Neeraj's Take On.......

Two years into the pandemic, with people all around contracting COVID and some less lucky ones not making it, contracting COVID seemed inevitable. Even after all the precautions we take, from wearing our masks to sanitising our hands, we never know when and where we might contract COVID. But the end result is that we get COVID, and we stay home for a week possibly...  When COVID started, everyone, including me, witnessed the hardships those who contracted COVID had to go through, especially the part where patients couldn't move out of their rooms. The fear of having "nothing to do" made us extra vigilant about the precautions. But we never know where COVID strikes us from, and it sure does... Towards the end of January, on a Thursday, I thought of getting myself a haircut. It's been two months since I cut my hair, and it's really affecting my game ( I was playing badminton during this time, and I still am). So I walked to the city centre and got myself a haircu...

COVID-19, Covid, Corona... The virus, with its many variants, has snatched and is continuing to snatch something dear from everyone... It could be a loved one, the freedom to roam anywhere or a few cherished experiences...  Office goers may always look forward to the chats they have with their officemates, and for students like me, it's meeting up with friends and teachers after seeing (or not seeing) each other. We did get that chance, but it slipped from our hands really soon...  Our batch came back from IITM in March 2020 because of the Covid scare. We never foresaw the scare spiralling into a pandemic and the two-week "midsem break" turning into a two-year stay-at-home-and-do-everything exercise. At first, online learning was exciting... Can learn at our own pace and most importantly for a student like me, no proctored exams and a three-hour clock hanging above us within which we had to give our best answers, online assignments with choices and week or sometimes month...

Towards the end of October, I got an email from SAATHI or the Student Wellness Body of IIT Madras calling applications for the post of department representative. At first, I didn't apply, thinking that I may not be the right person for the job, but then I thought, No Pain, No Gain!!! So I applied.  The people at SAATHI (basically students) asked me to join a WhatsApp group to have my doubts about the positions and responsibilities of the position clarified to make up my mind before I submit my application. The thing is, I submitted my application even before they asked me to join the group! 😅😂😂 See, I like getting things done ASAP and not keeping them pending for too long. This was one such thing that I wanted out of my way. So about a week later, I was added to a different group created by the people at SAATHI for those shortlisted for the interview stage, and I could not find anyone from my department. When I joined the other group where I could have had my doubts cleared, I s...

Stepping into college from school is a process in itself. It takes a substantial amount of effort to adjust and adapt to the new academic and campus environment. Colleges have a system where seniors are to help their juniors transition into college life and be a helping hand in college and a shoulder to lean on.... This is kind of what the Job description of a mentor looks like But being a mentor and handling mentees is not an easy job..... When I joined IIT in 2019, I was assigned a mentor-a senior from my department. He was my Buddy Mentor. Then I was assigned another mentor called SAATHI mentor. To this day, I don't know the exact difference between the two. The only insight I can give you about the difference is that the former is an academic mentor while the other is a mental wellness mentor.  However, the mentee experience was not that great. I met my Buddy Mentor as a mentee only once and all our further interactions were restricted to WhatsApp. I now don't know who my...

My department at IIT Madras-the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences- has a peculiar way of allotting the streams of specialization starting from the third year of the five-year course I am enrolled in. The performance of the first three semesters in terms of the CGPA will be taken into account while deciding the stream to be allotted to a student.  There are only two streams available: Development Studies and English Studies. Having studied English courses for the first two semesters gave me a clear image that English is not for me. I could not risk getting into English Studies. Therefore, I had to make sure that the grades in other courses compensate for the not-so-okay grades in English. This meant that only studies, studies and studies for the two years. Any other activity that could prove to be detrimental to studies were cut off immediately. This meant no Positions of Responsibility or PoRs for two years.  That strategy paid off, and I was allotted the Develop...