MUMBAI: Less than 50% of graduates from the 2014 batch of IIT-Bombay believe in the existence of God. This is nowhere near the percentage of such students in technical and scientific institutes in Western countries, but is significant given that India is widely a country of believers.

While 22% of the IIT graduates surveyed revealed that they are atheists, 30% claimed to be agnostics. The survey, conducted by the institute’s media body for their in-house magazine, Insight, revealed other interesting facts about the students’ personal, academic and campus life during their four-year stay at the institute.

A BTech student from the campus said that atheism primarily stems from the fact that a good number of students on the campus believe in scientific reasoning. “The IITs are engineering institutes and engineering is derived from science. Many students who believe in scientific reasoning will doubt the existence of God. But many who are not believers also do not completely discount his existence,” said the student. The comprehensive survey carried out with a sample of 260 students from the 2014 batch gives an insight into students’ attitude towards academics, career, their love life and their background (see graphic).

Almost 36% just wanted to get a decent cumulative performance index (CPI) in their exams. Only 14.8% of the batch claimed that performance in academic was their first priority and 16.8% of the students said they just wanted to sail through.

“An IIT degree has so much value that even if you are a moderate performer, your degree can take you places. But these students sacrifice academics a bit to develop other ideas, for entrepreneurship, for all-round development. As a faculty member, I would prefer them to focus on academics, but I would not feel discontented for this trend either,” said a senior professor from the campus.