September 19, 2024
It’s hard to believe that college is coming to an end soon. It feels like I just walked in yesterday, into this campus where all that existed were A and D blocks. The rest? Just stretches of grass and trees. I thought I had all the time in the world back then, thought I'd achieve everything I ever wanted.
But here I am, almost four years later, walking through a campus that's now filled with buildings I watched rise over time, wondering where the years went. Wondering what it all meant.
When I first joined, I was convinced this college wouldn’t be a challenge. I believed I'd breeze through the curriculum. But the reality was far from what I imagined. My first semester was easy, sure—half of it was online. No one cared about attendance, and the days felt like they passed without consequence. But by the second semester, the cracks showed. A backlog in math (M2), and I remember calling my mom, crying. I thought I had failed, and maybe, in that moment, I had. But she told me, "It’s okay, you’ll get through it." And I did. Barely.
Third semester? Not much to say. It feels like a blur, passing without leaving a mark. But fourth semester, that’s when things shifted. I met Sandeep Mehta, hands down the best professor I’ve ever had. He taught computer networks, and I couldn’t believe someone with that level of talent was teaching here. I used to think, “Why is he in this college?” He deserved so much more. All the semesters went by.
Now, walking these lanes—so different from when I first came here—I feel a strange emptiness. Not in the campus itself, but in me. The early morning walks I take every day, while everyone else is still asleep, are my moments of peace. The campus is quiet, the air crisp, and for a little while, it feels like it’s just me and the world.
I reflect on the friends who have faded from my life, the classmates who have become distant strangers, and how I’ve gradually settled into a life of solitude. Seated alone in the front row of the class, always wearing headphones in the campus, I watch as the world moves around me, feeling disconnected from it all. I’ve often felt separate from everyone, a silent observer rather than a participant.
I ponder whether I could have forged more memories, reached out to others, been more involved. But the truth is, I didn’t. I didn’t make the effort in school, and I haven’t done it here either. My isolation has been a choice, a way of coping with the challenges and the disillusionment that came with them.
This university didn’t give me the academic fulfillment I thought I’d find, but it gave me something else. It changed me in ways I didn’t expect. I won’t lie—there’s a lot I’ll never miss. The irrelevant subjects, the endless attendance battles, the frustration of feeling like I was just going through the motions. But there are pieces of this place that will stay with me. The days when I could just disappear for a while, when the world wasn’t demanding anything of me.
Now, as I prepare to leave, I’m left with a bittersweet nostalgia for the quiet moments—the early morning walks through an empty campus, the solitude that was both a refuge and a reminder of how transient everything is. The buildings and changes around me are constant reminders of how little I truly grasped the essence of these years until now.
Time has passed, too quickly and too quietly. And in two months, I’ll be saying goodbye to all of it—the good, the bad, and everything in between.
In two months, this chapter will close, and I’ll leave behind this campus that quietly watched me change. I’ll leave behind the walks, the familiar faces I never spoke to, the buildings that rose as quickly as the years passed.
I am left with a profound sense of gratitude. My time here, with all its complexities, has been an integral part of my story—one that I will carry with me into the future, without regret.
Thank you.