Latest
DU Beat – Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper
Tag

College Friendships

Browsing
Campus Central

What College Taught Me: From the Eyes of a First-Year Student

By

With this semester, the first-year of college comes to an end for many students. Let’s take a look at the learnings of a first-year student.

  • Exposure and Experience

The first year of college is an eye-opener to the real world, it gives you a view of adulthood and brings along a sense of independence. It doesn’t come easy to many, makes life difficult for a few, and lonely for others. But what it does give you is exposure and experience to cure that gaping hole of leaving your home, friends, school, and your city behind. An outstation student of the University said “Yeh Delhi ne toh meri Lucknow ki saari Nawabi hi nikal di, Kahan main vaha maze mein ghoomti thi, aur yahan auto vaalon se dus-dus rupaye ke liye ladti hoon (Delhi has taken away all the Lucknow royalty from me, I used to a carefree child. Here, in Delhi, I have to fight with the auto-rickshaw drivers for INR 10)” She agrees that college life has transformed her to become a better version of herself. She is able manage her finances well.

  • Friends and Family

Himanika Agarwal from Gargi College commented, “Everybody used to tell me that you never find real friends in college, even I used to believe that. But Glass Eye, the Film Making Society of Gargi College has given me some of the best friends I have ever had, who have now become my family.” In the first-year itself, you find your close group of friends who become your family and confidants, be it your classmates or the members of your college society, college helps you to find people who you remember all throughout.

  • Fests and Euphoria

The cultural fests organised by the University of Delhi (DU) colleges is another enlightening experience for the students. Fresh out of taking the first semester examinations, students attend fests with their ‘college gang’ looking up wide eyed at the glittering lights of concerts and competitions, breathing in the chaos, and adapting to the crowds.

My first-year, personally, gave me The Local Train, another staple name associated with the DU fests. This musical band and their brand of music, their lyrics, and the performances are worth it. Another student added, “I can easily say that my checklist for a happening college life ticked off with after attending Vishal-Shekhar’s concert at Mecca, the cultural fest of Hindu College.”

  • The ability to study overnight

College is not only fun and games, academics also play an important role. This involves projects, class presentations, reviews, internals, and exams. These conclusively teach every student to study or make a presentation a night before the submission. This might be unhealthy, but it is a fact.

  • A new perspective

Above all, for me, the first-year of college worked as a stepping stone in the process of unlearning patriarchal norms and misogynistic conditioning, we as naïve little kids were subjected to, throughout our childhood. Classroom discussions with strong opinionated teachers, debates with your peers and seniors, revolutionary texts and readings, interactions about the rights of the LGBTQ community, these have changed my perspective for the better. Looking back, I can now remember instances in the past which were problematic, but I didn’t realise earlier. These realisations are my achievements of gaining new and better ideologies and of becoming a more ‘woke’ individual.

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

 

Sakshi Arora

[email protected]

Keep Reading
By
Campus Central

Seniors and Juniors: We are a Family!

By

Seniors, Thank you for being a family away from home.

College gives you many experiences: your first crush, boyfriend or girlfriend, multi-tasking, monetary-crises, exposure to the real world and above all, a family of your own. In this family, first-year students generally play the role of lost little kids who need guidance, second-year students are slightly older, wiser selves who fear becoming seniors and the third-year students are truly your guides in the journey. They act like your parents and in this cute little niche, you unravel to become the best version of yourself.

Seniors play a severely essential role in this development; they scold you and care for you simultaneously, to a point where their embraces become your safe space to spiral out of control and stress out, and their hugs of appreciation become the best reward of your hard work. Riddhi, a student of B.A (History) Hons from Gargi College stated that for her, her seniors became her family when she opened up to them. She said, “In the first meeting, they made us talk about ourselves, our views, our families, our lives. Now, it has come to a point where I can share absolutely anything with them, just the way I would do with my family back home.”

One of the essential reasons first-year students thrive for love from their seniors is that most of the leave the comfort of their houses and come to a new place to embark on a new journey. The support of someone older, wiser, and smarter gives them immense confidence to find their footing in a new world. Another reason might be the bond of being in a society and creating new memories with their seniors while working with them throughout the year. “I feel the bond between seniors and juniors is more than just a bond; over the years, it has become a sort of tradition. Our seniors do for us, what their seniors did for them. And we will surely take this legacy forward,” said a student from the Theatre Society of Lady Shri Ram College for Women.

