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In the 19th edition of As We Leave 2024, Somya Gupta, a Y20 bachelor’s student in the Department of Mathematics, talks about her 4 years 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.
Hello everyone, I’m Somya Gupta, another Y20 graduating soon, another Y20 with so much to say but not enough words to express it properly. I’m hoping that writing this “As We Leave” will make me feel more complete and give me the closure that my conscious brain dreads but needs. Being able to relive everything from my life at IITK and see how far I’ve grown as a human being allows me to hold on to the moments and the purest joy I’ve ever known for one more second and this brings a smile to my face. So yeah long story short, I’ll talk about my life here, my experiences, anything and everything that I can think of and we’ll see how difficult it is to finish this (I’m fine).
I’ll build my story around the people I met here and the beautiful friendships I made, because everything, every experience is incomplete without them. Throughout my time here, I met people from all across, some through my branch and courses, others through my IITK family(“behene”), and others through pure social extrovert-ness. I would like to say that I was an introvert up until high school and I kind of thank the online semesters we had, where being social was the only way I felt I could survive. It led me to “meeting” so many amazing people. I hadn’t experienced anything so all-consuming before college, friendships that feel so right, they make you grin from ear to ear even when you’re just sitting there doing nothing, friendships that make you feel safe and supported every second of every day, friendships that make you wish an hour had more minutes, friendships that fill your heart with love, friendships that make you feel complete. One of the best feelings in the world will always be the group chat hanging out as if they had nothing else to do even with a thousand assignments pending and a series of exams coming up, laughing at each other, with each other, supporting each other often without words being spoken. Truly beautiful. I have tried (this is my 6th time writing this paragraph) but I can’t seem to include everyone that I’m grateful to (and not being able to convey the exact feelings I have is killing me) so I’ll just stick to vague references and experiences that meant a lot to me and bring the biggest smile on my face when I think about them even today.
The first year was completely online but still, we had the time of our life, endless group meets and making fun of everyone one by one, the non-stop teasing each other, the cute birthday celebrations, the election campaigning meets which led to no work and turned into timepaas sessions, the pre-math exam rona dhona, listening to songs on discord while working together, especially the TA assignments, the lame jokes and me laughing uncontrollably at them, meeting offline for the first time(side track: it’s still pretty crazy for me to think that we made such good friends who still, to this day, mean so much to me, without actually ever meeting them or knowing them). I’ll move to the second year before I get more sidetracked.
The second year was even more unbelievable because I actually MET everyone and hung out with them DAILY. We had almost accepted that this day would not come anytime soon but there we were, sitting at OAT, just staring into the sky and the joy of being able to sit next to each other, not completely processed. In my second year, the best times are definitely the ones spent in Hall 4. The food was not the best, but being able to sit there and talk to my friends and eat with them made it better. The hall is beautiful, the most precious memories for me are when we used to go on a walk after every meal talking about everything going on with us. The random movie nights turning to late night deep convos and crying and laughing at the same time, the walking around the campus till 3 am in heavy fog and losing our way trying to find “the juice place”, the uncontrollable laughter when we lost our way trying to find Hall 6 and the SIS guard was confused, the looking at the stars and the rain with my closest friends, meeting new people and making new friends, exploring Kanpur(there’s not much but again, company matters), exploring campus from sunset to sunrise, the fests, successful night outs and finally finding more beauty and love in everything and everyone around me. Other than this, this year also allowed me to get even closer to my friends in my branch – all the nights spent in the library where we studied for 2 hours and spent the rest at doaa canteen, the endless rants about the MTH courses, the last exams which led to hanging out at gupta juice. It was a cute set of people I have nothing but love and respect for.
I can’t believe I’m already at the third year(funnily enough, also what I thought when I actually started my third year). This was probably the most exhilarating year for me. This was the year which felt the most complete, and fulfilling (and wholesome?). Female friendships are beautiful and I knew that already, but in this semester, the word “beautiful” reinvented itself for me. This is probably the time for me to be more specific in my details now. One of my friends helped me when I was searching for a roommate. In my new roommate, I not only found a good friend, but also a sister. The similarities – the vibes, the understanding, the way of dealing with problems, I lucked out. My best friend and I lived in the same wing and we had unknowingly created a whole family around us, my best friend, her friend, her roommate(s), the roommates’ friend, my roommate and me. The 7 of us were turning closer day by day and it was a sight to see. It was really unexpected and probably that’s what made it even more special. I think that all of us had sort of given up on finding the kind of comfort that we found in each other’s friendship and for me, for all of us, it was and is “beautiful”. We danced, and sang, we helped each other, we studied together, ate together, laughed together, cried together, went on trips together(mini ones), and danced some more. It was our own little family that we created, full of love and respect and admiration. But the third year had so many things apart from this newfound girls group. I got an amazing internship, which was so much more than what I could have asked for or hoped for. The team I got to work with was perfect, very wholesome set of people who knew how to maintain a balance between work and life and helped me realise what kind of a life I wanted when I do actually work as a full-time employee. I felt lucky everyday to be surrounded by a supportive team who knew life was meaningless without fun. Moreover, the 3 months spent in Bangalore turned into an experience of a lifetime not just because my closest friends were there in the same city and I could meet them every weekend, but also because the experiences I got to have with the other interns from IITK were incomparable to anything else – n number of people randomly walking on the roads near our PG at midnight just to get fresh air, playing ‘Secret Hitler’ every night till everyone got bored of the same people winning, walking back from the office in the rain, having the time of our life vibing to songs and dancing.
