It’s the campus, the people, the faculty, or just something in the air that is enthralling at IIIT Bangalore that captivates students. Class of 2022 graduates parted with lot of memorable moments and among those are S Ram and Rahul Murali Shankar of Class of 2022 graduates, who penned a farewell note. Let’s read it through…
“I still remember the very first day I visited the college. I remember all the worries that were racing through my mind. “Is this a good place? Will I find good friends? Will the food be edible?”. However, after just a single connect session with the professors and seniors here, almost all my worries had simply melted away.
I had found a college with a set of professors and administrators driven to help us achieve our career goals and an unbelievable number of seniors who were easy to approach and willing to talk to me, not as know-it-all mentors, but as peers who study at the same college and are grappling with the same problems that I myself imagined I would.
Having a small campus and student population would lead one to believe that college life here couldn’t thrive. However, the exact opposite happened. Because we all lived and studied together so closely, we solved problems together, planned activities together and developed stronger bonds than we might have, had we all been on a huge campus. It forced us to learn to accept our differences as one cannot really avoid anyone on a small campus. All of us basically stayed on the same floor!
My first year in college was in some ways not that different from school. All of us would attend class from morning to evening, following a timetable we had long forgotten after the pressure of JEE Mains. However, the classes themselves had levelled up considerably. We weren’t listening to droning teachers repeating textbooks, but passionate people who were exploring the boundaries of computer science. Attending classes with a group of like-minded peers who were just as interested as you in the subject matter made the classes much more interactive and lively.
As second-year rolled by, I had become quite familiar with most of my peers and the initial novelty was starting to fade. It was replaced by a strong desire to do something together. That’s where an opportunity popped up in the form of organising a TEDx event. That’s when I realized that becoming friends with someone and cooperating with them to organise an event was totally different. It was an eye-opening experience that, despite its highs and lows, was some of the most fun I had in college.
With the onset of my third year in college, we finally had the option to choose what courses we wanted to take. I still remember the day when all of us sat together and started evaluating the various electives and why to pick them. We finally had the freedom to start exploring topics that simply couldn’t be explored in a traditional B Tech programme. This is where the advantage of the iMTech programme started showing, where we had two extra semesters to find subjects that we were truly interested in.
The end of my third year also marked the beginning of COVID-19. This is a year and a half of my college life that I am honestly happy to say farewell to, as everyone was grappling with the struggles of moving to a remote work setup, while also handling personal tragedies. This was a time when families were more important than college.
Luckily, the waning of the pandemic coincided with the start of our final year of college. With the lifting of lockdown restrictions and distribution of vaccines, we all could finally get back together and enjoy our final year of college before it was all over. These unique circumstances energized us more than ever before to make the most of our college life. When I sat in the same classroom after one and a half years to attend my final course, I was filled with a strong sense of nostalgia and how I might not get to experience this again.
It’s always hard to say farewell. Every time I think about leaving, I’m filled with complex emotions. Sadness, loneliness, nostalgia, trepidation, anticipation, and even hope for the future. They come in waves, especially in these last few days as all of us are preparing to say our goodbyes. However, this also marks the start of a new beginning. One where we completely shoulder the responsibility of our lives and use the experiences we learnt here to be prepared for what life throws at us. It’s a unique experience that you can’t get anywhere else.
Thank you and Goodbye IIITB!”.
