Cognitive Well-Being at IIT Patna

 Team Members: Saptadeep Pal and Surendra Meena 

In this study we have looked at the cognitive well-being of the student community of IIT Patna. Cognitive well being, as assessed in psychological literature means how satisfied a person is with his/her life. Broadly it is about making a judgement about one’s life, and for that each person has a standard to compare her/his life with and decide how much her/his life matches that standard.

A number of studies and research have been done on cognitive well-being. Some of the most well- known studies have been done at University of Cambridge and University of South Florida. In our survey we asked students from each undergraduate year, a set of 34 question which covered a review of IIT Patna and its effect on self, i.e. a mix of personal traits and college environment. There were few questions on personal interest and passions too.

For this survey instead of using the IIT Patna webmail system, we personally contacted students over social media sites such as Facebook and asked them to participate in the survey. In doing so, we have noticed that most of the students who have been contacted personally, actually took part in the survey. Also these students were asked to involve their friends in the survey. However it has been found that when these students asked their friends in groups not all of them participated in the survey. This shows that personal request is valued more than when requests are made to a group of people.

The responses of the survey showed that although almost one third of the respondents were dissatisfied with the system, infrastructure, learning opportunities etc. However majority of them were satisfied with their own life, optimistic about their future and also felt strongly passionate about innovation in engineering. Though we got a mixed response about quality of academic and extra-curricular resources available at IIT Patna, most of the students still feel that IIT Patna is quite rewarding. In response to the questions where the students were asked if given a chance whether they would move to a different branch or to another IIT (Gandhinagar or Indore), majority disagreed to do so. This shows that the students are quite attached to this IIT and their respective departments of study. Also it can be confirmed that when one possesses stronger internal qualities (in this case, top students from India), external factors and resources contribute less to one’s mental and cognitive well-being. 

Furthermore, few questions evaluated one’s self-portrait on pleasure, flow and meaning orientation. Majority of the respondents scored very high on valuing meaningful and flow inducing activities and believe they can find such activities in their daily life. Pleasure activities and opportunities for it too were present. Research has suggested a combination of these can contribute to a full and rewarding life.

Students studying here at IIT Patna, have spent a lot of time dedicated towards preparation for IIT-JEE, indeed very tough to crack. Preparation for IIT-JEE is an activity where one focuses more on the process, which doesn’t give immediate results but one relishes its benefits later in life. This process gets imbibed in one’s mentality and is confirmed by the results in the survey discussed above.

Thus, this survey has been able to give a brief overview of the cognitive well-being of the student community of IIT Patna.