Mahi, a student of Miranda House shared that her seniors have always played the role of her parents whenever she needed them. “There have been so many instances where Saubhagya (her senior) has practically acted like my father. He has scolded me for being reckless on roads and has taken care of me when I was sick. Others too have essentially become my family, with whom I could crib all day about my problems.”

Sarah Jalil, a B.A (English) Hons student from Gargi College added that she doesn’t even like the term ‘junior’ anymore. She said “They are, in fact, my equals. The time I spent with them was truly special. I will cherish it as long as I will live.” Similarly Kinjal Pandey, Editor-in-Chief  2018-19, DU Beat applauded the enthusiasm she has seen and experienced in her juniors from DU Beat and her society. She stated “They had more ideas and enthusiasm. Saying that it’s a generation thing would be very dramatic since we are only a year older but I do see more enthu-cutlets in my juniors.”

Sincere thanks to all the seniors who are graduating this year. May all your dreams come true. In one way or the other you have brought a change in your juniors’ life, be it your daant (scolding) or your pyaar (love) , we will treasure those moments forever and ever.

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

Sakshi Arora

[email protected]

 

Keep Reading
By
Your Beat

It’s Not Your Job to Fix Others

By

Trying to fix someone refers to whole-heartedly taking up their problems, and trying to fix it for them. It almost
feels like living their life on their behalf. Seemingly selfless, this practice can be toxic. So unless you are Coldplay,
don’t go out there, and say the F word.

One of the main reasons why we feel obligated to fix others is because we feel that we have the ‘outsider’s perspective’ on their lives. We believe that the person concerned is too involved in the problem to see all the sides, and hence, the prospective solutions. Or we might feel that the person is too afraid of the negative outcomes of the
problem at hand, that, they fail to act properly and give it a fair solution.

Loving someone and fixing them are two different things.

What we need to understand is that we can not be there for everyone all the time. There will be a time when a person would have to solve a problem on their own and they might end up blaming your absence as the reason for their
problems. You need to let go of the necessity to fix the lives of others, in order to be happy yourself and
letting other people be happy in their lives as well.
Through unrelenting guilt, the burden of other’s troubles goes to add on to our own misery. Often, we find ourselves in this moral dilemma; how appropriate is our indulgence, and how helpful is our concern for the well-being of others. An important observation is that lending an ear is often helpful, but having heard something, it is
not always the best option to offer advice. As relatable you may find the situation to be, you cannot ever possibly live through it like the person actually struggling with it. Your failure at not being able to ‘fix’ someone is not a marked disability. Experience will inform you that toxicity becomes evident when the self is strained. When the experience of others becomes too taxing for your mental health and physical health, it is time to distance yourself. It is often felt that kind people can be trusted with traumas. “Maybe she will have something wise to say about this,” you might
think, and approach a listener. But how often do you take someone’s permission, or seek their consent to indulge them in a conversation that can possibly put all the ideals of the listener to question? We all could adapt to this habit, gradually.
When the external problems start affecting the internal self, it is your cue to be on your guard. Then, you abandon your friend? Abandonment is easily an escape from your own conscience. You cannot act as a professional psychologist or a therapist, and you should not.
College life is full of exquisite experiences as it is of turbulent traumas. It always helps to find an ear, but never to fully rely on it. You can be this ear to someone. But overburdening yourself with the obligation of fixing someone else’s life would amount to nothing but disallowing yourself pace and calm. Maybe we could learn to say, “Let the lights guide you home, it is not my job to fix you.”

Feature Image Credits: Flickr

Khyati Sanger
[email protected]
Kartik Chauhan
[email protected]

Keep Reading
By
DUB Speak

Friendships in College: How to Make a Lasting Bond

By

When we start college, the thought of spending three years with the same set of people doesn’t hit us at once. But, inevitably, these people become an extension of who we are.

College hands us innumerable lectures, assignments, exams and anxiety the moment we become part of the higher-education group. So much so, that in keeping up with the day’s activities, we begin to lose sight of what is important in life- association. But one highly underrated gift that college gives us would be friends, joining us in this happy-sad-journey.

It is often joked about that the people we sit with on the first day of college tend to become our best friends. Funny as it may seem, it does contain a certain amount of truth in it, if not completely veritable. This might be the reason why, despite cliched cliques, every person in a group of friends has their own unique personality, and is allowed to maintain that. Here, we learn an enormously important life skill, which is tolerance.

