LIFE AT IITK

Positive remark- the culture of IITL. IITK is known among all IITs for its student culture. Negative remark- there is no such negative point of IITK other than that it has the strictest academic structure.

IITK is well known for its rigorous academic structure. The institute has quite much focus on academic excellence. As this is my first year, the courses for all the freshmen are same. As we are undergraduates and this was my first semester there was no such research orientation, we just studied our compulsory institutions courses. The course curriculum is well structured. There are two instructors for the course one for the first half of the semester and one for other half. In an usual course (it is professor dependent actually) there are 2 quizzes, 1 mid sem exam and 1 end semester exam.

IITs are known for their placements. In these winters, December 2019, the first placement phase of the season was conducted by the placement cell. 2 students were placed with a package worth 1. 54 crores PA, one of which I know is from Kanpur itself.

There are many events. There are many inter iit, intra-iit events that are organized. Starting from Aagaz(Inferno), Udghosh, Takneek(SnT intra-iit event) Antaragni, galaxy(cultural intra iit event), Techkriti. The intra iit events are quite competitive between the various halls of residence here at iitk. They are considered as a matter of pride for halls to be their winner. Then we have inter iit events like inter iit tech meet and inter iit cultural meet where, we all know all the iits compete against each other.

Fee is feasible for all, those who can't afford the fees (for general students) are provided waivers on the fees based upon the income of their family. There are many scholarships for such students. The first semester fee for an undergraduate student this year was Rs. 1,36,900 including tuition fee of 1,00,000 and rest included hostel fee, mess establishment charges.

SSPC, it is a merit cum means scholarship which is given to students having family income less than 4.5 lakhs per annum. This scholarship involves 100% fee waiver and monthly pay of Rs. 1000. The merit criteria is that you must maintain a good cpi that is above 7.

Gender ratio in IIts is skewed. We are (this year) approximately 900+ boys to less than 200 girls. But there is a lot of interaction with students, we enjoy, party. We are allowed entry to opposite gender hostel till 12am. There is no discrimination by the administration or the student family against anyone on the basis of sex, religion, political orientation or economic status. About workshops I would like to say that we have a number of S&T and Cultural clubs which organise workshops for the student community, mostly organised by 2nd year and 3rd year seniors.

My hostel hall 13, the hostel for freshers is a newly built hostel, so quite a good infrastructure. Rooms are not much big but have enough space for living. We have 24×7 water, electricity, a lift, free internet.

Yes, they all are. All the alumni and seniors are quite helpful. During orientation we are assigned a student guide which we call 'baapu' or 'amma' depending on our gender which remains our first point of contact in case of any problem throughout the year. They care about us.

There is no such complex admission process. It's the well known process for all IITs, first we get through the JEE advanced and then we fill up our choices of the programmes in various institutes in an order of preference on the Josaa counselling site. When offered some branch we have to confirm our seat and we get admitted.

The professors are very much enthusiastic and interested to teach us the courses. They are all well qualified, no doubt. I had heard it somewhere that IITK has one of the best physics departments in India and now I realize why is it so. The professor currently teaching me the course on electrodynamics is very eager for us to learn science in its true way, he sends us a lots of self assessment assignments and solved problems so that we put that much effort in.