The Scholars' Avenue

“You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don’t have. Drink ’til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does…”

– Tom Petty

Most of us would not have read or heard these words when we embarked on the journey that we thought would lead to the surety of success. In contrast to values we possessed then, we all have acted upon My Petty’s advice with varying degrees of loyalty.  At the time when another batch of engineers is at the twilight of their college life, it is worthwhile to look at the amount of mutation that KGP inflicts.

During these four/five years each one undergoes a transformation in totality, be it the likes, dislikes, the habits or even the thought process. It is the transformation from home food to the “maggi culture”, from Backstreet Boys to Metallica and Floyd. Availability of food at 3 AM becomes a birth right. We are the people who toil so hard to get in and then most of us find it difficult to study for two days before an examination. Things that are taboo for most in the pre-KGP times cease to be so.

Probably this is what we see on the face but there surely is much more to this place. It is an amazing setup, a great platform for everyone who comes here. The KGP folklore has a treasure of success stories of people who have risen from being nobody to being a part of the hearsay. It’s ironic that in an institute known for its academic prowess most of the famous KGP “gods” are those who have excelled in extra-academic ventures. The amount of activity on the campus is staggering to say the least. Soc-cult, sports, tech, fests, entrepreneurship – you name it, you get it. That is not to imply that academics take a backseat. For the dedicated scholars too, this place opens up a horde of opportunities in terms of projects, internships and scholarships for graduate studies. Not to forget the lifelong friends and likeminded business partners that we take along with us when we leave.

At some point of time or the other all of us have cribbed about this place, for its sub-urban location, for weather, for lack of facilities, for placements, for its “bong-ness”…the list is endless. Probably it would have been no different had we been in some other IIT. Compare yourself with the person you were on the first day on campus. You will realize how much of this place, this culture he has absorbed. Those who fail to see the difference have sadly never become a part of the KGP culture.