My tryst with the Indian Institute of Technology : Chapter 5

Third year at IIT Kharagpur

The 13 of us were allotted the DTW (D block, Top floor, West side) wing. Slowly and steadily, we began to gel. The foundation for a great bonding was being laid! It was an important year with respect to academics as well. It was the best year to improve the CGPA! We were seniors now, and no one could force us to work for the hall. It was a matter of personal choice now. Time was ripe to apply for internships abroad (popularly known as FT or foreign training) as well as take up projects that could possibly help one while applying for higher studies the following year.

Prof. ABC was a great teacher no doubt. He made a boring topic quite interesting. His course Machine Tools and Machining caught my attention and I decided to do some project work on that topic. He was glad to assign me an experimental work along with a final year student. I was glad as it would improve my CV. Besides, I had taken this course “Soft Computing Tools in Engineering” which involved some group project as well. We developed a software that could read the lines of one’s palm and then predict his personality traits by using the rules of Palmistry.

In the meantime, the fight for obtaining a FT abroad continued. After mailing about 600 Professors around the globe, I got lucky. Yes, getting a FT is more about perseverance than qualification! 1000$/month as stipend and 1500$ for airfare was what the Professor offered for a period of 10 weeks during May-July 2007. I saw this as a great opportunity and was upbeat at the idea of going to Canada.

The third year also saw me getting addicted to one social networking site – Orkut. I don’t know, what I did all day long, but the Mozilla browser always showed my Orkut homepage. Add to that, 24*7 on Gtalk and you will find me very busy! I liked making random friends and spend hours chatting with them. But contrary to my earlier held notion, it did not affect my studies. I scored 8.82/10.00 in my 5^th semester exams.

We had a mini-project in the 6^th semester, for which I decided to choose another Professor and topic. I could have showed my work under Prof ABC as my mini-project, but I needed 3 Professors who would recommend me while I applied for higher studies. I asked for an experimental work from Prof. ARC as my mini-project. The project was decided and we started work. I spend hours in the laboratory setting up the apparatus and conducting the experiments. Simultaneously, I was also involved in Prof ABC’s project. It was a real busy semester for me. But, I enjoyed it, for I knew if I work sincerely, it will definitely pay off someday.

By now, I had got the formula of doing well in the semester exams.

• Appear all Class Tests
• Maintain an okay attendance, unless the Professor is very strict on attendance.
• Get the class notes from the sincere guys of class
• Start studying from the weekend before the exam week and during those days, study and only study.
• First finish off the easy topics.
• Leave the topics that took much time to understand, to be tackled at the last.
• Yes, attempt to cover all topics, even that means giving a little extra effort.

And voila! The 6^th semester results were decent enough and at the end of the third year, I was the topper of Manufacturing Science and Engineering branch with a CGPA of 8.48/10.00.

In the meantime, I got my Visa done and my tickets booked. I was all set for a wonderful summer abroad, on my maiden trip outside India. Summer of 2007 was like a dream come true - living off all alone by myself in an alien land, spending the money I earned, being responsible for myself. It taught me many things. I did my project work sincerely and the Professor was very pleased with my performance. In the period of 10 weeks, I completed the project and we were successful in having two research publications. He offered me to do masters under him, which I didn’t reject out rightly. The Professor was brilliant but the university was not a very good one and I was sure that I would get admission into one of the top universities in the world. It was time to get back to India. And I was glad to return back!