Over the recent years the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been in the news, being lauded as “Centers of Excellence”.

A recent book “Five Point Someone” has also attracted attention. The book is about the life of three mediocre students in an IIT.

Having read the book, and having visited my Alma Mater (IIT Kharagpur) recently, I would like to share with you my thoughts on IITs.

The first thing that hits you when you join an IIT is that you are NOT as great and special as you thought you were.

If you make it through the IIT entrance exam, after at least two gruelling years of slogging and coaching (apart from the regular school work) you would certainly be a Top Ranker in your school, accustomed to being 1St or 2nd in school.

Your parents, neighbors, teachers will all applaud your success in getting admission to an IIT.

However, you will find out pretty soon that every single person, in your class of 80 students, was also a Top Ranker in his/her school.

In your class of 80 students, someone has to rank 80th. It could be you.

What this means is that you are surrounded by people who are very intelligent, very hard-working, very committed, and very competitive.

It is a tough environment, and it is very “sobering” to realize that it is so.

To illustrate further, after the “ragging” was over we Freshers were asked to participate in a quiz.

The format of this Quiz was unusual.

There was a panel of five Seniors (Years 2 to 5).

The panel asked each Fresher what subject he knew most about, any subject at all, from abstract art to zoology.

Then the panel asked the Fresher five questions on his chosen subject.

None of us Freshers could answer more than three of the five questions. The panel told us the answer when we failed to respond correctly.

This was a very sobering experience for us Freshers. Five Seniors, collectively, know more about any subject on earth that all the Freshers, put together, thought we were experts on.

After the “sobering” experience came the “pace” factor.

Teachers moved at lightning pace.

For example, in our first Physics lecture (non-stop) for 3 hours, the Professor covered everything we had done in school over 4 years. Then he gave us a 30 minute quiz, which most of us flunked.

This was just for starters.

Then came the pressure factor : “perform or perish”. There were endless assignments, lab experiments and reports, vivas etc, all of which counted for grades.

To top it all, the food was atrocious. The basic menu was coarse rice, tough chappatis, watery daal, and one sabzi : egg-plant or ladies-finger. Even today I cannot stand baingon or bhindi.

Enough said about sobering effect, pace, pressure, food etc.

What does IIT give you ?

Strangely enough, IITs do not train you to be an Engineer.

The facilities at IITs, at least at IIT Kharagpur, are pathetic.

The classrooms are filthy. There is no projector, no PC, no nothing, just the wooden benches and blackboards that were there over 30 years ago.

The labs have hardly more equipment today than existed at my time.

The engineering facilities are no where near what any International Technology Institute should consider as the bare minimum.

The hostels are as shoddy as before. The only additions are one TV in the Common Room, plus an Internet connection and a ceiling fan in each room.

Then what are the IITs producing, if not Engineers ?

Why all this hoop-la about IITs and their graduates ?

For a start, one must recognize that only a small proportion of the entrants to IITs actually want to be Engineers, working in India.

For some 80% of entrants, admission to an IIT is the route to a good job, by definition : not an Engineering job in a factory in India.

IIT Graduates want to go to the US, join an IIM (Indian Institute of Management) or do whatever, other than becoming an Engineer in a factory. That is for the second grade guys who couldn’t make it to IIT and joined the RCEs (Regional College of Engineering).

The fact that IITs do not produce Engineers does not really matter.

What does an IIT produce, then ?

A person with the following characteristics :
• Highly intelligent
• Highly competitive
• Able to absorb information very fast
• Able to live with extremely high pace
• Able to perform with very poor facilities

An “end-product” with these characteristics can make his/her mark in any environment.

This is the end result of the “IIT Experience”.