The Hometown Bet

The Dilemma of Choice

When the GATE results came out, finding out I had secured a 98.3 percentile in the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DA) paper was a moment of quiet relief. I had put in the hours, but seeing those results actually translate into interview calls from the top 10 IITs and IISc felt a bit surreal. While I had unfortunately missed the deadlines for IIT Madras, Hyderabad, Bombay, and Kharagpur,

Then came the reality check: almost all of these prestigious institutes decided to schedule their interviews during the exact same week.

For many, this is a moment of pure triumph. For a student from a lower middle class family, it was a moment of deep financial anxiety. I didn't have a top 100 rank that might guarantee a spot, and I certainly didn't have the ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 required to travel across the country, booking flights and hotels on short notice to attend every single offline interview.

So, I made a pragmatic, middle class decision. I looked at the map, calculated the costs, and decided to bet on the institute right in my own backyard: IIT Guwahati.

The Waiting Game

This was my first time being invited to an institute of this caliber for an interview. The morning of the interview, I was a cocktail of emotions thrilled, anxious, and deeply nervous. I arrived at the campus early, hoping to catch my breath and get a feel for the environment. Being early paid off; I was 6th on the candidate list.

As I waited, I did what every nervous candidate does: I gathered intel. I watched the first few candidates go in and come out, noting that their interviews wrapped up in about 20 to 25 minutes.

"What did they ask?" I whispered to the ones returning to the waiting area. "They ask what subject you have prepared for," most of them replied, "and then they grill you intensively on that specific topic."

That sounded fair. I had my strong subjects, and I mentally prepared myself to defend my knowledge in those areas. I assumed my experience would follow the exact same script.

Entering the Arena

After about an hour and a half of agonizing waiting, my name was called. I took a deep breath, expecting to walk into a small, quiet office with two or three professors sitting across a desk.

I was completely wrong

I walked into a massive, long hall. To my absolute shock, nearly the entire department faculty was present. There were 10 to 12 professors lined up along one side of the room, with the Head of the Department seated far off in the middle at the very end.

On the opposite side of this intimidating lineup was a single, solitary seat meant for me flanked by a small whiteboard, a marker, and a duster. It felt less like an interview and more like an academic trial.

The Healthcare Curveball

I took my seat, trying to maintain my composure under the gaze of a dozen experts. One of the professors picked up my application and began to read through it.

Now, while I have genuine, hands on experience building predictive machine learning models for disease detection, I made a critical error on my application form: I had been far too vague. Under the "Interests" section, I had simply jotted down 'Application of AI in healthcare,' without detailing any of the specific technical architecture or practical implementations I had actually worked on.

The panel paused. They reacted with visible surprise at the mention of healthcare AI. Suddenly, the script I had prepared for was thrown out the window. Instead of asking me to pick a favorite subject, the professors immediately began looking down the line, scanning the hall for the specific faculty members who specialized in the healthcare domain.

The trap was set, and my interview was about to take a turn I never saw coming.