Archive · 9 Aug 2026

First Villager to Crack JEE Now Leads IIT Kanpur Gymkhana

First Villager to Crack JEE Now Leads IIT Kanpur Gymkhana

A young man named Gourav Yadav grew up in a small village in Haryana, India.

Nobody in his village had ever passed a big test called JEE, which is needed to get into top engineering colleges like IIT.

So Gourav had to figure out how to study for it all by himself, using online classes from his home.

He studied very hard and became the first person from his village to get into an IIT.

He chose to study Civil Engineering, which is about building roads and buildings, because he loved watching the city of Gurgaon grow from almost nothing.

At IIT Kanpur, he joined lots of activities and festivals and made many friends.

He worked so hard that he became president of the Students' Gymkhana, which runs events for the whole campus.

He even did a summer job at a big real estate company.

Gourav says the most important lesson he learned is that being tough and never giving up matters more than being the smartest.

He wants to build things that help his country grow.

Sources