At IIT, and still not happy? || Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Bombay (2022)

Questioner(Q): Namaskar Acharya ji, it’s my privilege to ask my doubt from you. My name is Paramjit Singh. I am from IIT Bombay, Metallurgical Engineering, 2nd year. So, my question is related to, at some point in life we get some opportunity that we are so overpowered by that we neglect other decisions, for example we got IIT, I think many of us doubt the decision of our branches which we take. How to deal with such situations? And my follow-up question from that is what mindset was of yours when you were doing your degree? What was your mind set for next three to four years?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Thank you, wonderful, sit. See, the level of self-awareness at the time of clearing the JEE and at the time of appearing for the counseling is usually, pretty low. The decisions that a 17-year-old makes, that would have been your age at that time 17 or 18 right, are not well informed. You don’t know what that branch holds for you. You also do not know what you want in life.

So based on the branch allotment patterns of previous years and advices of all and sundry, you just pick a particular branch and a particular IIT that’s how it happens or sometimes you see what’s trending, for example computer science remains an evergreen favorite irrespective of what your inclination is.

If you are JEE rank 45, you will pick up computer science right. And that’s pretty strange, irrespective of what your inclination is. If your JEE rank is 6000, you will not get computer science. May be these with so many IITs you do get somewhere but in my days that was not happening. If you are anywhere lower than, I suppose, JEE 150 computer science is available at no place, that time there were only 5 IITs then. That has happened and that is going to happen because in class 9th and 10th, 11th and 12thnobody is teaching your life. What are you busy with?