Almost two years back I wrote a rant about life at IITR. I accidentally stumbled upon it a few days ago and I couldn't believe I wrote it. In my defence, I was going through a mid-IIT crisis(A term I like to throw around as an explanation to the sudden unleashing of the beast as observed in most students somewhere around the end of the second year). So I decided to write a new post and here we are.
I came into this college as an arrogant prick and I will be leaving as an a humble, down to earth marginally unconfident piece of shit.
I don't know whether this is a good transformation or a bad one(that stands testimony to my unconfident part) and I will see to that.
What I will say though is that the fundamental change that I went through, irrespective of when and how has been a great process to witness. How I learned to not just identify other people's talents but acknowledge and be inspired by it. Before that, I was so self-absorbed that I didn't bother to look it, not so much disregard it.
But even more amazing, being the first person witness is how it all went down. How in my first year I tried to protect myself from what I mistook as unnecessary noise and how in the second year it somehow found its way into my brain and shattered my beliefs, my biases and essentially left my whole personality hollow. That's the toughest part in my opinion. I could have easily given up, and I tried, but the dominating environment that encompasses the campus didn't let me succeed. So I had to feel the pain of seeing the truth. Seeing the world as it is. Acceptance of truth is the final stage but seeing the truth requires a lot of gives and little takes that makes it such a hard tradeoff. Needless to say that by the end of the second year I had succumbed to the pressures and in a pressure to adjust taken to some bad habits, the details of which I shall spare you. It was a miserable year for me and it becomes clear when you read this blog I wrote at that time.
By the third year, I had come to see, not accept, the reality as it is-Unbiased, non-judgemental. It opened my brain to new challenges new puzzles that it had never been exposed to. So the mental workout that followed all through my third year of college life left me exhausted but I learned many lessons along the way. That confident, out of touch with reality self was replaced by deeply thoughtful, sceptic and unconfident self. Looking at that state from outside one would have easily said that's not growth but a downgrade. But as I looked at it my earlier confidence was not stemming from my conscious assessment of my capabilities and shortcomings but just straightforward cockiness the types of which most people have dealt with in their lives.
So in a way, it was a relearning process and it was necessary to unlearn first.
I will branch off from topic here and add that at the same time internships were going on and as I was back then it was hard for me to give my best. I was in an unfinished state at that time and needless to say they didn't go very well. Although I landed in one Japanese company, corona took away that opportunity. So eventually I ended up doing an OK-internship.
So with corona's unexpected entry, there was a minor pause in my campus life. But amazingly the flow that had been acquired somehow kept me growing even as I was sitting at home doing nothing.
It is almost the end of the first semester of the fourth year as I am writing this and I am beginning to accept the reality. I have chosen to readjust my beliefs that are coherent with universal truths, the mathematical facts if you say. I can't say I am finished work. But I am close to building the foundations that will guide me through.
This couldn't have arrived any sooner. The placements are going on. Not that bagging a lucrative offer is somehow a testimony of who I am as a person, but since I an relieved of the intensive work my brain was doing, I can now focus on preparing for placements.
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