Five things to keep in mind if you are a college student

College life changes dramatically semester after semester. Those who did some mistakes in the last one, from creating a wrong impression on the teacher, to scoring an all-time low attendance, from having missed SRCC’s fest to hitting on the wrong guy in class, a new semester is your reincarnation as you can atone for almost all your past ‘sins’. First year or final year, here are top 5 things you must keep in mind as the new semester knocks on door:

1. Furore over Friends

“Kid, choose your friends wisely and don’t give in to peer pressure”. Does it ring a bell? All the advice you got for free from parents back in childhood, make a lot of sense in college life. With the influence of bollywood blockbusters like Rang De Basanti and Dil Chahta Hai, we rather end up taking our friend circle too emotionally, not evaluating and analysing our choices and decisions. College life is a life-time experience, a crossroad for 100 different types of people. Make sure you are on an all-time high alert in choosing the right company as it determines a lot of things about your future. You become what you spend your maximum time with. Work hard, party harder, but back home, work harder-(er)!

Have 50 friends, but make sure you have the final say when it comes to your life.

2. Attendance greed

The new release on Friday sounds more attractive than attending early morning lectures, but those 5 marks of attendance carry more value than you think they do. If you attend college regularly, not only do you train yourself for a scheduled-professional lifestyle for future, but also secure a good portion of your percentage that can prove really decisive. You might have performed great in class tests even by not attending classes, but in the bargain you can lose 5 marks in internal-assessment in addition to a poor impression on teachers. One day you might also have to face the embarassment when your teacher asks, “Are you from this class?”. Attend classes, and earn 5 brownie points!

3. Teachers’ pet?

This brings us to another important aspect of college. Teachers! They might not be as boring as you think they are; they literally know more than you think they do. If you have a good impression on a teacher, try talking about things ‘other’ than syllabus. No, they are not your relationship counsellers, but fit perfectly the role of a life-counsellor or a career-counsellor as well. They also get you the ‘inside’ stories of university politics and college staff-rooms. Some might as well go a step ahead and share their own college notes with you. No not always, only if they are newly recruited ad-hocs, as confused as you are.

4. Internships

Money, no money, just do it! At the cost of serving you a double entrendre, here’s your another major tip for college life. Choose your top five areas of interest and then join forums, clubs, online groups, log into internship sites and servers and keep a tab on top internships available and enroll in those that interest you. The 3 years of college life is a bumper-bonanza time for you to decide what you have to do with life, and internships actually fasten that process. Every semester, make sure you are interning with someone or something. Do some freelancing if required, because let’s accept it, our parents were right again when they said, “Money doesn’t matter always!”.

5. Extra-curricular

No, we don’t trust our schools in India to teach us how to play guitar, how to cook healthy, how to take care of our health, painting, singing, dancing etc. Moreover, weren’t we too naive back then to understand the importance of that embarrassing yoga class in school? Invest your savings and pocket money in learning new skills and exploring yourself. Make sure you can boast of having learnt atleast 3 new skills by the time you don your graduation cap. Besides, this is just the right time in your life to learn how to maintain the most dreaded ‘work-life balance’. Once you learn the importance of spending atleast one hour with yourself doing something that enhances your personality, you wouldn’t be able to leave the habit ever.

(The writer is pursuing her English (Hons) from Daulat Ram College, Delhi University)

Email author: rajoracheshta@gmail.com