As We Leave #24: The Years of Change

Sagnik Dey is a Y17 undergraduate student from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He talks about how he made it to IITK by chance and how the years at IITK changed him.

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.

I made it into IIT Kanpur by a margin of just 1 rank, narrowly missing the option I had filled just above it. It almost seems like fate that I made it here. I still remember my first few days on campus. The first time I looked into the room I was allotted, it was a huge shock. I had almost never seen such a small room in my life and on top of that, it was supposed to be triple sharing. That feeling passed within a week as I soon realised these were going to be the best 4 years of my life. To be fair, I was technically wrong because the current situation cost us all more than a year of that.

One of the first experiences I can recall on campus was my first shower where I forgot to carry my towel. Not knowing anyone particularly well at that point, I called out to anyone who might be out there to kindly fetch me my towel. As it turns out, the unknown guy who fetched it for me, ended up becoming one of my best friends on campus.

A huge change that came over me on campus was learning to perform efficiently in a messy environment. In my first year, I made my bed every night before going to sleep and bedtime was strictly at 12AM. My wardrobe was neatly arranged with shirts on hangers. Come second year and 12AM is when the most active part of the day started, with canteen visits and bulla sessions etc. My sleep routine consisted of turning lights off and lying down, the former soon becoming optional. I’ll admit, these changes did not go over well during the quarantine at home where such “relaxed” forms of living were not tolerated. For some reason, I could never get my parents to admit that I’m way more fit and athletic when I’m just returning from campus. They instead insist that I had somehow become malnourished, despite visiting the canteen twice daily apart from Lunch and Dinner. Oh in case it’s unclear, breakfast exists only on paper for most of us.

I joined my Math department buddies in complaining about how unjustly difficult our department is, at every opportunity I got. But to be honest I have a lot of respect for it. I’ve come to realise that as difficult as it is, every other branch of engineering owes a lot to the few math department people who actually end up pursuing it further. I originally came to IIT Kanpur in the Aerospace Department and applied for a department change after my first year. According to previous data, I was expecting to get into Mechanical and had spent some time hyping myself up for it. The branch change results came as a mild irritation then, since I had to re-hype myself for Mathematics. But eventually, you realise in the Mathematics department that you get really good at a lot of concepts that are the prerequisite knowledge for every other engineering career. The only thing missing is a focus towards practical applications. However, that’s where the much higher than average number of OEs come into the picture. So for example I used up all of my OEs in CSE courses. Any courses involving Machine Learning showcase Linear Algebra. One of my favourite courses on campus was Modern Cryptology. That course managed to cultivate a respect for one of the most infamous courses of our department, Abstract Algebra. Of course, no department is without its drawbacks, the primary one of mine being the difficult grading because I guess Mathematicians are supposed to be held to a higher standard :-P.

Now as we prepare to leave, I try to imagine scenarios in my mind where I meet up with each of my campus friends again in the future. In doing so, I come to realise that there are different kinds of friends we have on campus and some of them are connections that won’t last outside the campus setting unfortunately. You have those friends who are always less prepared than you for any upcoming test. So you get to alleviate your own fears through them, on the night outs before tests. I read this in a meme once but one of the most comforting things for a UG student to hear is “Bro, I haven’t even started yet”. Then you have those whose hunger clocks are oddly synced up with yours and you keep having unplanned meetups up with them in canteens. The only ones I do see myself definitely staying in touch with over the years are the few people in whose rooms I’ve spent comparable time, just like my own room. I wasn’t too outgoing at school, having only 2 or 3 good friends. But college gave me a fresh start. There’s an overabundance of geeks like me who I can easily talk about Marvel, DC, or games. Also, something which is possibly an IIT Kanpur only thing is that everyone here is your “bhai”. I remember we were explicitly told in our first years not to call our seniors “bhaiya”, but the primary form of greeting on campus is “aur bhai”. That’s a line that works on your closest friends as well as people you’ve only seen once before and find randomly on the street. This particular phrase has even penetrated the quarantine situation where, even on phone calls with friends we greet with “aur bhai”.

A few of the things I will miss include finding at least 5 people from your wing awake at any hour of the day. There are two kinds of night outs, one during exams and one after the endsems. While one may sound vastly superior to the other, it’s surprising how both kinds will be missed. The pre exam night outs are a phenomenon missed out on by the most consistent workers among us, who are admittedly few and far. However, there’s something to be said about the departmental bonding over pre-exam fears. Movie nights will never be as good as ordering Kathi rolls for movie intermission at 1AM, while 4 guys huddle up inside a “razai”. One of my favourite moments on campus was a LAN gaming session where we lined up two of the tables in a row and 6 wingies sat down face to face for some Rainbow Six Seige. To be honest, that was the first time we ever noticed why the Institute shut down LAN connections after 12. And we hated it as it cut our fun down to 3 short hours. Another cherished memory was when we decided at 12AM to catch the 12:45 show for “Into the Spiderverse” at ZSquare, which involved convincing a wingie that his quiz the next day was just “moh maaya” so he could join us as well.

An advice I’d give to my first year self would be to not get too attached to sitting in your room and watching youtube etc. I enjoyed my third year on campus the most, owing mostly to the fact that I played badminton almost everyday till 3AM, and frequent excursions to OAT for Kathi rolls. To be honest the fact that Kathi Rolls refuses to deliver below a minimum order is a blessing in disguise. It forces ordering rolls to be a community affair even if you decide to get it delivered. For the current batch, since you get 1 year less, you unfortunately get even less time than us to adjust to campus life so you better get used to it fast to make the most of your remaining time at least. I do not think it’s possible to ever have an environment like I had at IIT Kanpur ever again in life.