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In the 31st edition of As We Leave 2024, Shreya Bhattacharya, a Y20 student from the Department of Material Science and Engineering, reflects on her college journey filled with ups and downs, expressing gratitude to those who supported her along the way.
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.
Dear Small – Shreya,
Reflecting on four years in just a single sitting cannot do them justice. Over the course of these years, I’ve evolved through various personas: the one who cries “F toh nahi lgega” and then gets a C+, the one who’s perpetually worried about placements, the one with a less-than-stellar track record in relationships (until recently :P), the one who wants a big fat friends group, and so on. However, for this time, I want to share what I wish someone had told me when I first got admitted to IIT Kanpur.
Today, as I move to a new city to start my first ever job, I feel the same butterflies I felt during my (online) orientation. Beginning a new journey, whether it’s starting pre-school or beginning a career, comes with its own set of expectations for ourselves and our surroundings. As we grow with these experiences, it’s the people around us who turn an unfamiliar journey into a pleasant adventure and make a strange place feel like home. However, finding the right people isn’t always easy.
When I began college, I sought out many seniors to ask for their experiences and advice. Like most freshers, I had the cliché goal of changing my branch. I looked up to seniors in circuital branches, believing they were the ones to follow, to achieve success. At that time, success meant having an extraordinary academic record and securing a 30+ LPA CTC placement. Over the years, my definition of success has evolved, but back then, it was clear-cut.
I WISH someone had told me that you don’t have to follow every piece of advice you receive. The advisor might be the most ‘chaapu’ and ‘sorted’ senior or batchmate, but that doesn’t mean their advice will suit you. This doesn’t mean you should dismiss their suggestions either, but rather decide for yourself what will be beneficial. You’ll be surprised at how many different paths can lead to success. You don’t have to follow the path set by your seniors; you can forge your own.
When you are in your first year, you have so much scope to explore the things you may want to pursue later. But talking to seniors who try to project their incomplete dreams on you in the form of ‘must-do’ is more damaging than helpful. For a long time I misidentified these ideas as my own dreams, but I learnt the hard way that it is you and only you who can and ‘should’ decide what you want to become.
Despite all this, it is true that life becomes much easier if you have good people to help you at every step. I have often found peace in seniors who listened to my issues with an open mind and gave advice which best suited me.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Ankit for listening to my constant BT. I can assure you, I do much less RR now. Thank you Saad for helping me throughout placement season, be it solving DSA questions from Japan or listening to my “Agar place ni hue toh?” BT.
For a long time, I struggled between what I thought I should do and what I truly wanted. I poured all my energy into planning my college life based on a narrow idea of success, mainly focusing on getting a placement and prioritising it over everything else. I remember asking a senior BEFORE the beginning of classes in semester 1, “Coding kaise start karun? Abhi se karungi toh headstart milega naa.” Now when my juniors ask me similar queries, I find myself chuckling at their innocence but it also makes me sad because college has so much more to offer than just placements.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Amma for hosting Zoom meets that brought college life to our doorstep, for enduring my endless chatter for hours on end and for always making me feel at home away from home.
Thank you Sanyam for always answering the silliest of my questions, for always listening to my cry for help, for being my constant source of inspiration and for always being there. You are the best senior anyone could wish for.
By the end of first year, I already had 3 projects in my ‘resume’, an accomplishment which even fourth-year students often struggle for. But in the process, I became more and more obsessed with enhancing my resume further. I desperately wanted to join SnT teams and clubs, viewing each addition as another point in my resume. Now I can see the problem with pursuing these PORs solely for the sake of resume-building. You’ll not find as many opportunities to explore your passion anywhere else as you will in college. Looking back, maybe if I hadn’t left the Music Club in the desire for what I felt were more prestigious PORs, I would have been much happier. And honestly, I don’t think it makes much of a difference anyway. In the end, you just fail to do justice with both them and yourself.
All of this culminated in my worst fear coming true: I didn’t secure an internship. Despite receiving tons of shortlists, I just couldn’t crack ANY interviews. After a while, it felt like my friends, family, and even I believed something was inherently wrong with me. There were days when I wished my parents would tell me they were proud of me no matter what, instead of questioning what went wrong in the interviews, and acknowledge that I was working hard.
In hindsight, not getting an internship turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The fear of failing is often worse than failure itself because once you face it, the only direction to go is up. Securing an off-campus internship eventually gave me the confidence I needed and helped me realise that life is much more than just this rat race. Ultimately, the placement semester became the best semester of my college experience. I hustled through the placement season with overwhelming support from my friends, both in preparing and having fun afterwards.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Sarath, Smriti and Baishali and the entire FAC fam for being an absolute blessing to work with.
Thank you, Disha, for being the first person I talked to in college, my first roommate, and for putting up with my late-night yapping sessions.
Thank you Sweta for enjoying chicken with me as much as I do, for being that one friend who I can always rely on for the best advice and for being a constant source of awe and inspiration. You are my one ‘turu lob’.
But I wasn’t always good at making friends. I felt quite isolated throughout my school life, which motivated me to transform my social life in college. And college was definitely different. I met some extraordinary people who taught me so much. However, even college friendships came with their own hardships.
