HOW COLLEGE CHANGED ME.

Like all other children, when I was in school, I used to look forward to grow up and go to “college”. Finally the long awaited day arrived and I was on my way to attend the first day of my fairly good college. Going to college was a great transition for me, considering the fact that it was quite far from where I did my schooling. ( My school is in kurla and I had to go to Vasai for college because I had shifted there.) I had left behind my school my teachers my friends, in short my whole so- called social life.

Since I came from an all girls school the male population in my college seemed intimidating . The first change that college brought into me was turn me from a bold uniform clad girl to a tiny timid rabit. ( I was four feet ten inches when I was in junior college , so yes , I did look tiny among the college crowd.) That was the first day.

Soon everything changed . I made new friends and I realized that unlike school friends, in college friends are not just friends but they formed my support system. College professors did not try to be my surrogate parents like my school teachers did. (To which I did not know how to react. I was like should I be happy or should I be not).

There was this tremendous amount of liberty bestowed upon me, it was overwhelming. I was the sole person responsible to take my decisions. And I was sole person to suffer the consequences of my decisions. ( Yes. Suffer. Because my decision to bunk lectures got my name into the blacklist and also got my parents summoned to the college.) The incident however taught me to take RESPONSIBLE decisions.

College opened my eyes as to how competitive the world is. In school the class teachers knew all of us pretty well and they also knew the talent every child had. So for any school occasion Tom , Dick and Harry were assigned to do hosting, singing and dancing respectively. Because they were the best in those fields. But in college raising your hands up wasn’t enough. You had to shoot your hands up. By the time you raise your hands up taking your own sweet time, someone else must have grabbed the opportunity. College changed me from the person who waits for the right opportunity to the person who struggles to get the opportunity. It taught me to take failure as a part of life but still never tire from running the race.

In college, we were required to do projects with deep research. We were given topics which delved into issues of societal concern. It changed my outlook of the society we live in. Such projects made me capable of empathizing with blind people and orphans. College turned me into a more aware citizen of this country.

College changed me from a kid to a responsible adult. It taught me to value the importance of liberty and responsibility. College changed my life , for good, for better.