Reading List – Fresher’s Edition!

Since IIIT-H is your new home for the next four (or more) years, we want to give you a headstart on learning all about it – the place, the people, and the culture. To this end, we’ve curated a list of articles where we try to showcase the scope that Ping! covers. You’ll find fiction and reporting, student life and staff life, music and movies – every side of what happens at IIIT, and beyond!

School Rules – The Cruels and the Cools:

We go compare the college policies students here most moan about – compulsory sports, attendance policy and the like – to how the scene is in other universities. At the very least, it might make you feel slightly better about the policies.

Not the Pretentious College Reviews:

Ever wonder how your friends who joined other universities are faring? We’ve got your back.This one’s a long read, but worth it. In a similar vein to the above article, this one involves actual research where our writers got their hands dirty and crunched the numbers on every major rule you could think of. Definitely give this one a go.

Cats: Furry Fury:

Just another Ping! review (albeit of a different kind from the other two you just saw). Check this article out for an honest, witty and all too exhaustive criticism of the 2019 Cats movie.

Football: The 2022-23 Pre-Season Saga Illustrated:

Title is self-explanatory. A beautifully crafted comic with dollops of humour, be sure to check this one out if you appreciate David Squires’ excellent work on The Guardian. And vice-versa.

Sheets To Lull To:

Life has an annoying tendency to get stressful. If you ever catch yourself feeling down, Ping! has got your back. An in-depth coverage of lo-fi music, this article also comes with a nice little playlist to give you a first-hand experience of great lo-fi music.

Diversity Pool:

2020 saw an unprecedented change in IIIT’s admissions process – the Diversity Pool – which gave rise to no little controversy, but remains intact after three years. With this article, Ping! took a closer look at the reasoning behind, and consequences of, this move.

Bhaiya! Ek Watermelon!:

Freshers inducted offline (like you are, which is a pleasant surprise) can’t go more than a week without meeting Dinesh Bhaiya, who runs JC and has been for no less than sixteen years. Since JC treats are practically currency at IIIT, get to know the man who’s the backbone of this economy through this article.

DLF Food Crawl:

Though nominally outside campus boundaries, the restaurant clusters on DLF road (popularly referred to as DLF) might as well be part of IIIT for the frequency and impulsiveness with which we go there. Since you’re the first batch of freshers to need this since this article was written in 2019, we take no little pleasure in being the ones to present it to you.

Campus Spending Trends:

Daily (sometimes hourly) impromptu visits to the canteens and DLF – isn’t this all very expensive, you might wonder. Especially since you’ll be paying your own way around here. Ping! is here to help – check this article out to see how much and how often we spend here. If you play your cards right, you could live on treats for a few months.