Orientation Program

Orientation Program (or OP) is a process in IIT Kharagpur through which sophomore students of IIT Kharagpur are inducted into senior halls (Azad, LLR, MS, Nehru, Patel, RK, RP) and introduced to the culture of KGP.

History

OP is known to be a practice that has been around since the 80s. It is often fondly recounted by several alumni on their trips back to IIT Kharagpur.

Logistics

• OP happens in the starting months of the Fall semester, generally carries on till October
• OP happens in the common rooms of the halls
• The main affected set of people are the second year students who have just entered the senior hall (or have stayed a dormant one year there already, in some cases)
• The main set of people who are conducting this are 3rd year students, and they are led by the General Secretaries. There are 4 G.Secs: Social and Cultural, Sports and Games, Technology, and Maintenance.
• There are three different places where the OP might happen: (a) Common Room (b) Dining Mess (c) Wing
• Wing OP is considered to be the scariest, and is generally the venue for the creepiest and most humiliating of activities.
• Common Room OP is about instilling respect in all the second year students for their seniors in the hall
• Mess OP is about humiliating students in front of their other batch mates, and hence fostering a false sense of comradery among them. (See Institutionalized Oppression and Internalized Oppression)