As We Leave #14: Delineating a Treasured Voyage

Garvit Bhardwaj is a Y18 graduating student from the Department of Electrical Engineering. In this edition, he reminisces about the time he spent in IITK learning and exploring new things.

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 have read “As We Leave” for a couple of years. Interesting stories have come up every year, which inspired me to jot down my four years at IIT Kanpur. Honestly, this is hard; one might sit for hours and come up with nothing. For me, I went back down memory lane and started reminiscing. As soon as nostalgia kicked in, I started writing. Well, these “As We Leave” stories have a common notion of being a “Roller-Coaster Ride” or “struggles to get a decent career prospect”. For me, it was more about the experiences, the people, and the culture. Undoubtedly, these were the best four years of my life. But on the flip side, they were also chaotic, challenging and complicated. So grab a cookie, and sit tight.

Let’s start with the orientation. My SG (we still call him “Baapu”), Debashish Reang is from Tripura. I mistook him for my roommate when I first met him in Hall-13. Well, you can’t blame me. He does look the part. Orientation was one of these four years’ most unforgettable and thrilling times. I still remember dancing to “Oh Ho Ho Ho” on the auditorium stage with my schoolmate from Jaipur, Chinmay Goyal and yelling “Blue film o-o” from time to time. I was so amused by that week that I wanted to go through it again (a spoiler for later). The first thing I went to see on campus was the swimming pool. I had learnt to swim when I was ten years old, continued to swim until the 10th standard and then could not. The swimming pool was “love at first sight” I successfully got it as a CPA (the only sport I am good at). I still feel that those 40-50 minutes I spent in the pool were soothing and peaceful. It helped me maintain my calm and composure throughout the first year of my college life. Our wing SGs encouraged us to explore campus life as much as possible, yet they mentioned the importance of academics. The first semester officially began. I wanted to participate with the freshers, so I participated in the Dram Eve-1’s Nukkad Natak. The rehearsal started at around 8 PM and went on for hours. Initially, I gave it a lot of effort and practice, and I was considered for and given a few roles. But then reality struck hard, I had my first quiz (PHY-102), and I could not even understand the question, despite studying for a couple of days. Right around this time, I started missing the rehearsals of Dram Eve-1 and devoting a little more time to academics. I could see Newton’s third law play out in from me,

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but in real life, it might have a harsher reaction.”

All my roles were cut and assigned to other participants. There were days when I had no dialogues in the entire run-through. I used to feel that the mentors had some personal vendetta against me. But once the play took place, they threw a party, blowing away all my grudges.

“Yes, the culture here teaches you to celebrate even small wins in life as they keep you motivated to work for larger ones.”

Midsems came and ended soon after. The happiness of their ending exceeded the frustration of underperforming. During the second half of the semester, I started working in the TOSC team. For those who don’t know what TOSC is, it is the “Technothlon” of IITK conducted by the team Of Techkriti. Some of my friends and I had to conduct TOSC in Jaipur. We went to many schools and coachings and could gather some participation. However, the admission test of a well-renowned institution fell on the same date; thus, our candidate pool fell well short, and we cancelled the exam. When we got back on campus, expecting humiliation, we were surprised by the sheer maturity and support shown by the seniors. Maybe, they knew that we had tried our level best. The next thing we know is another success party.

When I got EE at IITK, I was more than happy. Dreaming about changing your branch is trivial stuff. My parents’ expectations were a bit high, but this did not bother me much. I think you should take in the pressure and let it motivate you rather than crush you. I was not too optimistic about my grades after the semester ended, and thus I could not change my branch. Looking back, I feel that your hard work shapes your journey in this college. Not being from “a more desired branch” does not restrict your chances of achieving greatness. In IITK, everyone shapes their journey. I started thinking about my career plans in the second semester. I got an ML-related project in ESC-101. However, this semester’s workload forced me to take a break(which was quite long) from extracurriculars. I started focusing more on my academia right at this point. I think that you don’t need to attend every lecture and tutorial to get a good grade. It’s about smart work, and knowing the “fundas” (hacks in simple language) for each course is sufficient. The second semester was a bit lighter. I had no academic commitments on Thursdays. But this made me lazy, and I started missing classes, especially after the midterms. I used to work on the project throughout the day and then sleep late at night. This had a drastic impact on both my mental and physical health. I spent a lot of my time in my wing. Thus I took the time to interact more with my wingies and develop deeper connections. We started playing PUBG together and had a lot of bulla sessions. The discussions contained everything from “start-up ideas” to “politics”. Listening to each other’s opinions did help in bursting the bubble of ignorance.

I fell ill during the endsems, and the situation was so grave that I had breathing problems during the PHY103 endsem and had to leave half of the paper. I mustered the courage to give the last exam (ESC101), as I did not want to give the makeup(seniors used to say that makeup is way more difficult than endsems). I was able to survive the horrors of this semester (talk to any senior about PHY103 and MTH102) and was preparing for my summer plans to unfold.

The summers are the best time to learn something new at IITK. You can improve your skills, knowledge and even grades. However, summers are harsh as well. You can’t survive without a room cooler. Luckily enough, as Vadi sir quoted, “You get to be in the pool 4 hours a day, while the other teams have to practice in the scorching heat” the aquatics summer camp did help in coping with the heat. Soon, I came to know that I had become an SG. It was a new beginning. I was as scared as I was enthralled. You are responsible for directing the college life of 5-to 6 students who you have not met once. When I met my bacchas for the first time in Hall-13, they were as clueless as I was(on my first day of college) about their college life. They eased into it as the orientation continued, and I got to cherish another orientation.

