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In this edition of As We Leave 2026, Aditi, a Y22 from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, reflects on a journey that began with youthful excitement and evolved into a profound appreciation for the connections formed along the way. She writes about the “accidental” friendships that became a family, the resilience built through her time with the Film Club and Outreach Cell, and the shared support that defined her final placement season, a poignant reminder that the most significant parts of college are often the moments we never planned for.
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 IITK.
(Disclaimer from my side: this shit is about to get real corny and a long read, so reader discretion is advised)
Oh I remember 27th oct 2022, I was so scared, anxious, nervous, excited, feeling all kinds of emotions when I entered this campus. It was the first time I was going to live on my own. I was very excited to meet new people and explore everything; ngl Akarsha (my amma) and my wingies made it really easy for me and made sure I didn’t feel homesick. Aaditi, Diksha and I started living together in that cramped up h4 room and then there were Siddhi, Mausam, Harshita, Anwesha, Hitesh, Norah, Poonam and before I knew it, H4 was beginning to feel like a happy place.
Welcome to chaos
I remember my first class, it was PHY114 by Harbola and then I had MTH111 by Ganguly. Oh I can’t begin to explain how lost and confused I was after attending these two classes consecutively on the very first day. Before I could process anything, things started moving so fast and on top of that I fell sick one week before midsems. I f*cked up my exams pretty bad. Soon I went through my first heartbreak and before I could comprehend anything, endsems arrived; and even though I tried to make up for my midsems, it didn’t work out too well for me. Soon we got grades and there it was – the first F of my life. It felt like my soul had left the body. I was anxious, scared, embarrassed. I couldn’t believe what I saw, I had no clue what to do, my first sem was a total nightmare. It felt like the end of the world…but it wasn’t.
The second sem started and it was a bigger nightmare than the first one cuz now I had to live in the constant reminder of my 1st sem f*ckups, the first repercussion of my mistakes was my SG dream getting shattered. I wanted to become an SG, not because I wanted to be a CTM, but because I really really wanted to be an SG. I saw how my amma helped me through everything and I really wanted to do that for someone (as cheesy as that sounds, it’s true). The next repercussion was not becoming a coco, in fact the APC taking my interview particularly told me after the interview that it went really well but unfortunately cuz of my CPI he cant make me a coco. There it was again, my CPI, a constant reminder of how much I had f*cked up. Amidst all this chaos and disappointment, life kept moving and so did I, there wasn’t really another option.
An amazing thing happened too – I started dating my best friend Harshit (definitely the best decision of my life). The beginning was awkward cuz how do you go from being best friends, knowing every little thing about each other, to suddenly dating without making things weird? We were both nervous, overthinking everything and trying to figure it out as we went along. Somehow, everything fell into place. He has this weird ability to make everyone louder and happier. In fact, he always gets more excited about my silly achievements, makes even the most ordinary days feel special and genuinely makes me happier than I ever thought I could be. Honestly, being with him feels like coming home after a long tiring day.
Finding my feet
2nd year started and it was me mostly trying to make amends, with my grades, my confidence and in many ways, myself. Dept courses began and I had no friends in the dept, everyone had their own friend group, and I did try talking to new people but just couldn’t fit in. Then came these two changu-mangus Shubham & Chinmay, we instantly clicked and before I knew it, I had found people who made dept less miserable. I think I survived most of my MSE with them. Then there were my lab partners Padhi, Aatri, Thakur, Ahem, Anshul; we have done almost all the MSE labs together. I would never have expected to have so much fun in labs and I truly couldn’t have asked for better lab partners.
I think second year is when your bubble of having a massive friend group bursts. Everyone gets caught up in courses, projects and their own lives, and suddenly your world becomes smaller. Thankfully, I got lucky with the people who stayed in mine.
I always had my girls – Siddhi, Diksha & Aaditi. The thing about girl friendships is that it comes with a spectrum of things – rants, gossips, random hugs, putting the perfect winged eyeliner, unasked head massages and giving that comfort shoulder. One moment you are laughing at a meme, the next you are talking about traumas, politics, family, religion, boys, literature, ethics and deaths. They became my comfort space, still are and will always be.
