We live in a competitive world where students start chanting the word ‘IIT’ from the age of 16 and 17. Peer pressure and the craze to crack the JEE, is the only thought looming in their minds and the business of IIT has flourished only by inhibiting this dream in adolescents. Yet, there is a certain class of students who don’t see anything special in this prestigious institution. In fact, they don’t even aspire to be engineers. This attitude towards engineering seems minuscule today but its virility may pose a staunch challenge to several IITs in India in the coming decades.
At the end of Round 1 of the JoSAA allocations, the authority released a list of 12 students in the top 1000 All India Ranks (AIR) of the JEE (Advanced) Common Merit List who were debarred from participating further in the JoSAA process since they had not accepted the IIT seats allotted to. Upon speaking to them, PaGaLGuY has confirmed that some of these students have joined IISC Bengaluru for a 4-year integrated BS Research degree. Here is an account of five candidates from the list about why they decided skip an IIT seat.
Anjishnu Bose: “I got admission in IISC Bengaluru, BS Research in Physics just yesterday. I only applied for IIT but did not accept the seat because I wish to pursue a career in research and IISC is comparatively a better institute for research. I don’t want to be an engineer,” says Anjishnu Bose, AIR 26 from Delhi.
Paarth Gulati: Another student, Paarth Gulati from Gurgaon, AIR 915 says, “I chose to go to IISC Bengaluru because in terms of research, it is on par with foreign institutes. I gave my KVPY last year and was given a confirmed seat in IISC in as early as February. The only reason why I gave JEE Advanced was because I have been preparing for it since a long time. I wanted to have a broader band of options to consider before I took final admission in any institute. However, since 8th standard I had decided that I wanted to get into research and basic sciences and not be an engineer. I want to work in a research lab in a prestigious university in India.”
Prakhar Gupta: Prakhar Gupta from Ghaziabad, AIR 233 also took admission in IISC and aspires to conduct research in untouched areas of Physics. His ambition is to publish research papers for the advancement of society, rather than simply implementing pre-existing research into new machinery.
Arindam Bhattacharya: Arindam Bhattacharya from Bengaluru, AIR 307 has got admission in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, USA, where he will be pursuing a dual majors in Physics and Electrical Engineering. Unlike the other boys, Arindam was inspired to apply to MIT by his school friends who thought he stood a good chance at getting selected there. Arindam has also won accolades on the international level. He participated in the Astronomy Olympiad in 2012 held in South Korea, where he won a gold medal. In 2013, he attended the Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad in Greece and the International Physics Olympiad in Mumbai and has earned a bronze medal in both. “I had been preparing for my JEE since class 9 and gave the exam only because I wanted to see how well I stood at the country level. I didn’t think of it as competition. The JoSAA process offered me my first preference of IIT, but I turned it down because I want to make a career in research.” When asked about why he didn’t chose IISC for his degree, he said “Research facilities in USA are at par with that in India, but the freedom given to undergraduates in experimentation and exploratory studies is more in the US.”
Saim Dawood Wani: While all of the above students forfeited IIT for an enhanced opportunity, there is also a student from South Delhi, Saim Dawood Wani, AIR 817, who is not satisfied with the seat allotted to him. He is considering reapplying for the JEE Advanced next year in hopes to get a better rank and get placed in IIT Delhi in Computer Science.
IISC Bengaluru seems to be a popular choice among most students. One of the benefits of IISC is that it allows students to directly apply for a PhD after their graduation. The provision of skipping a Master’s degree lets the students save 2 precious years and achieve a doctor’s title at a younger age. What is more startling is that all three of them share a common fascination for research in Physics and wish to travel abroad to complete their PhD. On contacting Paarth, he said that he got acquainted with Anjishnu and Prakhar on campus and was glad to find people who share the same passion as his. Hopefully if they all succeed at their ambition, they could bring alive an Indian version of the Big Bang Theory.
Money, pressure, passion, ambition; several factors sway students’ considerations of an institute. But knowing about the choices of these students, it sure seems that the craze for IIT is not as widespread as we think it is. These students made choices that would enable them to fulfill their passion. But what about the the several other students who have been burning the IIT candle in their heart for a long time and were left disappointed after the first round of allocations? The JoSAA allocation process is very complex and creates hassles for students, parents and professors throughout the nation. With these students now out of the JoSAA process, do the others stand a chance to be allotted in an IIT of their choice? Will these 12 vacant seats finally be offered to top deserving candidates? What is even more disheartening for those thousands of students without a seat, is the opportunities lost and the time spent in panic and fear of failure. And at the end of it, they are left with even more confusion and frustration about the entire process of allocations.