Wisdom from university

The last 3 years have passed by so quickly. Sometimes, it feels like I've had 3 lifetimes - the India part, the JC part and then everything after that.

India was all about academics, JC was trying to figure out how to survive on your own, and uni, well, has been uni. Late nights watching TV shows, going for movies in groups of 20s, looking at notes for the first time in reading week, watching people change and grow apart/closer every semester, it's been a hell of a rollercoaster ride. And now that graduation seems just around the corner, considering the way time passes here, the feeling that life as we know it is going to change again. Work life is nowhere near as fun, crazy, random, spontaneous (read disorganised) as uni. Anyone who's done internships/IAs knows that. So now, as I am supposed to be doing job applications, and inspired as I am by Akash's "Things I learnt in uni", I'll come up with a list of my own.

1. They're not lying when they say friends change in uni - both who your friends are, and what they are like, and what and who they like will undergo major transformation.

2. You change even more than your friends do. Whether you are a local, moved from another city/country for uni, or have been around for a while, it is a whole new experience, incomparable to any other in your life.

3. No matter how much you fight/deny it, you will learn some pleasant, and some not so pleasant things about yourself.

4. Other than a lucky few, none of us will know what we want in life, in a job. Figuring it out can be as hard as finding the answer to the ultimate question of life (whose answer, incidentally, is not 42, despite what the Hitchhiker's Guide would have us believe.)

5. You will realize that learning about life is so much more important than learning about graphs.

6. People all around will start getting married. It will petrify you at first, but then you will learn to accept it as something as inevitable as a PGP dryer not drying your clothes.

7. World events will feel a lot closer to home. Maybe it's the elevated intellectual levels or something, but things like world (US Presidential) elections, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, Ris Low, sports, CWG will become normal conversation topics.

8. You will know 100s of people, but when you need someone to talk to, there are very few you can actually approach. Though the remaining will be good for letting off steam by whining about the hardships of your life and commiserating over theirs.

9. Blogging will become cool. More people will know your blog than know you. And sometimes its the only way to keep in touch.

10. More people will like your Facebook status update than like you.

11. You will develop a love-hate relationship with Facebook. It will be a necessary evil, like friction. Staying off Facebook for an entire day in Reading Week will be something to be proud of. After which your reward will be to go to every update on your home feed, and go through every new album and video posted.

12. More than NDTV or BBC, Facebook will update you on world events. Ball-by-ball, goal-by-goal, set-by-set updates will clutter your news feed. I found out about Bombay Taj attacks on Facebook before I saw the news. (I started my blog because of those attacks by the way. The first post I wrote was Saluting Martyrs of the attacks.)

13. The only way to show someone you don't know much that you care about them is to wish them Happy Birthday on Facebook, which by the way, will be your only way to know when someone's birthday is near.

14. Most of us realize that working last minute is something to be found in our genes, and is indeed the way God meant it. And we will marvel at the dedication of the locals in printing notes, taking down copious notes during lectures, by doing something unheard of among Indians - listening in lectures!

15. Every year you see a new crop of freshmen come in, with hope and big dreams shining in their eyes; you will miss those good ole days of the honeymoon period of the first month of uni, where hanging out with your "close" group of 50 friends day-in, day-out in a tiny room with 1 square feet per person was the way to go; where uni had not ruined your hopes and dreams and made you feel like an incapable arse (I just saw Bridget Jones Diary 2nd part yesterday night).

16. You will miss the joys of first year even more when you have to apply for jobs. Job apps are a pain, no other way to describe them. Why can't they just make 1 standard application and then they all take candidates from that?

17. Some people are better at interviews and jobs than you are. Accept it.

18. Everyone has a competitive streak. Will become more evident nearer exam results time and job app time. Understandable.

19. Maggi will become a cereal. Uncle Chips will become a rare delicacy.

20. First to second year transformation of gals will be an interesting sight to see.

21. Deadlines will begin to define your life, when you sleep, eat, go out, live, die.

22. TV shows will be a constant topic of discussion and FB status updates. The return of a show with a new season will mark a new beginning of these so make sure you are updated. Else you will feel miserably left out when people complain about how much time they wasted in watching back-to-back episodes.

23. Release of an interesting Bollywood movie or one with Priyanka Chopra will be a batch scale event, where you will go in a group of >20 and pass comments throughout the movie, which you will, of course, be shushed for many times.

24. You will struggle to understand why some people are better than you. And you will come up empty handed.

25. Talking about sex/making innuendos 24-7 will seem cool to some people. I have one thing to say to you - grow up.