Shashank Katiyar is a Y19 BSBE graduate. In his AWL he narrates the interesting experiences and adventures that he has had through the 4 years of college life inculcating the important message that one must take every opportunity that life presents in front of them.
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.
Hey folks,
So finally, the time has come. I read a lot of AWLs during my second year and found them really inspiring. At the time, I hoped that I would also end up having a successful and enjoyable campus experience to write in my own AWL. When I sat down to write this, I wasn’t really sure. I had too much and too little to write; it’s a strange feeling, really. But if you go by my friends’ word, I have a pretty good story. So hang on for a bit. I hope you enjoy it!
On the evening of July 20, 2019, around 7 pm, I was chilling at home (probably playing Age of Empires) when I got a call from my SG, Shivam Goel (if someone had told me that SG is just his initials, I would have totally believed him). He asked about my whereabouts on the call, as I had to report to IITK that day. I was totally unaware of the date of reporting and didn’t even try to know it beforehand, as my home is only 6 km away from campus, and I was prepared to go to campus on demand. Though I had just managed to make it to IITK Earth Sciences (later, I would change it to BSBE, by process of elimination), I was extremely happy to be a part of the fantastic IITK community and really proud of myself for having cleared the JEE exam without any coaching. I also had grand plans of thoroughly enjoying the next four years of my life, as I obviously knew for a fact that “IIT pahuch jaao fir to life set hai.” Really wish it was true.
First Year and The Memorable Treasure Hunt
As strange as it may sound, I wanted to come to IITK ASAP because I wanted to play badminton for the first time on an indoor court. And boy, did I fulfill my wish. I got through the badminton CPA trials and played a massive amount of badminton with my buddy Devang during the first year. I wanted to represent IITK in the Inter IITs, but it’s a story with a sad ending.
Academically, I put in the bare minimum and was content with being average. My main goal was to enjoy my college life, make lifelong friends, and play badminton.
One of the most fun nights of my stay here came in the first semester in the form of the treasure hunt conducted by the MNC council. Though my wingies weren’t initially in the mood for it, I pushed them to come with me. Getting through the qualifying scavenger hunt was simple. I simply sent the list of items to my home, and all the items were brought to us 😛
The actual treasure hunt began after that…
The first question took us ages to solve, and we were almost about to give up. But then, some help from our baapus got us going. Throughout the night, we circled the campus many times, visiting places we hadn’t even heard of before, ending up at the swimming pool at sunrise, which was the final location to reach.
The brainstorming involved in getting through each question was just exhilarating. We came second by a small margin, but it was a night to be remembered for long.
In the second semester, I didn’t study just like the first one, but due to covid, the semester was stopped midway, and only the performance up to midsem was considered. That really hurt me academically, getting me an SPI of 6.9. It was a wake-up call. Then came COVID.
Covid
Though Covid took all the hostel fun away, initially, it felt blissful, at least to me. It was the ideal summer vacation with no courses/homework to do and all day to play computer games. I played a lot of Age of Empires during that time. However, I didn’t notice that my mental health gradually deteriorated, and I became really irritable then. The third semester started in September 2020, and in hindsight, the time between March to September 2020 was a pretty bad phase in my college life.
The third semester gave me something to focus on, a purpose, however superficial it may be. I worked really hard, something I hadn’t done for a long time. Gradually, I started focusing on the right things, and though there weren’t gonna be any results to show for my hard work for a long time, I was doing what I needed and wanted to do on a daily basis. I had always had a love for science, but I didn’t know for sure if I wanted to pursue research till my 3rd year. Thus, I sat in the SPO intern season and also applied for research interns, the application process of which is very tiresome. After around a month of trying and failing, I left the SPO intern applications and focused completely on research intern applications. Still, I couldn’t secure a good foreign research internship. Luckily, an IISC Bangalore Professor (Professor Mohit Kumar Jolly, an alumnus of BSBE, IITK) was looking for interns in the field of Computational Biology in December 2021 (at the end of my 5th semester) and basically selected everyone who applied. Thus I finally had something to do in my 3rd-year summer.
We spent three semesters in the online mode, and I developed many good habits during that time, like reading books and meditation. Still, the time spent at home was huge, and all the students longed to return to campus. At the beginning of 2022, the time had finally come for us to return to campus.
Finally back to campus
Finally, the long wait was over, and on December 30, 2021, I returned to campus to enjoy some more college life. This was the peak time in my college life yet. It was my sixth sem, and I was highly productive and still having immense fun. However, it wouldn’t last long.
Indore trip
During the mid sem break of the 6th semester, my friends (Jaskirat and Gurbaaz) and I decided to go on a unique vacation. Basically, we wanted a peaceful vacation rather than a hectic one. We went to Vadnagar, a small town near Indore, to meet an IITian couple, Arpit Maheshwari and Sakshi Bhatia, who left their high-paying jobs to do organic farming. We wanted to meet them and get to know a new perspective on things and life in general. The plan was to spend five days with Arpit and Sakshi, then leave for Indore, spend a day there, and return. The first five days were awesome! We interacted with Arpit and Sakshi at a profound level, played many board games together, and helped them with work on their farm, which we enjoyed a lot. We couldn’t have expected any more from our stay at Vadnagar.
