Things that everyone should know about IITians.

Well, to be frank, the general janata needs to know a lot about IITians. From what I`ve experienced in my workplace and Quora, most of the people think IITians are geeks and superior to others. I`ll be answering this question from an average male IITian`s point of view. They are not geeks. They are smart. There is a difference I remember a scene from Avengers in which a female agent (don`t remember the name, was played by Robin from HIMYM) asks Tony stark: When did you become all genius on thermonuclear-astrophysics (Edit: Thanks Anshul Giri ) His reply: Last night. (Sorry guys, had to remove the hottie`s pics. Somehow, it violates discussphysics policy) This is what we are. Give us a topic and an 8 hour sun-deprived room with an internet connection, we will be at the zenith of any knowledge hill. That`s what happens during our exams. Most of us (actually, anybody apart from 1st sem guys) wear t-shirts or sweatshirts with IIT tags for a very specific reason: We don`t have any otherclean cloth. Exception may be during the time of fests, when organizers need to wear the fest logo for branding purposes. We are not introverts. Ok, may be on some definitions, we are, but we have a very wide circle of friends. Almost anybody from same branch or batch is a bro (unless politics separates us) and we can go to horizons and beyond to defend them. We hardly interact with female homo sapiens on daily basis. Actually, anybody who doesn`t have a female friend in the campus, rarely interacts with females. This is a big issue and I can`t press this enough. I`ll give you some numbers. In my batch of 2012, IIT Guwahati has approx 419 students. Out of them, about 401 were males. Now, each and every 401 male has entered IIT with a college dream of having a bike, a busty girlfriend and a party or road trip every weekend. Now you may not understand how important this is. That teenager, gave EVERYTHING for 2 (or 3) years, so that he can achieve this dream. And when he enters the college, each and every dream is shattered. Most of the colleges don`t allow bike. There is a very rare chance of getting in a relationship with a girl inside campus. Any other girl is at least 20 km away. So yeah, a large fraction of us does start drooling when they see a hot girl in a skirt. But we are decent enough to not tease or molest her. We are taught about respecting females in a silent way. We have dreams. And we`ve learnt a very hard truth about it. We have to step out of our comfort zone to achieve it. And we aren`t afraid to do so. We can make any zone our comfort zone in a given amount of time. We are not that proud of the tag. Although we are happy about it. We feel a bit embarrassed (and a part of us dies) whenever we have to use our tag to get some work done. Exception to this is getting IIT related discounts at various restaurants. We have fun and we like to break rules. But we make sure to cover our tracks. We are poor. We really wait for 12 (midnight) to strike and then take a stroll to the canteen area to molest a friend who was born on this lucky day. We hate mess food. Its monotonous, its tasteless, its ....... Basically, its an 8-bit contra in the time of Nintendo. I`m not saying its bad. But it surely can use an upgrade. Actually, more like a dozen upgrades. We don`t dream in matrix style animations. We have simple dreams. Big dreams. We are very ambitious. Any of the IITian you met will be very down to earth. Its not just politeness or courtesy, its because he doesn`t consider himself a bigshot until and unless he has achieved something on his terms. And he has learnt to keep his standards very high. We don`t aim for stars so that even if we fail, we land on moon. We aim for the star and don`t rest until we fucking achieve it. Coming second is not an option. We are addicted to internet. And everything in it. EVERYTHING. We don`t like to study. As I mentioned earlier, we are not geeks. Even I had a hard time making my girlfriend understand that I`m not a geek. I`m just a normal human who has an interest in very particular topics, like robotics and astronomy. We are romantic as hell. Well, not many IITian guys can`t claim to be somebody with 6-pack abs or handsome as .... (any female, kindly suggest a name of a famous male celebrity known for his looks), but we know very certain things. And in these certain things, noone can exceed us. For example, we know the difference between cheesy and sweet. We know when to listen and when to speak up. We know when to kiss and when to feel you up. And we are pretty good at it (speaking from the general experience of singular experimental set). We are very diplomatic and playing politics with us can be the last thing you do. Well, Arvind Kejriwal is an example. If you want any further examples, take a look at the gymkhana elections in any IIT. It is much more complicated than DU elections and has a completely different level. We respect scholars and people who have achieved. Frankly, if you are an ace in your field, we will bow to you. No questions asked. We adore Nobel laureates and many of us dream of working with them. We adore any person who speaks point to point. Even though we are one of the best diplomatic assholes in this country, we don`t like when someone tries to take us for a ride. Some of us like to write. Some of us like to dance. Some of us like to sing. Some of us like to play. But all of us like to sleep. Some of us are homosexuals, and although we may crank jokes on homosexuals every now and then, but we don`t disrespect homosexuals when they come out of the closet and trust us. We respect them just as we respect anyone else. We value our friends a lot. We have a very large friend`s circle, but we