The Convocation 2013 invited the recently graduated IIT R junta to relive some of the golden moments of their lives in their Alma mater. Entrepreneurship Development Cell, IIT Roorkee (EDC) decided to bridge the existing gap between the freshers and the alumni by organizing an interactive session between the two. The session was aimed at eliminating all the existing doubts in the minds of the young first yearites regarding their lives at IIT R. The open session was also attended by the 2nd and 3rd year students who intended to seek guidance for their career.

The session invited many talented (or the so called “phodu” in college lexicon) ex-students to share their IITR experiences and enlighten the present students about their current endeavors. The guest speakers were a very gifted bunch of individuals with the likes of: Pranav Agrawal, Piyush Makhija, Akshit Khurana, Shashank Shekhar, Shreyansh Thakur, Yash Rane, Razak Gupta, Digendra Singh Rathore and Yadwinder Paul Singh . Each of the distinctive personalities came up with their own notions on their life at campus. However the one thing that was common to all was: Live your life to the fullest.

Razak Gupta, an Int. MSc Maths pass-out and currently pursuing degree of MBA at IIM Calcutta, emphasized on the use of ‘interstitial time’ at the campus. He defined it as the time that we get between various activities of the day and gets wasted otherwise. He established the importance of contacts on the campus and off-the campus that we make on our stay here.

Akshit Khurana, a CSE pass-out, currently working for SlideShare, came out very differently on the idea of having fun in campus. His message to the students was to pursue their interests and never waiver from taking risks. He ended on a lighter note advising, “Don’t give advice unless are asked for one.”

Shreyansh Thakur, currently employed in Royal Bank of Scotland, also asked the students to go where their intuition guides them. He defined entrepreneurship as his passion and his stay on campus as a very joyful journey. He was one of the co-founders of Audegn which later became one of the most successful student start-up.

Yash Rane, ASME India, stated a fact quite clearly: The way you spend your free time here at the campus will determine who you turn out to be. He advised the students, especially the first years, to try everything, every group on the campus and to be confident . “Get over your fears- face them, this is what I wrote on my wall upon entering IIT”, he remarked.

Digendra Singh Rathore, a Mechanical Engineering graduate and an entrepreneur, came up with his whole life story. In the most friendly way, he explained how he ended up being an entrepreneur with his batch-mate Yadwinder Paul Singh. His life story revolved around the most basic things that govern the dynamics of a student’s life. His raw nature and a typical Indian style of storytelling was admired by the crowd in general. He also talked about his start-up and how he expects to grow from it. He explained the importance of teamwork and mentioned that all of his work on campus and that of his start-up bore results only because of an effective team.

The session came to the final round of questions from the crowd, after Piyush Makhija, an ECE graduate and a PPO from Samsung and Pranav Agrawal (employed in Schlumberger) gave a brief introduction of their lives at IITR.

“CAT or GMAT?”, “Time management on campus ?”, “How to decide what career path to choose ?”, “Which group to join?” and many such queries were handled very satisfactorily by the aforementioned individuals.

The crowd laughed and the people cheered as the session finally approached to an end. Each of the invited pass-outs was presented with a small memento on behalf of EDC. Anshul Chauhan (B.Arch. 2nd year) hosted the event and delivered the vote of thanks to them.

The event witnessed a very healthy turn-out from the students of IIT R.