Life at IIT : Misconceptions

I travel by train 3-4 times a month and hence get a chance to interact with many people. On all my train trips, I wear my IIT KGP t-shirt ( I do like to show off a bit :P). On account of this I've had many interesting interactions with various people regarding my college. And most of them have no Idea what our life is like. If you too have some conceptions about IITians, read on and find out for yourself if you are right!

1. Is this what you think we are?


NERD
Source : www.freeimages.com

If yes, then you are wrong, in fact you've never been further from the truth. We are not nerds. Like everyone else, we study mostly one or two weeks before the exams. Most of our time is used up for sports, club activities, movies, Facebook and YouTube. And most of us don't even attend all classes. We are pretty cool, possibly cooler ( and more street smart ) than other college students.

2. Not all of us will walk out after 4 years with a package north of 70-80 lakh Rs per annum. The newspapers report only the highest, the average is way lower, less than 10 and that is the package most people will walk out with. It may be an IIT but not everyone is equally intelligent. Someone may be good at academics while someone else may be good at writing or sports.

3. Do you think we are arrogant?

Source : www.freeimages.com

Consider this, we live with some of the brightest people in almost every field. Most of us have swelled up egos before we enter IIT, but after meeting and interacting with so many people who are better than us, we learn to be humble. If you have something good in you, we will be the first to acknowledge and appreciate it. We surely are proud of our college, but that does not mean we are egoistic.

4. The Social life at IIT's isn't boring. We do everything that normal people do, hang out at restaurants, play loud music at night, watch movies and everything else that normal people do. We have played cricket ( gully cricket, in hostel corridors ) at 2 in the night ( it can be called crazy :P) and still reached class the next day.

"We Know How To Have Fun"

5. We don't live in 5-star hotels ( This was a misconception I had ).

Source : Wikimedia Commons

Before joining IIT my expectations from the hostel were something like this. Also, I imagined classrooms with perfect air-conditioning and world-class acoustics.

Well, I guess I expected too much, my hostel is nowhere near Harry Potter's but with time I've got used to it. My English Proffesor had said this :

" You have all come here expecting MIT, but IIT is not MIT. IIT is in the process of becoming like MIT, "

Have you experienced any of this? I would love to hear from you guys. Scroll down and comment.