A Day of Our Life : What is it like to live at Kharagpur

Wondering what life is like at IIT Kharagpur ? Is it worth living in a boring village? The IIT's at Mumbai, Delhi, Madras and even Hyderabad may have much better surroundings but don't discriminate against KGPians. Our campus is our world and we have access to everything within the campus itself (except good food, particularly if you are a vegetarian :-P).
(Edit: Found a canteen yesterday that serves very tasty veg biryani. Also, Maggi is always available)

A typical day in our lives is something like this:

Every morning the hardest thing for us is to wake up on time. Normally we try to wake up at 8:00 for a class of 8:30. On many days however, we can reach class on time even if we wake up at 8:15 (Not an exaggeration). You can call it wonderful time management or our extreme laziness!!

In classes many of us sleep, unless the professor is particularly good at teaching (the professors are extremely knowledgeable, but not all of them are excellent at teaching). At-least in the first year, you have to study most of the topics on your own ( or with friends :-P) , but then you are an IITian so it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Lab classes are taken much more seriously (and most of us will reach labs on time), because attendance is much more important at labs.

In the lunch break, unless you really love 'pathal' (i don't think anyone does) there is no real urgency to have lunch. After that classes again, and sleeping during classes again. Sleeping in a class is a very real thing here. Ive never slept in a class throughout my school life (except once, but that was only for 5 minutes after which the teacher woke me up ) but at KGP I've slept quite a few times. Sleeping is better i guess than chatting on Facebook (that's how i justify sleeping).

Life for us begins after classes end at 5:30. The biggest advantage that an IIT gives us is : " We can pursue our interests in whichever field we like ". You can go and play whichever sport you want, you can play musical instruments, sing, dance, attend lectures, swim, debate, code.....(this list is never ending). We have students who are good at each and every extra-curricular activity you can imagine. This is the best part of our college. You have to live here and see for yourself to believe it.

Going to sleep before 12 doesn't happen often. You can watch movies all night if you want. We have access to unlimited, but heavily restricted ( for which we have workarounds) internet access. Watching movies throughout the night with your friends = Lots of Fun. Some people play football in the hallways late into the night, others listen to music, play table tennis, hang out at their friend's room and study together. Forgot to mention, the night isn't only meant to enjoy, it is also the time to study, complete assignments, write reports for labs, go through lectures and drink coffee every once in a while (with friends obviously no fun alone :-P).

It obviously isn't all fun and games. We have to cope with lots of pressure too, but in the end IIT Kharagpur is one of the only colleges in the country where you can enjoy without having to step out of the campus. Being in Kharagpur has its advantages too ( I don't need to mention the disadvantages, they should be pretty obvious ).

IIT Main building image : By Ambuj Saxena (Own work) [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons