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In the 40th edition of As We Leave 2026, Shreya Rajak, a Y21 Dual Degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering cracks open her memory boxes one last time before she goes, giving us a glimpse into the chaos and enjoyment that were her four years of college spent with clubs and friends, old and new, and the final year, which brought a sense of peace.
It’s a packed train ride of memories and a narration that ends with finding your own people.
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.
“You know how everyone’s always saying seize the moment? I don’t know, I’m kinda thinking it’s the other way around. You know, like the moment seizes us. ”
– Boyhood
I am standing between the solar panels on the Hall 6 terrace, the breeze hitting hard. The first time I stood here I remember thinking I had never seen anything so green in my life. The open roads, the trees, the sky that went on longer than it should, the simple fact that nobody was going to tell me what to do next. I didn’t know what to do with that much space. I just stood there and breathed it in. My worst fear, standing here now, is that all of this will eventually fade into memory boxes piled in the corner of my room, the ones I’ll leave collecting dust for years, until one day I crack them open and tell stories to someone who wasn’t there. So before the boxes close, let me put it together here, with some background music.
*In the Mood – Glenn Miller*
Seventeen-year-old me was a mess. Like, genuinely, could decide to chop her hair on a random Tuesday but completely fall apart over which dress to wear. We were the luckier covid batch. Second semester on campus, first semester online, and I won’t pretend the online part was all bad. Some of my closest people came from those Zoom calls. But nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for actually being there. I didn’t get an SNT summer project and I was devastated in the way only a first-year can be, like it was over before it had properly started. And then that somehow, completely by accident, dropped me into the group of people who are still my people in fifth year. IITK does that to you.
The first year is hard to remember as a whole, mostly just energy, joining hundreds of clubs (legit the max I could), fresher’s dance video, sis guards running behind us for crashing into some rooftops, breaking hall1 tank pipe by mistake, new people, night-outs every weekend in oat, and the specific relief of being somewhere nobody knew who you were before. And then the first endsem break and people were genuinely inconsolable about going home, which felt dramatic at the time and makes complete sense to me now. We cried about changing halls. We watched seniors graduate and felt something cold about it. We had absolutely no idea. I usually wrote how I was always scared when each batch left this campus. I waited for my turn. This is my turn now.
हम तो हो गए ज़माँ, धीरे-धीरे था लमहा
अब तो होना है वही जो बनाए जहाँ
हम तो उड़ गए, उड़ गए, उड़ गए !!!
Ritviz reminds me of antaragni. I have seen juniors these days planning their entire life out in their second semester. Interns, placements, PORs, all mapped out before college has even properly begun. We were the people who arrived on campus and just discovered we were free. None of that registered. Seniors told us to focus on academics but the orientation was online and nobody listens to online meets. So we didn’t. It was all firsts for a while. First night out, first time through a telescope, first friends group that I couldn’t have made in school, first love, first fest, first trip. We were running on that specific kind of energy where everything feels like it’s the beginning and nothing feels like it costs anything. And then, quietly, it caught up. By the end of third semester my SPI had dropped to 3.3. I didn’t get the POR I wanted. Friends I thought were permanent started drifting, not dramatically, just slowly, the way things do. And somewhere in that stretch I noticed this shadow I’d been ignoring, the rat race everyone else seemed to already be running. I hadn’t registered. I didn’t know the rules. And suddenly it felt like everyone around me did. I couldn’t stop comparing. Every person who got an intern, every POR announcement, every conversation where someone casually mentioned something I’d never even heard of, it all went straight in. I felt I wasn’t good enough to even be in this college for a long time and had this strong urge to drop out. I met new sets of people during this time, the kind of people I am going to be thankful for forever. I was trying hard but couldn’t improve the things I wanted to improve. I don’t even vividly remember what exactly those things were, but it went on for almost two to three years. There were days I wouldn’t come out of the room or get up from my bed to go to class or have trouble falling asleep. Vidhi and Mehar were the reason I started going to classes, doing assignments and putting in the effort to improve my life. After growing out of it, knowing what matters and prioritising things my way instead of the way people around me were doing, I came out of it more intact and clearer about what I value, who I want to be, and whose voice in my head actually matters, all because of the people who stayed with me through every circumstance and taught me how to enjoy most of it.
