The Change called College

College is that phase of one’s life when suddenly, everything changes. One moment you are at school, at your home, under the supervision of your parents and then all at once, you go to an unknown place full of unknown people and start a new life from the scratch. 2012 was the year that change happened in my life.

When my WBJEE seat allotment page said “Haldia Institute of Technology”, I promptly turned to Google to see what it had to say about it. Wikipedia describes Haldia as one of the biggest and most influential towns of West Bengal owing to all the industries and factories situated in it and HIT as the oldest and one of the best private engineering colleges of the state.

The first thing that welcomed my first steps in one of the most “influential towns” of WB was the mode of transportation. It was more or less a slab of wood on 4 wheels cycled by humane means. “Thela Gadi”, I said in horror, “Van” some seniors glared at me. Next were the series of tumbledown huts lining on either side of the road on the way to my hostel. “Shacks” I said, “Khopcha” was chorus. The sudden plunge from the safe home atmosphere to the bustling environment of a hostel was unsettling. But what was even more unsettling was the sight of the railway station visible from my room’s window. The first week of college couldn’t end fast enough for me to go back home in the weekend.

My first year passed in pretty much the same way – enduring five days of college to rush back home at the slightest hint of a holiday. It was only when the first year of my college ended and all my bags were packed shut for the hostel shifting that I realized what the college had given me and why it seemed so hard to leave the hostel.

I don’t know whether it was the drowsy hours spent in the classroom, or the “Golpo” sessions in the labs; the last minute scrambling before a test, or the late night “Cha” and “Adda”; the level of “Lyadh” with its ever increasing slope, or the sudden inclusion of the terms like “Cazz” in my vocabulary but somewhere along the journey the “Thela Gadi” became “Van” and the “Shacks” became “Khopchas” for me.

You can’t stay away from the charm of the college and even my weekly escape home couldn’t stop me from falling in love with the place. You can’t stay away from the endless discussions where every other person has the confidence of an expert and you most certainly can’t stay away from the ambiance of sharing a room with three other people for the first time in your life.

College had seemed scary to me at the beginning because the change involved was so drastic. But three years down the line made me realize that a change it was; a change for the best.

College is about discovering new things but more importantly it is about discovering yourself in the face of every situation that crops up. College changes you in irreversible ways, teaches you things you never thought existed and moulds you for the best. In 3 years my college life has given me memories that will make me smile for the rest of my life. It has taught me some lessons the hard way but at the same time given me friends who find funny side of everything. It has given me people I would never forget, made me incapable of treating potato as anything other than the hostel food, taught me to be shameless when it comes to tasty food and made me much wiser than I was 3 years before. 

This post is written for housing.com.