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For the 36th edition of As We Leave 2026, Mayank , a Y22 student from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, walks us through his journey. From missing his very first quiz to building robots in Team ERA, his journey is filled with setbacks and rewards, carrying the message that things don’t always work out the way you expect, but that shouldn’t make you stop.
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.
The Unexpected Beginning
A child who had secured good AIRs in almost every competitive exam (KVPY SA/SX, NTSE) and was constantly told that he would get a rank under 500 in JEE eventually found himself in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. Naturally, I arrived on campus with a clear goal: change my branch in the first year.
I thought I already had a fair idea of how IITK worked (I was very wrong), largely because my elder sister (Y20 batch) had studied here as well.
I think all of that started changing during orientation itself. I had already made so many friends that I almost forgot academics existed. In fact, I missed the very first quiz of my college life – MTH111. While everyone was horrified by their 0s and 1s in the quiz, I was oddly relaxed knowing I had done even worse by not showing up at all. (Thankfully, it was prorated later!)
Somewhere between wing shenanigans, 6 AM PE, quizzes, sprinting across campus for attendance, evenings at CPA hockey, and countless games of badminton and TT at Old SAC, I completely forgot about branch change. Instead, I was busy attending workshops conducted by almost every club on campus, spending nights at Galaxy, Takneek, and Freshers’ Inferno, pulling all-nighters for Freshers’ Showcase dance performances, celebrating wing birthdays, and experiencing my first college fests.
Before I knew it, the first semester was over.
By the second semester, I had become quite comfortable with the art of studying exactly one day before quizzes and exams. I wanted to be a part of everything. By the end of my second semester, I had somehow stacked up more PORs than I thought possible. I was involved with Team ERA, Robotics Club, Vox (as CGM/Assed), DnA, SG, and AM.
My branch change decision, however, remained fairly simple. I applied only for EE. I had developed a strong dislike for MTH (which, coincidentally, was also the primary reason behind my CPI dropping), and had decided that no matter what happened, I would never switch to MTH or SDS.
In the end, I missed the EE cutoff by 0.06 CPI.
Looking back now, that number feels far less important than it did back then.
The Grind
I would describe my third and fourth semesters as pure grind.
I was giving Codeforces contests almost every day. Working in Team ERA taught me more than any course possibly could. I learned about system design, state-of-the-art ML techniques, 3D printing, and a surprising amount of grunt work. Designing posts, creating merchandise, working physically on the bots, figuring out logistics, managing finances, and coordinating people became a regular part of life. Oddly enough, I loved all of it.
At times, Team ERA felt less like a student team and more like running a startup. It also forced me to become a better communicator. Whether it was presenting our robots to juniors, faculty members, sponsors, school students, or visitors, I gradually became more confident speaking in front of people. Throughout this period, we were obsessed with one goal: participating in RoboCup in the upcoming summers in the Netherlands.
Outside ERA, I was still involved with Vox and Robo Club, although I will admit that I was doing the bare minimum required to get ratified. The years were also filled with events and memories that had nothing to do with academics. Being an SG and an AM during orientation was something I thoroughly enjoyed. There was Matki Phod on Janmashtami, countless late-night conversations, random adventures on Omegle (I genuinely have enough stories to write a separate AWL), Takneek, my first college trip to Rishikesh with my wingies, and of course, my first campus Holi.
One of the most defining experiences of this period was being a part of the Inter IIT Tech Meet contingent for the Aptos Problem Statement. The team was supposed to have six people. We had three.
I still remember the week before the submission. I had crossed 200 commits by myself. We were working close to eighteen hours a day, surviving almost entirely on determination. AI tools were nowhere close to what they are today, so every feature, bug fix, and line of code had to be written manually. We ended up writing thousands of lines of code and pushing ourselves harder than we thought possible.
We eventually missed the podium by a few points.
Strangely enough, that never felt like a failure.
Instead, it marked the beginning of my involvement in SnT outside my own club. It showed me what it felt like to build something meaningful with a small group of people who genuinely cared. Looking back, the lessons from that Inter IIT preparation probably stayed with me longer than any medal would have.
Of course, no phase of my life can be complete without sports.
Volleyball became a daily ritual. We played on the Hall 3 courts regardless of what the next day looked like. It did not matter if there was a quiz the next morning, an end-sem examination around the corner, or freezing winter temperatures outside. Some of my favourite memories are from those late-night games, playing till 4 AM with hands so cold they had turned red.
