A Day In The Life at IIT Madras

 Author : Samyadeep 

Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras

Imagine a world without clocks. Where inspiration wakes you up in the morning and motivation drives you throughout the day. That is definitely not what you get to see at IIT Madras. At least for the MSc students, it is grueling to the core.

The classes here begin at 8 AM. So you have to wake up at most by 7 and get ready and grab some breakfast by the mess before you go to class. Although, there have been instances where I woke up at 7:55 and raised my hand when my name was called out in class at 8:03, don't ask me how.

Akka's tea stall in the morning, afternoon and evening

We usually have two to three classes in the morning with breaks of ten minutes in between which we usually don't get to have because every class drags on for an extra ten minutes, if not more. If we have a slot free in our routine, I like to catch up on my missed breakfast and have some tea from Akka's tea stall in our department. Akka's tea and snacks are the best in campus (personal opinion), so I make it a point to have snacks there whenever I can. However the rule of thumb is that you will never find Akka when you actually need tea or some snacks. Perhaps she does this intentionally to make us appreciate the dearth of good snacks in campus.

An organic chemistry class in the afternoon

When the clock strikes one we head out for lunch to our respective mess and catch up on our gossips. If you really want to make your life difficult, you would eat a lot of rice during lunch and keep dozing off by the time the next class starts. I made it a point to eat rice during lunch only if I had an organic chemistry class afterwards because I would be dozing off either way.

 After the classes end in the afternoon you are free to do whatever you want, if you are a first year student. For the second year students, they are expected to go to their respective labs where they would be working on their term projects, although you are allowed to not take up a project, in which case you can compensate by taking up extra courses to complete your credits. Now, each lab has a different work culture and different expectation from the student. Usually organic labs are a little more demanding in terms of time and effort and theoretical labs don't expect much at all.  

From 7:30 to 9:30 PM, the tired souls of MSc-II finally come out of their labs and have dinner. I like to hang out after dinner with my friends at Zaitoon and talk about love and life over a cup of tea once every now and then. Sometimes we talk till 1 or 2 in the morning, if we don't have a class in the morning the next day. However that is mostly during the holidays or when the semester has just begun. Once the course progresses full throttle, we don't even get enough time to catch our breaths.

Exams

If there is one thing that our department loves more than making students work overtime, it is exams. We have two systems of exams; two quizzes and a final exam, or one midsem and one endsem. I believe that in order to get the true experience of what grueling should feel like, you should experience giving two quizzes and an endsem for atleast one semester. If it's the third semester then it's even better. I remember giving my second quiz before even receiving the results of all the papers of my first quiz.

Holidays

An empty street on campus in the bleak midwinter

For our misery during our semesters, we get compensated with long holidays. We get two term breaks of 45 days during the winter and 3 months of summer vacation after the end of first year. This is the time students return to their homes, however most of the students of MSc stay to complete their projects during this time, where they are expected to spend the majority of their day in their labs. I stayed during the winter vacation in my final year and it felt strange yet beautiful to see our huge campus that is otherwise  so vibrant, silent and empty.

If after reading this you start questioning yourself whether you can handle this course or not, you're not alone. The fact that we have to endure the hardships of such a rigorous and demanding course makes us well prepared to tackle the challenges ahead. I achieved things in IIT that I never thought I could and became a much stronger and a more confident person. Amongst the hustle and bustle of campus life I forget how privileged I am to be studying here. It is however, a huge responsibility to justify your IIT tag, and the onus is on us to live up to its name after we fly from its nest.