Akshit Sharma is a graduating Y17 dual degree student from the Department of Electrical Engineering. He presents some advice to his juniors based on his experiences over the course of his 5 years at IITK.
Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IIT-K.
Our lives do not always proceed the way we plan or predict. Life is very unpredictable, and we should always be ready for something that is not intended, something that is not expected.
We always have some expectations from ourselves. At every stage of life, we have a plan to execute, and when we achieve the goal, we feel relaxed. When everything in our lives goes according to plan and according to our expectations, and when we achieve what we set out to do, there are times when we simply cannot accept the fact that we have failed at something that we worked so hard to achieve. We cannot get over it, and we get deep into it.
Similar is my story, and I know it did not only happen to me; it happens to many. For all of us, life was very smooth till we got admitted to IITK. Smooth, because we were achieving our targets, we were fulfilling the expectations of our parents. We had done good in school, scored well in 10th and 12th, cleared JEE, one of the most challenging examinations, and got admission to one of the most prestigious institutes in our country. When we moved into IITK, we were introduced to a new set of people and a new peer group. We had some plans, some expectations from us, and our families had some expectations. It happens with many that they could not perform up to their expectations. They couldn’t get good grades and couldn’t perform like what they had done in the past. It grew more difficult for them to go over it, and they dove deeper into it. They started feeling hopeless and defeated because they hadn’t been to such scenarios. They had never expected that they might ever feel any problem in their academic life.
The course of a person’s life is influenced by a wide variety of causes and multiple variables. Life is highly complicated; it does not always continue in the way we want it to, and we cannot control every variable in its course. We just need to have faith in our capabilities. We have done the things in the past, and we can do them later on as well.
At every stage of our life, many unwanted and unanticipated things will happen. Our life is not only governed by us but also by our environment and by the people around us. Be ready for unexpected things and accept them with open hands. We can control what is in our hands, but not everything. Focus on controllable, keep following the process and leave the rest.
Written by: Akshit Sharma
Edited by: Aviral Upadhyay, Ayush Anand
