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In the 60th edition of As We Leave 2026, Nazhar Bekinalkar, an MBA student from the Class of 2026, reflects on a two-year IIT Kanpur journey that began with uncertainty but evolved into one of unexpected growth. From finding a home at Vox Populi and navigating the relentless pace of MBA academics to leading startup outreach for the GCC Innovation Summit and balancing placements amidst the chaos, his story is one of discovering purpose through people, pressure, and possibility. A reminder that sometimes the most meaningful college experiences are the ones you never planned for.
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.
My experience at IITK is a bit unconventional. I first came here not knowing what to expect, yet having an inclination towards a bias that I might not gain all that I ended up gaining in the 2-year span I spent here. As an MBA student here on campus, it’s a short-lived existential crisis of sorts at the beginning, but I guess once I started understanding this place and blending in, it’s one of the best places one may experience.
The people, the chaos and the calmness combined on an unpredictable journey have all made this ride way more admirable than I once expected it to be, and this is what makes me even write this awl.
I found unique personalities way more capable than me and people with way more enthusiasm to push in all sections of what keeps student life busy at IITK. That spirit itself made me go from a really troublesome human at first to someone who’s really up again and doing things again. The first sem I remember was me mostly overthinking and dealing with the deadly heat that surrounds us and makes the whole campus a sweat tank, trying to make sense of this place (the new arrivals), searching for space in it. A different atmosphere I had though, our entire batch was living on the same floor and had too much time in the beginning, some of the loudest days with an introduction to some crazy funny people and a place with no boundaries at all. We remember the fire alarm that we thought was us, and ended up almost damaging the hall to stop it, but later we figured it was something else. It was during these times that I found an email from Vox Populi. It intrigued me way more than any other student body on campus I’d known at the time. I simply filled the Google form and after a brief interrogation of an interview, I was in. It wasn’t about the POR for me, it was a place with real friendly humans who fed my curiosity of Qui sunt hi populi?
Then came the initial quizzes and some acad shocks. It made clear the currency of grades that drives this economy, the pursuit of grades with a hidden pursuit of knowledge, because the why always matters and the grades couldn’t suffice for it. After a not so good sem 1, but figuring out the dos and don’ts, I started spending more time with people I can work with and have a really good bond at the same time. Finding your people is so important no matter where you are. With a lot of caffeinated lib days and the quiet productive culture of the student lounge, sem 2 gave me the CPI that literally held my entire coursework in a way. MBAs tend to have way more course credits compared to other PG courses, so that was a relief. Then came the period of summers, which was satisfactory in terms of learning and exposure, as I was mentored right from the in-house IT head of an FMCG company which built pretty much anything prompted by the business and made economic sense. Some of the projects really opened up the practical layer of what it takes to make sense of the budgets and the engineering pressure of delivery linked to business outcomes. Overall it was a cool place and a productive learning span I went through.
During summers, I received a call from a friend, more of an invitation to volunteer for a summit to be hosted in IITK around September 2025. I said yes since it sounded interesting, but I really didn’t know that it was about to consume me in a way very few things had on campus. The GCC Innovation Summit is a platform to connect the Global Capability Centers in India with top researchers, deep tech startup founders as well as investors to collaborate and co-create, with a vision to make India a product nation. A brief introduction with the organising team followed by multiple discussions with the chairperson of SMC (Startup Master Class), a non-profit body of the IIT Kanpur Alumni Association. I was requested to take complete responsibility of the startups to be invited and hosted at the GCC Innovation Summit at IITK, right from marketing the summit to hospitality, pitching to demonstration setups. I experienced the whole event shenanigans in 2 months, which literally taught me how to think and operate at the edge of f-ups, and more importantly how a great set of individuals can be relied on once you figure who they are. Right from the bright humans of E-Cell to Outreach Cell, I genuinely learned how to drive and organise a mega event like that in a constrained time and resources setting. We went from literally having only 35 odd registrations after trying many things, just 15 days before the event, to having over 400+ near the final days of the summit, which was honestly higher than our expectations. I worked with professional marketers, interns, and a lot of cold calling I did myself that was simply necessary, because no one else would do it in the way it was needed. I was fortunate to take care of this side of stakeholders at the summit, where we had selected a list of 50+ deep tech startup founders with remarkable traction and valuations, and they were so pulled towards it that they confirmed the itinerary even in the final days before the summit. I still remember making all the calls under a huge sense of urgency, confirming the final list. Then came the summit days, never before have 3 days felt so long. The phone crashing with hundreds of calls, the constant communication on WhatsApp, handling problems that would literally cause huge f-ups. I learned to fix problems I didn’t even know how to handle at the edge of time. This was one of the best experiences I didn’t know I would take with me.
In the midst of all this chaos, the placement season had started for us a bit earlier than expected. It caught me a little more unprepared than I expected myself to be, but just as I learned to handle problems at the edge, I handled another one. At the end of it, I was able to get onto something workable for me at the time, and it’s always a relief.
Then the last sem arrived. It was a little different, in the way you sense when something is silently fading. Capstones kept me busy and productive, but the animal instincts of doing whatever you want still kicked in, leading to some of the craziest nights, I cannot remember nor forget. Spending some more time with familiar faces, subtly signalling silent goodbyes to people who were once so accessible.
This place gave me people, experiences, a time and space to redirect, and opportunities I wouldn’t have known existed without it.
Closing with what Kanye once said, “Everyone’s always telling you to be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be great?” Nobody tells you to be great. That’s the part you have to take over for yourself.
Maybe that’s what I’ll take with me, the reminder that some of the rare good parts of life are the ones you never planned for. And that somewhere between the chaos and the blurry nights, this place quietly told me to be great, even when I wasn’t listening.
Written by: Nazhar Bekinalkar
Edited by: Riddhi Shingte