For all the hours spent grinding Codeforces, building robots, preparing presentations, and writing code, it was those games on the volleyball court that kept me sane.
Summers
The summer after my fourth semester was probably one of the busiest periods of my college life.
I had opted for EME (which I had dropped earlier in exchange for ESO207 during my fourth semester), was pursuing a SURGE project in MRL Labs working on vision systems for a quadruped robot (which later earned me a scholarship), mentoring a Web3 project in PClub, and working my ass off as a Head at ERA alongside my juniors in preparation for RoboCup. We ended up building two additional robots while simultaneously figuring out the logistics of taking the team to the Netherlands.
As if that wasn’t enough, internship season was right around the corner. My days were divided between updating my resume, preparing DSA and competitive programming, revising probability, conducting meetings, mentoring projects, and somehow finding enough time to sleep.
Looking back, I honestly have no idea how I managed all of it.
But it was worth it.
By the end of Day 1 of the internship season, I had four offers in hand. Despite being unsure at the time, I eventually chose Nomura. In hindsight, it turned out to be one of the better decisions I made during my time at IITK.
When I reflect on this period, I realize that this was where I truly started gaining confidence in myself.
For the longest time, I had this strange belief that luck was somehow working against me. Missing branch change by 0.06 CPI, losing out on course boundaries by a few marks (well, that one never really stopped happening 🙁 ), narrowly missing opportunities, and countless other small setbacks had convinced me that things simply wouldn’t work out for me.
This summer was probably the first time that narrative started changing.
All the hours spent preparing DSA, giving Codeforces contests, building projects, improving my communication skills, and working on things I genuinely cared about finally began to pay off. Ironically, I barely prepared for project discussions during interviews because I was extremely confident in the work I had already done. The preparation was no longer about cramming answers. It was about trusting the effort I had put in over the previous two years.
For the first time, I felt like things were falling into place.
The Calm
I spent most of my fifth and sixth semesters simply trying out new things, carrying out the day-to-day responsibilities of our mini-startup, Team ERA, and, of course, playing volleyball regularly.
Life had settled into a comfortable rhythm. There was always something happening, but for the first time in college, it felt like I was no longer chasing opportunities. Instead, I was enjoying the ones I had already found.
Sports continued to be a major part of life. We narrowly missed out on the finals of the AME Phatta League by just a few runs. Despite the loss, it was immensely satisfying to beat seniors, juniors, and people from our own batch along the way. We also tried our luck in IVL (the volleyball league), only to get knocked out in the second match 🙁 .
I was initially a part of the Inter IIT team for the Bharat Forge Problem Statement, but due to politics, I eventually left the PS. Ironically, I still ended up going to IIT Bombay, this time for the Expo being held alongside Inter IIT on behalf of Team ERA. Sometimes things have a funny way of working out.
Around the same time, our wing went on its second trip together, this time to Udaipur. By then, these trips had become less about the destination and more about the people. The inside jokes, random conversations, and chaotic plans were always the highlight.
This period also brought a few pleasant surprises. I received the Hyundai Hope Scholarship, won awards from DORA and the Institute Research Symposium for making reels for Team ERA, and most importantly, got to enjoy the cash prize entirely by myself
On the Team ERA front, we achieved something that meant far more than any individual award. We qualified for RoboCup MSL once again.
Life was good.
Summers
The summer after my sixth semester was my first real taste of corporate life.
I stayed at home in Mumbai and commuted nearly three hours every day for work 🙁 . While the travel was exhausting, the internship itself turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had an amazing team, most of whom were only a couple of years older than me and came from places like IIT KGP, IIT Bombay, and BITS Pilani. They were incredibly supportive, approachable, and always willing to help.
The internship was nothing like what I had imagined. Instead of being buried under monotonous work, we were constantly given interesting problems to solve. We played games, managed portfolios, worked on coding and automation tasks, attended team events, and somehow managed to have fun while doing serious work. It was probably the first time I understood why people genuinely enjoyed their jobs.
As the internship progressed, I found myself learning far more than I had expected. By the end of it, I received a PPO from my team.
At the same time, I was also working a remote off-campus internship. Balancing both internships quickly became difficult, and after trying to juggle them for some time, I eventually decided to leave the remote role and focus on one thing properly.
The funny part is that when I started the internship, getting a PPO was never the goal.
