Student life and culture in Indian Institutes of Technology
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The Student life and culture of IITs refers to the characteristics of student life and culture that are common to among the various IITs. This prominently includes the lifestyle of students, both about studies and co-curricular activities.
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[edit] Hostel life
All the IITs provide residential facilities to its students, research scholars and faculty inside their campus. The students live in hostels (sometimes referred to as halls) throughout their stay in the IIT. There are separate halls for girls and boys, and even for boys, usually the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students/research scholars live in separate halls. Most of the students get single accommodation (i.e. one student per room) though a sizable number of students have to live in double or triple rooms also. Most of the students keep a computer in their rooms though there is no such rule made by the IITs to do it.
The usual structure of the hostels is an array of rooms, clubbed usually in groups of 11 or 12 rooms to form a wing. The standard size of a single room is 12 feet by 9 feet. Every hostel has its own common room and provides mess facilities to its boarders. The IITs also have high-speed LAN and internet connection infrastructure helping students to do their assignments online (wherever applicable) and even view video recordings of their lectures. Technical seminars by experts are organized from time to time in various IITs.
[edit] Co-curricular activities
Students in various IITs have to compulsarily choose between National Cadet Corps (NCC), National Service Scheme (NSS) and National Sports Organization (NSO) in their first years. The choice for later years vary from one IIT to the other. The National Cadet Corps (India) is the Indian military cadet corps. Most IITs force student to take up NCC in the first year to instil in them a sense of patriotism and discipline. The NSS is another national organization that strives to reach out to the needy population of the country through its volunteers by organizing camps at regular intervals of time. Both the NCC and NSS hold a camp at the end of the first semester at a location near the IITs and the students attend these as a part of the curriculum. The NSO is a national level sports organization that strives to improve the quality of sports talent in the country by providing coaching facilities to budding athletes. All the IITs have playgrounds of various sports including Cricket, Football, Hockey, Volleyball, Lawn Tennis, Badminton, Athletics, and swimming pools for aquatic events. Usually the hostels also have their own sports grounds.
[edit] Student body
All the IITs have their own students' council elected through an election among the students. The students are represented in the IIT Senate and other forums through the Vice President of the Student's Council, elected through the elections. The election process in IITs is quite unlike the other colleges. Formation or affiliation to political parties is strongly discouraged. Poll graffiti, rallies and processions are also not allowed. Use of loudspeakers for election purposes is also banned.
[edit] Technical festivals
All IITs organize annual technical festivals in which students from the IIT and even other colleges participate. Usually the technical festivals last 3 to 4 days. The various technical festivals organized by IITs are Techfest (IIT Bombay), Shaastra (IIT Madras), Techkriti (IIT Kanpur), Kshitij (IIT Kharagpur), Cognizance (IIT Roorkee), Tryst (IIT Delhi), and Techniche (IIT Guwahati). Most of the technical festivals are organized in the month of February or March. Apart from the technical festivals mentioned above, some IITs also organize annual robotics contest and other technical events for the students.
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Beginning as Pragma in 1997, this festival has traditionally focused on quizzes related to engineering and technology, technical workshops and video conferences, as well as contests that test engineering skill and intuition. Pragma was renamed to Shaastra in 2000, a year which also saw a substantial overhaul of the model by which it was organized. Shaastra takes its name from the Sanskrit word for science. Shaastra holds the distinction of being the first student managed event in the world to implement a formal Quality Management System, one that has earned it the ISO 9001:2000 certification.
Techkriti is the annual science and technology festival of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. It is usually held in the last week of February or the first week of March each year. Techkriti is an inter-collegiate festival wherein colleges from all over India are eligible to participate.
Kshitij, is the annual techno-management festival of IIT Kharagpur. Its literal translation in English is "Horizon". It has participation from colleges all over India (and even some from abroad) apart from the 4000 strong student community within the campus. Previously started as Ideon, Kshitij took off in its present avatar in 2004, when 260 participants from outside the campus came for the Fest. Robotix, the annual robotics competition, is also held during Kshitij. It aims to bring forth the technical talent in the country. It was started in the year 2001.
Cognizance is the annual technical festival of IIT Roorkee. In heraldry a cognizance is an emblem, badge or device, used as a distinguishing mark by the body of retainers of a royal or noble house. It is held over 3 days which include Robotics, Innovation of the Year, Industrial Challenges, Design competitions, Gaming contests, Workshops, and Guest Lectures among others. It subscribes to the basic idea of innovating for the future and serves as a platform for participants to exploit their talents and skills to the best. What sets it apart from the hoard of technical festivals, is the fact that it brings people from various academic, social and regional backgrounds in one arena to foster an atmosphere of learning, unlearning and relearning through an application-oriented approach.
