My American provincialism used to assume that "IIT" was Illinois Institute of Technology...mostly famous for its Mies Van Der Rohe campus, I suppose. Then a few years ago something on HN referenced the famous IIT, and I came to understand my neighbor.
His father a professor and Rotarian in Travandrum, he came to the US to study and chose the world famous Tuskegee University [as did my neighbor on the other side but from Port Harcourt after living through the Biafran War]. Anyway, over time I realized that building universities is sort of orthogonal to the goals of colonization and that the history of higher education in India doesn't neatly map to that of the US or France or Mexico. India's educational past is much more recent and tangible and the idea of packing up and moving half way across the world to Alabama for a degree was a lot less the crazy option than it sounds. He is part of the first generation to have been born after independence, and that's an experience and point of view that I can't really ever get my head around.
It's a good example of why it's dangerous to assume acronyms mean the same thing everywhere.
IIT will always mean Illinois Institute of Technology for me, but that's in large part due to the fact that I knew about it first and I went there. But it's understandable that it means something else in other parts of the world.
Off topic: one of the worst things about going to IIT was the emphasis placed on Mies van der Rohe. Most of the buildings he designed on the campus are quite ugly.
Mies was a knockoff of Walter Gropius. Mies took over the Bauhaus when the Nazis started dictating how it was run...part of which was getting rid of Gropius. Gropius landed at Harvard where he shaped the Graduate School of Design for many years.
When it turned out that working with the Nazis was a bad idea, Mies wound up at the Armour Institute with a big budget. As a practical business matter, it was a good client to land. But personally, I find Mies's work competent but not great. Phillip Johnson's glass house predate's Farnsworth and Gordon Bunshaft's Lever House is a master piece executed with a sense of human scale, while the bronze I-Beams on Seagram's across the building are a decorative affectation on a building lacking proportion and it's plaza has all the charm of a field of fire.
I once worked with a graduate of IIT's architecture program [anecdote is not data]. All I can say is that 4.5" = 6'-0" isn't a good choice for drawing a construction detail. It also shows why states require practical experience and an exam in addition to any schooling in order to become a licensed architect. Actually, this is what it mostly shows. Architecture education in general is poor preparation for professional practice and IIT is accredited just like other schools. But that's a rant for another day.
His father a professor and Rotarian in Travandrum, he came to the US to study and chose the world famous Tuskegee University [as did my neighbor on the other side but from Port Harcourt after living through the Biafran War]. Anyway, over time I realized that building universities is sort of orthogonal to the goals of colonization and that the history of higher education in India doesn't neatly map to that of the US or France or Mexico. India's educational past is much more recent and tangible and the idea of packing up and moving half way across the world to Alabama for a degree was a lot less the crazy option than it sounds. He is part of the first generation to have been born after independence, and that's an experience and point of view that I can't really ever get my head around.