Being an IITian: Myths Vs Facts

Before I begin please let me tell you that the way you look at IITians, the way you perceive them, the way you personalize them in your mind is surely going to change after you are done with this piece of work by someone who has just started his journey at an IIT. First of all I’d like to clear the most common misconception that every IITian you see is a genius and has reached IIT with a lot of hard work. Even I had this misconception before I started my journey at IIT Delhi. The number of students studying at the IITs is huge so obviously there are bound to be various kinds of them. My classification goes somewhat this way. The first kind is the one who are what the IITs were started for and they are the chief reason why IITs’ reputation as the best engineering colleges of India remains untarnished and unchallenged even today.

They are the geniuses in true sense with an exceptional IQ, a really astounding grasping power and their ability to apply what they study is marvellous and personally I respect them the most. The second kind, no doubt deserves to be at IIT but they aren’t exactly what IITs stand for. They are the ones who have reached here after a lot of hard work. They have excelled in the period of time by working really hard and by investing a lot of energy in it and have en route made themselves capable of competing with the first kind. I am sure you wonder why I say that the first kind is what IITs were started for and why I say that they are the reason behind IIT’s prestige.

Some 20 years back the entrance exams of IITs consisted of very few really tough and more importantly subjective questions and at that time the students had to prepare for the examination themselves as the coaching institutions almost didn’t exist then. So at that time the students had to read books and understand concepts on their own which believe me is very difficult as books can’t clear every doubt that arises in the student’s mind and books can’t explain why a certain concept was applied to a particular problem instead of some other concept. Just studying from the books is really difficult. I can’t exactly explain why but students who have prepared themselves would sure understand.

So what happened at that time is that the students of the first kind would stand out really far from those of second kind since if you study just from the books then the extent to which you understand concepts is influenced much more by your intellect than the hard work you put in. So I conclude that in those times IIT’s preferred the students of the first kind. And secondly when the “reputed” companies come for recruiting at IIT they are looking for students who could innovate and innovation is all about out of the box thinking and not a bit of hard work, so again it is the students of the first kind who are recruited by the “reputed” companies. I put reputed in inverted commas as it is important that you notice the word because the rest of the companies require professionals who are dedicated and so recruit the IITians of the second kind. The third kind are the ones who don’t really deserve to be where they are but due to obvious reasons have landed up at that particular IIT and in that particular branch and in this landing have smashed the dreams of innumerable much more deserving individuals.

I don’t want to specify the word but I hope you know who it is that I talk about. It is not that I completely oppose this concept but I oppose the undeserved advantage taken by a lot of people who it is not meant for. And you don’t realize that a particular IITian belongs to this category by just looking at him so in my personal opinion never get impressed by knowing that someone studies at a reputed IIT unless you are absolutely sure that he doesn’t belong to the third kind.

I know you must be thinking that what is he doing, why is he deviating so much from the topic. Well the title says- Being an IITian and believe me every IITian of the non-third category has always wanted to scream these facts to the general public at the top of his voice and that is exactly what I have done. And I hope I have done justice and given proper form to the views of thousands like me.

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