Yogeshwar Ken is a Y17 undergraduate student from the Department of Chemical Engineering. He talks about how everything ended well, despite a lot of downs in his stay at IITK.
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 was waiting for someone from my wing to write an As We Leave because our wing has had a unique journey in the last four years. This piece of writing is kind of unorthodox from the conventional As We Leave.
Wing of Backlogs
Most members of our wing came to college with a complacent mindset. We thought, now that we have qualified JEE, there is no need to study anymore in college and that college is meant to have fun only. Even the few, who came with the attitude to learn, changed in that environment and brought homogeneity to our wing.
I remember it was the first quiz of MTH101 (and the first quiz on the campus); I got only three marks out of 15; I never got this low in my school/coaching life. I was distressed, but when I reached the wing, I found that many people got even less than three. So that gave me a sense of false comfort – comfort that I am not doing badly; everyone is in the same boat.
After Mid-sem results, many of us got tensed, that maybe we will fail in some subjects in this semester. Yet, a person used to tell us that “maine ek senior se pucha tha, fail to koi hota hi nahi hai, to chinta ki koi baat nahi” and we blindly believed that. Finally, the result of the first sem produced a drastic CPI for almost all of us. I can give you some CPI numbers- 1.0, 2.1, 3.1, 3.6, 3.7, 4.5, 4.6, 5.0, 5.5 and many more. (Although we also got a 10 pointer)
After that screwed up result, there was a wing meeting (emergency meeting :D). Most of us decided that our low CPI is due to attending morning classes, and professors are just wasting our precious time. So we all quit going to classes. And started to sleep in the day. And have group study sessions, which generally changed into bulla sessions most of the time. No wonder, the result didn’t get any better in the 2nd sem, but our bonding certainly did. When other wings were busy calculating how many Dassas they have in their wing, we used to calculate how many Backlogs we have in the wing. And that number was above 50 after the 2nd sem.
As a result, many of us started facing problems due to our low CPI in joining clubs, availing scholarships, and other such things at IITK, after our first year. It is then that all of us suddenly started taking academics seriously.
Cut to present times, that is after the completion of the last sem, the person who got CPI 1.0 in the first sem, now has CPI more than 7.5. And most of us have managed to get around seven.
The message I want to convey to my juniors here, is that it’s never too late to focus on your academics. If you have screwed your CPI till now, it can certainly get better in the future, provided you start putting in efforts right now. Jab jaago tabhi savera!
Love That Doesn’t Work
I was in love with a girl from my coaching when I came here. Things were pretty good at the start, but I think the long-distance ruined everything- constant fights on useless topics and a lot of wastage of time and energy. I didn’t want to lose her, as she was my only friend from Delhi, with whom I was in constant touch. I used to share my things with her and used to talk with her for hours. All this came to a sudden and brutal end. I could not bear it. I was in mental trauma for almost 5 to 6 months, but no one knows about this (until now lol). I kept hiding my feelings from all, maintaining a happy face in front of all like an eccedentesiast.
But that didn’t get me anywhere. So, finally, I decided to open up to my roommates about all this stuff. They understood my situation and helped me figure out the aspects which I was not able to see.
I just told this short, corny ‘love-story’ here to tell you the importance of opening up in front of your friends (choose them wisely!). We all get into such tough phases in our lives, either due to failing in internships, placement or family problems, love, and others; Hence, it’s always good to open up to someone.
When will I be placed?
I was placed after my 35th interview! And for those of you who don’t know, let me tell you that it’s certainly a substantial figure; I know most people are fed up with 3-4 interviews during the placement season. I had my first shortlist for an interview on day 2, slot 1, and after that, I got shortlisted in every slot. During phase one, before every interview, I searched for my mistakes of the last one so that I don’t repeat them; still, I could not figure out where I was going wrong. On day 7, my whole wing was placed except me. There was massive pressure on me to get an offer, but I had a different fate; I didn’t get a job offer in phase one.
Many people started mocking me except my wing peeps- they always supported me. Many of them constantly gave me hope that I will also get an offer. But the same stuff was repeated in the 2nd phase of placement- I got shortlisted and eliminated in the last rounds.
I started spending my whole day on LinkedIn, and got many rejections were from there as well. After March, I lost hope in getting a placement at IITK and made peace with this fact. I was trying to figure out possibilities for the future, what I should do next, my parents discussed the same with me all the time. That was a very unpleasant time, but as one person said to me, “In the end, everything is going to be fine.”
I always sleep, thinking about that, and on 20th April (almost the last days of the 2nd phase), I got an offer from SPO and two offers off-campus on the same day.
The feeling that day was surreal and probably cannot be described in the petty words I have in my vocabulary.
What do I remember from IITK?
When I look back and try to figure out what I got from this place, I can say, a good set of friends, from my wing, department, hall, and other halls, with whom I used to share jokes, trying to make them laugh. I was a part of VOX and SOS, which gave me a great experience about social structures. I enjoyed playing cricket, badminton, good-evil, card games, Pictionary, and a hell lot of other games (I did tell you about my wing, no?!).
Countless sleepless nights, mugging all the courses in one night and having parties on the other nights.
The fests, especially the Antaragni Nights. Chilling with friends on the rooftop of OAT, exchanging words in a vast social circle, and meeting great and unique personalities (in my opinion, everyone at IITK has a unique and diverse personality, and you can learn from them).
I’d like to give my 2 cents to the juniors: try to make a significant social circle in IITK. It will help you in your life in pretty much all aspects.
The last three days at the campus were warm, everyone was emotional, and I cried for almost 15 to 18 times. Everyone was leaving the campus one by one. I had my train on the last day (which I couldn’t board :p but that’s a different story). So I saw all of my friends off, and every time I said the last goodbye to them, my eyes were filled with tears because every friend on the campus means a lot to me, and they are the best ‘assets’ I have in life. I came here for an IITK tag/degree, but IITK gave me a family and for this, I’d be forever indebted to my alma mater!
Written by- Yogeshwar Ken
Edited by- Abhimanyu Sethia
