String Theory: The Very Basics

String theory is currently the most successful theory of quantum gravity and is one of the most researched areas of theoretical physics today. The aim of this course is to give a flavour of the basics of the subject to students with a working knowledge of general relativity and some exposure to quantum field theory. Although the above is assumed, I would try and make the course as self-contained as is possible. We would mainly concentrate our attention on the bosonic string theory mentioning along the way the results for superstrings.