How My Experience in College Changed My Life

By the time I was done with school I was fed up spending time studying things I felt had no practical application in my life.

So naturally I was happy to get admission in a college (Symbiosis, in Pune) that had no attendance policy. Every day was like a holiday. The only time it was mandatory to show up was for the exams.

Free time was something I didn’t have much of in high school when I was attending tuitions after school. There were many things I had wanted to do back then but I simply couldn’t manage to find the time for it. And now suddenly I had all the time in the world.

I have lots of fond memories from my time in college and it was a time of great personal growth and self-discovery.

During this period, I started meditating, reading a lot, began journaling, learning to sing and play the guitar, solo travelling and doing all sorts things that I never did before. I felt more alive than ever.

The guitar was something I’d wanted to learn ever since I was a kid and in college, I started learning to play with the help of some amazing and free YouTube tutorials available on the Justin Guitar channel.

I loved singing as a kid, but once I grew up, I never sang because I was terribly shy.

When I started learning to play the guitar, I started to sing more. Somehow having a guitar in hand while I sang in front of others made it less scary.

I would spend hours in my room, record myself singing while playing guitar or over a karaoke.

I never did any form of writing in school and wasn’t particularly fond of it until I started journaling when I was in college. (And probably without the habit of journaling which I began back then I doubt this blog would exist.)

In college I discovered for the first time that I really enjoy spending time by myself and there is a special power in solitude. This was when I realised that when my mind was quiet and relaxed, I would sometimes be flooded with ideas and inspiration.

Books had a big role to play in shaping me as a person during this period. I read almost a hundred books during this time, especially a lot of spiritual and metaphysical books that I found to be fascinating. These books completely changed my outlook on life for the better. Some books that I read during this time worth specially mentioning are The Conversations with God Series and Autobiography of a Yogi.

In college we had the option to do diploma Liberal Art courses. I did one on West African Drumming (Djembe), a course called Mentioning Unmentionables and one on Public Speaking. These courses were interesting and the teachers who taught them were excellent. So, I made it a point to attend these classes instead of bunking them.

In Pune, I stayed as a paying guest in a place that was walking distance from my college. The place was wonderful, had a great terrace and I loved it. I had my own room and I had a PG mate who stayed in the room right next to mine.

My PG mate for the first two years was a guy from Bangalore. We were on a similar wavelength on many subjects and he turned me onto some great music and some interesting TV shows. We had several stimulating and thought-provoking discussions that broadened my worldview.

By the end of my three years in college I was almost a completely different person to the person I was in school, and at one point I didn’t look anything like my old self either because I had grown out my hair.

Having so much free time gave me the freedom to slow down, reflect and live life more intentionally. Also staying in a new city for the first time away from my family and my two older brothers also made me think for myself and question conventional thinking.

Looking back, I feel happy that I used the free time productively. It was in college I started to get a real idea of who I was as a person and what really lit me up.

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