“In college, we meet people from diverse backgrounds, having different opinions,” says Alfisha Sabri, a first-year English honours student of Maitreyi College. “Being mature and respecting the views of others, whilst sticking to our own beliefs, is what makes strong friendship bonds that pass the test of time.” What happens here is that we, unknowingly, prepare ourselves for the wider spectrum of people we will have to interact with as we proceed further on in life. Mutual respect is something that can never be compromised on.

In friendship, there is an unsaid rule of agreeing to disagree. Even though we may not accept our friends’ point of view, doesn’t make them (or you) a bad person; rather, they are individual choices which everyone makes.

If it is friends that we want, we have to ensure that we are a friend to them in the first place. From sharing notes to being there in times of crisis, we must play our part in the friendship because only then can we expect something in return. This is similar to being a safe space for our friends, in an environment that may get extremely inhospitable at times. We should be that somebody they can rely on, so when we need a hand or a heart, they will be sitting next to us.

College is a time when we hardly have free time on our hands. There is always so much to get done in what seems like forever-diminishing-time and everyone is pushing themselves to a point of mental and physical exhaustion. As friends, we must ensure that we do spend time outside of the classrooms as well, and not let go of the tradition of ‘hanging out’. Contrary to this, we must be understanding and appreciative of our friends’ efforts to do their very best and not mope over the lack of ceremonious gatherings because they, too, run on a very tight schedule.

Having said all of this, I do believe that laughter, harmless witticisms and getting into moderate trouble seal the bond of friendship, and it is these mildly scandalous incidents that serve as amazing anecdotes years down the line!

 

Feature Image credits: Sneha Garg

Maumil Meharj

[email protected]

 

Keep Reading
By
DUB Speak

Maintaining your Identity in College

By

Sometimes loving yourself means taking a break from giving so much of yourself to the rest of the world.

-Angel Lindberg Vazquez

 In today’s world, there is this wide uproar to embody the best virtues you discover around yourself. To be more accepting, to be more outgoing and to lose yourself; because reportedly losing yourself is the key to finding your truest essence – arguably, there is some truth to this too. More often than not, this philosophical outbreak confuses me in all my trial-and-error methods of understanding the young minds in college. Are we truly accepting, to the high extents that we presume ourselves to be? Are we truly that welcoming? These are all subjective answers, and unsurprisingly, the youth will agree that they are all these things and much more. But it is our duty to question, to doubt and therefore to discover the truth. Now truth, again, is a matter that is governed by perspectives. So what we do infer is that to discover truth, you need to discover yourself. This discovery will root from the retaining of your own identity. Your own self.

It is natural for many of us to feel at home in college; to not be outcasted. We are fed with this idea that college life is all about the people and your experiences. But in college, you will realise that there are prejudices, hypocrisies, and vanities – present as they are everywhere. You will realise that you are not smart enough, or have some other inferiority of your own liking. These days you will be shook, when you face a reality that will question your outlooks. The most challenging task that you have to accomplish then is to find an answer. It is not that difficult, look closely and you will find answers – within yourself. My argument borders on pessimistic idealism, some might say, but always remember, the greatest power is in you. No question is too big nor too difficult for your comprehension. Believing in yourself is the first step towards the manifestation of the best version of you. And this is what college is about – becoming.

There are some days, when people will make you question your mannerisms and behaviorisms. When you will be left to fend for yourself – am I being too judgemental or too critical or am I out of place? In my not so humble opinion, the fear of judgement feeds on insecurities. Preaching acceptance and practising it are diametric, to say the least. One of my seniors told me once, that to have a judgment means to have an opinion; and that is the idea of education – to invite our self-introspection, to form opinions. In rude terms of this materialistic world, when something true takes roots, others will try to escape from it or in other words, they will escape from themselves; and in that they end up losing themselves. Once assumptions are made, once people start presuming, the only thing to do is steel ourselves against their supposedly true ideas. I have learned this time and again that apology is not taken in its intended spirit by an ignorant mind. It is always something that diminishes your own character in their eyes.

The choice is always ours, and ours alone.

