The four years of my BTech

Semester 1 – Came to IITK knowing just 3 people. Studied for exams Settled in. Got to work on the Techkriti site. Relief that getting 9.x wasn’t as tough at the IITs as rumoured as long as I put in some effort.

Semester 2 – The computer arrives. Watched all 10 seasons of F.r.i.e.n.d.s. in 2 months. Got elected to the Hall 2 HEC as CC secretary. Spent a lot of time censoring a particular individual on the Hall 2 Discussion Board   Joined the group of elite CSE ex-9 pointers of my batch who had an SPI drop >2 Realised that the “putting in effort” is not that easy for extended durations

Summer 2005 – Returned to Muscat, did an off-site internship at home. Alternate week Pizza Hut partying with school friends   Was selected for the Lucent Scholarship and went to the US for the week long Lucent Global Science Scholars Summit.

Semester 3 – Made a lot more friends , did my first CS course. Started working on SPO Automation. Trained the Hall 2 Webteam. Managed to “put in effort” academically.

Semester 4 – IMS started off as a CS course project. Got elected to the Students Senate. Another SPI drop.

Summer 2006 – Internship at Bell Labs Bangalore. First major paycheque. Tried rock climbing, trekking and parasailing (inclusive of an accidental crash landing ). Put on weight as a result of having dinner daily at the mall (Forum).

Semester 5 – IMS gets deployed by CSE-IITK to manage internships. Got selected for an internship with MSR Redmond. The first “real” CS semester Coordinated the deployment of a placement portal developed by an alumnus. Again managed to “put in effort” academically.

Semester 6 – The first of the three 5 project semesters. Voted Best Senator in the Students Senate. Deployed IMS in the SPO. A lot of new friendships developed and old ones got consolidated Looks like I have optimized the art of getting 9.x SPIs (would you call it a science or an art?) with minimal effort and maximum learning.

Summer 2007 – Internship at Microsoft Research Redmond. Got 3 patents in my name by the end of it. Travelled a lot on weekends – Hawaii, California, Texas, Michigan and Oregon. Tried trekking, river rafting and kayaking.

Semester 7 – BTech Project decided : an e-passport application that eventually got deployed by the Government of India. PAS gets deployed at IITK. Another 5 project semester. Got placed with Tower and Lehman.

Semester 8 – BTP got selected for funding from Microsoft. Got placed with Microsoft Live Search. Treats, treats and more treats. Multiple Farewells. Left IITK knowing roughly every 2nd person in my batch of 500

Summer 2008 – The IITK tradition of travelling around India followed by Convocation. Worked with the SPO on a proposal for revenue generation via ads on PAS. Thought of various possible ideas for a startup and rejected most. Learnt driving at last and got a license.

40,000 lines of code, 100+ exams, 40 courses, 20 projects, 20+ project partners, 4 years all for one BTech but well worth it!