“The shocking reality of IITs!”
“Is IIT really worth it?”
Videos with such titles offering even the slightest glimpse into this institute garner lakhs of views to this day. The hype simply refuses to die. Although no one will accuse me of being much of a writer in the public domain, my last semester at IIT Bombay has been a bullet train of realizations hitting one after another. I, therefore, am tempted to pitch in my own two cents on these questions.
To assess “worth”, it becomes essential to ask why people choose IIT. Answers vary from actual knowledge to a job. But most people I know decided to enroll in this pursuit simply because it seemed like the “next logical option”. Many of us wouldn’t be in the same major had we known, at 17, what we wanted out of life. The only “engineering” I did in my degree was reverse engineering the choices that led me into a course I hated. IIT was the option that didn’t close any doors.
In my peer groups, being good at humanities (or even biology) was much less respectable than being good at math. The “smart” 8th-graders, already in JEE coaching, kept flashing their rote-learned calculus at you. After two years of resisting it, I signed up for 14 hours a day in a place that doesn’t let anything other than IIT (or occasionally IISc Banglore) seem respectable. And while we often discuss the harm this so-called meritocracy does to those it ranks low, the ones it places on a pedestal also face recoil. The attention bestowed upon a “topper” never requires building your distinct personality.
You only have to do what everyone else does – as long as you do it better than them. It criminalises saying NO to whatever society finds cool, keeping you in a race to excel at “the next logical thing” with little time to recognise what you value. After all, what most people respect can’t be that bad.
But the things most people respect are often tied to prestige, brand names, or money. No matter how many Bollywood movies tell us to chase excellence, we continue to value all this so much that just pursuing it earns you respect even before attaining it. And it’s okay when you lack a better direction to follow, to simply do what the majority finds suitable. In that case, IIT gives you two more years to think about what you truly want to do. It delays the choice at the cost of intense hard work, but nowhere does it protect you from having to ultimately make the choice. For how long will you allow yourself to be directed only by the sound of claps?
How long will you believe your life to be only a performance for others? IIT helps you realise that there’s no one watching except for the few people you hold close. If you’re insecure, people will keep telling you what to do. No one dares to interrupt a person who knows what they are doing.
Very successful people may have made an exception somewhere. But that exception doesn’t always need to be your alma mater. I respect the grit to choose to run the races that society pushes you into, but not running them, too, needs an insane level of ownership. More than just clarity, it requires the courage to own your choices because no one guaranteed this was the best thing to do. IIT gives you that clarity and courage.
And while we’re at it, the reality of IITs is that they’re beautiful institutes with beautiful people, albeit not the only such ones. And yes, it is all worth it.
~ 👻
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