Tadaaa. I am back after a spell of being AWOL. After my summer internship, some travelling and time spent with family has refreshed and relaxed my senses. Now, sitting some 8200 km away from University and anticipating the coming year that’s in store for me, there has been only one thing in my mind: How can I make my final year more interesting, enriching and impactful? As I had said previously in my posts, university life is as you like it. It is as fulfilling as you will allow it to be. And so, I look back on my summer experience in Southampton.
During the first two-thirds of the summer break, I lived and worked in the Southampton region, occasionally travelling outside to meet with friends. There was a sense of independence while working: balancing my own costs and gaining a steady income via my internship. However after a couple of weeks, monotony begins to creep in. There is a set schedule of life and everything goes according to a time-table. This is in stark contrast to student life where there is more vibrancy due to role of societies, time at hand for a more active social life and the convenience of needing to be accountable to just one’s own day to day problems (by this I mostly mean waking up and going to bed at all sorts of hours of the day).
Now, how do I develop a tolerance for this time-tabled Monday to Friday life? Or, how do I make that more enjoyable and lively? Overtime I spoke to several of my seniors, colleagues at work and my own father. Well, my conversation with my father was more on the lines of “Oh Daddy…sob…Boohoo” …but anyway. I found out that hobbies are the key. Those things that we do to make us feel satisfied and content but mean almost nothing to your immediate friends. However, many people find it challenging to pick up new hobbies or continue to practice their own one’s. This whole idea of lifelong learning is easier said than done. Somewhere down the line, people-as I have seen in my own self- lose the spark to continue relentlessly pursuing their personal interests.
But many people claim that while they were at Uni or similar environments, they found it easier to pursue their interests while also focusing on academic ‘necessities’. I attribute this to the very environment that institutions like universities provide: Like I mentioned earlier, there is an opportunity to be care-free and be introduced to a variety of interests, academic disciplines and even people’s ways of life. The best part is the ease with which one can meet people, like-minded or polar opposite. The only question is, do I want to take advantage of that environment and use it to develop interests and hobbies that will be my companions for life, do I want to do, do I want to know. Therefore, in my final year I plan to get out of my comfort zone: take on more responsibilities, explore more activities and meet more people. The plan is to sample bits and pieces of these experiences and in a way, frankenstein them into a set of what works for me and what doesn’t. I believe that doing this will give me a better perspective of the kind of environment in which I thrive. The knowledge of which will be useful as I finally graduate and begin using the qualification that my degree gives me.
