They say, engineering isn't just a course or a degree but a way of life. Sure enough 4 years of engineering does teach you a lot and the best part is that most of what it teaches you it's outside of those lecture halls.
Today was the end of my 4 years of engineering, my college life, my student life and as I prepare to take on the world and all it's challenges I thought of sharing some nuggets of wisdom, 8 lessons that I've learned over the last 8 semesters.
1. New place, new people. Take it slow.
So here you are, fresh out of high school with all these expectations in your head about how the next 4 years of college are gonna be. But before that let us understand a few things, engineering students are of 2 categories:
Who have chosen engineering out of genuine interest
Who are forced into engineering
Now it doesn’t matter what category you fall into, the fact is you are now officially an engineering student. Sure, you might end up not graduating as an engineer but right now you are an engineering student. So it’s your first day at college, a new place away from home, surrounded by all sorts of new people, it can get quite intimidating but take it slow. 4 years is a long time to figure out what you want and how you want. The biggest mistake people generally do is they rush things which more often than not, backfires. So my first nugget of wisdom would be to take things slow. Be it college or life in general, given enough time things fall into place.
2. Explore, Explore, EXPLORE!!
Once you’re in college you’ll see people around you doing a lot of things, from painting to competitive coding to acting, from being a part of NGOs to running their own startup, people in engineering colleges do everything one can imagine. You’ll see people from an engineering background in all spheres of life and there’s a good reason why this is so. They all explored as much as they could.
If you’re in your first or second year, explore as much as you can. Try out new things, start new ventures, see what you really like and explore as much as you can. There cannot be a better time to learn new things and try out new stuff than the first two years of college. Seize whatever opportunity you get and try to move out of your comfort zone because that’s where all the growth happens.
If you’re someone who’s now in your 3rd year or at any point in your life and you wanna try out something new, do it. Sure you’ll have other things to manage as well, bigger responsibilities but definitely try to explore something new if that’s what you really want.
3. Follow your passion and your gut. Always.
Once you’re done exploring and figuring out what you really like, do that thing. You’re more likely to succeed doing what you’re passionate about than doing what everyone else is doing just because it’s “secure”. Sure, there’s always a possibility of not succeeding, but isn’t that always the case, no matter what you do in life. Even if you fail at least you failed doing what you loved, something you were passionate about.
Most people never figure out what they like and what they actually wanna do just because they were too scared of taking risks. Also, if at any point in your life you get this gut feeling that you’re not happy doing what you are doing, even if it’s something you liked initially, don't be afraid to reinvent the wheel. Listen to your gut feeling, weigh in all the factors and all your priorities and as soon as you get a chance take the leap. Life is too short to be unsure about our choices and to be compromising. Knowing what your passion is, listening to your gut and taking calculated risks are what pretty much define how you’ll be leading your life in the years to come.
4. You’ll have your heart broken.
As harsh as it may sound, at some point you’ll have your heart broken. I know this seems unfair that you can’t do anything to prevent it and that you’ll have to go through all the pain and agony that comes with having your heart broken but it is what it is. But let us understand why this happens and what we can actually do.
First things first, humans are social beings, we live in a society, we are surrounded by and connected with people, we develop feelings for certain people which includes our family, friends and maybe a few love interests. Now the problem with humans is that we have expectations from people who we are close to, people we love. And when these expectations are not met we get hurt, sometimes people we love might not feel the same way for us, sometimes we get betrayed and this is when our heart breaks. If you’re someone who’s experienced a heartbreak you know what it feels like. There is no pain bigger than that, you’ll feel that pain in your stomach, chest, inside every cell of your body, your self confidence will be shattered and you’ll find yourself questioning your own worth.
But you know what, all of this is temporary, before you realise you’d have moved on, completely healed, back on your feet ready to face the world. And this is exactly how life is, there will be heartbreaks but you’ll get past them. Never let a bad experience shut you from the world. We need people around us to survive, we need to feel all these emotions to be human.
