Living life, the IITK way!
My arrival and daily life
IIT Kanpur is situated on the outskirts of the main city. It has a beautiful and big campus spread across nearly 1000 Acres. The First Year students are offered Hall 13 as their residence.
Thanks to very helpful seniors, we got acquainted with the campus life very quickly. You have lectures or labs either in the morning slot or afternoon slot. In between we have our lunch break. Although the mess food is average, we are accustomed to it. We have holidays on Saturadys and Sundays. Some people study in weekends, some play cricket and some just sleep to relax!
Campus
We have a pretty big campus consisting of a big academic area in the centre, 13 halls of residence, stadiums and courts of various sports, gyms, swimming pool, shopping centres, canteens, auditorium and open air theatre. We are the only IIT to have a runway strip. CCD, Dominoes, Kathi, Mama mio, Shiru Cafe serve as places to get quick refreshments. Having all these facilities in the campus itself, we rarely come out to visit the city area.
Curriculum
IITK focus more on academics than any other institute. We have 2 semesters per year of 4 months each. Some courses are institute or baranch compulsory, while some are electives. There is a minimum number of credits to complete in a semester. We recieve letter grades like A*/A, B, C... equivalent to a 10, 8 ,6... respectively. These are used to calculate our SPI (Semester Performance Index) and overall CPI (C for cumulative).
Fests & events
IITK is the host to one of the biggest college festivals in the country. We have Antaragni, the annual cultural fest. Udghosh is the annual sports fest and Techkriti, the annual technical festival. I personally witnessed Antaragni most, they were the happiest 4 days of my life. Comedy events, pronites, DJ wars, rap battle and much more. We also have inter-hall events like Galaxy, Inferno and Takneek. We have the hall spirit among us and its too much fun to cheer for your hall in these competitions.
Hostel life & lingos
Living away from your family here doesn't make much difference as you have your hostel friends who makes life easier for you. We watch movies, play together, go for a nightout, celebrate birthdays and do many more enjoyable activities. We even study together for any upcoming exams. People don't differentiate you on the basis of whatever background you came from. We are a family altogether.
We have lingos like baapu (Student guide), amma (Female for baapu), chaapa (exellent work), chill hai (The solution for almost any single problem in the world). These are only some and there are many-many of these. Once you are familiar with these words, they will come out automatically in any radom conversation.
Conlusion
You will become a very different version of yourself once you've joined the instititute. Though I am still to experience many more years here, but IITK has surely changed me from a very shy, introvert and bewildered type of person to a happy and socialble individual who can explore things by coming out of his comfort zone.
IITK ka tempo, high hai!
#ThatsIITK