Once I got comfortable with the courses and the campus, I expected life at IISc to be calm and wholly academic – and it was that, but also so much more. As I write to you now from a wholly different city, I wonder how so much could have happened in the span of 18 months, and how you can change this much as a person while being the same in many ways that count....
Not a lot of people know this, but when I decided to write GATE, I did it with mostly just IISc in mind. However, I tried to keep my expectations very realistic (read: low), to the extent that I didn’t even look up pictures of the campus until results came out, wanting to not have an image to go along with my disappointment if things were to go south. I spent five months telling myself to be ready to embrace the plan Bs and Cs instead, while doing whatever I could to ensure I wouldn’t have to resort to them....