Bollywood often romanticizes the college years, though not completely but to some extent. The first love, friends till life, youthful days, pranks, countless memories, and other unexperienced happenings. For several students, it’s a debut in stepping out of their comfort zone. Leaving their city or place where they spend their time now and stepping into an entirely new place. This transition of life itself contain full of mixed emotions. The minds of students started filling with anticipation. Let’s jump into this nostalgic roller coaster ride together.
Getting exposure to the outer world, through the eyes of a kid who just became an adult, is a different experience. We are supposed to be enough mature to tackle several things. But not everything we can plan and get prepared ourselves, so not everything we can counter. The little bird just learned to fly. Witnessing new challenges daily, in the beginning, creating Sturm und Drang in life. Though gradually we get habitual and this becomes new normal of life. Usually, students start preparing for entrance exams in their teens. For this, they have to alienate themselves from their passion or hobbies. They forget to live a joyful life and shift their focus to studies so that they get admission to their desired college and course. After such a long period of preparation, college life act as a refreshment for their minds. The urge of exploring a new city or place. Getting involved in new activities and opportunities. First-year students invest most of their time in exploring new things and experimenting with different areas.
Entering college life makes us realize to value the little things of life. College life gives us an insight into the real unprotected world, just like an internship does. Until things happen with us only then we can understand in a better way. We usually take small things as taken for granted despite taking them as blessings. But in college, we realize the value of these things. The small household chores which are mostly done by our family members so that our studies did not hinder are now done on our own. Due to workload we mostly neglect our health and also in the beginning our family takes care of all our expenses. Consequently, we try to avoid unnecessary as well as necessary expenses to save money but under peer pressure, we mostly ended up spending on useless pieces of stuff. We learned to value money and this increases our hunger to become independent. Realizing the struggle as well as the real essence of life motivates us to do hard work for the betterment of our future.
The ability to manage several things together is also one of the teachings of college life. It becomes a hustle to manage useless as well as useful things together. As it became difficult to understand at the beginning which work is more important for us. Though the toughest task is to handle our studies. The syllabus, teaching methodologies of teachers and us, schedule, and many more are different from what we are used to in school. Studying one night before an exam is one of the main mantras of scoring good grades.
College life not only helps us to learn life lessons but also gives us an opportunity of meeting some of the most insane people, also called friends. Though living far away from family is tough but some people whom you met in college, fulfill the emptiness of being with family. Your friends are no less than your family now. You spend more than half a day with these people. They take care of you and vice versa. “Sharing is Caring”, easily started reflecting on our habits. I think friends in our college are the medicine of everything. They make us laugh and we forget all the stress at least once.
Not everyone has the same college life experience. That’s a story from my side, what I am experiencing and yet to experience more. I believe neither a college nor a course defines your college life experiences. Only you are responsible to make it more beautiful and fruitful.