Confusion, excitement, expectations and obviously million uncertainties are some of the feelings you can associate freshers Week with. It is indeed a time almost every university student lives to remember, even long in one’s old age. Besides, how could you forget such a time when you first went clubbing, or when you had nights out the whole week, mid-night fire alarms, a time you tested your limits including signing up to 40 societies, and a time you were inconceivably excited one moment and completely lost the next. But what happens between that time and the second semester, or second year, or maybe third, fourth, fifth… after graduation! While, I think this is something we mostly never get to seriously think about.
Wandering through the university campus these past few days has evoked in me a strong realisation of how time zips along. This actually began last week when I was helping in the orientation of the 4th cohort of Mastercard Foundation (MCF) scholars. As older folks, our job with the other volunteering scholars was basically helping out in orientating the new scholars in the city and answering any questions they had about their specific or general studies and stay in Edinburgh based on our experience. It felt cool to be the ‘big’ experienced brother helping out. But along the way, I noticed something. At times I would feel like I was helping out with things that I strongly felt were ‘too basic’ and ‘self explanatory’ like “how many notebooks should I buy?”, yet they were the same things that I had no idea about when I arrived, and the things I needed help with. I remembered my first few days in the UK and at school: brimming with all those feelings mentioned above. Now I seemed to have lost track of time and my progress.
But the same question kept popping up the whole of last week and this week: What really happened in between the time I arrived and now? Time seems to have faded my experience. I know it sounds like a silly question to ask. Obviously I have been attending lectures, studying, visiting places, meeting people, having fun. But is that it? What has happened to me(!) in between? It’s a question I, shamefully, can’t answer immediately because I spent so much more time concentrating on things and people around me than myself. University can, and it surely does, get busy, and interesting activities—new movies, parties, games, extra courses—come up every time. I am not saying any of this is bad. But all this makes it so easy to deprive ourselves of the time for real reflection on our journeys as individuals and plan what we want at the end of it. Geoffrey, a good friend and countryman in second year too, told me that a couple of times, but as usual I was ‘too busy’ to take it seriously. Now looking at the freshers, it dawned on me that time surely flies.
I am not saying that I haven’t learnt anything in the whole year I’ve been in university. If at all, I have learnt more than I thought I would. My most meaningful lessons have come from outside my courses: the books I have read (philosophical, business and historical), the people I have met and the activities I have participated in (MCF Design Day, MCF Summer school, research project about Accessing Higher Education for refugees through Blended Learning in Lebanon, and the Leapfrogging Beyond Borders outreach project—STEM awareness in high schools, to mention few). All this is important. But my concern is on how often I (or we) take time to reflect on and put what we learn—consciously and unconsciously—into perspective. It’s about how we consciously think about our wellbeing too. Sadly, I haven’t done so well on this.
I do not intend to give any remedy to anyone with this writing, we all have different experiences. This is merely an unstructured reflection for myself, about my realisation of how little time I spent on myself in my first year at university. It is a reflection of how it dawned on me that I am already going to second year, and that I only have not more than three years to 'figure out' what my life 'should' look like after university. It could, however, and I hope it does, help you think about and develop a culture of examining your own journey and development as an individual. Personally, as I begin this new academic year, I aim to work more on self-awareness and personal development. Time deceived me once, but it won’t deceive me twice.
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