I had spent years preparing for software development roles. My plan was simple: crack an SDE job and move on. I was fairly convinced that finance was not the direction I wanted to pursue. Yet somewhere along the way, that perspective started changing.
I enjoyed the work, the people, and the problems I was solving. What had initially felt like a backup option slowly became something I could genuinely see myself doing in the future.
By the end of the summer, I wasn’t just leaving with a PPO. I was leaving with a completely different outlook on my career than the one I had started with.
The Rewards
I would describe my seventh and eighth semesters as the rewards for all the hard work that had gone into the previous years.
If I think back to a random day in my seventh semester, all I can remember is juggling CS779 assignments (lesson learnt: never take Ashutosh Modi’s course), CS345 (Algo II, warning: take it under Baswana only if you are willing to work hard on courses), playing poker, and endless games of Mini Militia (we are the best players on campus, and I will die on this hill).
I also took up a UGP under Prof. Chandraprakash and worked on a research paper in materials science. Despite having absolutely nothing to do with core engineering throughout college, I somehow decided this was a good idea (huge mistake). I spent around four to five hours every day working on the paper, met him three to four times a week with updates, and genuinely put a lot of effort into it.
The result?
A C+.
Some experiences build character, I guess.
But when I think about this phase of my college life, there is one thing that stands above everything else.
Let me tell you about my journey as a Deputy Contingent Leader (DCL) for Inter IIT Tech Meet 14.0.
I still remember sitting in the mess beside Tanush and randomly saying, “mujhe DCL banne ka bohot mann hai”, despite never mentioning it before. He had quite an interesting response, and before I knew it, I was the DCL.
This was especially surprising because I wasn’t exactly on the best terms with some of the previous CLs and DCLs.
The next few months were genuinely some of the best months of my entire college life.
I got an incredible team in Trijal and Rachit, all of us united by a single goal: winning Inter IIT through pure hard work, preparation, and research. No shortcuts, no underhand tricks, just doing things properly.
We had started preparing long before the problem statements were even released. We went through mistakes from previous editions, documented everything we could find, identified recurring issues, and actively worked on fixing them.
Honestly, I could talk about Inter IIT forever.
I have stories about almost every problem statement, every submission, and nearly every single day leading up to the event. Searching for ANSYS labs at the last moment, figuring out logistics, running to the railway station carrying over a lakh rupees in cash to book tickets, registering teams, coordinating participants, brainstorming Pathway ideas every day as if we were running a startup, and a hundred other things that I will probably remember years from now.
Every submission has a story behind it.
Then came IIT Patna.
We didn’t have blankets. We didn’t have mattresses. Along with the rest of the core team, I spent three straight nights sleeping in the workroom, or whatever qualified as sleep during those days.
Those three to four days felt like an entire semester compressed into a single week.
When the results changed from third position to second position, it genuinely felt like watching a movie unfold in real time. There were so many incidents, twists, celebrations, arguments, and moments of pure chaos packed into those few days that it is impossible to capture all of them here.
The TechBoard meeting for contentions was probably the closest thing to the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones.
We absolutely slaughtered the other IITs.
Watching other IITs lobby for our support was a sight to behold.
If I had to pick two moments that I will remember forever, the first would be sitting in a conference room alongside representatives from all the IITs. When someone asked who they thought would win that year, almost everyone started chanting “Kanpur”.
I am not ashamed to admit that it brought tears to my eyes.
The second would be when IIT KGP’s CL came up to us, shook our hands, and said,
“purane Kanpur ki yaad aagayi.”
For a team that had spent months trying to challenge KGP’s dominance, hearing that felt surreal.
The appreciation from people on campus afterwards was incredible. Everywhere we went, people wanted to know what happened, how we prepared, and what it was like behind the scenes.
Looking back, this entire period was probably the highlight of my college life.
It is funny because if you had met first-year Mayank, there is absolutely no chance he would have believed that he would one day be a DCL for Inter IIT, leading preparations, fighting contentions, managing logistics, and standing on that stage.
If anyone ever wants stories about Inter IIT, contentions, problem statements, logistics disasters, or random incidents from those months, feel free to reach out.
And finally, I have to thank Trijal and Rachit.
For including me everywhere, trusting me with responsibilities, and making sure I never felt left out.
The Golden Week
The span of one week, from December 15 to December 22, was probably the most eventful week of my entire college journey.
On December 15, we won our Inter IIT trophy, and I headed back to Mumbai.
