Upon joining the Bangalore center, every Ph.D. student will be assigned a faculty member as a mentor. The mentor will periodically monitor the student's progress during the first and second year until a thesis supervisor is found by the end of the second year.
As part of the Ph.D. program, all students must complete basic coursework during their first year. The courses are classified into three groups:
The availability of core courses may vary each year. In addition to core and elective courses, students may also take reading courses with faculty members. A list of courses for each semester must be submitted to the RFAC within the first two weeks, subject to approval or suggestions for alternatives.
If a student is already familiar with the content of a core course, they may opt-out of coursework by taking an exam equivalent to the course. This option can be exercised only at the beginning of each semester, and it may be used for one or more core courses, subject to availability.
Grades for courses are as follows:
To satisfy the requirements of the first year, a student must produce a list of 8 courses, including both core and elective courses, meeting the following conditions:
If a student cannot meet the Main Criterion by the end of the first year, they may be allowed to continue for an additional six months. In the third semester, the student can take up to 2 extra courses (substitution courses). The Main Criterion must be satisfied by the end of the third semester using the grades from these substitution courses and first-year courses.
If the student's performance is poor enough to prevent them from meeting the Main Criterion even at the end of the third semester, they will not be eligible to continue to the second year of the program.
By the end of the second year, the student must have completed the registration process for the Ph.D. This includes finding a faculty member willing to be the thesis supervisor and having a rough idea of the research problems for the thesis.
During each semester of the second year, the student must take at least 2 reading courses with faculty members. The evaluation will be recorded as "Good," "Satisfactory," or "Unsatisfactory." The student should select courses in topics they plan to pursue in their Ph.D. and with faculty they may want to work with for their research.
Before registering for the Ph.D., the student should find a faculty member tentatively willing to be their thesis supervisor, preferably among the reading course instructors. The faculty member may conduct a seminar or an oral examination with other faculty members from related research areas before the end of the second year. If satisfied, the faculty member will become the student's thesis supervisor, and the student can proceed with the formalities of Ph.D. registration as advised by the RFAC.