Indian Institute of Technology M.Tech Review By Poorvi Dhakray

IITs are not the kind of Institutes where backsides are not kicked. There are two kinds of approaches by any University in general. One is to kick up the backsiders and the other one is to arm around the shoulder when the chips are down. IIT follows the second model and that is why I loved being here, even though I was among the top 2,000 rankers but was still an average student here in front of my fellow mates. Every staff member here is an arm around the shoulder kind of a person who helped me immensely all the way during my journey at IITK. The best part about IITK is that it raises its standard almost every year. I have spent two years here and the second year was better than the first one; that's only because they raised their high standard even more. I am a little dumbstruck writing more because when we study at IIT, the fear and insecurities only have one option, and that is to go away.

I had to spend a week trying to figure out how studies are done in IITs. Half the class were the students who already studied at the IITs, but for me, I was bamboozled. Once I got the mojo going, it became easy and more than that fun too. The lecture hall was full of surprises as every day we learned a couple of things beyond the books, as IIT is not about becoming engineers but about becoming humans first. Also, because attendance can be avoided by getting engaged with other things, the professors were smart enough to give some extra credits to the students who had a higher percentage of attendance.

I can speak about them at length, as their illustrious career of teaching is a testimony of why so many great engineers have been produced. The faculties were competing among themselves as they were doing some or the other research, and were felicitated for those. The best one was the one who took that honor, so the competition among them was transformed into the students, too. Finishing the syllabus of IIT is no less than climbing a mountain, but the faculties climbed that with ease. Teaching was IITK faculty's stronger arm, and they never disappointed students on that front.

If you are a lover of quality placements in quality companies then there's no better place in India than IITs. Placements at IIT Kanpur were like one company out; the other company is in. One goes and the other comes, so students have many options to choose from. At the end of the day, some students fancied the location as Infosys for that matter was giving placements for their Mysore Park and Pune Park. I along with many others wanted to go to Pune and the offer that was made to us was for their Mysore IT Park. We negotiated with them to have the same CTC for Pune and they agreed. So, students here have the power to decide the salary and also the location that they want. This was the situation of placements back in 2018 and as I have mentioned the Institute is bettering itself every other year; it would have gone even better now.

The hostels here were like a dream. Since, IITK like every other IIT of the country, has a residential program, the Institute has ensured that students should feel safe and secure inside the campus. Boys could turn up to girls' hostels and vice versa. The first year M. Tech students get sharing rooms and in the final year, we could have all our space and remodel the room as per our convenience. The food was amazing as apart from the mess, we had many other options too.

IITK is the second-largest IIT in terms of area after IIT Kharagpur. Apart from our block, our classes were held at LHC (Lecture Hall Complex) which was not just air-conditioned but a place where lectures looked like we were watching a movie. The central library called 'Kelkar Library' was the most humongous library I have ever seen. It was inevitable that we fell in love with the campus as it had many beautiful elements like the gardens and the gymnasium of the campus. Among many cafes of the campus, my personal favorite was the Kerala Café. My roommate in the first year was a South Indian girl who took me there once, and then there was no looking back for me. The Infrastructure on the whole was a dream.

The campus life at IITK shepherded us home as I hardly missed home at the IITK campus. I also, hardly went out as there were many hangout spots at the campus itself. When I looked to cross the campus gate, my eyes would get stuck at the Shiru Café, that was right next to it. It was difficult to find place to sit there in evening, but we always had some or the other friends sitting there, so they managed to get us seated. Fests of IITK doesn't need any introduction as Antaragini is an event for which all the Colleges from India who are invited wait to showcase their talent there.