A memory from 2nd year which is very close to my heart: An incident triggered a past trauma of mine. I didn’t tell anyone about it, thought I would get past it on my own, but I couldn’t sleep that night. I was restless and anxious. Aaditi and Diksha (my roommates) noticed something was wrong and asked me about it. All I could manage to say was “I’m scared” because I was not ready to share and they understood, they didn’t push for answers, simply gave me the tightest hug and decided that their mission for the night was to make me laugh. What followed was an all-night K3G marathon. I could see the exhaustion in their eyes (it was the night our endsems had ended, and trust me, they desperately needed the sleep) but not once did they flinch. They stayed up with me the entire night, cracking jokes, making fun of scenes and doing everything they could to keep my mind occupied. And somehow, that was exactly what I needed.
And through all the ups and downs of college, there was one more person who kept me sane – Siddhi. Every time my life got overwhelming and I doubted myself, she was there, yelling at me that I’ve got this. And she somehow manages to convince me to do things no one else ever can. If you ever walked into our rooms, chances are you’d find the two of us sitting together, talking about absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. Whenever my world was falling apart, she was the first person at my door before I even asked. At this point, more than a friend, she is a sister to me.
Now let’s talk about clubs – like everyone, I was also very excited to join clubs and teams in 2nd year, explore everything, talk to new people, do all the things movies have told us to do in college but in reality, I was shit scared. As you know I couldn’t be SG and CoCo because of my CPI and that made me vastly underconfident. I attended orientations but every room felt intimidating. Everyone seemed more capable, more skilled, more confident than me and that intimidation made me so scared that I didn’t even try, and that’s one regret I would carry with me my whole life – not joining any club or team in 2nd year.
Then one day in library my friend was working on this secy task for Outreach Cell, it caught my attention, I found it kinda interesting, and honestly it felt like the easiest way to get a POR cuz I knew I was good at making impressions in interviews so I applied, got in and that started the journey of a cell which became one of the biggest parts of my college and made me the person I am today (no kidding). Outreach made me more confident, taught me leadership, forced me to talk to alums, taught me how to take responsibility and step up when things needed to be done. And it gave me a team which I will forever cherish.
Trust the process
As you all know, the start of 3rd year is all about intern intern intern. I think most of my learning came from the intern season. Interviews happened, some I fumbled because of my own mistakes, in others luck wasn’t on my side.
There will be times when things won’t be in your control, no matter how hard you try and it will haunt you that you can’t do anything about them, but these moments teach you more about your capabilities than anything ever could.
Here are a few moments I wanna talk about that taught me resilience the hard way –
I really wanted Axxela to work out cuz I had an interest in finance plus the job description really made me think that I wanted to do that and so, I really did everything I could, my resume had almost everything they were looking for, I prepped for everything, gave rounds after rounds of buy-sell games, group discussions, interviews; the process went on for the whole night, gave 2 interview rounds and they both went really well. In the last round there were 14 candidates (13 guys and me). I was very confident and satisfied with my interview, but to my surprise everyone except me got in. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the shortlist, I was so confused about how this could happen, I started replaying the interview in my head, I remembered doing all the cases, guesstimates, maths everything correctly. How could this happen? That was probably the first time I genuinely felt like giving up. I cried all night and had absolutely no idea what to do next cuz I really did give my best. I talked to multiple APCs and OPCs the next day and they all told me one thing – Axxela often doesn’t hire girls due to their unconventional work hours. I didn’t know what to say…I did everything I could in my power but it was just not meant to be.
Another example is pretty interesting : While I was trying for an internship, I used to participate in case competitions. I got selected as a national finalist for HPCL case competition, alongside people from top IIMs. The company even sent me the flight tickets to come to Pune for the final round, it felt like something was finally going my way but ofc there was a twist. The finale was on the day of one of my DC’s midsem. So I asked the prof if either make-up or prorate was possible, he very rudely denied. But being the stubborn kid that I am, I didn’t stop – I kept on mailing him, kept going to his office, made the HPCL team reach out to him, talked to HoD and DUGC, I even shared a poll showing that my batch had no issue with my prorate or make-up, but nothing worked. Then one day when I went to his office – he put up a proposal and said if I won this national competition then only he would allow me to give the midsems, otherwise not; which obviously was a risk I couldn’t take. There was no way I would gamble with my CPI like that. I pleaded, cried, begged but nothing stopped him from shouting at me. He even went to the extent of saying that no company would hire me. Man, until that day, I never knew someone could be that cruel and sadistic. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it cuz profs hold a lot of power, for better or for worse. That was another time I felt like nothing was in my control and that I was done. Thankfully, I was not. (fun fact – I couldn’t go to the competition but I did manage to get an A in that course)
Then for months I applied everywhere as much as I could, in my heart I knew I will make it happen, maybe it was the cruel words of that prof that kept haunting me as to what if he is right, or maybe it was my stubbornness, either way I kept going, and then Masai happened.
