Skills that I have developed since joining university!

Coming to university is a big step. Be it at 18, 20 or 30, living away from home and at university seems to teach us more about life and about ourselves than any other experience, so far.

It’s been two years since I left Mumbai, my home, as a just-turned-18 year old and since then, I have gone through so many ups and downs that I cannot keep track of the skills that I have developed and the lessons I have learnt. However, for the sake of this blog, I have tried to condense a few skills that most of us seem to have picked up whilst being at university:

1. Hustling

Hustling day and night is nothing short of a skill. And a highly needed one at that. Living at university means that you will have to juggle multiple things at the same time, be it studying, working, cooking, hanging out with friends or everything together. Every student here has got their own set of tasks that they deal with on a daily basis and that’s how living away from home can be, sometimes. However, there is nothing more satisfying at the end of the day than realising that you have become a great multi-Tasker in a short amount of time and that the thought of having to handle various things doesn’t scare you as much anymore. Instead, you will feel stronger than before, especially if you are surrounded by people who are supportive and helpful.

2. Resilience

Living at University can be quite different compared to what social media and movies portray. It can be stressful at times when you have assignments and deadlines and meal preps and other stuff to deal with. In those situations, you learn the life-saving skill of Resilience. The ability to keep going no matter what happens is taught amazingly well by the experience of living on your own. Coming from a very protected background, I personally had never had to deal with major stress or failures or confusions but after having moved here, I have figured out a way to deal with all that and more in a short period of time. While it sounds daunting, it really isn’t cause as time passes, you figure out things for yourself without actually realising it.

3. Employability skills

When you start working, alongside your studies, you realise just how important it is to have previous and existing work experience, even if it isn’t directly related to your course. This is important because no amount of preparation and studying that I did could have taught me so much about practical skills than actually stepping outside my comfort zone and working in a new industry. Moreover, a lot of courses have an immensely practical curriculum or offer employability developing modules that are really helpful in the long run as you can add them into your CV and slide into the industry with an advantage. Being at university also gives you a reason as it’s expensive to finance some things without working so students often turn to part-time jobs that are more flexible and hands-on which allows us to gain more than one kind of experience and figure out which field we are actually interested in.