IIT Guwahati vs Other IITs: The Good and the Bad

IIT Guwahati is now a part of the elite group of the ‘old IITs’ that are believed to be more reputed. It enjoys all the government support in terms of funds and facilities, as well as attracts many top ranking students in JEE Advanced exam. Here is how it compares with its peers from the point of a current IIT-G student Rajat Khanduja:

‘Thumbs Up’ points

• Student diversity: IIT-Guwahati campus offers you a great variety of students to interact with. The campus community is open to ideas and sharing.
• Beautiful Campus: Natural beauty of IIT-G campus is exceptional. As you walk through the beautiful woods and rolling mountains, you cannot remain depressed for long.
• Single Room facility: Unlike other IIT hostels, IIT-Guwahati offers you a single room facility. With time, I have learnt to value it.
• Location of Campus: It has both positive and negative connotations but I think that being away from the city means that we have lesser distractions and more peace.
• Gender Ration in Campus: Unlike other IITs that are girls-starved, IIT Guwahati has a better male: female student ratio.
• Design Department: IIT-G as an excellent design department that deals with making front-end of products more visually appealing and user friendly. The department adds professional touch to the poster designs produced at IIT Guwahati and the impact of its work reflects in students’ interest. The Design attracts more female students than any other department.

‘Thumbs Down’ points

• Location of Campus: Many good students, potential faculty and companies skip over IIT-G just because it is situated in the Northeast India which has a history of Naxalism. Lack of local industry and good candidates for faculty positions make things difficult for IIT-G students and administration.
• Single Rooms in IIT hostels: While having a room of your own is a luxury in any student hostel, many first-year students feel lonely because of it. In a shared room, you get to mix with students from Day 1 and hence, make friends quickly too.
• Weak Alumni Base: Till now, IIT Guwahati did not enjoy the strong alumni base that students at older IITs have. But slowly alumni are coming together and more and more are willing to come back to their alma mater to share their experiences and lessons they have learnt from life with present students in the campus.
• Poor Mess food: There is a lot of improvement needed in mess food. Thankfully, the administration and students have joined hands to make the necessary changes and make it better.