IIT Kanpur Journey — Part 2
The start of the second year
Semester 3 began in the fall of 2005, with I becoming more confident about the functioning of IIT. At the end of the first year, we D-mid guys had a huge debate in our wing as to who will be my roommate. We sat down for a few hours, and ultimately decided for my Sardar friend to join me as my “roomie”. If I remember correctly, this was also the year wherein we witnessed a suicide by one of my batchmates, who had anxiety about his academic performance, but actually was doing far better than many at that moment. Well, student suicide is a very complex and challenging topic that demands the utmost attention but certainly very little is done about it. India being a complex society grapples with its many internal issues, and this is one of them.
In this semester, we had one very interesting core biology course in which many facets related to organismal development were discussed. Other than the instructor, a few other prominent professors from the NCBS, BHU, and DU travelled to Kanpur, to share their insights in this course. I remember doing a field project for his very course (Gecko’s foot, I have discussed it in my other blog). The remaining other courses were mostly engineering-based and very equally interesting.
Sports Festival
I participated in the Udghosh sports tournament that year playing with our seniors in their cricket team. I was the only one chosen to play from our batch for the Hall-2 team and rocked the show in our first match. We managed to win 2 matches but were ultimately eliminated at a later stage. I also coached D-mid cricket team named (Ganesh’s Super fatoos), a lot of time and planning had gone into strategically naming this one!
Photography Club
Later that year, I joined the Photography club and had unrestricted access to the variety of shows in Antaragni. With the special pass, I would sit right in the front row of all the events and take pictures. Of course, one of our objectives was to make money for the club, which we were able to partially achieve. This was a fun experience as opposed to my first year in Antaragni.
Winter Research
Somehow my interest in pursuing research took me, in winter, to spent time in a Biomaterials lab in BSBE, understanding the nitty-gritty of polymer chemistry. It was a brief little project that helped me learn how the research project works and the PhD under whom I was working, gave a positive opinion about me to the PI. I had to reproduce the protocol developed by the PhD and show output within a give error range.
One major struggle that every IIT faces is the male-to-female student ratio. Not having an opposite gender as a friend can have positive or negative effects on your well-being, so the mystery still remains. What to do? I remember many of us trying to woo the only few ladies in the house with some succeeding while the most failed.
Second semester of second year
Semester 4 had mostly core courses related to biology. For one of the courses, the instructor told us during our end-semester exam that I had designed a puzzle for all of you but when I showed it to my wife, she told me that no one will be able to solve it and the whole class will fail. So I changed the exam paper! In spite of this, only one guy (Not me!) got a C grade and the remainder of the class got a D grade. All the hard work from the first three semesters was brought down due to my personal problems and a couple of courses, and my grades suffered again this semester.
Nevertheless, it was a great beginning to the biology-driven courses at IIT Kanpur which helped me look at it from the systems perspective. I remember being curious in my class and at times answering the toughest of the questions! Hopefully, the ability to ask the right question and answer the toughest of the problems will take us miles ahead. I hope so!
Helping a friend
This semester was also special because for another reason. One of my friends was failing a lab course due to which he was on the verge of getting terminated. There was a catch from which he could have been saved, and so 3 of us fought for him and helped him pass the semester with just above the bare minimum grade.
At the end of the semester, I stayed back in the college and participated in a summer project in the same biomaterials lab. The project was great and opened new avenues for my future research career. But due to me helping my friend earlier, the summer term turned tricky and I had to hear some tough words from my professors. But in the end, I had to apologize after which everyone was happy.
