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At 10:30 pm, when much of the IIT campus is beginning to wind down, Utkarsh Ranjan's hostel common room is coming alive.
Games begin. Conversations pick up. After a day of classes, projects, clubs and laboratories, students finally find time to sit together. Somewhere else on campus, work continues in laboratories, while others return to their rooms to study.
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For this Patna boy - Utkarsh Ranjan, a fifth-semester Bioengineering student at IIT Mandi, this is the IIT experience that exists beyond JEE ranks, lectures and placement statistics.
It is the evening jams at the Fountain Area, hurried meals before laboratories, long runs after class, hostel chaos, midnight games and the small routines that gradually turn a campus into home.
His simplest description of IIT life is also his biggest reality check: โLife isn't sorted after coming to IIT.โ
His day starts around 7โ7:15 am with stretching and 500โ600 ml of water. After a heavy breakfast, he heads to his 8 am classes, often rushing between buildings during breaks.
Lunch comes around 1 pm, followed by study or project work, a short break and about an hour of running or another physical activity. Club activities take up 7โ8 pm. Dinner follows, then more study.
By 10:30 pm, the common room becomes the centre of hostel life. Later, Utkarsh reads, draws and finally goes to bed around 12:30 am.
During examinations, the Central Library becomes his preferred study space. Its discussion rooms work for group discussions, while his hostel room is where he prefers to study alone.
For Utkarsh, some of the most memorable places on campus are not necessarily the ones an outsider would notice first.
โThe Fountain Area is especially nice in the evening,โ he says. โIt feels calm, and there are often jamming sessions.โ
The place changes after dark. Village Square is his go-to spot when he wants company. Its central location and views of important campus infrastructure make it an easy meeting point.
Then there is the Cuckoo Canteen, tucked a little inside the campus.
โFor chai, I would choose the Cuckoo wali aunty,โ he says, referring to the familiar name students use for the tea seller.
His favourite hidden corner is a downhill spot near the Civil Lab around Nescafe. For sunrise, he prefers the hill behind the A9 building.
The Central Library is the quietest place he knows. A19, where the club rooms are located, can be the loudest.
For a date, he would pick Himalayan Cafe. For a budget meal, it is aloo parathas at Tragopan.
After a difficult exam, however, he has no designated place to cry.
โI would rather be with trusted friends,โ he says. โThey would not make fun of me.โ
Personally, he does not dwell on things that have already happened.
โWhat's done is done. I can't control it further,โ he says.
Utkarsh's Bioengineering experience moves between wet labs, dry labs and projects that attempt to solve practical problems.
โWet labs involve actual bioscience, drug-making and testing,โ he says.
Students work in groups, wear lab coats and learn to interpret experimental results. Dry labs can involve coding assignments or surprise tests. Students then present their solutions to teaching assistants, who question them about their approach and understanding.
The bioreactor in the biomanufacturing lab is the piece of equipment that has stayed with Utkarsh. About the size of a full-grown person, the huge vessel seems almost unreal when it powers up, with its cycles beginning to run like a machine from a science-fiction film.
Then comes the part that fascinates him most. Cycle after cycle, materials that begin as raw inputs are processed and transformed into something useful. Watching that change happen inside the vessel can feel almost like witnessing a trick of science.
โIt feels magical when you see raw things turn into something useful,โ Utkarsh says.
But some of his most interesting experiences have come from courses that take learning outside conventional classrooms.
โDesign Practicum surprised me because you actually build solutions for existing problems,โ he says.
Under the supervision of industry experts and professionals, his team built Flexogear, a lightweight and affordable wrist exosuit designed to make precise physiotherapy and rehabilitation more accessible and scalable.
The idea is to allow patients to continue their recovery at home and at their own pace.
Flexogear won second prize in the Healtech category at the Vishwakarma Awards and overall second prize at the Inter IIT UG Innovation Meet.
Utkarsh is now further developing AI-assisted modes for an updated Flexogear module to make the device more precise and individualised.
Another project is a โdemystifierโ that can read complex documents, agreements and terms and conditions. It can detect fake speeches in real time, identify morphed photographs and flag misleading information while presenting the truth.
Reverse Engineering is another course he remembers for its hands-on approach.
โYou open devices, understand how they work and then rebuild them,โ he says.
The most expensive machine he remembers is a high-grade microscope in the SBB Lab at the South Campus, which he says costs multiple crores. He does not recall a particular campus item that the public is prohibited from touching and prefers not to speculate.
Ask Utkarsh to describe his hostel floor and the answer is immediate: โChaos.โ
That chaos has its own routine.
The cupboard has the usual combination of clothes and snacks. Borrowing changes with the season too.
โStationery is borrowed frequently,โ he says. โDuring placement and internship season, suits become more in demand.โ
The hostel is busiest between 6 pm and midnight, when most students are free.
Food follows its own rhythm. Special dinners draw the biggest crowds. Lunch becomes particularly busy towards closing time, when students rush in before heading to laboratories.
Paneer bhurji is Utkarsh's favourite mess dish. Kofta, meanwhile, is the controversial one.
โThe mess uses mashed bananas along with potatoes,โ he says. It can also prepare the kofta entirely with mashed bananas for Jain students.
And IIT does not completely shut down after midnight. Students have access to 24x7 vending machines across campus. Tragopan remains another option. Every hostel floor has a microwave, while some also have induction stoves.
Beyond classrooms and laboratories, Utkarsh notices the people who keep campus life moving.
Around Peepal Mess, he has noticed a family of four โ a mother and father who work for the mess and their two children. The older boy is a little over eight and the younger girl is around four.
They live around the mess. Students interact with them, and some even bring them toys and clothes.
โIt is nice to see students interacting with them,โ Utkarsh says. โSome even bring them toys and clothes.โ
For him, the family is a reminder that an IIT campus is much larger than its student population.
โEveryone contributes to keeping the campus running,โ he says, pointing to directors, deans, wardens and in-charges, as well as housekeeping workers, mess staff and other daily-wage and chore workers.
The campus also has traditions that students carry forward. Induction programmes help connect existing students with the incoming batch. Shree Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated in large numbers, while Xpecto is among the student-led technical festivals.
There is no formal unofficial fresher tradition that Utkarsh recalls. But there is a familiar change in language: juniors generally use โbhaiyaโ or โdidiโ instead of sir or madam.
Utkarsh has completed an internship as an equity analyst at DreamLadder Capital. But his IIT journey is larger than what can fit on his resume. At IIT, Utkarsh has moved between academics, innovation, clubs, physical activity and friendships while still figuring out what comes next.
That is why his biggest misconception about IIT is the idea that reaching the institute automatically makes life sorted.
โLife is not sorted,โ he says.
The line runs through his everyday campus experience โ unfinished projects, difficult courses, late-night laboratory work, competitions, friendships and decisions about what comes next.
When graduation arrives, it is the whole rhythm of college life that he expects to miss. One memory stands out: his friend's room in B9 hostel, especially the first-floor study room where they gathered, studied and played together.
For a student who came to IIT to study Bioengineering, build technology and explore new ideas, perhaps the most lasting lesson is not about having everything figured out. It is about learning how to keep figuring things out.
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