No Limits: The Art and Science of High Performance

by Mukesh Bansal

However, I ended up pursuing a different path in college. I’ve always had a deep curiosity and desire to understand the world around me. In my first year at the IIT, I discovered the majestic library on campus and felt thrilled like a kid in a candy store. I could go to any floor and read a book on any subject without restrictions. Moreover, the library was open from six a.m. to midnight. I got lost in reading everything that I could lay my hands on, and each book would open up a completely new world for me. From history to philosophy, from economics to business, I found learning about the world endlessly fascinating. I even toyed with the idea of reading the whole encyclopaedia, but fortunately, abandoned that project in time. This, of course, meant steadily dropping grades, which became quite embarrassing by my fourth year. Sometimes, I wonder if I squandered the opportunity to go deeper into computer science and missed some of the possibilities that a characteristic IIT education could have enabled.