[edit] Cultural festivals
Annual cultural festivals are organised by the IITs. These include Mood Indigo (IIT Bombay), Spring Fest (IIT Kharagpur), Saarang (IIT Madras), Antaragni (IIT Kanpur), Alcheringa (IIT Guwahati), Rendezvous (IIT Delhi), and Thomso (IIT Roorkee). These cultural festivals are organized by a student group within each institute, and typically last 3 to 4 days. All the money required for the organization of these events are sourced from sponsors of the event, and if required the remainder from the students of the institute. The institute remains closed during these festivals to allow better participation of the students. Students from other colleges are also invited to participate in the various events of the festival. Although all IITs have different set of events for their festivals, there are usually a set of literary events (like extempore speech and debate), fashion shows and art-related events (like dramatics, singing, and instrumentals).
Mood Indigo (also known as Mood-I) is the annual cultural festival (Culfest) of IIT Bombay held around the last week of December. The festival lasts for 4-5 days. One of the biggest cultural festivals in India, MoodI (as it is popularly known) has almost 50,000 students from over 300 colleges assembled in the plush environs of IIT Bombay. There's also plenty of "laid-back fun" for students not interested in competitions. Many informal and fun events, as well as aquagames, take place round the clock, going on till late at night. There are workshops, plays, rare & beautiful films, and dance performances to keep one fully occupied for the 4 days.
Spring Fest (also known as SF) is held annually in January and is the largest college fest in Eastern India and the second largest in the country. Spread over four days, Spring Fest hosts a variety of competitions and performances by some of the best professionals (individual performers and bands) in India. Most of the colleges from eastern India and other parts of the country participate in the fest. Major events are Star Nite, Wildfire, Fashion Parade, Nukkad (streetplay), Quizzes, Vocals, Dances (both eastern and western), Face painting and many more.
Antaragni (which stands for 'The Fire Within') is the cultural festival of IIT Kanpur, held annually in October, and is one of the biggest college fests in India. The festival spans four days, and attracts participation from all the major colleges of India.
Saarang (a musical is the culfest of IIT Madras, Chennai. It is held annually in the third week of January. The culfest was known as Mardi Gras from its inception until 1996, when it was renamed Saarang. It is host to around 50,000 students over the five days that it runs. Every evening has a 'pro-show', which refers to a professional music artist or band act. The Saarang Main Quiz has a reputation of being the only one of its sort. It starts at 11 PM and continues until 6 AM (sunrise), and is held in an open-air auditorium. When students are not competing or watching others compete, they are often found partying to loud music, or simply relaxing in the beautiful campus of IIT Madras, which is set inside a national forest reserve.
[edit] Other unique festivals
[edit] Illumination festival
In addition to the cultural festivals mentioned above, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay celebrate festivals unique to them. IIT Kharagpur celebrates Illumination festival, a festival unique to it. It is celebrated on the eve of Diwali. In this festival, large bamboo structures (called chatais), sometimes even as high as 20 feet are made and earthen lamps (diyas) are placed on them forming outlines of people of showcasing a monument or an event. Held in a competitive environment as a competition between the hostels, it even gets a lot of outside visitors. A lot of care is taken to avoid fire hazards and the placing of chatais so as to minimize the effect of breeze. Coupled with the Illumination festival is the Rangoli festival. In this, large panels of an event or a concept are made on the ground by fine powder and sometimes even by crushed bangles.
[edit] Performing Arts Festival
A festival unique to IIT Bombay is the Performing Arts Festival, popularly known as PAF. Though technically a drama, each PAF is a combination of all cultural arts including dramatics, literature, music, fine arts, debating, dance, etc. All PAFs are held in the Open Air Theater (OAT) located within the main campus of IIT Bombay, inside the Students' Activity Center. Typically two or three hostels (out of 14) tie up by random draw for each PAF. A pecularity about PAF is that all the dialogues are delivered as voice overs and not by the actors, mainly owing to the structure and the huge size of the OAT.
[edit] Inter IIT Sports Meet
All the IITs compete in a variety of sports held under the purview of the Annual Inter IIT Sports Meet. The competition is organized every year in the month of December in one of the seven IITs by a policy of rotation. The first Inter IIT Sports Meet was held in IIT Bombay in 1961. The total number of participants in any Inter IIT Sports Meet is usually around 700. The award consists of a running shield that is passed over to the winning IIT every year. The winner is decided based on the weighted average of the points of the events. There are three prizes for every event: gold, silver and bronze. Separate events for boys and girls are organized and points are tallied separately for determining the final winner.
The twelve events in the Inter IIT Sports are athletics, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, swimming, lawn and squash tennis, table tennis, volleyball, water polo and weightlifting. As swimming and water polo are played in water, which is usually very cold by the month of December, the Inter IIT Sports Meet for them is usually held in the first week of October and is called Inter IIT Aquatics Meet. IIT Madras has won the Inter IIT Trophy for most number of times