A lot of emphasis is placed on getting PORs to improve your resume’s aesthetics. The important thing is the experience and the learnings you get by working at that position and how you can utilise that to benefit your personal and professional life. The most substantial POR I had, until the last sem, was managing the finances of Udghosh’ 19. We were assigned a task to sell the official merchandise in all the hostels, and can you guess how many did we sell? The answer is “ONE”. Somehow, I convinced one of my wingies to buy it. But the fest got washed by rain, and thus all the plans had to be cancelled. The next offline/in-person Udghosh would not occur until April 2022 (see if you can connect some dots).

In the second year, I was baffled by the academic load of my branch. I could not manage the extra-curricular. I had to leave swimming, and I started to focus more on my studies. On the positive side, my CPI increased drastically in the second year. When covid stuck, I did not know that my college life would essentially be halved. I had hoped that it was a temporary situation(analogous to swine flu) and that things would get better in a month or two. But as the lockdown extended, I started missing the freedom of the campus and felt trapped. It soon dawned upon me that internship season was about to come. I started preparing mid-July, with less than a month left in the tests. The only skills I improved during those summers were my PUBG skills.

I was underprepared and overconfident during the internship season, signs of an oncoming tragedy. On Day 1, I could only crack two interviews and could not clear more than a couple of rounds in both. The 5th semester had already started, and frustration and anxiety began to kick in. As more and more of my batchmates were getting offers, these feelings intensified. I had long conversations with Utkarsh Gupta, where we both used to condole and motivate each other. In the next week, I faltered on two more tests and one group discussion. Then came the company I had the most hopes to get into. Adobe had its test scheduled on Wednesday, right after the test of Gartner. If I did not clear any of these tests, I would not have any interviews until the weekend. So, taking a considerable risk, I left Gartner’s test and gave my all to Adobe’s test. Their interviews were scheduled on Saturday, and they had not released an interview shortlist by Friday midnight. I was a bit sceptical by this point, but at 4 AM on Saturday, I saw the list with my name on it. I took a proper nap and prepared myself for the 1-hour interview. I felt positive after giving the interview, and rather than getting my hopes up; I started watching a movie. Amidst the film, I received a phone call from Utkarsh mentioning someone receiving an offer from Adobe. I tried to log in to the internship portal but could not (since it deactivates after you get an offer). I fell off the bed, and tears rolled into my eyes.

I feel that internships and placements are a time of stress, qualm and self-doubt. Getting through it is not an easy task. It is essential to maintain calm and composure and, rather than feeling jealous, learn to appreciate others’ achievements. During the online semesters, I took a heavy course load(>60 credits) in all the semesters. I chose the courses where the workload was not too much, and there were enough new things to learn. A significant achievement during this time was to get my first “dassa” during the fifth semester. Another interesting series of events happened during the end of the 6th semester. The situation was grim and horrifying with the onslaught that the second covid wave brought. I lost some of my loved ones and was not in the right state of my mind to give the endsems. This was also the situation of many of my friends(batchmates). However, I was surprised by the kindness and considerate actions of the profs to relax the endsems; some even cancelled the endsems (there were some exceptions, obviously).

After the semester, my internship did help me in coping with the stress of the 2nd wave. I also got a little taste of the corporate world. But the best thing this intern gave me were some new friends, people from my batch I did not know before, Priyanshu, Muskan and Vishesh. I could not sit for on-campus placements as I had accepted a PPO from Adobe. I had mixed feelings about this decision. The placements are a tough time. There are 2-3 tests scheduled each day before the endsems, so you don’t have time to relax properly. It takes a heavy mental toll. I tried to encourage and assist in preparing some of my friends sitting in the placements. The placements were a huge success. My close friends got placed in decent companies, which motivated me to search for better job opportunities off-campus. I started my off-campus hunt on LinkedIn. After about a month of tests, interviews and salary negotiation, I finally got an offer from Zomato, which I accepted.

This brings me to the last chapter of my story, the final sem. It was an extraordinary denouement to my four years at IITK. I met all my friends (including those I made during the lockdown). I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. I went to the mess with my wingies, had long walks with a different person each day and enjoyed the view our serene and beautiful campus had to offer. The days ended with playing cards while listening to AP Dhillon’s and Diljit Dosanjh’s music. My Spotify playlist improved drastically in these four months.

As you might have guessed, I also got to be a part of the core team of Udghosh’ 21 as head security. The role did not require too much commitment, but I got to see the hard work and the dedication put into the conduction of a fest. We were able to conduct a pronite as well while having a tight budget. I appreciate the efforts of my fellow heads as the security work mostly went smoothly. Participating in a fest, especially in the more active cells, does help you improve your managerial and decision-making skills.

Looking back at my college life, there were a lot of missouts and things I could have done differently. But, the friends and the memories I made here are worth a lifetime. The struggles and challenges helped me learn to look at things practically rather than subjectively. It makes me delighted, blissful and a bit emotional to graduate from this esteemed institution.