Is IIT or IIM degree essential?

There goes a story in Hindu mythology that once Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (Goddess of Knowledge) went to visit Lord Vishnu.

Lakshmi went first and asked Lord for a boon. Lord Vishnu gave her the boon that Lakshmi would've the power of going to anybody who she chooses, and only Lord himself would've the power of taking Lakshmi back. Lakshmi smiled and accepted the boon with folded hands. Since then, such has been the case.

Now, it was Saraswati's turn to turn to the Lord.

Lord looked at Saraswati and smiled, "The boon that I give you is as follows: Just like Lakshmi, you could go to anybody who seeks you, but in your case, even I wouldn't have the power to take you back!"

And since then, such has been the case.

---

It’s an oft repeated question that I’ve tackled all my life. A lot many in life have asked me this because they genuinely wanted to know whether being a graduate from IIT and IIM helped me. Some people even made a snide remark out of it because they felt that since they were doing professionally as good (at times even better) as I was doing, what was the benefit of being an IIT and IIM graduate. Why these hosannahs for these institutes?

As I sit and write this blog at my parent’s house, I think I’ve finally gotten clarity on the answer to this question. Though there are multiple answers or reasons to get a degree from IIT or/and IIM, I would delve into a few answers before getting to my personal favourite.

First, let me set up the first answer with an analogy.

If you are a good reader, you would realize that your point of view on life or any topic of interest would be multidimensional. You would be able to look at the apple from all sides! You would have a perspective that a non-reader would never have. I’ve committed myself to never writing a travelogue (as part of my blog Ground rules for my blogs), but just imagine how a person who has never been to say a city like Paris would feel in a conversation about the eternal city that houses the Louvre. Or imagine a non reader talking to a person who has read Manto, Jane Austen, Robert Ludlum, W Somerset Maugham, Ghalib, Faiz, and many more. The commonality between a person who has been to multiple cities/countries/ travelled a lot and a voracious reader would be the depth and perspective that they would be able to bring to the table. Just because he has been there, he would know. A person who has read The Razor’s Edge would know why looking for purpose in life could be an endeavour, a person who has read The Thorn Birds would know what love and loss is, a person who has read The Catcher In The Rye is would know what loss of innocence is and one who has read Born to Run would know what running is all about. Similarly, a person who hasn’t travelled would never know how people separated by distance, colour, and religion at their core are all the same - they laugh at the same jokes, they have the same fears and the same prejudices. My favourite memory remains that of a rice buyer in Benin - an old African lady telling me how good looking her son was while her daughter in law was oh-so-average. And we’ve all heard similar statements from mothers all around us!

Studying at a good college gives you that outlook that no other place at that age can provide. Naturally, you get some good connects for life but it also gives you a brand name that gives you an insurance for life. Just like a health insurance would help during a health crisis in your life, a good college degree would give your career a life insurance. It gives you a certificate that you are above average or even excellent. As inane as it might look to you, certificates do help in life. No wonder, they are laminated, put in folder or framed and displayed in drawing rooms across the globe. If you are going through a dark phase in your career, they help you in coming out of it. If you are doing well professionally, they give a slight thrust to it. But I can assure you, it just about gives a slight advantage, not more than that.

Almost all of my colleagues have been non IITians. A few of them have been IIM graduates and very few (I can count on my single hand) have been both IIT and IIM graduates.

A lot of my colleagues who were non IIT/IIM graduates have been tremendously successful professionally. On the other hand, I’ve seen a lot of my IIT and IIM graduates faltering in their professional life. And when I say faltering, it could be on account of anything. It could be in terms of the money they make or the position they hold in their company or in general the kind of companies they’ve gone and created. But then, there can be no definite answer to why this happens. And probably that is how it should be. Life inherently runs wheels within wheels, there are so many variables at work that it is really difficult to know which career move in life would lead to what results. As is with the matters of heart and love, one would never know – what went wrong or what went right!

And the last reason why I think one should go for a good college is a very personal one. You would see umpteen examples of people who have been the torch bearers of excellence but nobody would even talk about their colleges. Dhirubhai Ambani and Steve Jobs are classic examples of people who made it big without lofty college degrees or for that matter even degrees. And I’m not even interested in getting into the data analysis part of it to prove or disprove whether graduates from good colleges do better than their average college counterparts. The real takeaway should simply be a different one and simple at that.

And the simple answer is this. The world that we inhabit is not interested in zero sum games. You could be a billionaire, you could be a failure, you could be an artist, you could be anything - without hurting chances of anybody else. This is unlike the different competitive examinations that we give in our life, or the race to be the top dog in a company where a win for one necessarily means loss or defeat for somebody else. Life doesn’t work that way.

The idea hence should be to make oneself a better version of herself. It’s an everyday job. And if something can make you achieve that, that thing is worth aiming for. Conversely, if absence of that thing would leave you half the person that you are, then you should thank your stars that you possessed that faculty. And that has been true even for me. I would not have been half the person that I am if not for IIT and IIM. Blame it on my laziness, incorrigibility, or whatever, but being to these places opened up my mind, made me work harder, and made me a better man. And hence, these places are worth vying for.

Remember, what could be taken away from you is never yours to begin with.

But nobody could take this away from you, and hence this is all yours. You could do well even without it, but presence of it would never hurt. It only has upsides to it.