Life in an IIT: ‘IIT-Delhi offers more than just academics’, shares a BTech student

Hailing from Lucknow, I began my preparation from class 11 and moved to Patna and then to Kota for the same. I did not join any coaching, instead took tutorials from my uncle who is a chemistry teacher.

Biotechnology and the prospects

I secured AIR 4,163 in JEE Advanced. After the final round of my counselling, I was confused between Chemical Engineering at IIT Roorkee and Biotechnological Engineering at IIT Delhi. I opted for Biotechnology as I was inclined towards Biology and it also offers a lot of opportunities. The most prominent being Bioinformatics in which researchers are trying to manipulate genes of simpler organisms to get benefits out of them. I also find agricultural microbiology and electro microbiology interesting.

My day usually starts at 7 am and the breakfast timings at the hostel are between 7:30 am and 9:30 am. My lectures usually begin at 8 am every day,. The classes go on till 12 pm or 1 pm, after that, we have a one-hour break during which we generally return to the hostel to have lunch. After the break, we rush for our tutorials or lab work. Last semester, I had five labs so I would get done by 7 pm. This semester, I have three tutorials, so it is over by either 3 pm or 5 pm.

Curriculum at IIT Delhi and its salient features

In our degree, it is compulsory to choose four humanities courses. I took my first humanities course this semester– Introduction to Language Science, my friends took Introduction to Modern Literature, Introduction to Psychology, etc… While choosing the subject, I opted for this as I thought it would be about grammar but instead it’s about how language was developed, evolution of the language over the time. In this course, we are given data in a particular language and we create a hypothesis regarding changes and usage of a word and then we compare it with the new data. It is an interesting course however, I am not very fond of it.

There is a selection procedure for Humanities courses. We are asked to choose it in the middle of the previous semester. We are told to make a list out of nearly the 20 humanities courses that are offered. The courses are allotted on various factors — CGPA, which year you belong to, branch and more.

My branch is Biochemical and Biotechnology, so we have two types of courses — one offered by the Biotechnology department and other offered by the Chemistry department. This semester I am studying three departmental core courses which are offered by the Chemistry department. Last semester I had three courses from the Biotech department and one course from the Chemical department. We have a credit system and usually courses are 3-4 credits.

It seems a lot, but it actually is not. What I feel, is in the exams, they judge your intelligence. Earlier we had two minors and a major but during COVID, IIT Delhi changed it to a single minor and major. However, they have gone back to the two minors and a major system.

Life other than academics

Currently, I am working on a project under the aegis of agricultural microbiology, where we are storing Microbiome– a set of microbes attached to a particular organism. We are working with a plant microbiome, earlier another student was working on the same project and their task was to make this microbiome drought resistant. The project was a success and now, we are further working on the same project on how the microbiome of this plant can help other plants. We have stored at various temperatures and four different chemicals and monitor its survivability among other things. I generally spend 3-4 hours after classes in this project.

Apart from academics, I am also a representative for the literary club for my hostel, Udaigiri. There are 11 Board for Recreation and Cultural Activity (BRCA) clubs— dance, drama, literary and quizzing. There are a total of six boards including BRCA. And, these boards come under the Students Affair Council (SAC).

In my first year, I was very active in the dramatics club, however, at present, I am active in the literary and quizzing club. In my first year, I also participated in a short filmmaking competition. Though dramatics is time-consuming, I would recommend everyone to join it. Personally, it has helped my social and public speaking skills.

Food, hostel and more

Being from Lucknow, I don’t feel Delhi has good food, but we have to make do with whatever it is. I generally prefer to eat in the hostel mess but if I feel hungry at night, I have to eat in the canteen as it is open till late. Usually, breakfast is good as there is more variety.

We have 13 hostels, out of which 11 are for boys and two girls hostels for BTech students. Three hostels are under construction and probably by the next year, we might have 16 hostels. Our hostels are named after mountain ranges, my hostel is Udaigiri. We don’t have any restrictions, no in-time or out-time.

I have a double-sharing room but there is a partition in the middle and it makes it feel like a single-occupancy room.

During my free time, I play cards with my friends, roam around the campus, and watch some shows. Generally, everyone is free during the night. We go out in the city for movies, bowling or some other activity.

My experience so far has been good and most of my time is spent on this balancing act of managing my grades, the project, extracurricular activities and enjoying with friends and making memories.