A beginner’s guide to life in college : what your freshman guide didn’t tell you

First, welcome to college! You’ve worked incredibly hard and it has definitely paid off. Having spent four years as a part of this institution, I feel somewhat qualified to impart some wisdom that I’ve gained in my time here. This is a compilation of the same.

Contacts, contacts, contacts: As with every other place on earth, what moves life in college is who you know. So put yourself out there, try and talk to as many people as possible. What’s the worst that could happen? You get shot down? That’s perfectly fine. You tried and now, you can move on. Focus on interacting with seniors. They’ve spent time here and know exactly how things work. One of the best things about college is that you have an incredible network by the time you pass out. Pretty much everyone is going to do well in their field, which means you have great contacts in every field.

Talk to your professors. This is a subset of the previous point but has to be mentioned separately because this is something most of us miss out on in college. They are a great source of information regarding the subject, the field and life in general. Their recommendation letters are really important for research enthusiasts.

Clubs and Societies: They are an important part of your college life. For a lot of us, they are our college life! They are important because they make you more responsible, teach you about team-work, time management and handling stress to begin with. They also give you an opportunity to interact with a whole lot of new people. Clearly, they are important. However, try to ensure that they don’t rule your life. Your academics and social life are important too. This is important because having a good GPA is crucial(more about this later).

Peer pressure: For a lot of you, this is the first time you are staying away from your parents. This means that your friends literally become your family. Hence, choose your ‘college’ family carefully. You are going to be tempted to try a lot of new stuff: some harmless, some not so much. Well, you are an adult now (most of you at least) and what you want to do is entirely upto you. However, do not do something just because your friends are doing it or to look cool. These people who you are trying so hard to impress are only going to be with you for the next few years. You, on the other hand are going to have to live with the repercussions of your actions for the rest of your life. It may be just guilt, or something more serious like an addiction. So, have fun, but do be careful. If you want to study, do it! Ignore the masses hissing nerd and geek. The ill-informed should be forgiven for their ignorance.

Academics: Please do not neglect this important part of college life. Afterall, you are here primarily to learn. I’d like you guys to follow this because I haven’t really done as much as I wish I had. Please don’t graduate without any change in your knowledge level. Yes, there are going to be subjects and professors you can’t tolerate. Yes, there are going to be days when you have to drag yourself to classes. Through this all remember the effort you put into getting here. Was it just so that you could sit in your room watching Netflix or attend a party every night? I really hope not! However, don’t compete unnecessarily. You do need the notes of the classes you slept off in, after all. Group learning or teaching someone is usually most effective.

GPA isn’t God: This might sound slightly contradictory to my previous point, yet I’d like to emphasise that a bad GPA isn’t the end of the world. Unless you wish to pursue research in which case, you are close to the end of the world. You can always improve though. Failed a test? That’s completely okay, as long as you figure out where you went wrong and try to change it.  You are still one of the chosen few who made it to college. Remember, there are infinite opportunities in the world today. You can pursue a completely different career after passing out of college. You have innumerable ‘second chances’ to choose from.

Health: College is the liveliest at night. Continuous all-nighters, no breakfast, too much junk food and no exercise. Please, try to get at least a few hours of sleep every night. Eat breakfast. It isn’t called the most important meal of the day for no reason. And the clichéd: use the stairs, walk when possible. Learn a new sport. And if you do, try to take up a team sport. It not only allows you to interact with a lot more people and improve your ‘team skills’ but there’s also a greater chance of making it to the team.

Manage your finances: This is something I have no right to advise you about : confirmed shopaholic here (my shoe closet is definitely on its way to rivalling Oprah Winfrey’s), but I am going to do so anyway. Use apps like Monefy that help you keep track of your expenditure( I'm doing that right now and the amount of money I blow through is pretty scary). Keep some money as emergency money. Do not use it unless it’s an emergency! This skill will be useful to you all your life(or so I’ve heard).

Read. I know a lot of you can’t imagine sitting down and losing yourself in a book for hours together (I have been known to pull all-nighters to finish an entire book series) but this is one habit that will give you an unimaginable edge over everyone else. When you read, you learn from mistakes that people have made, how you can avoid them and how to overcome any problem that you’re facing. Trust me, if you have a problem, there is a book with a solution. Even if you’re reading fiction ,you’re improving your creativity, ability to empathise and learning about different cultures. It might seem boring at first but once you get going, you’ll find yourself growing in ways you would never have imagined.

For all the amazing collegiettes, here's some advice just for you: I’ve been reading books by female professionals and leaders and this point mentioned in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: “Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them” struck a chord. Many a time, I have missed attending an event or participating in a competition just because I felt I wasn’t good enough. In hindsight, I was trying to match 100% of my imagined qualifications and lost opportunities due to this. I never imagined that I could pick up some of the ‘required’ skills during the event. There’s no sense in applying for something that you have all the skills for, because this means you aren’t going to be learning anything when doing it! I’ve just started Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankel and it’s brilliant till now!

If you can, do go on a semester exchange. It’s an incredible experience (I’ve been told so by reliable sources). It’s one of the few things I regret not doing in college. And when you’re there, try and travel to as many other countries as you can. Immerse yourself in their culture: the food ,the people, their history and when you come back, you will be surprised at how much you’ve changed.

Another experience I missed out on was joining the Toastmasters club. There are chapters of Toastmasters International almost everywhere. They help you develop public speaking and leadership skills. They have sessions every week and each time I’d tell myself that I was too busy. I finally got around to attending a session in my last semester and it was actually good. Do try it out.

Try not to do things just so that you can add them in your resume. Just keep doing stuff that you at least like, if not love and trust me, you will have a full resume by the time you’re looking for a job. Challenge yourself as much as possible. It’s true that you’re not growing if you’re not in pain. Don’t stress too much though. I had a huge epiphany: my worry about how things were going to pan out, my attempts to imagine various ways a situation would play out and how I would deal with each of them showed a significant lack of trust in my future self. I would possess this same (or even better) intellect and skills when this ‘future’ would occur which meant I could easily just deal with what happened instead of imagining various scenarios and my reactions,

Remember, college is a fresh start. You are not defined by your past. I have seen people in my batch undergo huge transformations. You WILL find people you gel with in college. It might take 2 months or 6, but you will find your niche. And in the meantime, learn to love yourself a bit more. You are the one person who will always be there for you. Reach a point where your happiness doesn’t depend on other people.

College is a safe place for you to delve into all facets of your personality. No one is going to judge you. At least, the ones who matter, won’t. Please, do not miss out on anything. Explore everything that your college has to offer. You shouldn’t have any regrets when you graduate.

There are going to be moments when it seems like everything is going against you. Nothing seems to go right. It will seem like it’s you against the world. However, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Man/woman up and face it head-on. Talk to people: your parents, friends, counselors if need be. Nothing is ever so bad as it seems to be. One day, this will just be a dark spot in your rearview mirror.

As a wise man (read my father) once said ‘College is a time when you are old and independent enough to enjoy yourself but also young enough to have few responsibilities’. Good luck! 

I wrote this article in my senior year and even got one of my closest friends to edit it then. I'm now six months into my first job, which means this article has been lying in my Google Docs for close to a year now!