Does not cracking the IITJEE make me smaller than those who actually did it?

Does not cracking the IITJEE make me smaller than those who actually did it?

There are a lot of occasions in life where you can feel absolutely worthless.

1. You cracked JEE and joined the best IIT but got 5–6 CGPA.
2. You managed 9+ CGPA but didn’t get a high paying job.
3. You got a high paying job but the work is absolutely boring.
4. You got challenging work but the manager is a tyrant.
5. You got a great manager but the company is laying off.
6. You escaped the layoff but you are unable to find a partner.
7. You found a partner but they can’t stop comparing you with their ex.
8. You found a partner without ex but they don’t love you for what you are.
9. You found a loving partner but have a hard time conceiving.
10. You have a child but they are not healthy.
11. You have a healthy child but they won’t listen to you.
12. You have a lovely, obedient child but you get laid off.
13. You escaped layoff again but your child couldn’t crack JEE.

Life is a giant cycle of ups and downs. The lows teach you humility. The highs teach you thankfulness.

Can my future be brighter than those IITians?

My mother isn’t very educated. She has been a house wife throughout. She managed the limited household budget very well. She nurtured and took care of her children to the best of her abilities. She monitored them during their teenage. As a result, she produced 3 (three) IITians. I think she is more successful today than all 3 of us IITians put together.

Be THAT parent if you want to beat IITians. You will literally become the “mother/father of IITians” :-)

For now, love, respect and obey your parents who have been there for you all along. Their prayers and blessings can take you far far higher than what you and I can imagine.

-Imtiaz Mohammad

Changing the World

Lock in Brain

IIT takes only very intelligent People ?

 This is a myth.

The IIT JEE (the exam to get into an IIT) tests for 4 things broadly, and in order of importance they are:

1. Hard Work
2. Dealing with Stress and Rigour
3. Numeric Aptitude
4. Scientific Aptitude

1 and 2 are more emotional parameters (or emotional intelligence) and do not indicate IQ, which is the widely assumed definition of intelligence (I will use intelligence to refer to IQ henceforth). 3 and 4 only contribute to IQ.

As a result, you cannot clear the JEE without the first two. You can clear the JEE with an average amount of the last two - while having 3 and 4 only are not enough to clear the JEE. Therefore you have a combination of something that is not intelligence and something that is partially intelligence to get into IIT.

Due to the hype of the JEE and the lopsided focus on just these 4 things, parents and students begin to believe that the JEE is an end all and will assure lifelong success. There are multiple other parameters like people skills, communication, leadership etc. that are needed to succeed and the JEE just tests a few. This usually results in unfair self expectation and an unreasonable assessment of self.

Overall, someone who has cleared the JEE is usually very hard working, composed and reasonably intelligent.

-Aviral Bhatnagar

Clearing JEE is the one and only path to success ?

Average Student ?

JEE is a journey, and a very challenging one at that

 JEE is a journey, and a very challenging one at that. It requires sacrifices, and it really strengthens the candidates along the way. It has the ability to bring out the best in people.

Some sacrifices made by me during the JEE preparation:

• No outings or parties with friends: I had minimized my outings to almost non-existent during the JEE preparation phase. As a result, I could not attend the birthday parties of my friends or go for movie outings with them.
• Tussle with school: My attendance started dropping in school, because I spent most of my time at home studying for JEE. This led to quite a lot of tussle and arguments with my class teacher, who felt that Class XII board exam was the only determining factor in one’s career.
• No computer games: I used to play a lot of computer games before I started preparing for JEE. Age of Empires used to be my favourite. Not a day would go by without me playing Age of Empires. I stopped that during JEE preparation, and I soon lost interest in computer games. I haven’t played any computer game since then.
• Control over sleep: I used to study till late night and then wake up early in the morning to study again. My dad used to fill a full jug with cold coffee and keep it by my side at night, so that I could concentrate.

The JEE preparation phase was a defining period in my life, and led to many positive developments:

• I gained an excellent friend circle: While I could not go out with my school friends, I developed a new friend circle in my coaching. All of us had similar goals, and we soon became really close.
• I started developing new hobbies: I started playing Badminton everyday for a couple of hours in the evening to keep myself fit. I also read novels whenever I found any free time.
• I started becoming more confident: JEE preparation makes you more confident in life, especially because the JEE syllabus is tougher than the school syllabus by a huge margin. You start looking even at real-life problems from a different angle, and develop a structured thought process.

I have very fond memories from my JEE days. Those two years of JEE preparation have taught me a lot.

-Rohan Jain

How to Stop Being Average/Mediocre ?

 The answer to this is known by all, provided you have the courage to ask your inner self.