5. Time changes and so do situations and people.
Change is the only constant. Every time in life changes over time. It’s how nature works and it’s how we humans have learned to live. Sometimes the change feels good but often we feel apprehensive towards change. The reason for feeling apprehensive is that with changing times, situations we are in and most importantly the people we are close to might change and it’s scary to think about it. Look around yourself, the place you’re in, the situation you’re the people you’re with, it all might change in just a year, and that is how it’ll be for the rest of your life. The only thing you can do is to adapt to these changes. I know very well how bad it feels when people we’re close to change, the bond we share changes and we slowly start drifting apart. But with time when life gets busy this change is inevitable.
Your group of 10+ friends with whom you promised to always stay in touch would ultimately be just 3 to 4 people who’ll stick with you through thick and thin, and they are the people who even in changing times will be by your side. So even though a change might feel apprehensive initially, if you trust the process you’ll find out that changing time filters out a lot of things and helps to put things into perspective. You’ll realise what and who matters the most. But having said that, you shouldn’t feel remorse or have any grudge towards people who drifted away because “sometimes when people grow in love, they grow apart but that doesn't mean that the love they once shared wasn’t real.”
6. Start taking responsibilities and try to become independent.
Alright, let’s face it. You’re not a kid anymore. You are a young adult who can make conscious decisions. Now what that really means is no matter what kind of financial background you come from you should aspire to become as independent as you can in all aspects and you should step up to take the responsibility of certain things as and when needed. I know it’s easier said than done because as humans we tend to take the easy way out, for example if you come from a financially privileged background you might not feel the same weight of responsibility of doing something meaningful because you have someone who’s fulfilling your wishes, your demands and your needs. I know this isn’t always the case but more often than not this is how it is.
Now if you’re someone who’s mentally and physically well, without any disabilities then you should have this feeling of taking responsibility. You should aspire to become someone who others can look up to, someone who has a say in society because when you’re responsible, when you’re independent and when you’re in a position where people listen to you, you have the power to bring a change around you, you have to ability to make people’s lives better. Now does this mean that in the process of being responsible and becoming independent you start distancing yourself from things you enjoy doing like hanging with friends, going on trips, and just taking time off to relax? Well definitely not. You should be doing all of these things but you should know how to maintain a balance.
7. Fall seven times, get up eight.
They say life is a journey of navigating from failure to failure. Every new venture you start, every new thing you try there will always be a high probability that you’ll fail in that, so does that mean you shouldn’t try new things? Of course not, it’s the risk of failing that makes the actual victory more thrilling. There will be a lot, a LOT of things you’ll fail at, even after giving your 100% you might fail and I know it really pinches seeing others doing well, “succeeding” in their lives while you haven’t got the kind of success you were hoping for, the kind of success you worked hard for and you get this feeling of FOMO but it’s in moments like these that you keep your calm, have faith in yourself and keep moving forward. Even if you fail in the process there is always something to learn, it’s an experience.
As long as you’re falling forward you’re good to go.
8. These 4 years will never come back.
It’s a universal fact that time once gone never comes back. Think about it, 4 years of college, 8 semesters, so many bunked classes, fests, events, heartbreaks, friendships that will last a lifetime, so much happened in 4 years. Now 10 years down the line will you ever be able to go back to this time? No, right. So it’s really important to live in the moment, give it your 100%, make memories because that’s what all of these are, memories that will stay with you forever, memories that you will cherish for your lifetime. Sure bad things happened, you got your heart broken, you failed a couple of times but how does it matter in the long run? What actually matters is whether or not you grew as a person in those 4 years, whether you made life long friends or not, whether you were able to let go and end things on a better note or note. We humans measure life in moments and milestones and it’s really important that these 4 years of your college become a major milestone in your life.
Alright, it been a long read and a lot of pep talk, but yeah if you're reading this footnote, thank you and I wish you all the best for all your future endeavors.