Kshitiz Chaurasia is a graduating Y18 student from the Department of Chemical Engineering. He explains how he handled various ups and downs during 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.
It’s harder than I imagined penning down my journey at IITK, it makes me realize once again that it’s over. Like most others, I arrived here expecting a voyage full of highs, only to discover that there are also lows. While we all want our lives to be perfect, it only takes one difficult discovery to realize that it never is. We all want something to change, something that would transform us into the perfect person we imagine ourselves to be, so it’s easy to feel like we’ve failed if it doesn’t. That’s the frame of mind I brought with me, and it’s proven to be an annoyance several times throughout my journey. The graph of my journey turns out to be non-linear, there are lows and there are highs, and that I think is what makes for this beautiful rollercoaster ride.
In retrospect, there are a lot of things I was able to accomplish while I was here and a lot of things I missed out on. Nevertheless, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t likely alter a thing.
It was a sunny morning on 20th July 2018 when I stepped into IIT Kanpur as a student. What followed was a week of excitement I would never forget, and I doubt any of my batchmates can either. I remember my student guide telling me that this week would be something to cherish in my college life, and it turns out it really was.
Unlike most of my peers, I was not thrilled about switching branches during my first year, nor was I eager about maintaining a perfect academic record. All I wanted to do when I started this journey was enjoy my time with my new friends. Everything went so nicely, from playing kabaddi on the Auditorium stage during orientation to hearing the H.R. Kadim story on the airfield (each word seemed full of gibberish, but surprisingly everyone believed it), that I didn’t miss home at all. My wingies, on the other hand, didn’t waste any time in transforming from strangers to family. Those late-night PUBG matches, with the relentless battle to score more damage than the next player, that loud laughter, the MVP tag, and that last chicken dinner consumed me for the first semester. For the Udghosh’18 competition, I also joined the institute handball team. Even though we didn’t win, I liked rehearsing with my friends every day for it, and it turned out to be a fantastic experience
I didn’t bother studying much throughout my first year, like most of my close friends. Those late-night bulla sessions, along with “ek final round” of PUBG, didn’t allow me to focus on my academics, or even consider it. So, when I glanced at my first quiz copy, it was a hard blow in the face. However, my melancholy was short-lived when I discovered that my friends had comparable scores, so we naturally played more PUBG to relieve our collective pain. I studied for endsems at the study rooms in Hall 13 a week earlier. That those group study sessions finally turned into bulla sessions is an understatement, but it did allow me enough time to finish the curriculum. I was pleased with my 8+ SPI in the first semester, which I achieved with little work and while having fun. Then came the winters, and due to the Electronics Club’s workshop, I was able to have a few more friends, and I loved playing around with electronics devices during the workshop, despite the fact that the technical nuances always flew over my head, not that I paid attention anyhow.
As the second semester approached, things began to spiral downward. I recall getting a dismal 5/60 on the MTH102 midterm exam. It was a rude awakening to have a score this low when most of my friends were in the mid-20s. Then it dawned on me that I might flunk this course, resulting in the loss of my MCM scholarship. I recall contemplating the possibility of dropping the course for quite some time. I eventually opted against it, preferring to work hard for the endsems. I started going to the NCL with my friends every day to study, and it was the first time I had genuinely studied since enrolling at IIT. As a result, I was able to preserve my 8+ CPI by scoring surprisingly well in endsems.
Before long, all I could hear were individuals chatting about their plans for the summer. I recall how lonely the hallways were when most of my friends were back at home when I stayed here for the winters. Furthermore, I never felt like working on projects to add to my résumé or performing any competitive coding, so I decided to spend the summers at home. I’m not sure how things would have turned out if I had stayed, maybe I would have found a new social circle, or gotten more involved with the film club, and boosted my resume with some cool projects, but I think everything turned out fine in the end, even though my decision was rushed; there’s no point in dwelling on it now.
When I arrived back on campus after the summer break, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to give being engaged in extracurricular activities another shot. I became associated with Udghosh and Antaragni during the third semester, which I quite loved. Late night work for Udghosh with seniors in hall 1 turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Academics became a little easier when I stopped entirely disregarding it. I had some misgivings about ignoring extracurriculars during my freshman year, but I was able to come to peace with it. From coaching freshers for a film as an FMC secy to becoming a Workshop Manager at Techkriti, I tried it all. Then came the most trying period of our college life. When Covid struck, we had just gone home for mid-semester vacation, stranding us at home for an extended amount of time that lasted roughly two years. It was enjoyable at first, much like summer vacation, but I gradually began to dread campus life. My natural stance prevented me from studying or learning a new skill, so I spent my days playing video games or watching tv shows and movies.