Then, on the 16th of March 2022, we left for Indore to spend the next day there and explore the city. However, things were just about to take a turn for the worse. In Indore, we went to an adventure center called Fundore, and there, after enjoying all the rides, at around 9 pm, we were about to leave the place. Just then, I saw a guy riding skateboard, and I couldn’t resist going to him and asking him to let me ride it. He gave me a small demonstration, and then I tried to imitate. As soon as I kept both of my feet on the board, my whole world flipped, and I fell on my right arm, all my body weight falling on my right forearm, breaking my radius bone into two and my ulna into three parts. I could hear my bones break at the moment and saw my hand get deformed. I was shattered, quite literally. I begged Jaski and Gurbaaz to hold my hand as I couldn’t lift it, and we rushed to the nearest hospital, where an X-ray was done. My family doctor advised me to get a temporary plaster done there and return to Kanpur as it was better to conduct the operation in Kanpur.
I returned to Kanpur the next day, on 17th March, and the operation was scheduled for the 19th, as the 18th was Holi.
Post-operation, a few days were very bad, both physically and mentally. I had caused permanent damage to my body; the bones would never return to their normal strength. I, who once wanted to play as many sports as possible, now had a half-capable body. Badminton wasn’t an available option now. Sometimes, life itself performs the elimination process for us- instead of sports, I would spend my time playing musical instruments and studying now. I survived this period thanks to the song Waqt ki Baatein by Dream Note.
Master’s Applications
I did the remaining part of that semester by doing up-down daily from home. During this time, I had almost fully made up my mind about pursuing higher studies after B.tech from some foreign country (as I really wanted to visit new places), and that too, MS rather than Ph.D., as Ph.D. is a really big commitment which I didn’t want to make. Thus, during my 7th semester, along with getting exposure to the field of computational biology, I started applying for master’s in the same in European and American colleges.
The master’s application process is nothing less than a challenge. I started shortlisting Universities in July 2022, and varying suggestions led me to keep on modifying it till November. In August, I gave the GRE and TOEFL and began working on my Statement of purpose. It took three months to get it into good shape. Apart from this, preparing the CV, arranging the LORs, and filling up the applications was a lot of work. It is always advised to be proactive with these things, and so was I, except…
The application deadline for one of my top priority colleges, ETH Zurich, was 15 December. I had to prepare a pre-proposal of my thesis for it and had it ready by the 14th night. I just wanted the feedback of my intern mentor on it, after which I would submit my otherwise complete application. However, my meeting with him on the 14th night was postponed. The next day, there was an electricity shortage, and coincidentally, my laptop, which usually has some charge, was completely discharged. Still, I was relaxed as I just had to submit the application, which would hardly take 5 minutes, and I had many hours before the deadline (midnight). Electricity was back at around 5 pm, I opened my laptop to submit the application.
Guess what? The deadline was 12 noon and not midnight, which is extremely rare, and I had missed it by a whisker as noon in Europe translates to around 5 pm in India. I know it sounds really careless from my side, and it was too, but luck too wasn’t on my side that day. It took me a few days to console myself after that. I just hoped to get accepted by some other University and be able to say later that this incident saved me the application cost for ETH Zurich (12k rupees). Well, I did end up saving that money 😛
Last sem
My priority applications were completed by mid-December 2022, and I was ready to apply to lower-priority colleges whose deadlines were generally in January, as I was skeptical about getting into any of my top-priority colleges. However, on 10th January, I woke up to the most thrilling news. I had been accepted into Carnegie Mellon University, my top priority school! I was beyond elated. Whatever I had done till this point had finally paid off, thanks to many, most importantly, the help from my friends, professors under whom I had worked, and my internship mentor, who helped me a ton during the applications.
Then, the last semester was all about making memories and studying just to not fail. My hand had recovered pretty well now, so I played a lot of games (pool, badminton, and cricket) and also learned to play flute and kalimba.
One awesome thing that I did during the last semester was to take Mainak Das Sir’s course, Design for Biosecurity. It was being offered for the first time, and thus there were only around 25 of us in the course, many from BSBE, whom I already knew. It was the most fun course in all of my stay at IITK. Listening to Sir is just like listening to any interesting podcast, and he would make the class extremely interactive by asking us a lot of logical questions. We also partied during the class twice, and since we were all 4th years, the vibe throughout was just fantastic.
Looking back, my overall experience at IITK was magnificent. There were many ups and downs, many shots I took, and many more that I missed or didn’t take, but it all made the story more interesting and life more worthwhile. Most of my decisions were made through the elimination process, which was possible only because I tried a lot of things. I learned and improved a lot here and had the best time of my life along with it!
A final word for whoever is reading- My most important learning in IITK, which came from my buddy Pranjal, was the following:
Often, we make a habit of saying no to certain activities, justifying to ourselves that we don’t like them. However, just ask yourself if you have ever made a genuine attempt at it. If the answer is no, don’t lie to yourself by saying you don’t like it. Instead, simply accept that you don’t feel like doing it at that moment. This way, you will increase your chances of actually giving it a try another day, and maybe you will fall in love with it!
Thank you for reading!
Written by – Shashank Katiyar
Edited by – Zehaan Naik, Rudransh Goel
Designed by – Mrunmay, Sachidanand