For a long time, I stayed close to friends who were no longer compatible with me. The fear of losing them outweighed the pain of keeping them around. It’s hard to imagine letting go of people we care about, but recognizing that not every friendship is healthy, despite how good the person is, is one of life’s hard lessons. Learning when to let go is a skill I’m still working on, and I hope you will master it soon too.
Nonetheless, having friends who believe in you can make such a huge difference. Being around the right people is always so rewarding and healing. I believe that friendships should be simple, where you can find your safe space. I’ll forever be grateful for the friends who pulled me out of my lowest points and helped me find myself again.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Subbu for tolerating me through my ‘Drama Queen’ phase. Now never call me that ever again 🙂 .
Thank you Shantanu for sending me countless cat reels and for teaching me what being responsible truly means. I hope corporate life treats you well XD.
One feeling that has forever overshadowed my campus experience is the sense of not doing enough. Transitioning from being one of the toppers in school to being just average in college became one of my biggest insecurities. I always felt the need to do more and prove to myself that I still had what it takes. I yearned for academic validation, but it eluded me until much after I realised that the metric of success is multidimensional.
Let me tell you a story. At the end of my third semester, I received my first ‘D’ in ESO202: Mechanics of Solids. In retrospect, ESO202 was the worst course I ever took. Things improved from that point on, but at that moment, I hit rock bottom. I suddenly became the kind of student who gets D’s. Although I did receive D’s later on, the initial shock wasn’t as severe because I had already experienced it before.
For a long time, I felt an immense burden of regret over that D. I thought, “If I hadn’t received that D, maybe I would have had an 8+ CPI, and a hundred other things could have been better.” However, a shift in perspective can transform the narrative significantly. That semester, over 100 students received D’s, E’s, or F’s. If I had received an E or an F, my academic trajectory might have taken a severe downturn. There’s a good chance I would have lost confidence, seeing myself as a student who gets F’s.
Looking back, I realise that D saved me. It prevented a worse outcome and became a turning point in my academic journey. Today, I am proud to say that my CPI only improved from there on.
Shifting my perspective has been incredibly refreshing. Now, I no longer carry the burden of regret for not being able to switch my branch, for facing rejection in my pursuit of becoming a CTM, or for missing out on an SPO internship—events that once brought me countless tearful nights. Undoubtedly, failure brings its share of pain, yet there’s no greater satisfaction than rising above that pain and discovering an alternate path to happiness.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Ojsi, Payal, Khoobayshee, Sweta, Adit, Naman, Bharat, Shivang and many others going through the ‘phase’ for making our department bearable.
And thus, one day, it dawned on me how much the quality of life changes the moment you become aware of what you have achieved. After churning through the preparation for JEE, we never really get out of that constant hyper-competitive mode where nothing feels enough. Even now, as I’m about to start working at a company I actually want to work for, I still feel restless about doing nothing. It’s just how we’ve become. But in this process, we often forget how far we have come.
I had a habit of overthinking and reevaluating every step of my life. God knows how many times I’ve wished to go back to my first day of college, where you are right now, and start over. “This time I would do nothing other than study! I would change my branch to CSE, then take a research internship abroad in my second year, secure a high-paying internship in an HFT, and finally receive a PPO from there.” It has taken a very long time for me to appreciate where I am now.
One day, while casually overanalyzing stuff, I realised that maybe I don’t want to change things. If I really restarted my journey, I wouldn’t be who I am today. The friends I have and the memories I’ve made are too valuable to be replaced. And so, this cycle of overthinking stopped altogether.
Token of Thanks: Thank you Jahn for bearing all my ‘small’ jokes and for being tiny XD. Thank you Prabh for being the soul of every gathering and the best listener to all our problems. Thank you Vyav for being my go-to-person for anything and everything, from discussing ontology to recommending skincare, from eating biryani to drinking coffee and from hating on others to loving each other.
You all are the best ‘mahila mandal’ anyone can ask for.
Yes, it surely would have been good if everything had gone as planned. But there will always be possibilities where things could have been better than the present: a better college, a better branch, better decisions, and so on. However, consider what might have happened if you hadn’t made it this far. In some alternate universe, you might be in a private college, wishing you had made it to IIT Kanpur.
From that perspective, I did live the dream, and so will you. Just remember, for every possibility where you could have done better, there are a thousand more where you would have been wishing to be where you are at the moment. After four years of experiencing the ups and downs of college life, I can emphatically say that I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Token of Thanks: And finally, Vijay ‘DJ Discobaz’ Bharadwaj, thank you for waiting for me every time I was late, for bringing me medicines everytime I had a tummy ache, for always being there no matter the time and for believing in me when even I couldn’t see the good in myself. Every moment with you has been pure joy.
So, my dearest Small – Shreya, I wish that you have the courage to maintain a positive outlook, even when times are at their darkest. May your heart stay strong, and may hope guide you through the toughest moments.
I am proud of you. Always.
Yours,
Big – Shreya
Written by: Shreya Bhattacharya
Edited by: Anika Gupta, Ashutosh Sharma
Designed by: Sanyam Shivhare
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