18th July 2011, the day when 115 teenagers, full of enthusiasm, confidence and energy stepped into IIT Gandhinagar with an ambition to become world class engineers. I must say most of them didn’t had an idea what Engineering really meant. But IIT Gandhinagar had some special plans for us. Initially, we didn’t realize that we are the Guinea Pigs on whom a new UG curriculum which was later awarded the World Education Award in 2013 will be tested.
The highlight of this new Curriculum was the 5 Week long foundation program. The foundation program made us curious, increased our inquisitiveness, and more importantly nurtured a sense of family and togetherness among us. What foundation program did to B.Tech 11 is better explained by Prof. Nithin George’s statement, he said “Before your batch, there used to be only one or two students in the class who asked questions, but your batch always kept me on my toes because any question can come from any corner of the class irrespective of CPI and I give the credit to Foundation program for developing this culture.” Hence new curriculum has been an integral part of our definition as a batch. It introduced us to a new kind of feeling. Not knowing what is in store next academic semester and the sense of being experimented upon made us undergo the same feeling the pioneer batch of IITGN experienced. According to Mr. Ashwin, Jr.Technical Superintendent , B.Tech 11 stood out for its maturity, he said “our lab facilities were limited compared to older IIT’s but the students never cribbed about it, they realized that they are a part of a growing institute.”
Just as we are the pioneers of the new curriculum B.Tech 11 also pioneered a handful of events/ initiatives in IIT Gandhingar. First of it is Eureka, the talent show by Freshers after the Foundation Program. Our batch-mates started Timeline – The videography club and Dice – The Gaming Club. Students of our batch played a pivotal role in organizing events like Winter Carnations, The Prom Night, first ever Teacher’s day celebration and the highly popular Mess hour debate. To facilitate learning, students from our batch worked hard to start student run courses, carried forward the initiative of Peer assisted learning and also started events like Kya aap Baarhvi pass se tej he? where fun and knowledge goes hand in hand. We were also successful in raising the bar of Amalthea, Blithchron, Hallabol and Jashn etc….from where our seniors left. I would like to quote Nishank Jain, a graduate of 2014 batch here, he said, “If ours was a batch of dreamers, this was a batch of doers. If ever you want to meet a whole bunch of free-thinkers, you have got to meet these guys. They will just blow your mind!” It is also interesting to note that B.Tech 2011 had the privilege to interact with all the batches of IIT-GN till date.
It is very encouraging to see that number of students who chose the path of Entrepreneurship is maximum in our batch as compared to other batches. Here I would like to quote Prof. Malavika, she says “your passion to make a difference in this world, your passion to make life better for fellow students using your sharp analytical minds really impressed me.”
Talk about sports, it was our batch-mate Parth Sane who brought the first ever gold medal to IIT Gandhinagar in Inter-IIT sports meet. Talk about the attitude that our batch reflects, then I must quote Prof. Atul Bhargav, where he says “this batch is not afraid to question things and give answers even if they think they are wrong.” When I ask Prof. Harish about what unique thing he finds about our batch, he opined “for these guys the world was not only Physics or Chemistry, it was broader and much more than that.” Prof. Nithin George also shared similar feeling when he said “The philosophy of IIT-GN is benchmarked by the Batch of 2011”.
Our stay at IITGN was a mixture of emotions – joy, laugh, hard work, workload, pressure. We learned how to take decisions and responsibility for our actions. It’s a pleasure when Prof. Bhaskar Datta applauds B.Tech 2011 for our conscious participation in Institution building. We have learned how to keep an open mind and to value others opinion and to consider other ideas along with ours, to end up with a great final result. We all will leave this place with a wealth of knowledge we will always treasure, we will leave with our heads held high and proud, but only to come back and return a lot more than what we have received. Yes, we won’t cry because it’s over, we will smile because it happened.
