Hostel Life at IITGN

On 20th July, 2024, I came to IIT Gandhinagar for the first time as a fresher, and started a new page of my life. It was the first time that I truly started living independently. This feeling was in equal parts exciting, and daunting. I had always lived with my parents, so I was slightly uneasy leaving behind the comfortable world that I had known, and venture into a place which was completely different, bound to be challenging. I did not expect to what degree, however.

Living at IITGN has been completely different to what I had initially thought. For one, I am sharing a room with 4 roommates. This room is cramped enough to begin with, and was built to house three people. So, cramming another bed, another wardrobe, a table and a chair, and a whole another person gives very little room to work with. Fortunately, I get along pretty well with my roommates, even though some of them are pretty introverted and don't talk much.

In the first few days, there were a few issues with using the bathrooms. My IIT is one of the only ones to have compulsory PE in the morning (who's idea was that?). So in the first few weeks, when the freshers weren't accustomed to the ways of the college, there were lines outside the shower after PE, so it took quite a while to get ready for the morning. Now, it's a miracle if half the hostel is up before 2PM if there are no morning classes.

My parents did visit me after FP was over, and I had almost entirely acclimated into the environment by then. But, the taxing nature of the life here at IITGN has only been linearly increasing. Currently, I don't even get enough time to go out and enjoy a game of Tennis, no matter how much I want to, because of eternal submissions and projects which drain the joy out of life. Honestly, the only thing that has got us going right now, is getting to go back home during December. Oh, and even that is forced on us by administration, because apparently they can do whatever they want and we just have to deal with it. I mean seriously, forcibly removing us from our rooms because some guests have to come and stay and you don't have enough space to house them? That's ridiculous.