People don’t like people for being people these days. You like a model, an ideal image of a character. If someone doesn’t suit that image, you will criticise them, and not even to their face. They can claim all their shams of maturity and sensitivity/sensibility are true, but they know the truth, and unsurprisingly, we do too. When something real happens, people will revert to their unrealistic models. And for all I know, I am not a model. And neither are you.
Judgment and criticism and appreciation follow in a particular fashion, but more often than not, ignorance will only have eyes for the first two.

Whatever you are, hold true to it. Embrace yourself and then embrace this world. No one is you, and that is your power.

 You might be wondering – what is the meaning of friendship and acquaintances then? I do not seek to inspire anyone into a lifestyle of devil-may-care attitude, at all. All I wish for us to learn is that there is a truth, sheer truth within us. I wish to tell you that obstinacy of a character that you are is not wrong. I wish to tell you that this obstinacy must also be withdrawn; not because someone tells you to do so, but because you feel this yourself. So never falter in your own musings, because the best that the world deserves is you and vice versa.

Always question and always answer yourself.

Some days, when I am myself,

Alone and alone, self-cornered, self-doubted,
I fail to explore myself, even when
I am, I think, myself.
And these days I ask myself
In no uncertain terms: who am I?

I forget myself these days,
Failing reminders – I am,
I am myself and my joy is in me.
That endless joy, unmeasured,
Unending – I am, I was, I will be.
An endless ocean, my deepest depth, I am.

Strange how I should lose myself,
Bereft of warmth, bestowed with doubt.
On days like these, when you make me
Question myself and all of me,
I feel reduced, but I learned to rise too.
And so I will, always. I will.

Because on these days,
When I lose myself to your denial,
I find myself too, and I find more.
More to Myself.

 

Feature Image Credits: Favim

Kartik Chauhan
[email protected]

 

 

Keep Reading
By
DUB Speak

College Friendships and Their Significance

By

Friends are the family we choose. Invariably, they hold a significant place in our lives. This special relationship begins when two people share their happiness and sorrows with each other, and end up accompanying each other through life’s milestones.

We have grown up with our school friends, but there’s something special about the one’s you meet in college.The friends you make in college are completely different from other friend you have made in your entire life. Unlike your high school friends, you actually chose these bonds based on common interests, not simply because you grew up with them. Friendship becomes a vital part of life during college because not only are we finding out who we ultimately are, but we’re also discovering who’s going to be with us on the rest of our life’s journey. That guy you meet on the first day of orientation or that girl you meet in the canteen on you college fest may end up becoming that friend who you’d call ten years after graduation when your kids tell you stories about their friends.

Making lifelong friends in college allows you to share any of life’s milestones with your friends: getting your first internship or landing your first job. Not only do they see you grow from a first-year college student to a seasoned college graduate, they also live all your life-defining moments with you.

College friends are the ones who have seen you at your absolute worst and cheered you at your best, be it any society audition or a placement interview. There are no boundaries in your friendship; no obligations, no restrictions, just unalderated, at times brutal and much needed honesty. It’s become completely normal for you and your friend to share your  bed and each other’s wardrobe. From hating the same professors to having a crush on the girl with red hair, this friendship will be a friendship for a lifetime. They are the only people with whom you can enjoy even when you are not doing anything special; even laying on the bed, uttering the randomest of thoughts to each other and pondering on them seems like bliss.
As the years in college progress, there will be a time when you will experience the feeling of ‘home’ with your friends. Feeding each other while preparing for semester exams, holding each other’s hands while crossing the road, or simply understanding each other’s past and problems – these friends will make sure you never feel alone. From pushing through the bad days and laughing through the good ones, to surviving the burden of growing up, you become each other’s survival kits in college and will have interesting and epic stories to tell your kids, thanks to college friendships.

They’ll stand like a shadow, a shield, and will try to protect, and teach you how to learn from every pit you fall in. From planning trips to Ladakh, Goa, Kasol, and Manali, to critically dissecting the new TV series, college walls have seen some of the purest bonds emerging.

In all seriousness, we all extremely blessed to have friends which help us through the most critical and difficult phase of our lives, where we’re still getting to paint our dreams with the colours of reality. The picture isn’t always pretty, but at least there is good company to laugh at the misery.

Let your gang know, “Tere jaisa yaar kahaan,kaahan aisa yaarana“, and cherish the beautiful bond you guys share!

Anoushka Sharma
[email protected]

Keep Reading
By