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Soumyadeep, a Y15 BT-MT Dual Degree alumnus and current Y20 PhD student of the Department of Electrical Engineering, reflects on his time in IITK as he leaves IITK to go to NYU for completing his joint PhD from NYU and IITK.
Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IIT-K.
Who am I?
Within a day of joining IITK as a BT CHE admit in 2015, I was provided with a well-structured answer to this question – codenamed ‘kholna’ – which defined me in terms of my name, some immediate identifiers (IITK-related and hometown) and fake hobbies that need to be easy to pronounce in chaste Hindi. That’s a start, but these past nine years of my association with IITK can be best described as an ongoing journey to find an answer to this question. (If you are a part of this journey, chances are you’ll find a passing reference, and if I have missed you (definitely a few!) please accept my apologies!)
Year I - A Sense of Belonging and Identity
Diwali celebration in Hall 2 with wingmates
The first few days were challenging with several firsts – hostel life (Hall 2 culture didn’t help!), living away from home, meeting people from all over India, being stereotyped, and a general imposter syndrome. A few good scores helped with the last issue, but it took me a long time to acclimate that maybe IITians are not the glorified role models I thought they were. In about a semester, I settled in, got a grip on academics, found some friends and helpful seniors, and started warming up to try out co-curricular activities. I accompanied some friends to a Vox Populi meeting in my second semester and haven’t left since! I switched to EE in my second year – deciding on a part of my professional identity for life.
Year II - Like me or not, you can’t ignore me!
Me with my “bachche”
I became a “baap”, i.e., Student Guide to six first-year “bachche” and an Academic Mentor. Vox stayed a constant. I also got actively involved in all major fests in different positions and a couple more random involvements. I even proposed to someone I was hanging out with – a tremendous leap for a boys’ school nerd – but got turned down (we stay good friends, and she’s the first female friend I ever made – so I am extremely grateful). To fill the void, I got into pop culture big time – binge-watching Friends, iMDb top-rated movies, listening to Pink Floyd and the like, and memes – and my co-curricular involvements fuelled my social media addiction. Pretty much everyone knew me – offline and especially online. I was selected for the CS UG Core Team (Academics). It was dizzying – I was burning out big time. I did not like EE, and I opted for a double major and summer project in Chemistry out of interest.
Year III - Prioritise!
Core Team (Academics), Counselling Service, 2017-18
EE was an extremely competitive department for me – it took a lot more effort to maintain my grades along with co-curriculars. I couldn’t do it all and needed to restrict myself to two activities I enjoyed the most – CS and Vox. I finally found the right set of friends – slowly dissociating from my wing (barring a few), which had grown somewhat toxic. I was slowly but surely getting drawn more to EE, particularly communications. I had corporate and academic intern offers (Texas Instruments and NYU, respectively) in EE and opted for the latter. I eventually decided to drop my Double Major in Chemistry and take up a Dual Degree in EE instead. To end the year on a high note, I became one of the Chief Editors of Vox!
Year IV - Stabilization and Growth
This year, I had fewer things on my plate but they required considerably higher efforts. Along with co-Chief Harshit Bhalla, I was guiding Vox through a tricky phase of sustaining and motivating a small team as well as creating an impact significant enough to ruffle many feathers and take Vox to a position of credibility where it started to be viewed as a serious “voice” of the student community. At the same time, I did well in challenging departmental courses and UGP and landed a summer internship at UCSD. I faced severe burnout again towards the end, but I felt I had finally consolidated my identity.
Core Group, Vox Populi 2018-19
Year V - Existential crisis, research, PhD decision and COVID
I was mentally all over the place in the summer – clueless and burnt out. I learned a few things early in my internship, but everything fizzled out. Back in IITK for my Master’s, I procrastinated – engaging in many co-curricular activities again but nothing wholeheartedly. Many friends had left after a 4-year B.Tech., so I made several new friends who, to date, form my closest circle. An off-campus job offer gave me an excuse to sit out of placements. A timely reprimand from my thesis supervisor brought me to my senses; thereafter, it was relatively smooth sailing. I ended up acclimatising well to research life. Towards the end, I eventually took my advisors’ suggestion and opted for the IITK-NYU dual degree PhD program. Shortly after, COVID hit, and I had to finish my thesis work and graduate online – at which point I felt great that I’d have another IITK convocation as a PhD student!
From left – Bharat, me, Harshit and Shivam – friends I made in dual degree years – a recent photograph during a suddenly planned trip to Agra (c. 2023)
Hiatus (Years VI-VII and VIII semester I) - Online semester and moving to NYU
My PhD started in 2020 with an online semester of IITK doing PhD coursework. I finished all four courses in one semester, which was pretty hectic, along with finishing up paper submissions for my Master’s thesis work and convocation formalities for my dual degree. I secured a timely US visa, and for two years (2021-2022), I was at NYU. During this time, I finished PhD coursework at NYU, took doctoral degree-related examinations at IITK and NYU, pursued my first industry summer internship, and started my PhD dissertation work.
Panwar group + IITK alumni at NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Year VIII semester II and Year IX - Return to IITK, rediscovering myself and departing
I returned to IITK as a PhD student in January 2023. Life seemed a lot slower here now, and I realised soon that I didn’t have any friends here anymore. Luckily, I found some IITK UG juniors who were still around and joined their social group (hello, Gang B!), along with some batchmates and seniors. I slowly returned to some IITK activities – election officer in Hall 8, a Senate position, departmental activities, and rejoining Vox!
Some IITK bucket list items got ticked off – drunk nights in fests, visits to Ramaiya Dhaba, crashing alumni reunions, etc. I even took a leap of faith and started my first relationship. It lasted a few months, and then I realised some things weren’t working out, but I was not ready for the intense void. Work, conference travel, and therapy kept me sane. I thought I wouldn’t date again till I was back in NYC, but I couldn’t resist this wonderful human who fell for me! Almost six months in, we are still together, and hopefully for life.
My NYU supervisor, Prof Shivendra Panwar, met my IITK supervisor, Dr Rohit Budhiraja, and the WiSDOm lab while visiting IITK for his alumni reunion
Meanwhile, research has been going on, and it is finally taking proper shape. It looks like there’s an end in sight. My research journey hasn’t been linear in my PhD, and I allowed myself to take perhaps a detour too many. PhD is hard and tests your resilience and discipline a lot more than raw academic abilities. I’m glad I got an immersive experience of the academic cultures of India and the US. I will write more later on this, perhaps on personal blogs, once I graduate.
IITK has given me everything I needed at the right time to forge my identity. I have done my fair share for IITK at various levels to make it a better and more humane place. I’m happy to be moving on from here and look forward to contributing to IITK in whatever capacity. I have lived a full life here, taking all my chances and exploring myself professionally and personally with no regrets. As I write my story after all these years, amidst all the chaos, I can observe a clear linear trajectory of growth – personal and professional – and in perspective, it all makes sense. I guess that’s how life should be! I’ll end this long monologue with two lines from an old Hindi song which I’ve been replaying in my mind for the past weeks –
Written by : Soumyadeep Datta
Edited by: Nikhil Pothuganti, Mayur Agrawal
Designed by: Sanyam Shivhare
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