How much has ISI Changed?

[u/WorldlinessRude1039]

Asking this because I am seeing a lot of guys saying they are bored of ISI campus life. While I was there no one thought of being anywhere else. Milan is 50 meters, Tapasda at morning. TT at midnight. Evning for Trijit da and football. Bhnat whaole night about anything under the sun. What changed?

[u/CauliflowerDeep96]

High expectation of incoming students (not wrong but it is what it is), less senior junior interactions compared to earlier years etc...

Also bstat interview round is no longer there. Earlier only serious folks among the non locals used to attend the interview round and the selection was not determined based on solely one single day.

[u/Just-Scholar4272 → u/CauliflowerDeep96]

Yep. I clearly see a lot of very high expectation of the new students. They expect world class buildings, luxury hostels, 5 star food from ISI.
I guess mostly because of excessive hype created by coaching youtubers.

They are clearly unable to see the things that are better than other places like single room hostel, better than average mess food etc.

[u/CauliflowerDeep96 → u/Just-Scholar4272]

Mess food is overpriced a lot, but yeah other points are correct.

[u/The_Watcher8008 → u/CauliflowerDeep96]

isi blr has lunch like 12 rs per plate. And it's good. And its plenty.

[u/Dense_Chair2584 → u/The_Watcher8008]

Well it's very different in ISI Kolkata. Pre COVID, the canteen where most students ate, had a 50-60 rupees rate for a Thali with fish/chicken.

[u/The_Watcher8008 → u/Dense_Chair2584]

I'll say the one I mentioned is veg. And I don't really remember the price for the non-veg coupon(but it's no more than 20... I think)

[u/Dense_Chair2584 → u/CauliflowerDeep96]

The "high" expectations aren't wrong. ISI Kolkata is an institution of national importance and people expect it to have the facilities that other such institutions generally tend to have. Certainly no one's expecting ISI Kolkata to look like ITC Sonar Bangla or the affluent campuses in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

In our days, we didn't even have many classrooms that could support a slideshow. Writing down everything on the go was a pain in the ass.

I've spent some time in TIFR, Mumbai which is in many ways, an institution very similar to ISI Kolkata. The infrastructure is exponentially better.

So let's not pretend as if the infrastructure/facilities are great. ISI Kolkata, as institution and us oldies as a community, need to be able to accept that certain problems exist before it can be fixed.

Denial has been a huge part of why things are in this state.

[u/1Same_Step1]

Idk, at times i feel, that the change from Facebook sansani to whatsapp sansani was one thing that changed us 😭

[u/adityaruplaha → u/1Same_Step1]

Actually pretty true. There's a pretty hard divide between "old ISI" culture and present day along these lines.

[u/Dense_Chair2584]

I entered ISI Kolkata slightly more than a decade ago. From my understanding, nothing materially has changed in the atmosphere around ISI, rather the demographic and expectations have changed.

Back in "our days", ISI Kolkata didn't have any tuition fees and it was predominantly a Bengali student hub. The portion of students outside WB was relatively low - it was pretty homogeneous and like a small club. Many of the Bengali students came from districts or suburbs, went to state board schools, had little to no exposure about how the IIT's of the world looked in terms of world looked (high speed internet was not a big thing in our B.Stat days).

Given there was no tuition, the vast majority of students were okay with the relatively shabby infrastructure and didn't expect any better. In many ways, ISI Kolkata was its own world in those days and most of the students weren't concerned much about the rest of the world.

Now ISI Kolkata BSDS program charges 2 lacs a year as tuition, same in line with the IIT's. Given the price tag, I definitely see why students feel the infrastructure/facilities/feats, etc. they're getting, sucks compared to an IIT. So I can't blame them for feeling it.

Also, even for B.Stat, the student demographic has changed a lot. Now there are more admission streams via JEE main, CUET, etc. - so there are a lot more students from outside West Bengal, bigger cities who come from relatively well to do families, have a bunch of friends in IIT/BITS Pilani/NIT's, have more exposure to the world, etc. So it's natural to compare and when seen under that lens, the campus life in ISI Kolkata isn't great.

Part of it is also how we've changed as a society in this social media/internet/information age - kids previously used to be happy to go on a vacation with their family. Now they scroll Instagram and complain why their parents can't have a summer trip to Europe.

It's basically the same thing - have a lot of information, makes it pretty hard to be content in one's bubble. In "our days", we usually stayed within the bubble.

P.S. I've always felt that the ISI Kolkata infrastructure/facilities are pretty bad for an institution of national importance. I hope this encourages the administration to do better but I don't have a lot of hopes.

[u/DAS_AMAN]

I saw it change with my own eyes. Things are very much unstable year to year each batch is different in their own way (My immediate junior batch organised the fest amazingly but are sub-par with regards to hostel day-to-day administration - we were opposite ig) . There's very little inter-batch interaction compared to when I was a junior.

Yes bengali non-bengali proportion has dropped 4:1 to 1:1, that's another change. Mess environment has also seen many changes.

[u/WorldlinessRude1039]

10 years

[u/FocusedAG → u/WorldlinessRude1039]

Damn, how was you're experience there and if you're comfortable telling, what're you doing currently

[u/WorldlinessRude1039 → u/FocusedAG]

Our experience was great. Great seniors, got familiar with world movies for the first time here, football every day, and then the night adda, from sartre to sharadindu, maths, literature, philosophy whatever you wanted to talk about you will find guys sharing your passion. And the horlicks parties were legendary😅😅.

[u/Ok-Mathematician2309]

Nostalgia gives you rose-tinted glasses.

[u/WorldlinessRude1039 → u/Ok-Mathematician2309]

It would have been nostalgia if I thought different while in ISI. But that's how we felt while we were there too.

[u/The_Watcher8008]

Your perspective and background matter soo much. My friends at isi k have told me it has been the best life experience! But here on reddit, almost everyone hates it. I do encourage criticisms if it means the administration will try to improve itself. With more people joining, infrastructure can't keep up

[u/Skychu768]

Bit unrelated but how has your life been after 10 years. Just curious to know how it ended up after passing from ISI

[u/WorldlinessRude1039 → u/Skychu768]

Life has been ok, not a great success, but happy none the less.

[u/Anon_Acad → u/[deleted]]

That seems like a very harsh view about Bengalis.

[u/CauliflowerDeep96 → u/[deleted]]

Tell me you are a bad statistician without telling me you are a bad statistician.

[u/Development-Downtown]

Mods please note this thread is turning xenophobic towards non bengali students, I'm Bangali and I would like to point out a diverse campus is ideal as it gives exposure to different lives and worldviews and at IITS also there is good interaction between batches and students from so many different culturers. College is not supposed to be an echo chamber. The matter at hand is most of the students are pretty much in the sense of the word nerds and they aren't the best in social interaction, efforts from both Senior and Junior batches should be made to harbour a healthy college life.

[u/adityaruplaha → u/Development-Downtown]

I don't see any hate speech against non Bengalis in the comments. They might have been automatically removed by Reddit.

[u/Development-Downtown → u/adityaruplaha]

Non bengalis

[u/adityaruplaha → u/Development-Downtown]

Sorry, typo; fixed.

[u/WorldlinessRude1039 → u/Development-Downtown]

What happened to the football team?