As We Leave… #12

Mr. Abhishek Sahoo is an undergraduate student from the Y15 batch in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Let’s have a look how interestingly he puts together the beads of his experiences in IIT Kanpur.

Dear Abhishek

This is you, from the future. I hope you are doing well. As you are just going to start a new phase of your life at IIT Kanpur, I thought I should give you some advice( just so that you can handle the hurdles a little better) and a few surprises (so that you know something good is always around the corner).

First of all, be assured that you will have a wonderful college life. There were tremendous highs and some freakish lows but leaving this place; I feel reasonably happy. You will meet some good people, work with some great minds, and do a lot of interesting things you haven’t even dreamt of yet. Let me address your current mood first. I know you are a bit down because you had a poor JEE and rightly so. I’m sure you must have cogitated long enough to find your answers, but it has been two months already, and it’s time to move on. So, forget all of that now. You can’t change the past, but you can definitely shape your future. One more reason to cheer up? I am graduating as a mechanical engineer. Yeah! Come the second year; you’ll transfer to this new department, the one you wanted in the first place, which means the effects of your fuck up is short-lived.  So, get your smile back, hold your head a little bit higher, and have the confidence that you deserve to be here.

It would take you a while before you start making friends. Albeit a few, each one of them would be absolute gems. They’ll be consistent, will support you truly, challenge you, and would want to grow with you. They’ll keep you cheerful and help create some beautiful memories. From solving seemingly impossible assignments to clocking fastest times in labs, from early morning cycle trips to the late-night discussions, they will be the ones who would accompany you throughout this journey. So, be kind to them and don’t be frugal in expressing the love they deserve. It would be a long journey full of ups and downs. There will be days when you will not want to get off your bed, you wouldn’t want to show up in front of the world, AND you would question your every effort.

A way out of these “tough times,” you ask? Just don’t give in. Positivity is the key. Perhaps try to find solutions by yourself or try reaching out to your people. And if nothing works, just hit the pause button and let it sink in. These experiences would affirm you that you’re pushing on in the right direction and will inevitably make you stronger. More importantly, you will develop a deeper sense of appreciation for all good things in life.

Next, let me touch upon the “important stuff.” Doing well academically certainly has a lot of benefits. Simply put, it keeps a lot of doors open for your future. So, always take it seriously. There are many different ways to get good grades, but I’ll tell you what works best for us. Mainly, the mantra to get good grades is to not study for grades, rather to consider it as a by-product of a bigger experience you get in a given course. To quote one of the professors, “Don’t refrain from setting ambitious targets. Even if you don’t achieve them; you’ll end up reasonably comfortable”. Since mechanical engineering has a plethora of interesting fields and some really good professors to help you explore them, there will be very few instances where you won’t enjoy the courses. With the combination of interest, a bit of discipline and support from your friends, it will be tough not to do well. For the not-so-interesting courses, perhaps your ego, envy, and a few slices of luck will pull you through.

Moving on to the third year, you will end up at Mitsubishi, Japan, for your internship and the experience will be everything you will have asked for, and then some. For the first time, you will realize the vast potential of our knowledge and simply be in awe of the sheer magnitude to which technology can be put into use. You’ll meet new people, make new friends, and experience a new culture with different sets of rules and fundamental beliefs. More importantly, you’ll learn to live with and by yourself. My only advice would be that time will seem to fly through, so make sure you enjoy every moment. The world is not ideal, and neither are you. Up until now, things were pretty straightforward. Attending school and then coaching, the goal for everyone had been the same and clear that you had to do well in the exams. There aren’t many choices really, though exceptions do exist, which means millions have tread on the same path before and hence we know the actions and consequences exhaustively, except then, we were too young to analyze. Ultimately, we did what our parents and teachers asked of us.

Now that we are older and wiser, things have become very subjective, and you will realize how we have to create paths of our own.

How, you ask? Trial and error, perhaps?

But then we don’t have that much luxury of time. The non-ideality also means that there is no right or wrong direction in an absolute sense, and is rather based purely on how we define. After all, whatever we do is a result of what we think is right. This leads everyone on to different paths, some better than the others, you might think.

But do we need to compare? Or can we learn from everyone?

Every path is unique. Every lesson, a first. Every human, their own person. You might like a few, despise others, but in the end, understand as many as possible.

What they do, why they do it, and what they achieve out of it?

This then would certainly streamline the search for your own “ideal” path.

Before I’m done, I’d like to remind you that it’s a new beginning. You do not know what’s there for you and you aren’t prepared for a lot of things coming your way, but then isn’t all the fun is in this very uncertainty. You have so much potential in you, more than anyone else. Now the onus is on you to make the best use of it. Define your purpose, set ambitious goals, be your harshest critic, and just keep pushing, day in, day out. I’m sure you would come out on the other side as a better person. All the best.

Cheers!

Your future

Written by Abhishek Sahoo, edited by Ayush Agarwal