This year, I also started focusing more on myself and my growth and I felt that I had a sense of maturity and wisdom (that, I think, comes to almost everyone in their third or final year), it was satisfying to think that this place not only gave me so much love and so many friends but also the time and energy to work on myself, improve my mistakes and be the kind of person I want to be. My heart is too full, so moving on. Basically, it was a good year overall, good learning, better vibes, best company. 10/10.
Coming to the final year of study at IITK, this was/is a pretty crazy one. When me and my friends were just getting used to the stress that comes with the placement season, I got my PPO. I genuinely wanted it really badly, not just because the placement season was predicted to be bad but because even though I hadn’t dabbled into finance before, Goldman Sachs made me fall in love with the work there and made me want to explore the world the people there surround themselves with, talking about my work and my team there made my eyes light up and I wished that I could go back. Getting a PPO was a major stepping stone for the decision which followed. I had been wanting to do a semester exchange abroad since my second year but our template is pretty rigid and so after manipulating my template every semester, I finally had the space to do a sem-ex in my final semester. That was obviously a very tough decision because it would mean that I had less than 2 months to take in all the experiences and memories that I want at IITK and all this, while most of my friends were sitting for placements. After a lot of thought, I decided to do it. So there I was, not taking any moment for granted, trying to accept that l’ll leave this place soon, trying to spend every waking moment walking around the campus with my friends, trying to complete things on my bucket list, trying to not be overwhelmed by the sadness behind everyone’s eyes masked by them trying to make the most of every minute spent together. It was really fun catching up with old friends and ofcourse saying goodbye to everyone who mattered to me at some point in IITK was hard, but the hardest goodbye was saying farewell to the campus itself. My last night on campus, I was walking around, trying to breathe in the smell of campus as much as I can, and my brain was not ready to accept that I’ll leave and not come back to this place as a student anymore, that I won’t be able to call this place “home” anymore. Two months was not enough time to let that sink in(in all fairness, no amount of time could ever be enough).
This semester, my last semester, I’m spending at Hong Kong Baptist University. This has been a whole different experience for me, the city is amazing, well-built, it has islands, beaches, mountains, everything that you would want to visit. I got to learn so much about different cultures, different beliefs, make friends with people from all over the world, it was a dream come true for me and I’m really happy that I took this decision(no regrets). I met amazing people here as well, they made exploring the city even more fun, it’s mind blowing to see people from such contrasting cultures come together and vibe, it’s wholesome to see everyone accept the other person and their wants. But of course, I miss IITK and my friends quite often, they are the cutest bunch of people that I feel so so grateful to have met. There is no feeling in the world quite like being able to exist in the same space as your loved ones. I miss them. I miss IIT Kanpur, I miss cycling around campus coming back from RM with music blowing up on the speaker, I miss celebrating birthdays at midnight on campus with everyone running around in the last 15 mins, I miss sitting near the fountain and watching sunsets after classes, I miss going on the terrace of every building that I could and watch stars trying to find the constellations, I miss dancing on the road next to Hall 4 not caring who’s watching us, I miss walking around campus till my feet hurt, I miss Mama Mio shakes and maggi during nightouts, I miss it all. IIT Kanpur has been the best part of my life yet, and as far as I can see, there is nothing that can beat the experiences I have had here. I will forever cherish them.
Before I finish, I want to express how grateful I am to the friends who have stayed with me through everything, supported me and made me better in a thousand different ways, listened to me and valued my opinions. The best memories I have on campus are with those “goodest” friends who know me and understand me in a way that’s… almost scary. The unreal butterflies everytime we meet, the infinite walks, the dancing on NCL terrace, the canteen food bitching, the movie nights always with Domino’s pizzas, the co-existing and getting lost in the deep conversations, the jokes and not being able to keep a secret from each other, the being there at every step of the way and changing each other for the better. Thank you so much. I am so so grateful.
I wish I didn’t have to leave this place.
There are so many things that I still haven’t talked about(everything surrounding the fests, the birthday celebrations and everyone making a big deal out of them just because they mean so much to me, all the cells and clubs I got to be a part of and so much more), but the summary is that IITK has given me(and all of us) a place to truly be ourselves and be loved and cared for. Everything we will experience in our lives moving forward will remind us of the smallest moments spent here that mean so much to us. I wish I could forever stay lost in the heaven that is IITK. Existing here has given us a joy that we didn’t know existed. This is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people and it has and will forever have my heart. I’m grateful that I got to be a part of the crowd here and that I got to experience this joy. Thank you IIT Kanpur.
Written by: Somya Gupta
Edited by: Ishaan Jain, Ashutosh Sharma
Designed by: Sanyam Shivhare
