I’m About To Graduate

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This will probably be my last post as an undergraduate. Because the graduation will be commenced tomorrow (11th June) and after that we’ll be officially graduates of Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Our final semester exams were over for quite a while and we all were busy job hunting. It took a quite a while for the idea ” we are no longer university students” to hit home. When it did, it did badly.

When I got the message that final year results are out I was so excited I sent messages alerting all my friends. But that was quite shot-lived and I had to send each and everyone of them another message saying ” sorry, only the results of 4th year generals and specials are out”. It was so disappointing and most of us were even angry. Okay, not most, I was angry. Are we not equals? Are we not students? Don’t we deserve to know our marks?

That is when the bitter message hit me , “we are graduands”. We will be issued a transcript unlike our fellow batch mates in the forth year. Time here at university for us has come to an end.

And then a new madness hits you few days before convocation. You start to ask yourself “what next? ”

Anyway for you all (most of you all) these thoughts may be alien as earthlings to martians. And most of you have few more years to spend as undergraduates. So I thought I’d write few lines on what you can do at university (while studying of course!). And I will try my best to make it far from the new trend of generalized branding type of article!

1) Do your studies well. Put all your heart into it. ( okay, most of your heart). You did not study your head off for A/L for two years to get into university and not complete your degree! You got through that hurdle so you have the capacity to finish the degree. If you have an ambition you can excel at it too!

2) Try a new sport. You may have never participated in school sports except for that one time you were herded to the ground for drill when you are in the primary class. But I assure you, that if you have the will you can start a sport at university and be real good at it too! It only took 3 months for Djibo Issaka to be an Olympian from being a novice in Rowing.

3) Go to the gymnasium at least once in your university life. You don’t really have to do any sports ( well if you do all the better). At least go and see how our gymnasium lures people in for hours and hours even though it is like a red hot oven!

4) Join one of the clubs ( All the better if many clubs). There is plenty of clubs at university and one of them surely will match your taste. I don’t mean joining a club by default because you follow a subject. Join and go to meetings, forums and events. Enjoy them!

5) Don’t miss the batch trip! Guys I know it is just a one day trip and you all have to suffer the burden of towing girls on your way back from Hanthana. And of course you all hard core bag-packers can go on a longer trip instead. Do not miss it never the less. It is one of those chances you get to bond with the whole batch and tests your ability to tolerate many types of people.

6) Go for a swim with pals. You don’t have to pay a cent to use the pool. When you are stressed, with exams getting close the best thing to do on a hot sunny day is spending a few hours at the pool. Of course you don’t have to swim like an Olympic swimmer or a swimmer for that matter. Just go there, submerge in water, splash around for a bit, have a chat and return back to your work. You might not know but it is a proven stress reliever.

7) Help a friend or even a stranger. Just because you are undergraduates and running after those A’s and A+’s it doesn’t mean you should forget what it is to be human. If you have an extra penny, give it to someone needy. If you don’t have that much of money well at least you can share some of your quality time with that pal who has had a hard time lately!

8) Be a FOS blogger, and share your views, experiences and thoughts! You can even make it a platform to get thoughts from likely minded people on your research topics!

I know you there are plenty more other things you can do at university. You are welcome to share a few!

Whatever you do, enjoy it! There won’t be any other time or phase in your life where you are broke to the last penny and still could enjoy unhindered (maybe not totally) from the massive load of problems and issues in the society.

Have no regrets!

Cheers!!