Fests of IIT Kanpur: Antaragni, Udghosh, and Techkriti

My experience at IITK is mixed, as it would have been great if I have performed well on my first two years, but the experience has been great. The late night walks the freedom, the fests nights has added to my memory, and can never find this same experience in my life again. I chose Chemical Engineering here because at my rank of my JEE Advanced the best I get could get was this branch. The branch is good as long as you are interested in chemical engineering but can be hectic who are not. The things, which are different here, would be freedom like the one you can roam around midnight in campus or you can go out of campus as well there are no restrictions on coming and going out of your residence.

I am pursuing B.Tech in Chemical Engineering. You get this branch by qualifying JEE Advanced exam and secure a decent rank. The branch cutoff is around 4500 for male rank and 7500 for female rank. In a particular course here, there are quizzes, mid sem, and end-sem. The weightage of respective is decided by the professor of the courses and it is mentioned in the first course handout that is circulated at the starting of course. The academics is quite tough (other IITs students also agree this statement), but you can perform well if you go regularly in classes and listen to the instructor.

We have 2 semesters in a year. The fee per semester includes tuition fee, mess, and other charges hostel and all. The tuition fee is 1 Lakh per semester and Rs. 17,000 to Rs. 18,000 around for other charges. If your family income is greater than 5 Lakh then only you have to pay the full tuition otherwise if your i family income is less than 1 Lakh then 100% waiver in your tuition fees means you do not have to pay for tuition fees. If your family income falls between 1 Lakh to 5, Lakh then there is certain percent waiver in your tuition fee. If you are an SC or ST category then also you have to pay no tuition fees. In addition, there are many scholarships that you can apply example MCM scholarship, Reliance and many more. These scholarships pay you around Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 50,000 per year.

Faculties here have great qualifications. Almost every faculty has done their PhDs from foreign institutions. The method of teaching depends upon the faculty, some use blackboard while some use lecture slides like PPTs etc. As they have great knowledge, they have good problem solving abilities. The teacher-student ratio is very good here. It may be around 0.07, I guess it is the highest among the all IITs. Faculties here are approachable but they do not share a very great bond like in schools and all but, If you approach them they will definitely help you. Some professors are very good but it is rare. I had one professor who would really come to each student and ask if the lecture taught by him is interesting or not, and whether it is understandable. He told that I treat my students like my children and he really did.

The placement cell is known as SPO IITK. All its activities are done by students. There is overall placement coordinator who are 4th year undergrad then assistant placement coordinators are 3rd year students, company coordinators are 2nd year students. We have RAPs portal (recruitment automation portal) where we get all the information of internships and placements. Many top companies and renowned companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon come for recruitment. The highest package is around 2.2 Crore per annum which is offered by Optiver and there are other companies as well which offers in cores but very few. Do not know about average package as there are many branches and it depends on the branch as well. Although most of the students go for placements, some go for higher studies while some build their own startups.

We have around 14 halls (We call them halls here instead of hostel). There are only 3 girl’s halls and around 11 boys’ halls. Internal movement of boys and girls are allowed here except from 12am to 6am. Mess food is decent. Hostel fees would be Rs. 3,000 per month around which included mess bill, electricity bill and hostel charges.

Infrastructure is great at IITK. The academic area is the most beautiful part. We have around 20 lecture halls. Lecture hall 20 is the largest with around 700 seating capacity. Library is the old and spacious unlike other institutes library. We have many labs like new core labs, old core labs and many more. Auditorium is also huge with around 1200 seating capacity. Then we have doe canteen which is available 24×7 also we have canteens in our hall itself. We have old sports complex, new sports complex, which has gym and many other things. Then we have health centre as well. We have Open-air theatre, which is used for many activities like movie screening, dance extravaganza and thousands of other events.

There are around 1200 students in a batch. Talking about clubs there are many clubs like dance club, music club, design and animation, fine arts club, book club, dramatics club, film club, photography club, humor house etc. Then there are science and technology clubs, robotics club, electronics club, programming club, game development club, consulting and many more. There are three fests: Antaragni, Udghosh, and Techkriti. Antaragni, which is the cultural fest, Udghosh is the sports fest and Techkriti is tech fest. Overall campus life here is amazing as it is the one of the top most Engineering Institutes of the country. It gives you the chance to explore your inner skills and standout from others.