Life at IISER Kolkata

Journey Till Now

From early childhood, after watching a lot of shows in discovery channel, doing comparatively better in my mathematics at school, I made up my mind that I would surely not do engineering or medical. Perhaps, becoming a researcher (without actually knowing what it actually) was(/is) the aim of mine. Back in 2016 while surfing through the net about research in India I came across something about "IISc" and "IISER", from that moment I decided I would surely get into IISER Kolkata (cause it is near my home and KVPY seemed really difficult). After a topsy-turvy 1 year of boards preparation, messing up almost all the entrance examinations, securing somewhat decent percentage in H.S., finally I got a seat in IISER Kolkata through IISER Aptitude Test. It was one of the greatest moment in my life. My parents always supported whatever I did, and they were happy for my success and on 31st July , the day of registration, I left my home and began my journey to live the hostel life for the first time in my life. At that time, I was filled with excitement, huge expectations from our institute, but the reality is very different.

Group Photo of Residents of E-Block Nivedita Hostel

I was assigned the room E-201 (E block 2nd floor) Nivedita Hostel, along with 2 roommates. First few days were quite awkward for me to talk to my roommates, but gradually things got better, one of my roommate taught me math, and the other taught both of us biology and chemistry. First few weeks went by me trying to figure out which people I would be getting along with and who are the people whom I would avoid (LoL), exploring the campus, and playing football. Day by day, I came across various people, and I was really overwhelmed by the thought that I am along with so many brilliant minds, sometimes it made me feel inferior about myself, but I realized there are many batchmates who feel the same as me. We had lots of fun, mostly we would go to sleep really late at night especially before any examination or quizzes, waking up just 10 min before the beginning of classes skipping breakfast which is very common, then spending about 8-10 hours of classes, including lab classes , in our beloved Lecture Hall Complex (LHC-107).

While the first few weeks went well, I soon realized which lectures I would be paying attention to, which lectures I would try my best to skip and which lectures are just for taking a nice nap (or deep sleep ; choice is yours), keeping in mind the minimum attendance criteria. Some teachers were really wonderful, some made me question how, why, and what they are teaching us!??! Some teachers were friendly, some were strict but eventually we got used to it, and understood that most of the work depends on ourselves, we just can not wait for others to guide us. Messed up mid-sem woke me up that this is the time I should really be focusing on my academics, I worked really hard, but ended up with an average GPA in first semester. Quite devastated, I decided to be really serious from second semester.

The View of Empty Lecture Hall Complex where we first years spent most of our time

Common Scenario at Lecture Hall Complex

With a resolve of doing better and being serious, me and many others started the second semester and apart from that it was the season for approaching various researchers around the country for any possible research project during the long 3 months summer vacation. Even though we started the semester with the target of being determined, waking up for the early morning classes during cold January-February was quite difficult and so was concentrating on classes. Along with the course work, different people started to get excited about their upcoming research projects during the vacation, many sports activities were happening (Inter-batch and auction tournaments - football, cricket, basketball, etc.) and a huge amount of people were quite engaged for the upcoming fest of our institute which is INQUIVESTA, but then the new COVID-19 started to spread and the lockdown of our institute started from March 2020.

The Pre Match photo of 18 MS and 19 MS before the epic and (un)forgettable freshers football match between 18 and 19 MS

Summing up each and every experience would really be an impossible task because each and every moment is valuable ....I guess?

Life at IISER is full of ups and down! There are great professors, very very bad professors, many of your batchmates will be doing great in academics along with attending various events, many of your batchmates will struggle as well. For me, it was quite a struggle, but yeah, I realized instead of pondering about what I can not do, I must carry on doing the things which I should do, so lets just carry on moving forward.

Auditorium of IISER Kolkata completed in 2020 Spring

The Beginning 0f Online Education

Me trying to click an aesthetic picture of my study setup

We were all happy to have 15 days of spring break, without actually knowing that the break is going to last forever. Soon the Amphan cyclone broke into the town, and I became very anxious about what is going to happen with no information about when our classes would restart and the number of covid cases was also increasing. Eventually, we were informed about the online evaluation of the remaining coursework of the second semester. We were given tons of assignments, tests, and quizzes. It was not bad, me who always liked being inside the comfort zone of my room loved to spend my time indulging in these academic activities. And by the end of June, our second semester ended. Due to the online evaluation, many of us scored high GPA, and I decided to take PME, as my pre majors. I was eagerly waiting for the new semester to give my all to study and learn a lot but alas.... things turned out quite different.