“LIVING IN A RESIDENTIAL CAMPUS COMPLEMENTS ALL THAT WE DO”
IIT MADRAS OFFERS A CHALLENGING LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND CREATIVE FREEDOM TO ITS STUDENTS
Located in the heart of Chennai, IIT Madras (popularly known as ‘insti’ by the students) is a world of its own. I remember the first time I entered the campus; I was awestruck by its beauty and vast expanse. The campus located on 600 acres of lush greenery is dotted with spotted deer, blackbuck, bonnet macaque monkeys and colourful insects.
Before joining the college, I had always wondered what made the IITs so different from other engineering colleges. Apart from being taught by the best brains in the country and having access to state-of-theart facilities, we have a terrific on-campus culture that gives us all the creative freedom that we want. We also have a lingo of our own which easily seeps into the vocabulary of every freshman (fondly known as ‘freshie’) within weeks of joining ‘insti’. The student community of
IIT Madras comprises highly versatile and self-motivated individuals with varying passions. Be it art, dance, music, sports, quizzing, tech or any other field, there is always an expert to look up to.
A typical day starts with students cycling hurriedly to their messes and then onwards for their 8 am lectures after successfully dodging the monkeys that find it amusing to hijack the hostel rooms every morning. The lectures usually go on till late in the afternoon. The rest of the day is spent to utilising time the way I want to. Apart from working on assignments and following up with the day’s lectures, there are a zillion activities that go on everyday. These range from lectures and workshops to various inter-hostel competitions. Then there are the famous fests of IIT Madras—Shaastra and Saarang that requires more than a semester of preparation and the best part is that these activities are student run which opens up positions of responsibilities (commonly known as PORs) which students can opt for. This gives us the opportunity to learn from, as well as socialise with students whom we would have otherwise not met. In my first year, I was taken aback by the multitude of opportunities that lay ahead of me. I was part of NSO basketball and was also a volunteer for a couple of events that were organised on campus. In my second year, I was part of one of the managerial teams of the Centre for Innovation (CFI). CFI, a 24x7 ‘student lab’, serves as a creative hub—encouraging peer learning and providing a platform for ideas to manifest with the support of resources, workspace and mentoring. I am currently working on a project under the Electronics Club of CFI and have been selected as head of one of CFI’s managerial teams for the next academic year. It has been an amazing journey so far and I hope to make the best out of the opportunities that lay ahead.