Around October, Squarepoint had opened applications on campus. I had applied off-campus the moment the recruitment mail arrived because, to be honest, I was a little disappointed after accepting my PPO and seeing that Squarepoint was open for Mechanical students. I had already cleared two online rounds and was scheduled for the final two offline interviews in Bangalore on December 21.
That left me with five days.
Five days in which I practically lived on LeetCode and probability questions.
I revised everything I could, solved problems non-stop, and hoped that all the preparation over the years would be enough.
Thankfully, the interviews went smoothly.
The moment that surprised me the most was when my code passed all the test cases on the very first attempt without a single compilation error. For someone who usually discovers bugs the moment they start feeling confident, this felt almost unnatural.
A few days later, I received the offer from Squarepoint.
As if that wasn’t enough, I was also participating in Jane Street’s Algorithmic Trading Competition being conducted at IIT Bombay. I had already cleared the three online stages, and the final round was scheduled for December 22.
The final stage involved presenting our trading strategies. Fortunately, presentations were probably the one thing I had done more than enough of during college. I even used ideas from a research paper I had worked on during my internship project statement (it was publicly available, so definitely not theft).
The presentation went well.
Very well.
I ended up securing first place in the competition, along with some goodies and a cash prize.
When I look back at that week, I don’t remember the interviews, the offers, or the competition results as separate achievements.
What I remember is the feeling.
It felt like four years of accumulated effort suddenly deciding to pay rent.
That week was the juice of all the piled-up work.
Home Stretch
The final semester was nothing short of chaos.
The good kind of chaos.
Days blurred into nights filled with poker, challenging other wings in Mini Militia, badminton sessions that somehow stretched far beyond midnight, and evenings spent on the volleyball court. We made yet another unsuccessful attempt at IVL, but managed to win the Hall 3 Volleyball League by a landslide. We won the Winter Esports tournament in Brawl Stars, lost the Hall 3 Phatta League by a single run, and spent whatever free time we had exploring cafés and food joints around Kanpur.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I went on what will forever remain my most iconic trip of college, Goa with the wingies.
Every single day of that trip was a roller coaster.
This semester was also packed with parties, farewells, and celebrations. Inter IIT’s pool party, placement parties, Baapu Party, Robo Club’s farewell, Team ERA’s farewell, Gymkhana Day, Hall Day, and countless other events that all seemed to arrive at once.
There were last-minute choreography sessions for Mechanical’s farewell, thanks to Pushpdeep and Kushagra (A3 Mech), the two people with whom I somehow survived most of my courses while sharing an unhealthy obsession with sports. There was Dance Extravaganza (ours was obviously the best), making the cringiest reels imaginable, and doing things we would normally never do simply because someone would inevitably say,
“abey aakhri hai karle”
Special thanks to Anurag for making that phrase impossible to ignore.
The semester was filled with photoshoots, dance practices for the batch video, and endless attempts to preserve moments that we knew were slipping away far too quickly.
I also have to mention Piyush, Shivansh, Rohan, Abhishek, and Tushar. This AWL genuinely feels incomplete without their names in it.
And finally, Nikhil and Debraj, who are probably the best things Team ERA gave me.
As the semester progressed, a strange realization started creeping in.
Everything was becoming the “last” of something.
The last Hall Day.
The last Gymkhana Day.
The last Inter IIT celebration.
The last farewell.
The last dance performance.
The last volleyball game.
The last random dinner plan.
The room that once felt too small suddenly feels too empty.
And that’s when it finally hits you.
I am leaving IIT Kanpur with memories I will never forget, testimonials I will always cherish, a gallery full of photographs I will revisit far too often, and brothers for a lifetime.
If there’s one thing IITK taught me, it is that things do not always work out the way you expect them to.
Sometimes you lose opportunities by the smallest margins.
Sometimes you put in months of effort and still end up with a C+.
Sometimes luck simply refuses to cooperate.
But if you keep showing up, keep learning, and keep pushing forward, things have a funny way of falling into place.
And in the words of Shahrukh Khan,
“No matter how many times you go wrong, no matter how many times you fail, you despair, or feel like the world is against you, in the end everything’s gonna be alright.
Aur meri Hindi filmon ki tarah,
Zindagi mein bhi ant mein sab theek hi ho jaata hai.
Aur agar theek na ho, toh woh ant nahi hai.
Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost.”
Written By: Mayank Agrawal
Edited By: Atharv Mishra, Saurya Singh
