Vibhav Aggarwal

Vibhav Aggarwal was a student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He also was a project lead at DevCom and went for a semester exchange at ETH Zurich. Besides achieving it all, he always made time for spontaneous road trips and has several incidents to tell. Have fun reading about his anecdotes.

Q. Tell us about your journey leading up to here?

I’m from Rewari, Haryana. Since I was a child, I’ve always been fascinated with inventing things. I used to tinker and build using spare parts, but I quickly learned that there’s only so much you can do with scraps. I got my first laptop in 8th grade and I tried my hands on coding and learnt to make some games. From 11th, I got serious about JEE. I moved from South Delhi to Kota to IIT B CSE 😉

Q. Which clubs or hobbies were you a part of in your insti life?

Coming to IITB, I was surprised by the amount of personal freedom I got, also it being the first time I got to live alone. I tried ICPC which is one of the toughest competitive programming competitions. I was passionate about algorithms and codings and went for an ITSP project but then COVID happened and we switched online.One of my proudest moments was working on the resume verification portal during my 2nd year DevCom tenure. In my 3rd year I became a project lead and we made the insta mess which is used in all hostel messes now. It was a great opportunity to not only work on a practical project but also to interact with a wide range of people and build strong bonds with my seniors and juniors.

Q. You did a semester exchange at Zurich , how was the experience there?

I went to ETH Zurich in my 8th semester. I feel happy I took that call as I got to learn so many things I couldn’t in IIT. Here I saw honest and dedicated students who enjoyed what they study. They get to choose their own courses and they aren’t as grade oriented as we are. I didn’t see the hype of elec or cs here compared to back in India.During my time there, I got to travel a lot, which was fantastic. One memorable trip was when some friends from India and I planned a 7-day road trip to Iceland. However, things didn’t go exactly as planned because the friend who was supposed to drive didn’t come along. So, I ended up behind the wheel for the entire 7 days 🙁  We had rented a Tesla just because of the autopilot feature. One of my non-driving friends tried driving and we almost crashed, we were on a curvy road and there was a cliff (hopefully my parents don’t read this).

Q. An interesting fact about yourself?

I seem to have a knack for picking up things quickly. Once, while playing darts with my friends in Geneva, they were struggling, but I managed to hit a hat trick in just 2-3 attempts! I’m not sure if it was pure skill or just beginner’s luck, but it was definitely a fun moment.

Q. A message you would like to give to your fellow batchmates and the outgoing batch?

Congratulations to everyone who is graduating. I hope each one of you does something amazing in life. It doesn’t matter if you have received your dream job, you will do something great because you are from IITB.

Q. If your college experience was a movie, what genre would it be, and why?

It would be a blockbuster with adventure, drama and romance. We used to go on several roadtrips. We did a road trip to Sula vineyard. Our car broke down in the middle of a jam packed highway. We were sitting at the back while our car was being towed, got so bored that we cracked open the wine bottles we had just bought and got drunk.

Q. Any message to your juniors?

Just don’t be afraid to try new things. I know that you’ll have to make important choices about your career, but don’t be afraid to try out new things and experiment. Now is the best time to try and fail because every experience will teach you something.

Q. Do you have any regrets? Anything you wanted to do during your insti life but could not due to some reasons?

I really wanted to perform in public, I wish I had tried out AIDS. But overall, I am happy with the way things planned out as it led me to where I am today.