IIT (BHU) Varanasi Campus Experience

I have completed my B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT BHU Varanasi. College Life is one of the best phases of Life which we really miss and my college definitely made this experience more fun and thrilling. Due to COVID, I couldn’t attend college offline for 1.5 years (a quarter of 2nd Year, complete 3rd year, and a quarter of 4th year was online), but still, the 2.5 years I spent in college were the best part of my life. My college was one of my milestones achieved because of the goal of IIT-JEE.

About the Campus

IIT BHU is a part of the BHU campus, located in Southern Varanasi- the Cultural Capital of India. Including the BHU campus, the area expands to around 1300 acre+- so obviously you have a lot of places to roam around, and connect with other folks of other itineraries of BHU like AIIMS, Natual Sciences, Arts, etc. You get diverse knowledge about life and sciences if you make friends apart from IIT. The Cultural Capital definitely tells you a lot about the Rich Ancient Indian Culture and the nights you will spend on the River Banks (Ghats) of River Ganga with your friends will be some of the most cherish-able memories of a lifetime.

Keeping information-centric about IIT- you get one of the best opportunities to explore different fields of life- the extra-curricular, the networking, the technology and innovation, startups, Alumni Interaction, and a hell lot more which cannot be even expressed in words. Nearly all IITs have the same facilities including sports and Tech, Media, Film-making, Arts like Dance, Music, etc. Clubs, but what makes IIT BHU apart from others is the vast Alumni Interaction and Experience. Nobody can guide you the best than a successful notable Alumni. We have a SAIC (Student Alumni Interaction Cell) which helps the students to interact with the best Alumni out there and help nurture the brightest minds of the institute. This interaction opportunity is one of the best one can get in a college- you get to interact with CEOs, Leaders of various tech giants, and government administration who were in the place of students someday. This networking definitely sets IIT BHU apart from other IITs and helps you focus and orient yourself to your life as well as career goals.

Placements

We all know the excellent placements occurring at the top IITs and IIT BHU is also one of them in terms of placements. More than 300+ companies visit the campus every year and nearly all Tech Giants like Google, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Uber, DE Shaw, and Atlassian visit the campus for Software Related Roles. I cannot include all the companies, profiles here but will try to include the maximum. Talking of the median CTC of IIT BHU, it’s around 20+ LPA every year and averages around 24+ LPA, irrespective of your discipline. The source of data is the placement cell itself. You won’t be unplaced unless you have a different goal in Life like UPSC, CAT, Research, MS, etc. Even those folks without much preparation get awesome CTC- just they don’t join because of their personal goals. I won’t talk of the highest packages- don’t go by them because they are 1Cr+ every year but only 2-3 at max get them.

Personal Goals

IIT BHU gives you the opportunity to explore different personal goals in life. Academics are pretty chill unless you are in core branches like CSE, ECE, EEE, Mechanical, and Civil, but compared to other IITs, they are also chill comparably. You can focus on your personal goals like UPSC, CAT, Research, and Coding, and your academic curriculum, will not interfere much with them. Every year nearly 15-20 out of 700+ All India selections in UPSC CSE from IIT BHU, nearly every year at least 1-2 Under 10 AIRs in GATE/ UPSC ESE, CAT Selections of Alumni, many Research and Foreign Universities Selections (I know this depends on your study routine and capability, but I am trying to explain the culture of college here, it definitely motivates one). Apart from all this, irrespective of your branch, you can easily land 20 LPA+, if you code. Coding culture is one of the best, be it ICPC Regionals, World Finals, Open Source like GSoC, Internships, Startups, and whatnot- It all depends on how you put efforts- IIT BHU will definitely act as a HeadStart in your journey and provide you opportunities to explore a lot about life.

Talking about my College Life:

First Year

Usually First Year folks are referred to as Fachchas (First Year + Bachchas) hereby seniors- who are your life supporters in college. If you have any goal or any help- ask a senior and he will do his best to help you out there. In the first year, I mainly focussed on my Academics and try to boost my CGPA as high as possible because I was in that JEE mode still and also, I wanted to be chill in terms of CGPA from Second Year because your First Year CGPA definitely makes your backbone, for example, I scored 9.7 and 9.8 in the first 2 semesters and this formed by the backbone. I graduated with 9.3 finally, so you can imagine, I would have scored 7s and 7.5s too- this makes you chill and focus on different parts of your college life, also it ensures you will crack almost all the company’s CGPA Criteria. Also, first year course is the easiest and credits are also good enough, so why not take that opportunity? One of my seniors told me this and this helped me a lot in my college life. I joined Badminton in my first year but yeah no clubs and also not much interaction with folks.

Second Year

Now I had set my backbone CGPA which will save me in college- started neglecting academics, bunked class- started coding, and explored Competitive Coding, Web Development- I started with Django and NodeJS. Interacted with Alumni, Folks from my batch now, and also other disciplines too, and even made friends in BHU from AIIMS and Arts. To sum up, in my second year, I explored many things, networked with as many people as possible, and improved my personality. By the end of the Second Year, I started doing Leetcode and GFG for my Internship Season coming up in the Early 3rd year.

Third Year

Gave interviews for big companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Oracle and got selected for two of these- Microsoft and Oracle. Made a decision to join Microsoft because of more stipend and learnings and the Noida location mainly. Now I was done with my technical goals- started preparing for other goals in life- a childhood dream of joining the civil services. Started in my 3rd year after internship preparation slowly from basics. Also third year was online so it provided me an opportunity to explore other opportunities. I started to learn Guitar and also did an internship at Tradence.

Fourth Year

My Internship at Microsoft was over by now and I had received the PPO, and I accepted it because I wanted to mainly focus on civil services. Also, College was more offline now unofficially- tests were online but students were allowed to come on campus- again mainly I explored and studied less because I didn’t want to regret that I couldn’t enjoy my college life. Went on trips to Ladakh and Himachal with my friends from the stipend we had received from our internships.

In this way, I ended my college life on a high note.

There were many learnings in this period- be it academics, technical, and life and I enjoyed it a lot. Also, college seniors helped a lot with the resources they provided to me for acing internships and my personal goals. Therefore, for me, IIT BHU Varanasi is the best phase I had in my life.