<p>Hi everyone, I am a 22 years old Indian currently pursuing master’s degree in an interdisciplinary field from IIT Kharagpur. (can’t reveal the field without revealing my identity.) I have a B.E. in computer science from a respected university. My GATE score put me among top 600 students, but I struggled to score well in the college exams due to my incompatibility with the system. (read: I tried to mug up things instead of preparing thoroughly like I was used to, then I tried to get back to my original habits. I ended up being unsuccessful at both.) If IITs didn’t have caste-based reservation and relaxed admission policies, I would never be here. Also, I should mention that I am highly introverted and the opposite of athletic. My ‘incompatibility’ resulted into depression for a brief period of time. As a result, I am now more introverted than I ever was. I chose IIT Kharagpur because I didn’t pass the pre-interview test at IIT Bombay. I couldn’t attend interviews at Delhi and Kharagpur because, well, I couldn’t be at 3 places at 3 corners of the country, at least not without significant planning and expense. So when I couldn’t pass the test at IITB, I decided to accept the direct admission offer from IIT KGP. Instead of looking for other opportunities for Mtech in CS, I chose an interdisciplinary course at IITKGP, let’s call this course X. When the fateful day came and I traveled to KGP and completed my registration, I was shocked to know that course X was cancelled due to insufficient capacity (Read: people thought that they had better options than some ■■■■■■ interdisciplinary course.) and I was given a consolation that I would be given admission into another field like CS or IT. But unfortunately, admission into these courses was not direct and I didn’t attend the interviews, so they couldn’t grant me admission. Instead, they offered me another field Y. They basically offered me a Hobson’s choice: Choose field Y or leave IIT. I wasn’t ready to leave after spending a month mentally preparing myself, so I instantly made a choice: I chose field Y. I started attending classes. When I felt like I wasn’t into the field, I was advised by faculty members who asked me to sleep on it and think carefully before making the decision. Two months went by after that and I continued attending lectures and labs. Am I interested in the field? No more than I would have had I been an outsider learning about it from Internet. I saw more than one examples of other students and received numerous advises that I should leave and devote my time to something more useful and productive. After a brief vacation and a visit to my home, those feelings of quitting the course are coming back. The only things that have kept me interested are the free internet (not technically since i paid some fees), experience of living on my own (apart from the fact that most things are easily available within the campus itself), access to the fastest LAN in the country (music, games, movies, tv series, software, whatever you want is available and shared), and the 8000 rupees/month stipend. I didn’t perform very well in the midterms except for statistics which is actually just mathematics. Earlier i had decided that I would take the decision after completing at least a semester, but now I don’t think I have enough patience.
tl;dr. I am pursuing a course but I don’t know why. The question that’s eating my mind: should i continue studying this course, hoping that I would get interested in it? Should i leave and start looking for alternate career options?</p>