For most first year students in an IIT, the thrill of a new beginning is overwhelming. From exploring a new city to campus life, hostels and lectures, there is so much more that a first year student looks forward to. But somewhere in all the excitement, there is this little uncertainty about how the students would deal with their seniors in college. All those infamous stories of ragging and bullying have done enough rounds to give these guys jitters. But seniors at IIT-Roorkee had something atypical in store for the first years.

The seniors got together and conducted this quirky quiz competition- the ‘Fressure Cooker’- just for the first years in IIT- Roorkee. “The institute conducts an orientation programme, but as seniors we thought the best way to make the first-years feel at home would be to conduct something more informal,” said Utkarsh Bajpai, a student organiser of the quiz. This quiz has been conducted for the last 6 years. 

It was a general knowledge based quiz, on topics like sports, films, current affairs; and the team who performed well in this quiz got ‘free food’ as a token of achievement from the seniors. “The idea was to get the students in their freshman year acquainted with each other and the rest.” added Utkarsh. 

“It was a great event, and more than winning we had a lot of fun, and the questions were also not very difficult. It also helped me to warm up to the seniors and fellow batch mates.” said Sanjil Jain, a first year student at IIT Roorkee. “The absence of teachers made the atmosphere very casual and superb.” said Debjit Tripathy, who along with Gourav Nayak won the quiz. 

With a lot of first years fearing ragging and bullying, this sort of fun activity is a great way to strike up a conversation with strangers. For all you know you might end up being best friends in the next four years or more that you spend.