, closely related to the objectives of the respective project. There are various other categories of admission as well, such as those who are sponsored by their employing organisations (SW), quality improvement program for teachers of other engineering institutes (QIP), external candidates (EX), project staff of the institute (PS), institute staff (IS) and fellowship awardees from external organisations (FA). Admissions to the PhD program are usually conducted twice a year around May and December respectively. Additionally, admission into a dual degree program combining MTech and PhD is offered as well; and existing MTech students are also given an option to convert into this dual degree program.
Stages in the PhD program
The IITB PhD process as described in the Desiderata document is given below. An approximate duration for each stage of the process is also given, however the exact exit point depends upon successful completion of the exams and evaluations at each stage.
Stage 1: Preparation to begin thesis (1-1.5 years)
- Completion of minimum course work
- PhD Qualifiers: Tests comprehension and critical thinking based on course work and research paper review
Stage 2: Thesis Development (2 - 5 years)
- Gradually defining a thesis: Four skills need to be essentially developed during a PhD process
- Analysis Capability
- Lab work/ Tools Capability
- Context Development
- Technical Communication
- Annual Progress Seminar (APS): Updates on progress made by the PhD candidate
- Pre-Synopsys Exam: Test for completion of research
Stage 3: Thesis Defense (0.5-1 year)
- Every PhD candidate has to defend his/her final thesis in front of a Research Progress Committee (RPC) which certifies the completion of a PhD if it finds that all the learning objectives were adequately met
Challenges faced by PhD students
During the pandemic, shutting down of labs hindered the progress of scholars who were involved in experimental work. The relatively sudden closing down of the institute also meant that ongoing experiments and their setups had to be left midway. The inconsistency of the 2020 semesters had a negative impact on the Annual Progress Seminars as well. Peer learning, which is an instrumental part of research, plummeted during the virtual semesters. Even after returning to campus, physical interaction with guides and other faculty did not start immediately, slowing the research progress of scholars.
Apart from problems caused by the pandemic, issues related to funding persist even during normal times. It is pretty evident from the data that the average stipend for research scholars at IITs is significantly less than what many foreign universities or industry jobs can offer for the same amount of work. The problem is exacerbated for PhD students from the TAP category who face a lot of uncertainty concerning their stipends. These students are already overburdened as they are required to work on their sponsored project and perform teaching assistantship duties in addition to carrying out independent research. The latter often becomes necessary since industry projects usually have restrictions on publishing the results.
Land is scarce in Mumbai, and with IIT Bombay being constrained by space as well, accommodation is an important issue for PhD students. The institute doesn't have sufficient rooms to accommodate all research scholars. Hostel allocations often get delayed, sometimes by a couple of years, and the rent in Mumbai is very high to be a viable alternative. Married research scholars find it especially difficult to get accommodation on campus.
PhD advisors play a very crucial role in the academic development of their students. Lack of understanding between a professor and a student can be detrimental to both and negatively hamper research progress. Other than this, the research scholar community in our department is highly diverse and scattered, with students coming from widely different backgrounds. Unlike undergraduates, research scholars have less common courses and instead have to work on independent research topics. Therefore, informal interaction among scholars often gets limited to their research groups.
Conclusion
Despite such challenges, our research output has increased considerably in the last few years, thanks to immense efforts from both students and faculty. We hope that the concerns raised by our postgraduate student representatives, some of which we highlighted here, are addressed in due course of time so that a further boost can be given to research activities. We thank Vishakha Pandey, Surya Varchasvi and Parth Mehta for their valuable inputs in this article.
Click here to view the Desiderata document on our department's PhD program.