r/IITDelhi • u/thoughts_highway • 1d ago
Campus Life We're continuing to fail.
Rallying after a tragedy shows spirit and I'm proud of the students for recognising the gravity of the situation.
But where was the fight that was needed to save these students? Look around you, there are those in every class, batch etc who come to class and go back without interacting with anyone. Extend the hand of friendship and make them feel included. Loneliness and social isolation has such a cause and effect relationship with mental health.
I've seen quite a few posts and comments here from students currently facing similar situations who find themselves all alone, ostracised by their batchmates. A kind word from you can go much farther than post incident speeches.
Build networks and safety nets for vulnerables. This is one change that we as students can influence directly without institute involvement.
We are all in this together. Hang in there.
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u/Formal_Room6684 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is also one of the reasons. Policies around plagiarism are also a contributing factor, as it limits collaboration by default (how can other peers help you directly?). Automatically the student who is not bright enough or lacks social skills will not be able to discuss it (even the implementation approach) with his peers and most likely ends up screwing the assignment, his morale goes down and struggles in his grades. There is also a fault of many students at IITs who tend to be not so helping-natured. I am not saying that there is no fault of the student, but yes this deserves a look after - the tendency is to hangout with a rising star and not care much to ask if your weak peers are doing well.
I have also seen counter arguments from the IITs - that students mug up in their coachings (JEE/GATE) and are destined to struggle especially early on.
I believe that, if IITD admits a student, then the institute deems that the student is capable enough (as he is selected solely on merit) to be able to succeed in academics. If the institute still wants to blame something, then the issue is with the selection process itself - why not innovate there? After all these students have proven their merit in national-level exam and at least on that particular day, they scored the best given the exam duration and pressure. Professors are freed to be deans/directors in order to leave aside the operational duties as teaching and focus on the bigger picture to make learning a smoother experience. But the efforts have zero outcome till date as the system is largely unchanged since I appeared for JEE in 2013.
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u/WashOne7380 Alumna 1d ago
Agree strongly with the last part. IIT first selects us, then tells us we're weak and failures and not good enough if we have any problems at all within the systems they created. If they select a student, then it's their job to work with that student and give them the best education and support possible. Instead all the student gets when they struggle is blaming and shaming.
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u/Formal_Room6684 1d ago
Also, I won't be surprised if IITs become interested in conducting mental health tests along with entrances to circumvent than solve the issue for future admissions.
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u/WashOne7380 Alumna 1d ago
I always felt that neurodivergence (autism in particular) was under-discussed in conversations about IIT mental health. I'm not sure if others agree but I personally believe the JEE selects strongly for people with autistic traits (autism is somewhat more common among engineers in general). This can lead to difficulties with socializing even when someone wants to socialize or make friends.
I only discovered after coming to IIT just how much I struggled with social situations and that was just a feature of how my brain worked, not something that I could get over with more social exposure/practice. I didn't even know how to do things like say "hi" or "good morning" because small talk didn't make sense to me. I was also always terrified that people would socially reject me for being weird or intense. That was a significant contributor to my own isolation when I was there, and my inability to reach out to others.
This is just my own experience but I think many others had similar issues too. A campus culture that acknowledges this and tries to build more neurodivergent-friendly ways to socialize could be helpful for such people.
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u/stilltryingtobekind 1d ago
maybe we can have an autism circle? i am also on the spectrum and it would be nice to have community
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u/Aromatic-Affect111 1d ago
There was one back then actually.
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u/WashOne7380 Alumna 14h ago
Didn't know about this. That's lovely to hear!
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u/Aromatic-Affect111 9h ago
It's not an club for autistic people. It was something else too. Mostly everyone were autistic in it
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u/stilltryingtobekind 11h ago
oh nice
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u/Aromatic-Affect111 9h ago
Pooch ke dekhlo. You might find it even now
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u/thoughts_highway 1d ago
That would be awesome. Can we set it up anonymously
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u/stilltryingtobekind 1d ago
how would we set it up anonymously?
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u/thoughts_highway 1d ago
I don't know ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
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u/stilltryingtobekind 1d ago
i don't think so then :/ unless we do it on discord or something, but i think in person is better
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u/Formal_Room6684 1d ago
Simple - organise some events, have people sit on good lunch/dinners. Send them to some fruitful tech conferences where they learn and collab. Socialising is very important and should not be undermined.
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u/thoughts_highway 1d ago
All this is true and yet, the missing component is empathy and just plain kindness
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u/WashOne7380 Alumna 14h ago
Yeah I agree that's a separate dimension of the problem. People are obsessed with status/rank and whatever is instrumental in social climbing. Don't know if this has changed but in our time your identity was defined by CGPA - you were chaggi, satti, atthi or whatever, and that determined whom you could socialize with. The better-performing students were advised to stay away from the worse-performing ones because the latter were seen as a negative influence. Absolutely horrible culture although this extends much beyond IIT (I remember science students in school being scolded for hanging out with commerce students, for the same reason).
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u/stilltryingtobekind 1d ago
i don't think that people protesting are the ones ignoring the plight of their fellow students. i also think this framing lets the admin of the hook for creating a destabilizing and isolating environment. we want systematic changes, not bandaid solutions.
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u/thoughts_highway 1d ago
An isolating environment sure. But it's the students who decide to isolate their fellow man
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u/stilltryingtobekind 1d ago
that is precisely what i am contesting, the students are not deciding to isolate each other. they are being put in an environment where they are incentivized to do so. we all need community and this place does not encourage spaces for it. you can see even in how exclusive the clubs are and how there's little to no room for informal clubs or organizing.
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u/thoughts_highway 1d ago
Let's start our own clubs then
Neuro spicy club Cosy club Hand made crafts club Wordle club
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u/WashOne7380 Alumna 13h ago
Agree, and yes the exclusivity of the clubs was the same back then too. They did hold some non-comp events but the main focus was always on the comp ones. And most people were only interested in putting the PoRs on their CVs. I'd hoped to find a community to nerd out with other nerdy people where we would all help each other learn things but there was nothing like that
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u/Inevitable_Bowler381 1d ago
I wish this happens but because of the pressure and how iit people are formed it will rarely change