Exactly a year since I have left campus now. Unfortunately, not a day goes by without missing the campus. I thought life doesn’t change much for someone who goes straight to school right after you leave one. But it has.
1. Loneliness. No matter what I did, I had someone to do it along with through out my stay in Pilani. Going home, coming back, night outs, breakfasts, Oasis, gtalk, DC chats, cricket, badminton, MT2 lectures, Shiv G strolls, TIME classes, Coursera, Quora and porn (sometimes). It no longer is like that now. You need to constantly be aware.
2. Difficulty in making new friends. Though most of us come from different backgrounds, we more or less were the same. We enter the campus with slates wiped clean. I could instantly connect with anyone I met during my campus days. Somehow, I no longer am able to do so. It takes a lot more time and effort to make new friends. Somehow, the bar rose too high, and I am unable to bring it down now. I am certainly proud of the friends I have made in Pilani, but even more so worried about making new ones from now on. I guess I have to ardently stick to those I’ve made there. Can’t help.
3. Independence. You are free to do what you want to do. Grad school places no constraints. Every course you take up is an elective. Every project you take up is by choice. You start accomplishing tasks to the best of your abilities. You know what failure tastes like, so you no longer are afraid of failing (there’s only so much loss as a grad student, after all you still are a student)
4. Recognition. I mostly move around with recently emigrated Indian Engineering population in a distant land. There is more “Oh, you are from BITS!” here than I found in India. That was a pleasant surprise. Even more surprising when you hear it from the Professors in your school, who I expected to have no knowledge about BITS Pilani (I am talking about those who aren’t in the Ad-coms)
5. Value for time. You totally need to be in a corporate environment clocking 80 hours a week to know the value of time. But to a certain extent, I value time more. Juggling with intern-applications (unsuccessfully), assignment deadlines (so many), cooking and cleaning (grooming included), sleep, snow, financial strain etc., you get to value your time more.