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In this 1st edition of As We Leave, Rahul Jha, a graduating Y21 student from the Department of Mathematics, reflects on his IITK journey filled with near-misses, random choices, lasting friendships, and personal growth, emphasizing the value of fun, resilience, and waking up with something to look forward to.

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.

Prologue

I’ll start by apologizing to Hrishita, the CGM assigned to me. She has been extremely patient but unfortunately for her while I suck at a lot of things I am especially bad at adhering to Vox deadlines and reminiscing about my past in even a slightly coherent manner. I do not want to exceed this deadline so here I am, writing this in the back of an autorickshaw being driven by a very obviously inebriated driver. They say your life flashes before your eyes on the deathbed, I am hoping a non-trivial probability of me dying in a freak accident will conjure up enough of my college life to make for a decent AWL.

“Enter IIT Kanpur, study Math, have fun”

“Enter IIT Kanpur, study Math, have fun” was my very vague goal when I was studying for the JEE. People are incredulous when I say Kanpur Math was my top choice. But it was, mostly because I spent my JEE prep days reading As We Leaves instead of grinding reaction mechanisms. Because IIT Kanpur was the college that published As We Leaves, it became the college I daydreamt about. Unfortunately for me, daydreaming does not always work. After JEEA 2021, I was almost certain that I was not going to clear the chemistry cutoff, because I spent my JEE days reading random AWLs instead of Solomon. When your (however vague) goal has a single point of failure, coping becomes difficult. It took me some time to come to terms with my mediocrity and I started paying attention to BITS’ lectures before the kind people at KGP released the answer key. By what I can only call divine intervention, I cleared the sectional cutoff, and my dream was not dead. I knew I could still enter IIT Kanpur, maybe study Math, and maybe have fun. I only filled IIT Kanpur courses in JoSAA, and to maximize fun, I managed to convince my parents to let me fill Kanpur Economics over Kanpur Mechanical.

Chapter 1

The first semester was weird. I was in my dream college, but I was also in my bedroom for the most part. The semester is a blur, I remember joining random zoom meets where people complained about MTH101 problem sets, or about the number of calls they had to make as Techkriti JEs. I was in so many Whatsapp groups that I do not recall what I said that made the Election Commission write me up. I also really wanted a branch change so I remember missing late night bulla sessions so that I could attend 8 am ENG124 lectures (still got a very low participation score but thats life). The semester results were underwhelming, and I cried myself to sleep for like a week. Covid waned and we were called “back”. I came to the campus late due to vaccination delays, and ended up missing the inaugural Antaragni. Regardless, I have very fond memories of the second semester. Got used to the freedom that was afforded by the campus, pulled a lot of “planned all-nighters” that Shivani still teases me about, got reprimanded by the SiS twice for sneaking to the OAT rooftop, snuck into random weddings with friends and took looong walks. I had my friends, I had my trusty (not) cycle, and I had 1005 acres to explore. And explore I did. I joined Vox, met some really cool people who shaped my college experience in no small way. I joined Vision (RIP) and met fellow nerds, and I met my e-homies who remain my closest friends. By some fluke, I also got a branch change into Math. My plan was so back on track.

Chapter 2

After feeling really good about myself for getting into MTH for the first couple of weeks, I started working towards the “Have fun” goal. I joined the Programming Club, did more work with Vox, and volunteered with the SPO for no reason. I’ll always remember my PClub interview. I was asked to prove that I will not scam my way to a ratification and my dumb response was to tell them that I am usually very punctual. They laughed me out of the room, and I spent the next few days ranting about that experience to my friends. They finally decided to take me in, and I will always be grateful to them. I also applied to become the Coordinator, and filled my presentation with a lot of XKCD memes, and it sort of worked out. There is a lesson in there. The highlight, however, was InterIIT. Blasting music from the Arab Spring in the PClub room while waiting for my code to error out was a character building experience that I’ll forever cherish. I also got my first taste of glorious Kanpur winters during my second year. Cycling from H12 to H3 in dense fog with a non zero chance of getting mauled by Nilgai only to watch my code fail is probably what made me a semi-decent programmer. I had the same set of friends, and we engaged in progressively dangerous tomfoolery. I cannot write about a lot of things we did, but real ones know. I had begun planning my days around my friends – and was almost reliant on them for most things. Again, this is not immediately relevant. Like any sane person, I also prepared for internships. But unlike most sane people, my preparation “strategy” was aping my more disciplined friends and refusing to look at answers shared in the many Whatsapp groups that had re-emerged from the ashes. Predictably, it did not go very well for me and had it not been for my not-too-bad CPI I am reasonably sure I’d still be unemployed. Thanks Prof. Saurabh I guess.

