What we expect and what's the reality in college?

"All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program."-Mark Zuckerberg

It is thought to be a big deal to go to an engineering college and its a bit overwhelming, but you’ve got exciting times coming your way! Relieve yourself of the pre-college jitters by keeping an open mind for what’s to come—rolling with the punches is the key to a successful move-in.

Here’s a taste of what we encounter while moving to college especially if we are a computer science student.

Yes, there will be fun parties; yes, we'll have tons of freedom; and yes, there'll be some all-nighters at the hostel.But movies and all those people telling us it'll be the best four years of our life can give us some slightly unrealistic ideas about the life of computer science student.Don't get me wrong, the time on campus will be awesome and life-changing.

 We expect to hang with our besties all the time but in reality we miss our high school friends and feel like we'll never find your peeps.We accommodate in the hostel environment and expect roommates to be our besties. We expect to do our laundries like the mature,adult we are but in reality we wait until we run out of clean clothes to go somewhere for the weekend and if the vacation is near we keep them so that our mom will do our laundry.We expect to get up early and to keep our room neat and clean but in reality we sleep till noon and miss our lectures.

What we expect is there will be no home assignments and we get endless chill time.But in reality we spend the whole night seeking the solution of the problems before the class the next day.Sometimes we don't  do submission thinking it just carries few marks.We expect of a lot of beautiful and hot ladies to date but in reality we don't even like to look at their faces.Oh my god! They're so ugly.The lab reports,they're just mean for copying in the lecture classes from others.

We expect to do our projects so good but in reality we can't even complete it properly in time.We think of doing a new task in our project and explain it as good as it can be, in our proposal but in reality we excuse those proposes.We being inspired by movies viz Pirates of the Silicon Valley,The Social Network,etc,expect to do some praiseworthy jobs but in reality we limber in the room of nowhere.We pass time roaming room to room just do some chalk talk.Our thinking is to do some awesome projects in our field but the reality is not admirable.

We think not having to go to class all day means plenty of time for learning new stuff and naps.In realty,during exams while we try to cram a semester's worth of reading into three days, and we curse all those naps we took instead of doing the assigned reading. 

So what I gonna say is engineering life is not easy as others think.It can be made laudable if we keep our expectations far behind our reality.

Do we know our feelings?

“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Most of us are feelings-illiterate. I don't say this as a judgement ; I say it as a sad truth. We live in a culture that emphasizes most things masculine (doing, progressing, thinking) and undervalues the qualities of the feminine (being, reflecting, feeling). While we all experience the entire spectrum of emotions, most of us get lost in this territory.

Hopefully I can help with that.

I’m pretty good at recognizing the emotional states of others, but pretty poor when it comes to myself.Not always, but fairly often, I won’t realise I’m angry, sad or even happy until after the event. I’ve gotten better as I’ve grown older, but my lack of awareness at times still amazes me. And I’m a shrink!

Does the same go for you? Many of us think we are good at emotional self-awareness, but often we’re hopeless! We don’t tend to think about it, but often those around us know it only too well – but they politely and with good intentions keep it to themselves to keep the peace. Meanwhile we wallow in our emotional ignorance.

It's crucial for us to understand that our feelings are OUR feelings. They belong to us. So they're ours to work through. Lots of us didn't get that memo.Here's the point:We all have unique personality and triggers.What makes me feel bad is very different from what makes someone else feel bad.Thats because my wounds badly influence my bad emotions.

Given emotions are so central to everything we do – why don’t we do more to understand our feelings?Its very important for us to learn how to live with our feelings.Because we all have feelings! They're the natural part of life.They're the beautiful part of life.

More or less, the quest to improve our understanding of our emotional state adds color and meaning to our existence. In fact I think wisdom is the combination of knowledge gained over time plus intelligence plus emotional awareness. And don’t we all aim to become wise – eventually?