I still remember my first week in Hall. Someone casually asked me in the wing:
"Kitne courses le raha hai?"
And before I could even answer honestly, my brain was already calculating what sounded "respectable." Because here, even course loads had social value.
That's the thing about IITK. No one needs to tell you directly that you should join a club, pull an all-nighter, or sign up for a POR. You see it around you — the wingie rushing to practice at 6 AM, the friend working on two start-ups, the batchmate preparing for GSoC while topping quizzes. And slowly, you begin to wonder:
"Am I doing enough? Or am I already behind?"
At first, it doesn't feel like pressure. It feels like the rhythm of campus life — Galaxy rehearsals, Antaragni prep, summer intern hype. But somewhere between the mess chai and the wing WhatsApp groups, comparison creeps in. You start saying yes to things you don't even enjoy, just because everyone else seems to be doing them.
Peer pressure at IITK isn't always about being forced. It's quieter than that. It's the urge to not miss out. It's the fear of being the only one in your wing who isn't hustling. It's laughing along when your heart isn't in it, staying up because "sab jag rahe hain," or signing up for something just to have an answer when people ask, "Aur kya kar raha hai?"
And the truth? Almost everyone has felt this. Even the ones who look "sorted."
What changed for me
For a long time, I thought falling behind was my fault — that maybe I wasn't trying hard enough, that maybe I didn't belong here after all. It took me a while to realize that pressure doesn't always mean you're weak. Sometimes, it just means you've been trying to carry too much for too long.
It's strange — the more I tried to prove myself, the more I lost track of what I actually wanted. And then one day, during yet another all-nighter that ended with zero progress, I just sat there and asked myself:
"If I stopped trying to catch up, what would I actually want to do right now?"
That question didn't fix everything, but it made me pause. It made me notice how much of my energy went into performing okayness instead of feeling okay.
Relearning What Matters
I think the turning point wasn't when I started doing more — it was when I started seeing differently.
I began noticing how we're all, in our own ways, trying to find our footing here. The senior who looks confident probably had a breakdown the night before a deadline. The friend who seems to "do it all" might be terrified of disappointing people. The class topper might be lonelier than you think.
And once you really see that — that everyone's figuring it out, one awkward step at a time — something inside you loosens. You stop treating college as a race and start treating it as a place to learn, not just subjects, but yourself.
It doesn't happen in a day. Some days, I still spiral into comparison. But now, I try to talk to people instead of quietly competing with them. I've realized that most people aren't as intimidating once you stop comparing your worst moments to their best ones.
And honestly, the campus feels different when you start seeing it that way — a little kinder, a little more human.
The Bigger Picture
Sometimes I think about how we all ended up here — thousands of us, from different cities, different stories, all trying to build something meaningful. And in that chaos, it's so easy to forget that this is already extraordinary — to have made it here, to have people around you who get it, to have space to try and fail and still be okay.
Maybe the real lesson of IITK isn't about how much we can do, but how deeply we can live while doing it.
Peer pressure will always exist — it's woven into the air of a place full of ambitious minds. But it starts losing power when you learn to look around and think:
"Hey, maybe we're all just doing our best."
And that thought, that quiet acceptance, is sometimes all it takes to breathe a little easier.