The best thing about IITs across the country is that they provide on-campus residential accommodation to students, researchers, and faculty. Students reside in hostels that are uniquely named, all throughout their graduation. Each hostel has a common room that provides facilities like indoor games and a television. Students can gather in the common room to chat with each other or to keep themselves updated about the current events by watching television and reading newspapers. In addition, it is imperative that every IIT student opts of National Cadet Corps (NCC0, National Service Scheme (NSS), or National Sports Organization (NSO) during their first year. Surely, this is an exciting and innovative concept. This helps in the overall growth of the student. IITs across the country have huge grounds that witness different sports like football, hockey, cricket, lawn tennis, badminton, and athletics. In addition, each IIT has nice and big swimming pools for water activities.

All the IITs are known for their technical and cultural events. The different technical events in IITs across the country include Cognizance held at IIT Roorkee, Shaastra held at IIT Chennai, Techkriti held at IIT Kanpur, Kshitij held at IIT Kharagpur, Techfest held at IIT Bombay, Tryst held at IIT Delhi, and Techniche held at IIT Guwahati. These technical fests last for around three to four days and are mostly held between February and March. Of the various technical events held across different IITs Shaastra has earned a name for being the first ever event, managed by students, that incorporates a formal Quality Management System. Kshitij, on the other hand, is known for the maximum number of participants and huge sums of money offered as prizes.

IITs all over the country also host famous cultural events. The different cultural events across different IITs include Thomso held at IIT Roorkee, Mood Indigo held at IIT Mumbai, Spring Fest held at IIT Kharagpur, Saarang held at IIT Chennai, Antaragni held at IIT Kanpur, Alcheringa held at IIT Guwahati, and Rendezvous held at IIT Delhi. The annual fest too lasts for three to four days and hosts a whole lot of entertaining and engaging events.

Added to the technical and cultural events, IIT Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur host some really different and unique festivals. Performing Arts Festival is a unique feature of IIT Mumbai and includes activities and events such as drama, music, fine arts, literature, dance, and debates. All these activities are held at the Open Air Theater in IIT Mumbai’s main campus. On the other hand, IIT Kharagpur hosts the unique festival called Illumination. Celebrated on the eve of Diwali, the festival of lights, the highlight of this festival is the competition between different halls for the prize. As a part of the competition, halls plant vertical columns of bamboo (chatais) on which they place earthen lamps (diyas) that eventually form outlines of people or things that depict a place or an event.

IITs also hold inter-IIT sports called the Annual Inter-IIT Sports Meet. The prestigious award is a running shield that is presented to the IIT that wins the meet. The winning IIT is decided, based on the total number of points that each IIT earns for all the events. The events held at the Annual Inter-IIT Sports Meet include athletics, badminton, cricket, football, basketball, volleyball, water polo, hockey, squash, swimming, lawn tennis, weightlifting, and table tennis.

This culture and student life across different IITs is really interesting and amazing to experience. This is surely one of the reasons why individuals want to be a part of the brand name, IIT.

By: Aabha Mehta
Article Source: http://www.articlebiz.com/article/