IIT student found dead

Predictably, the focus is on how the inability to match up to high expectations in the IITs and/or peer pressure is "an emerging and frightening phenomenon". While I agree that there may be cases where this is true, they do not constitute a trend in any way. My own experience has been quite the opposite. JEE is a bitch, alright, but once you are in, the effort needed to get by with passable grades (meaning a CGPA greater than 7.0) was nowhere near the effort needed to get in [*]. More than a decade has passed since I graduated, and the competition an IIT aspirant faces has gotten fiercer with every passing year, so I feel that my point still has validity.

To be fair, there are students who need special attention, and I have heard some of my friends complain about the pressure they felt immediately after a mid- or end semester exam, when the conversations in the hostels were all about the question paper and who did what to which question, but the situation was never so bad as to warrant such an extreme decision.

[*] On a personal level, I averaged something like 7.5 in the first two years. I was practically cruising the whole time, revelling in the joy (more accurately, the relief) of getting in, but I realised that there is a life after four years at IIT, and that I might brighten my prospects if I brought my CGPA to more 'respectable' levels. I started attending all classes (though minimum mandatory attendance during those days was -- gasp -- just 55%) and began to maintain class notes religiously. I also made it a point to work through all the tutorial problems. Sure enough, these actions had the desired effect: I was ranked in the top five in my class during the third and fourth years (I even managed to climb as high as third in the sixth semester). The point is, I never had to stretch myself beyond this; no all-nighters, no studying extra material, and so on.

The fact that in the final analysis, a) the law of diminishing marginal returns ensured that I could only bring my CGPA up to just under 8.0 and b) neither my grades nor my field of study have diddly-squat to do with what I do for a living now is another story altogether.