Indranil Manna
Engineering is one of the most popular disciplines among the youth in India. Largely, this inclination arises out of the attractive career prospects the field brings. The numbers attest to its popularity: nearly 10 lakh students took the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to get admission in the top engineering institutions, which is about 60% of the students who appeared in CBSE Class 12 or Higher Secondary examination this year.
Only 25% of these students cross over to the next, and more difficult hurdle of JEE Advanced. It is well-known that the JEE (Main and Advanced) exams are one of the toughest undergraduate admission tests.
While one has reasons to feel elated after securing admission to a BTech program in an IIT, it is not uncommon to see some students turning unhappy and frustrated very soon. This can happen for not getting a seat in computer science, grades plummeting at some point, or later, for not getting a job offer with the same CTC (pay package) as what another would have been offered.
But to avoid this, it is important for every student and concerned parent to shun any illusion, harbour no unrealistic expectation, and be clear about one’s inclination, aptitude, and future dream – what is that one aspires to be, what will please one the most, what is worth and what is not?
Can the CTC alone provide the ultimate satisfaction? Do we know enough about what it is like to successfully complete a 4-year BTech program in an IIT?
Life in a typical engineering UG program is extremely fast, demanding, competitive, and strenuous. This pressure brings the best out of an individual. In fact, the smart and focused ones never complain about load or difficulty.
The subject, teacher, context, delivery, style, and level of complexity may change every hour with every new lecture, tutorial or sessional.
Before one realises it, class tests, surprise quizzes, seminar presentations, assignment submissions and semester examinations start appearing at regular intervals.
Everyone who enters IIT is an extremely talented individual with practically equal measures of intellectual capability. It is very important that one performs well and constantly improves and improvises every day.
As everyone around is equally sharp and keen, any serious distraction or lack of attention or focus is bound to adversely affect grades and progress, which in turn, may badly hamper future career prospects including employment or higher studies. Thus, one cannot afford to be inattentive and faulter, lest one ruins the highly coveted opportunity that one has earned for oneself by qualifying through JEE.
But life in an IIT is not all work and no play. Every department has a student society on top of dozens of student activity clubs and contests, multiple annual festivals, hackathons, sports meets, and periodic seminars.
Most importantly, the hostel life with friends from all over the country with diverse linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic background makes life truly exciting, enjoyable, and educative.
In fact, one learns from friends more than from a lecturer or textbooks. The huge pool of successful and iconic IIT alumni spread all over the globe in academia, research organisations, government, and industry is another great source of inspiration, encouragement, ideas, and career growth. It always helps to cultivate relations with them.
IITs are famous not merely as teaching institutions but also for their contribution to research in the engineering domain. While at an IIT, it will benefit you if you indulge in some level of research activity either through a term paper, short project, or a UG/PG thesis. Since knowledge is ever expanding and advancing, it will also be a good idea for each young professional to either acquire a higher degree immediately after graduation or later after taking a break from the service.
Many IITs routinely pursue very attractive international collaborations covering student and scholar exchange, summer internships, joint degree programs, and visit opportunities. To avail all such provisions and opportunities, it is important that every student acquires proper skills of articulation, comprehension, and communication. These soft skills actually provide you an edge over another in an interview or group discussion.
All IITs have student activity groups promoting debate, extempore speech, reporting, web designing, programming, among others. Such possibilities are plenty, but time and scope are limited. No matter how hard one tries, the day will not stretch even by a minute from the usual length of 24 hours. Thus, it is absolutely important that students in an IIT also learn to prioritise and select the essentials. Engineering offers multiple solutions, nonunique, every other day brings a new challenge and opportunity, it is up to us how well we embrace them to our advantage.
Courtesy : The Indian Express