Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
An IIT graduate has urged people from elite institutions to openly acknowledge their educational privilege instead of downplaying their credentials in the name of humility.
Akash Sampurnanand Pandey, in a post on X, said he had seen IIT Bombay graduates introduce themselves as having studied at “an engineering school in Mumbai” rather than naming the institution.
Akash attributed this to three possible reasons: downplaying their achievements to avoid being labelled arrogant or elitist, managing expectations about always being the smartest person in the room, or using what he called a “stealth flex” to prompt others to ask which college they attended.
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“None of which is healthy,” he said.
Reflecting on his own IIT journey, Akash said his admission was the result of years of hard work. “The seat wasn’t handed to me: 14-hour study, two years, my entire teenage life traded for a JEE rank,” he said.
He urged graduates of top colleges to own their privilege and use it to their advantage, saying the same applied to people with qualifications such as MBBS, MD, CA and IIM degrees.
“Hiding your privilege is a quiet apology you owe no one,” Akash said. He argued that people should not present their achievements as a handicap in the name of humility, but instead carry them with “quiet confidence.”
Read the post here:
The post prompted users to weigh in on whether acknowledging privilege and displaying it were necessarily the same thing. One user argued that privilege had become “a performance,” with elite individuals hiding theirs behind false modesty while others without such privilege sometimes pretend to have it.
Another took a more nuanced view, saying that showing one’s privilege “at the right place” was fine, but doing so around ordinary people could amount to arrogance rather than humility.
The discussion also brought attention to what people ultimately do with elite educational credentials. A user argued that education is “a means to an end, not an end in itself,” adding that while an IIT education can indicate potential, creating value for society is more impressive than simply possessing prestigious credentials.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