The campus started our fifth semester in online mode, as was to be expected, with a hazy promise to switch to offline mode as soon as it was practically practicable. Then came the internship season, which is known to be one of the most stressful times in a student’s life. I was aware that the choices I had made in the past may potentially have significant repercussions since I was left with a résumé that had no projects, just a few PORs, and nothing major. The only redeeming factor was my CPI. In the same vein as my friends, I simply worked on a few self-projects, diligently studied many ML courses on Coursera, and hoped for the best. I was fortunate enough to be shortlisted for a few well-known companies, but my nervousness caused me to perform poorly during the interviews. Nevertheless, I was aware that even if I was unable to secure an internship, I would not allow myself to become dejected. To say that the preparation for the internship was difficult and exhausting would be another way of understating the situation, especially when hadn’t done anything to be ready for it in advance. I remember having a conversation with a friend, where we discussed how improbable it is to land an internship and how it would be better to get some summer projects in the CSE department. Not much later I got shortlisted at another data science company. Despite the fact that my résumé did not highlight any particularly impressive projects, I was able to perform really well during the interview, which left a favorable impression on the hiring managers. In the end, I was successful in finding a decent internship, which marked the end of that stressful period. What followed were two exhausting and monotonous online semesters in one of which I received one of the lowest SPIs ever simply because one of our course instructors decided to send an email to our chemical department professors about rampant cheating by their students, prompting them to give all students the lowest possible grades. By the start of the placement season, I was lucky to still have 8+ CPI.
Even if we all knew it was coming, the arrival of the resume submission email from SPO still managed to send cold shivers down our spine. It was time for an emergency meeting with my friends when we pledged to join the zoom call every day for coding sessions. Naturally, it didn’t happen as smoothly as we thought it would. I remember paying less and less attention to coding down the line as I didn’t want to be associated with any coding role. The administration happened to call us back in October, and with several reservations, I decided to go too. Upon reaching there, things didn’t go exactly as planned. I was allotted a room far away from my wingies, I wasn’t able to study for even a single hour for the initial week. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided it was best to return home for placement preparation. Soon placement tests began one after the other. I remember waking up at 6 for a placement test and by the end of the day, I would have given five tests. Fortunately, the interview phase didn’t last for long as I was able to get placed on day 1.
We were all back on campus for our last semester. Despite the fact that covid cases were stacking up, I was overjoyed to see all of my friends on campus. I recall that our entire wing became infected, but we didn’t bother obtaining an RT-PCR test because it would involve temporarily relocating to the community center. We all chose to stay in our rooms and wait it out, and it only took three days to get everything back on track. I remember completely ditching studies and enjoying my last semester. In one final joyride of a semester, I managed to make a lot of memories by attempting everything I had wanted to do since my first year. I had made a pledge to myself not to spend too much time in my room, unlike in my first and second years, and I was able to keep that vow. I was able to cross several items off my to-do list from completing the arduous Kedarkantha hike to receiving two A*. Even though we didn’t get much study done, those all-nighters at the library were unforgettable. I was relieved that the endsems occurred offline because it meant we could study together diligently one more time. Those late-night hunger pangs with doaa canteen as a savior, and then hanging around the academic area for an hour just because we need one “10-minute” short break, were all the moments I wish I could remember forever.
The memories and happiness we find here are just irreplaceable. It involves those late-night walks with your most close friends, while one of you carries the speaker playing “pahadon mein” on full volume. It is sharing the already cramped room that once seemed dreadful with the roomie of yours. It is lying down in your friend’s room for the whole day for no reason at all. It is shooting random embarrassing videos of each other and sharing them on the wing group. It is holding on to that tight hug with friends when you get placed, only to be awarded a GPL a few seconds later. It is strolling down the dark hallways of the academic area late at night discussing the meaning of life. It’s climbing up the trees in the academic area and being scared to death on the way down. It’s just you and your friend sitting in the RM building in silence for two hours after his first big heartbreak. It is randomly remembering and laughing hard on that shenanigan you pulled off a year back. It is that group zoom-call while you miss each other back at home during covid. It is arguing about the perfect dance move for the batch video. It is helping each other grow over time, and promising to stay in touch and meet regularly after graduation, even knowing deep in your heart it won’t happen. It is the final “babul ki duayein leti jaa” song playing while you are taking the final walk leaving campus after graduating while your friends carry your luggage behind you. It’s funny how those little things find their way to that deep corner of your heart and just manage to make their home there.
As we leave, I make one final glance at the adventure I had. You don’t realize how hard it is to say goodbye until you are doing it yourself. There were times I wished for college life to end, there were times I was hopeless. But on the other hand, I experienced moments of absolute joy and occasions when I went outside my comfort zone. There might have been many downward shifts on this curve, but every minima has one beautiful thing about it: there is no way but up right after it. IITK taught me to embrace calmness in face of adversity as things will be better in no time.
These four years are incomparable in terms of both their duration and their influence. It incorporates the memories, the “ek aur question kar lete hai” just one night before that 50% weightage endsem, that “garam frooti and thanda samosa” at NCC, that late night “doaa canteen waali chai”, and that painful GPLs. As much silly as it might have seemed in the first month, the words “chaapu”, “bakait”, “maggu”, “fakka”, invoke more emotions than you may realize, and the fact that soon they would become distant hits hard. But birds aren’t meant to be caged, so fly we will.
My final piece of advice to my juniors is to avoid trying to replicate someone else’s story. It’s entirely yours, and that’s what makes it unique. Your struggles, failures, and successes all boil down to one question: are you satisfied with it? So, try saying yes to things you would typically say no to because you are afraid of failing; you will be glad you did. Quoting Marianne Williamson, “Behind every fear, there is a miracle waiting”, so go find yours.
“ उन यादों का सिलिसला अभी भी जारी है, जो हो सके जिंदगी के किसी मोड़ पर आसूं बन कर निकले “
Here is my goodbye to IITK with this short video we created one morning during our final days here:
Written by- Kshitiz Chaurasia
Edited by- Mustasim Khan, Sanika Gumaste
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