He said, “One day you’ll leave this world behind
So live a life you will remember”
There’s been ups and downs for everyone in this college and it will continue beyond, but the things worth holding onto are the ones you simply don’t get anywhere else. Some of them were as simple as lying on the airstrip watching the Geminids till 4am, surrounded by the best people, and then waking up to fog so thick you couldn’t find anyone two feet away. The Lucknow trip with the astro people. The Uno match that went all night, especially significant to Princy. Late night jams in the music club. Hanging out at OAT till the campus went quiet. Coming back to the hall and walking into the next room before my own. Shivani singing(not-so-good) next door (also introduced me to great playlists). Sitting down in the middle of the road mid-laugh and just staying there. Antaragni ’24. The wing barging in for a gossip session at midnight. The OG Rajasthan trip. The hilarious trek and good new year with Alka. Even thinking about each one of them lifts my mood in a way I can’t fully explain. I was so scared to even give a simple presentation in front of the class and I remember Venkat making me practice all of it for the entire day. Movie and rant sessions with Kalika, Benison and Vaibhav, Bitching B**ches biriyani parties, playing GTA outside L7 with Nandan, the entire fest group that made it more than awesome every time, countless Barkaas Trips, Hall 6 rooftop, late night card matches with people fighting, Teja and Arnav’s cooking sessions, and also very important, Takneek. It changed the kind of person I was entirely. Something that I am proud of secretly. I was not sure initially if it would be something to cherish looking back. But it is. The placement season itself. I never thought I was gonna get a job or get a PhD acceptance till the end of my fourth year. The entire process was a nightmare and I will be grateful to those who were with me in each aspect of it. There are countless more and I might have not named a lot of people here but I know they know how important they have been to me and it would be difficult to go through all these years without meeting them. Till last year I was sad about leaving all of it behind. Now that I’m actually ready to, I find I will just cherish them as some of the most beautiful memories I have. They taught me to reach out when I need help. Nobody wants to deal with things alone, and nobody wants you to either. I used to be shy, insecure about my habits, my not-so-normal choices, and the people here taught me to love myself for who I am. They made me understand that losing touch doesn’t mean losing someone, that there are people you can call after months of silence and pick up exactly where you left off, and that the closest people stay close no matter what the circumstances are. Till fourth year it was mostly about the people immediately around me. And then I took the difficult decision of pursuing a dual degree, and just like that, all of those people were no longer part of my daily life. That’s when one of the most crucial parts of my entire undergrad began. Not placements. Not PhD applications. Something else entirely.
Kaagaz ke parde hain taale hain darwazon pe
Paani mein doobe huve khwaab alfazon ke
Kho gaye hum kahan; Rangon sa ye jahan;
Till your friends are there with you, it is more about learning how to live in the world out there. Once that number lessens, it is more about learning how to live in the world within yourself. Last year was a breather I didn’t know I needed. Before this, I would spend time doing most of the things my friends loved. Slowly I started finding my own things. My favorite corner on campus. My favorite cafe in the city. The place I’d go to sit and work in peace. I would go to DJAC most days to watch the sunset. Four years of learning how to exist with people, and then one year of learning how to exist with myself. Placement season and the entire ninth semester was a rush, chaotic in the way only that particular combination of deadlines and goodbyes can be. Over these five years I have realised that whatever worst you could imagine will probably happen, and it will happen for reasons you couldn’t have predicted, leading somewhere you wouldn’t have chosen but needed to go. Something good always comes out of it, even when you can’t see it yet. Everything you do counts, maybe silently, but it does. As Adit would say, completely nonchalant, “Bharosa rakh bhai.”
As the end approached, the flaws and the good things about this campus started making sense. I am standing here again now. Same terrace. An hour left on this campus. And it is still green, still enormous, still the same sky. But I am not the same person who stood here not knowing what was coming. I know exactly what came. My parents are already waiting downstairs. But somewhere in the middle of writing this, the glimpses started coming. Specific corners of this campus. Specific nights. Specific versions of myself in specific places. And I realised I am not going to see any of this daily anymore. That’s when it hit.
The version of me standing here right now, in a good way and a bad way, is something this campus built over five years. But one thing I know for certain: five years younger Shreya would be very proud of who I am right now. That’s what matters most.
I don’t know what changes in an hour, or a day, or a month. I think I’m okay with that. But the good thing about writing an As We Leave is that you can always come back to this version of yourself.
Written by : Shreya Rajak
Edited by : Aditi Narain, Riddhi Shingte