Chapter 3

My third year started on a dull note after I was voted out of my wing before flunking most placement tests and failing to get into the company I had based my entire self worth on. Instead of talking to people, I stopped interacting with them, stopped studying, and started spending all my time locked in my room. For someone who planned his whole day around meeting people, this was very obviously detrimental. I have cried to more comedy films in the fifth semester than I am comfortable admitting. Predictably, my test scores (another thing I based most of my self esteem on) started dipping, I started skipping classes and fell prey to the practice of lamenting about life without doing anything to change it. I did not sleep because I had nothing fun to wake up to. Then InterIIT 12 was announced, and I suddenly had something to look forward to. Had I not taken part in InterIIT, I am sure my sorry state would have continued. Spending nights in DJAC, working with my absolute boys amidst all the banter saved me. I still stayed up nights, but instead of ugly-crying to Silicon Valley I was trying to gaslight LLMs. Madras was my first “college trip”, and while I hate Chennai auto wallahs with a passion I had the time of my life. I loved spending hours roaming the city all by myself – eating shitty ramen and overpaying for autos. It was a revelation – I was actually having fun without other people. The experience changed me, I decided to curtail my over-reliance on other people, and tried being more open to new friends. I do not remember much of the sixth semester apart from that I lost one of my closest friendships to what I can only call a misunderstanding. My academics were back on track, and I was actually looking forward to spending three months in Bengaluru. And save for a couple of glitches, Bengaluru was fun. 10/10 will recommend. No life lessons here, but maybe do not walk on empty streets inebriated.

Finale

Like most politically dispensable people I was sent to Hall 9, and while I hated the first few weeks here I eventually came to terms with it. I wanted to paint the walls of my room for character but I haven’t gotten to that yet. I am guessing they will remain bare. I received a return offer from GS, and became a religious listener of PCRC. I also worked hard towards maximizing fun – doing a lot of things for the sake of doing things. I took the CAT, worked on a Physics problem, and became a niche twitter microcelebrity. I also made new friends, and sampled all that Kanpur had to offer with them. Academically, I have never done better. Socially, my life has enough variety to be exciting, and enough routine to not freak me out. I have some semblance of clarity with respect to my career, and I am grateful for my friends. Thanks to the nice folks in the Gymkhana, I also have a lot of pictures in sunglasses and shorts so I think I’ll not run out of LinkedIn thirst trap ammo anytime soon. When I look back and reflect upon my time here, I can only thank God for making sure most of my random decisions (like choosing MTH over EE/SDS during branch change, or dropping an HSS in the 4th sem because I wanted to study 641) did not come back to bite me in the nether regions. Because As We Leaves were the reason I chose this place, I tried finetuning the first few semesters to make them more AWL-able and failed miserably. It was only when I decided to take myself less seriously and allowing for randomness in plans that I started having fun. And having fun was my one true goal. So yes, I think most things worked out, and I have very few regrets. You maybe wondering what is the point of this AWL, because I have not dropped any gyaan – and that is because I do not think dispensing gyaan is useful. People have different experiences, and people make different choices. I have simply outlined my experiences and choices. Most of my choices work out, and that has been good enough for me. If some 16 year old reads this and decides to come to IITK, my only advice will be to grind Chemistry instead of spending time on the internet. Stories like mine are only fun when they work out.