Surviving the first 6 months of Ph.D. in IIT-Kgp Biotech!
We all dream about having to live and learn at one of the most prestigious of all institutions in India. The IIT brand tag! Now let me be honest here: I came here for the sole purpose of getting to call myself an IITian and boy was I disappointed! To be honest, you’ll find hundreds (or probably thousands!) of people that will tell you otherwise. So here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the horrors and fantasies of living the IIT life.
I came here on the eve of independence day, 2021. No one truly prepares you for the enormity of the Kgp campus here. It is as beautiful as it is diverse. You’d find parrots sitting on your window sill in the morning, you’d find frogs in the streets, and snakes in your bicycle stand. So be aware. The campus here is interconnected to almost all the departments but make sure you can ride a cycle. I didn't and I managed to learn in a week (courtesy of a friend I made during quarantine). The odd part of the campus is that it is as friendly as it is cruel. No one here will care much about you unless you let them in. So for introverts like me, we tend to be on the overlooked side. Not that I’m complaining! You will manage to find your solitude within the campus and also find a lot of hustle and bustle. It's sort of an amalgamation of both worlds here.
What you’d hate, and I mean HATE is the food is campus provides. You;ll miss ghar-ka-khana like hell! You’ll be craving good food that will never arrive. Yes, you can also zomato and swiggy from nearby food chains but be ready to have chicken-gravy rice when you’ve ordered biriyani. One of my seniors once told me that after a year of campus food you’d be able to survive any food in any part of the world. You will be surprised by how a picky eater like myself can now eat almost anything on a whim just because I need to satiate my hunger. But life goes on and you will soon let go of all your preferences. You won’t even realize how the campus is changing you until it’s too late! And it’s not just your food habits or the inner introversion that I’m talking about. It's the people here that I truly find to be utterly disappointing.
I came here with the high hopes that I’d find students on the streets discussing art, science, music, movies, philosophy, or life in general. I thought you’s be appreciated for your creativity or your passion for anything outside of your work. Let me tell you, you'll be shunned for it. They’ll think you're showing off and be barricaded to your workbench or you'll have to let go of whatever little essence of life you have left in you to fit into the model system that they’ve created.
I hail from the Biotech department which is built on the foundation to not let you flourish. The work culture here is absolutely toxic. Yes, TOXIC. I don’t really understand how or why they do it but they do it so subtly that even the best of us will be fooled. Let’s forget that you would need to invest an average of 7 years of your life to get a Ph.D. from here, let’s ignore that the department has no state-of-the-art instruments, no proper system of coordination, and no commitment towards your work from the administration, let’s even forget that this department does not yet have a female professor (yes, even in 2022); but what astounds me is the sheer lack of work ethic and passion of the supervisors here, making it difficult for you to ever produce good independent research. If you're wondering why the Research Scholars Association or RS, in short, isn't saving the day, the truth is that they are more occupied while screwing each other over for a bit of space in the common -80 fridge or who gets to use the incubator first.
The department here works solely on one thing: if you’re good at sucking up to the profs here you’ll be okay! So ask yourself, how much of an effort can I make to suck up to the people you have in your gut? Because that’s how it is here. Your lab will probably also work on hierarchy. So suck up to your seniors irrespective of all the bullying, the humiliation, and the arrogance that you get to see around you. Only then you’ll survive. Not live, mind you, but survive.
Life here is an endless tragedy waiting to befall you the moment you step foot inside the DG building that currently hosts all the life science departments of IIT-KGP. But things are not all bad. If you are lucky enough to make friends outside your department (and I highly recommend you do!), you’ll find life here at IIT is not so bad after all. You’ll just have to mind the steps you take, make sure you don’t slip out any unnecessary words in your lab, ensure your work is not being sabotaged the moment you turn your back, find some ounce of strength to continue pursuing your hobbies, and after all that, if you’re not ready to hang yourself from the stress and trauma yet, I think you will be just fine here in IIT-Kgp. Because let’s face it, you’ll be an IITian for the rest of your life! And that’s something everyone aspires to be, know?