I am not the best. But I have myself observed in my inexperienced life that the path to being the best or the ‘different’ or the ‘ground-breaker’ lies in the road of ‘averageness’.

You just need to work hard for it. There is no substitute for it. the moment you start working hard, you are on your road to ‘bestness’. the moment you get satisfied and start living like ‘the other guys’, you lose it all. You become one of the many ‘other guys’.

You don’t need to do anything different, just follow what your job is with cent percent sincerity. And give your maximum. You lose the track towards ‘bestness’ the moment you think of relaxing(relaxing here means leaving the work you are doing for some other activity, and not related to sleep or whatever).

See all the distinguished people in the world. They didn’t do anything special. They led a normal life with full devotion, and ended up being special. When I see people who are awesome at Computers, or whatever, they have just been working hard for years.

I, like almost everyone(again, as I said above, everyone knows the answer to the question asked) have seen many ups and downs in my life. After observing myself and many others, I have come to the above realizations. I am fortunate enough to have seen the best and the worst of me at a young age. I have seen how sincerity towards a job can do wonders, even if others have a better affinity towards the job than you, and I have also seen how you can get left behind if you lose the zeal.

I am yet to discover what the ‘best’ is, but I am sure it hasn’t come yet. I am young and inexperienced. But I know somewhere inside that the road to ‘bestness’ passes through towns called determination, hard work, and focus.

 

-Kalpit Veerwal, 360/360 in JEE Mains - AIR 1

Is IITJEE Worth It?

 The biggest misconception that people have about IITs and JEE preparation is that people go to IITs to study and that JEE tests one’s Physics, Chemistry, and Maths abilities.

Hear me out.

To be successful in life, one needs to learn certain qualities:

1. Persistence
2. Hard work
3. Dedication
4. Focus
5. Handling failures
6. Being around smart people
7. Learnability

The list is obviously not exhaustive. These are some qualities that came to the top of my mind. If one is able to develop these qualities, with a high probability, they can become successful in life. The chances of failure will drastically go down, with obviously, some exceptions.

IITs and the JEE preparation don’t teach you academics at all. In fact, academics (including Physics, Chemistry, and Maths) are used as a means to teach you the above abilities.

Let’s take an example. When you were young, your father gave you a piggy bank to save money. You saved Rs. 1 or Rs. 2 coins over the month/year and that turned into a sizeable hundred of Rupees worth of saving. Did your father intend to teach you how to save Rs. 100?

No.

He intended to teach you the concept of savings in general so that you become wiser financially. He wanted you to learn the value of hard work, patience, and money, and today, if you’d have followed his advice well, you’d have learned a bunch of other things - investing in mutual funds and stocks, not spending money on unnecessary things, etc.

The same is the case with IITs and JEE preparation. When someone studies Physics, Chemistry, and Maths in Class 11th and 12th, or studies CSE in B. Tech at IIT Bombay, they are not learning SN1/SN2 Reaction or Newton’s law of motion. They are rather learning the important life skills I mentioned above.

I prepared for JEE from 2011 - 2013 and then joined the Computer Science Program at IIT Bombay from 2013 - 2017. Do you think I remember anything about the ideal gas equation, inverse trigonometry, the moment of inertia, or Stoke’s law? I don’t even remember the instruction sets that I learned in the Compilers Course that I studied in the 3rd year of IIT Bombay, forget about remembering Raoult’s law. At best, I remember the names of these concepts, with possibly spelling mistakes.

What I, however, remember, is the fight that I did during the 2 years of JEE preparation to get a top 50 rank. I used the exact same fight to build Cogno AI to a team of 100+ members, leading to the acquisition by Exotel. I used the exact same fight to compete for the internship during my college days. The mindset that I developed during the JEE preparation days and during the IIT Bombay B. Tech time, is helping me to date and I know, it will help me for decades to come.

My hunger to learn, to earn, and to do something big in life helped me crack JEE with a top 50 rank and the same hunger is helping me build my startup. The same hunger will help me do well at Exotel as well.

At IIT Bombay, I met some of the smartest people, including juniors, batchmates, and seniors. I met people who have done phenomenally well in their respective fields. I met people who switched fields and did even better there. I can say with full confidence that much like me, almost none of them will remember the concepts they learned during the JEE preparation. However, all of them would remember the mindset and skills that they acquired, which are helping them succeed in their lives.

To answer your question - Is it really worth the 2 years of preparation?

Yes. A top rank in JEE leading to a top IIT is worth NOT just 2 years but worth 4 years of preparation. The IITs help you with a bunch of stuff:

1. Mindset and skills that I mentioned above.
2. A stellar group of a successful peer network, that can open a lot of doors.
3. A brand name that helps you distinguish yourself in a large group.

Aman Goel,IITB-CSE