If anyone comes up to me and says that he achieved everything he had hoped for in IIT, I would not believed him. We all had been blinded by the imagery created by the coaching centers, the media, and especially the uncle and aunties about our beloved institute. The expectations from the institute, the professors, the infrastructure and everyone around us was so high that no-one could do anything to match up to them. The expectations met reality when we saw our hostel rooms for the first time. The dingy corners in which we were to reside for the next four years, possibly with another fellow barging in on that little space we had. It was only later that we fell in love with the same quarters and never looked back at them the way we first saw them.
The next jolt to the expectations was the first lecture. I for one, like countless others in this institute, had a fairly good academic life in my school, and like a good and disciplined student I had never felt the urge to fall asleep when I was being taught something. In the first lecture of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, I was swept by a complete and total wave of sleep and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I still remember being in shock and shame about my reaction to the professor's attempt to impart profound knowledge unto us. I went and washed my face and determined not to feel sleepy during the next lecture. Sure enough,within the next 10 minutes, I was dozing on my desk with drool making my notebooks wet. I later came to know, as did everyone else(except the first benchers) that this was a universal phenomena and generations before us and generations to come have been and will be sleeping in class if the way the professors teach and what they teach does not change.
In our four years, I am proud to say, never have I seen a person devoid of any goal. It has always been different for different people but always there nonetheless. Every single person I have met in this institute, has been in pursual of something or the other. And everyone of them have never even dared to think small. They have always aimed to be at the top of what they are pursuing, be it academics, dramatics, dancing, hacking, organizing, even playing CS....
We have all worked hard to make something of the four years we had in this institute, some of us had resounding success, some of us gave up hope in the middle, but everyone here did achieve something or the other. This Institute has given us not what we expected, but without us realizing, much more than that. As the end of my stay here draws nearer, I would like to thank every single person residing in the campus which made our days in the campus the best days ever.
The next jolt to the expectations was the first lecture. I for one, like countless others in this institute, had a fairly good academic life in my school, and like a good and disciplined student I had never felt the urge to fall asleep when I was being taught something. In the first lecture of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, I was swept by a complete and total wave of sleep and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I still remember being in shock and shame about my reaction to the professor's attempt to impart profound knowledge unto us. I went and washed my face and determined not to feel sleepy during the next lecture. Sure enough,within the next 10 minutes, I was dozing on my desk with drool making my notebooks wet. I later came to know, as did everyone else(except the first benchers) that this was a universal phenomena and generations before us and generations to come have been and will be sleeping in class if the way the professors teach and what they teach does not change.
In our four years, I am proud to say, never have I seen a person devoid of any goal. It has always been different for different people but always there nonetheless. Every single person I have met in this institute, has been in pursual of something or the other. And everyone of them have never even dared to think small. They have always aimed to be at the top of what they are pursuing, be it academics, dramatics, dancing, hacking, organizing, even playing CS....
We have all worked hard to make something of the four years we had in this institute, some of us had resounding success, some of us gave up hope in the middle, but everyone here did achieve something or the other. This Institute has given us not what we expected, but without us realizing, much more than that. As the end of my stay here draws nearer, I would like to thank every single person residing in the campus which made our days in the campus the best days ever.
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