Careers360 Asian Age India Today
The scholarship chooses you, or you choose a scholarship. At IIT Kharagpur, it works both ways!
At IIT Kharagpur, you can self-select yourself to a scholarship. That’s right. For example, if you are a top JEE Advanced scorer, at the end of the 1st semester, you will be eligible to apply for the ‘Learn-Earn-Return’ scholarship that gives the recipient Rs 10,000 per month for four years, provided, of course, a CGPA of 9 is maintained. In return, the student has to take a pledge to give back to the Institute once they are capable to do so.
IIT Kharagpur, in fact, provides students need-based financial assistance. For all meritorious students whose annual family income is less than Rs 6 lakh, there is tuition waiver or some monthly scholarship, even free mess facility, free hostel and pocket allowance for some of the underprivileged. But financial aid is not denied even to those who come from upper middle class families. The Tower Research Capital India scholarship, for instance, does not take into account the economic criteria at all. Endowment scholarships such as the Ritesh Ranjan Memorial Scholarship, have relaxed the cut-off limit for merit-cum-means scholarships.
Since the Institute believes in the all-round development of students, there are also scholarships – such as the Sushma Mukhija Memorial scholarship or the Vinod Gupta Leadership scholarship –that take into account students’ participation in sports, and extra-curricular activities. Close to 1,000 students at IIT Kharagpur receive financial assistance from various corporations, foundations and external agencies, all of them targeted at rewarding merit. And it does not stop there. The Institute goes one step ahead and offers financial support along with the alumni for participation in international competitions such as Hult Prize, Solvay Business Plan etc. Further, the IIT KGP Foundation USA offers funding for international internships up to an amount of $3000 in order to groom the students for the professional world.
Students can look forward to financial assistance in research even at the UG level as the Institute aims to inculcate the culture of research early on among students. Besides, there are fellowships for research projects and special grants for incubated entrepreneurship projects.
The perks that students can look forward to at IIT Kharagpur are not merely financial. They are mentored by the IIT KGP alumni, groomed professionally by the Institute for placements and receive invaluable professional experience by being part of student societies which participate in various institutional events and projects. Not surprisingly, students come out with flying colours at national and international meets. While students have won international awards like the Honda Young Engineer and Scientist’s (Y-E-S) Award for 2018-19, Best Presentation Award at the Third International Conference on Machine Learning and Soft Computing and others, sixteen young alumni from the Institute have been featured by Forbes magazine for their 30 Under 30 prestigious listing for India and Asia.
Pushkar Singh of LetsTransport, a Bangalore-based intra-city logistics company, who recently made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of 2019, said, “Our achievement in large part is also because of the training we received at IIT Kharagpur, its extra-curricular activities and the network we developed in college”.