have a very tightly knit circle of people on whom we can depend with our life. We don`t like to do MBA and very few of us actually want to do M.Tech or M.S. But as of today`s market, MBA seems necessary for survival of an IITian, we do it. And just because of point#1, we clear it. In fact, we are sorry for other non-IIT engineers who have to face some kind of hate-eye during IIM normalization process. Some of us are exceptional leaders. There is a very simple reason for this. During our college time, anybody who lead a team or a club during his fourth year had went through each and every level. From a petty volunteer worker to the team captain, they travel through each level and respect each level religiously. By the time they are at the top, they know the system inside out. We are not hard working. We don`t believe in sitting on a chair and working for 8 hours. Most of us are able to find shortcuts to do our work. And not just shortcuts, efficient short cuts. We know how to cut down 8 hour work into 2 hour effort. Also, we know the other way round. We can blow up any 2 hour work so much that you will be amazed when we finish it after 8 hour deadline. We are lazy. I can`t describe it. In fact, I didn`t even want to type this much. Will post more depending on your response. Update: Added more points after your response. We are easily sidetracked. Its probably because of us thinking too fast. Its almost like YouTube suggested videos bar. You start with a video about history of calculators and three hours later, you end up watching a video of how to learn klingon. But instead of three hours, in our mind it takes less than a couple of minutes. Most of us are very humble and down to earth. And there is a very good reason for it. You may see an IITian once in a while at some conference or workshop or some chacha-ji ki shaadi (or other family functions) but we see them everyday. And everyone we see is smarter than us in at least one field. Hence, it doesn`t make a point to obsess or make fuss about a tag that we achieved a long time back. We seriously don`t think very high of ourselves (I`ve mentioned this in an earlier point, but due to a comment, I needed to clarify this.) We respect out seniors and alumni who have cleared JEE before 2006. This is simply because we know what was the level of the entrance exam before that. And if someone has cleared that, they are true scholars, at least in the fields of mathematics, physics and chemistry. In simple words, we respect them because they have achieved something greater than us. By extension, we don`t respect the IITians who have joined IITs through the easier patterns of examinations. Let me clarify. We don`t boast about our IIT-tag, but we are really proud of it. And we don`t want anyone to lower the standards of JEE simply because it will allow sub-par level students to enter IITs. We really want to maintain our standards of intellects. Its one of the most important thing in our culture. Also, most of us keep a moratorium on the issue of reservation. In our culture, we rarely judge people by any one of their activities. We use integral calculus to judge a person`s personality. {Integration of all the positive and negative things the person has said to you divided by the time you`ve known each other}. Its something like we treat everyone based on how they`ve treated us throughout the relationship. This extends to girls too, unfailingly. Most of us trust and follow bro-code. For us, vacation doesn`t mean a trip to Mauritius. It means a lonely road, a couple of bikes and that closely knit group of friends I mentioned earlier. Added tea/coffee/cigarettes is a bonus and a part of the circle in many cases. We are gadget junkies. But not because they are flashy. Simply because they make life a bit easier. This point comes after an almost debate on a comment. We are not interested in being cool or trendy. Although, we do like and brim with pride when anyone appreciates us or compliments us. But the fact is, our actions aren`t governed by what people think of us. Almost everything we do, we do it because we either like doing it or it stands in between us and something we want to do. Be it anything. Anything good like like studying, researching, innovating, creating something or anything which is frowned upon like smoking, drinking, bunking classes or other stuff. We have been labelled as smart, clever, misogynist, chauvinist, proud, boastful and what not. But we hardly pay any attention to these stereotypes until necessary. The reason is simple: We are much more engaged in our own social circle that we don`t think of this points of any importance. We have our own priority list of stuff that we need to take care of, and impressing people is not one of them. However, there are certain people, like our family, close friends, girlfriends, some other personality whom we admire and think of as role model. We can go to ANY limits to impress them. More often that not, this results in us achieving something. We don`t consider new IITs equal to the older IITs. In our world, they are very subpar. In fact, in my own opinion, I don`t consider my own alma mater, IIT Guwahati, anywhere close to older IITs like IIT Kanpur. Nevertheless, I will stand by defending my college, whenever the time comes. Inside the IIT circle, your AIR, your CGPA hardly defines you. What you have achieved is a much bigger part of you. We respect anyone who has published a research paper or created something and has a 5 point CPI much more than anybody who has done nothing but achieved a 9 pointer. we love to interact with people who have thought process similar to us. In simpler terms, if your mental frequency matches mine, I will immediately start considering you as my friend.