– Anshuman Pasupalak
Days dwindled and I found myself in an IIT, IIT Hyderabad. I won’t deny the fact that this was not what I had dreamt of when I was preparing for JEE. This is not what I had in mind about IIT engineering colleges. A new IIT with no flashy campus of its own and bare minimum facilities to sustain, I wondered why my mentor, Mr. Divyansh Gupta from Avanti recommended this to me. Soon enough, I found out why!

A whole new world of education

In my 1^st year at IIT Hyderabad, all we had for a campus was a two floored building we called an institute and a hostel premise that looked not better than some military barracks. But we had something more. We had enrolled ourselves in an institute that was highly focused on research, a platform where opportunities were plenty, be it in sports or projects or anything else we wished to pursue. The institute had around 20-30 students in a class that meant we got all attention of the faculty which helped immensely in our growth. We had a new academic system in place called the “Fractal academics” which was a ‘one of a kind’ academic approach. I won’t say that this system was flawless, but atleast I was sure my Institute won’t hesitate to try out ideas that never existed before.

My academics performance was surely not amongst the best in my institute, but semester grades of 8.5 and 8.6 in my 1^st year were good enough for me. There exist a number of clubs ranging from astronomy to electronics to hacking to all the cultural clubs that have recently emerged, and though they may not be as good as the clubs in other IITs due to their recent existence, they have great promises for the future of our college. I tried my hands at a lot many things in my college and though I may not boast of much success, I am glad I got so many opportunities to try.

Extra Curriculars

We partially shifted to our permanent campus in this year (my 2^nd) and that is something I can boast about my college Infrastructure. Our new campus is a lot bigger and better than the old one, but only final year students were shifted. We expect to shift in our 3^rd year, half a semester away. In my 2^nd and 3^rd semester, we got to know our core chemical engineering labs. And they are amazing! Our labs are well synchronised with the theory courses we are taught and that gives a feel of what we are actually studying. I started from hating my branch to slowly like what I am being taught and now I plan to work in some core chemical engineering firm after my graduation!

About the non-academic aspect, I am the Hospitality coordinator of my college technical fest, Ƞvision, and I am proud to be a part of it. My job involves everything concerning receiving guests in our fest to accommodating them as well as the participants in all the events that are a part of the fest. I also look into matters concerning registrations of participants to certificate distribution. This post has helped me improve a lot on my social skills and decision making.

I am into the social cause without joining NSS and have been a part of many social events by our college. Over this semester itself, we conducted a huge cloth collection drive where we students volunteered in collecting old clothes and books by going door to door in the ODF colony ( our hostel premises are in this colony) on 15^th August. There was an article in the Deccan Chronicle covering this event dated 9^th September 2015 under the title ‘Clothes, cycles and charity.’ We later distributed them during Diwali in slums around Hyderabad manually. The smiles on their faces made our Diwali brighter than all the fireworks in the city and there was never a day that I felt myself happier than that evening that followed the tedious day. Our college has adopted 3 villages under ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ and towards the end of the semester, we organised a health camp in a village ‘Uttarpalli’ in association with the ‘Lions club’ and ‘MNR College’. We conducted Eye and Dental checkup in the village and provided some 100 power lenses and medicines in cases of need. We had a reach of around 400 villagers which was a more than satisfactory 1

Our college has adopted 3 villages under ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’ and towards the end of the semester, we organised a health camp in a village ‘Uttarpalli’ in association with the ‘Lions club’ and ‘MNR College’. We conducted Eye and Dental checkup in the village and provided some 100 power lenses and medicines in cases of need. We had a reach of around 400 villagers which was a more than satisfactory 1^st attempt.

Well, that’s all that there is about me and my life after high school!