IIT students flag uneven faculty support amid academic pressure and mental health concerns

MUMBAI: When Kartik Mehboobani struggled with his master’s dissertation at IIT-Roorkee, he said his guide told him he did not belong there. After being held back a year, he found a different professor who gave him a lighter project so that he could focus on finding a job. Same institute, two very different responses.Former and current IIT students told TOI that the help they received could depend on who was on the other side of the desk, within a culture of pressure that shapes students and faculty alike. Their accounts come as IIT-Bombay faces scrutiny over its handling of students under academic and disciplinary stress following the death of student Sahil Wakode.Mehboobani, who graduated in 2018 and is now a senior consultant in Pune, said master’s dissertation projects were allotted according to GPA rather than students’ interests.