You see, when you get your hopes crushed so many times, there comes a time when giving up starts to feel like the easier option. Trust me that’s the moment you need to believe in yourself the most. I have had my fair share of disappointments in the intern season but looking back I think maybe it was all necessary. I wouldn’t have been half as confident during placements, had I not gone through all of that during the intern season.
Another highlight of my 3rd year was being a part of the film club (better late than never). The whole team, esp the Y23s really made me feel welcome. I got to work on some incredible films and I have so many crazy memories, but working on Chaturbhagya (our Inter IIT movie) really tops the list. We shot this throughout Dec, in freezing 4 degrees long-nights with bare-minimum clothing in an eent ki bhatti; used jungles as washrooms and changing-rooms, scared every night which will kill me first – snakes, leopard or daaku (lol), but it was all worth it only because of the people I got to do it with. I have nothing but genuine love and respect for each of them and I definitely regret not joining the club sooner.
The three P’s – placements, people and parting
Now after 3 months of wondering “how am I supposed to do this for the next 30 years” during my internship, it was time for the most brutal semester to kick in – 7th sem, the placement sem. I knew that I wanted to sit for placements even if I got a PPO, cuz honestly after the whole intern shebang, I really wanted to test my potential with placements, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t scared, I was overwhelmingly scared but I don’t know how I was very confident in my capabilities and myself, for the very first time. So the whole shenanigans of prep, resume and OAs started and it only got brutal with time. I remember the last week before Day 1 was depressing af; I f*cked up one of my DC’s endsem, didn’t get much day 1 shortlists, had to give 4-5 OAs a day, slept in packets for 1.5-2 hrs at a time, munched on Snickers as a 3 course meal, it was all very intense and exhausting, and ofc the constant fear of not getting placed in a good company was hanging over my head 24/7.
Day 1 arrived, I had my first interview in DB, got rejected, then there was SLB, whose process took the whole day, and in the middle of SLB rounds, I went for PwC interviews. At that time, I had already given 3 rounds in SLB, so my mind was occupied in doing well there, I didn’t even think about PwC and in hindsight it was the best thing cuz I didn’t get any time to overthink. I just went there, gave the technical round then the HR round and just like that I was done with PwC’s process in 45 mins. Mandatory appreciation – my friends (Harshit, Siddhi, Aaditi, Aryaman) gave their best to get walk-ins for me, they were running all around H13 hungry and sleep deprived, handing out my resume to HRs and interviewers, while making sure that I was okay, well-fed and motivated before the interviews and I am beyond blessed to have these people in my life. Now it was almost night and I was done for the day. I was waiting to hear from PwC but at that point, all I wanted was sleep. Now Harshit being the enthu-cutlet that he is, pulled all the strings to find out PwC’s offers and he saw my name on the list. And with that it was all done, something that was only a dream for 3rd year Aditi who was miserable during intern season, that dream came true – I was placed on Day 1, in a company I am genuinely excited to work with.
The two most important lessons I’m taking away from IITK are:
1. Have crazy faith in yourself. No matter how bad circumstances are, just gather confidence and keep going. All you need is the audacity to suck at something and the stubbornness to keep sucking until one day you don’t. Believe me when I say this – if you have made n mistakes, I have made n+1, but things will get better I promise. In fact they will get much more than better, just keep going.
2. Once you find your people, who stick to you no matter what, who make you laugh even when you feel the whole world around you is falling apart and who become your source of light and warmth, these people will make the worst of your days worth living. I am glad I found mine – Harshit, Siddhi, Diksha, Aaditi, Aryaman – thank you for everything. I couldn’t have survived this place without you all.
I went through a lot of ups and downs in college, but the way 1st year me and 4th year me handled things, is worlds apart. Looking back, I think that’s the biggest proof of how much I’ve grown here. From being a people pleaser who couldn’t say no to anyone and was intimidated by everyone, to someone who has learned to take up space, trust herself and isn’t afraid to make mistakes.
The two most used adjectives in my testimonials were ‘kind’ & ‘cheerful’ and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. I just know that 14 year old Aditi would be proud, and the goal has always been and will always be, to make her proud.
And finally, I’d like to leave you with a line I once said to my friends while being absolutely blackout drunk, perhaps the wisest thing I’ve ever said: “What is life, if not a series of bad decisions and beautiful memories?”
~ Aditi (220059), signing off.
Written by: Aditi Choudhary
Edited by: Tulip Khatri, Suhani Joshi
