Pushpgandha Tiwari
Life is truly unpredictable. It might be good, it might be bad, it might be weird and it might not interest you, but just expect anything to happen. Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in the chosen field. But for someone who struggles with the unknown, someone like me, freshman year of college can feel like walking a path lined with land mines – heart racing, feels like disaster around every corner.
Well, I am just another troubled, irrational, impulsive, fanatically passionate, confused being.
Since class 12th, I dreamt of becoming a genetic engineer and here I am, at its first step. Well college life has been and still is portrayed as being nothing but partying and having fun by the media. Pure freedom… leaving home for the first time&the parties&well, here terms like tutorials, lectures and existential dread are silent. With many house rules abandoned and existence without a curfew, students get the first taste of adulthood.
I thought everything will be easy. However, from the hostel messs food to having no money I learnt that being an adult is harder than what parents display. Campus life shows students what they perceive is very different from the reality of life. College is not quite the romantic lyceum that I had imagined. No, it’s definitely not like its shown in movies. You would think that you have enough time but blink, here are your internals, blink, sessional exams.
The moment you realise you need to study, one semester is over. There is no time to even communicate with one’s own thoughts. College is full of pressure and tormenting tasks because at this point in time, you are being equipped with the necessary competencies needed in the field of specialisation which you have chosen.
Being from the plains I have always admired mountains a lot and the air here still has oxygen, unbelievable! Studying here is basically like a vacation for me but every time I have to climb up from F block to my hostel room uphill, I wish I was dead (just kidding !).
In school I always felt like I was the only intellectual person in a room mostly full of morons obliterating precious IQ points. College, on the other hand is diametrically opposite. Theres room full of smart, funny people who are all used to being the smartest, funniest people in the room, if not the entire planet. The hardest part of the entire day is dragging myself with my last two brain cells in the morning lectures, spent entirely on my phone, rethinking whether all this is really worth a college degree.
In the beginning my mind used to be so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despaired of ever being able to put it in order.
College taught me that my potential can grow only when I can think and grow out of my comfort zone, that anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use.
As Im moving forward Im falling in love with this life, no doubt why people mention college as the best experience of ones life, from bunking lectures to studying all night before exams, the hostel life and the most important aspect friendships, these moments carry a lot of sentimental value and the networks created here are going to help us for the rest of our lives.
I am also a part of the Chatterbox Club here which keeps me creative among all the studies and never ending lectures. I have decided to explore this place a bit more rather than just sitting around in my room eating and watching youtube videos about cats.
I am armed with a fierce independence, well-grounded sense of self, a strong work ethic, drive to succeed and disarming personality. I am looking forward to upcoming years with enthusiasm. I’ve learned one thing and that’s to quit worrying about stupid things. I have four years to be irresponsible here, so yes, relax!
