Dear Itu
I know that you are excited and terrified about the year ahead, it is to be expected. You have closed one chapter in your life and you are about to open a new one. Don’t think that the experience that one gets from university is specific and therefore evident, it does not matter where you go or what you do, you learn what you choose to.
I have now been here for sometime and I can honestly say that most of the things that I have learned have not come from text books or lectures. I remember first arriving here and having strangers tell me “just chill”, I should have listened. I instead devoted all my time to my studies and what do I have to show for it, I’m still a high school student only in a different location. In terms of studying I can only give you one advice, take your head out of the books and look around, maybe then you’ll learn something that can actually be helpful to a normal person like yourself. Remember when just before leaving dad said “Your life is about to change,” and you said “Agh please, I have been in hostel since I was twelve”, well it’s not the same thing. You need to grow and the only way to do that is to live, not just to exist.
When you arrive hear you will be bombarded with posters and leaflets about what to do and which societies to join. Take one and join something. The best way to find out what you like is by exploring and discovering what you don’t like. The university is truly filled with many societies, some not as productive as others, but at least by the end of your first year you will know what you want and what you don’t. So I wish you good luck for the upcoming year and remember, you can not always learn by observing, sometimes you need to do.
With the utmost sincerity
Your Future Self
2 comments:
ahhh...that was so sweet Prof. I hope you finally have a life now.
Dear Itu
I have just read your letter and was really touched by the maturity of your realisation. I am also a first year journalism student at Rhodes and this is very similar to the advice that I chose to give my younger self. I was not in boarding school so I am not sure what the change was like for you but I had got to a point where I had fallen into a comfort zone at school and never had to leave it. I suppose my problem did not have so much to do with being too involved with work but being too caught up in my nerves and unable to put myself into a new social situation. Ten months down the line I now see that although initially getting involved in new social situations, such as the societies you speak of, is harder at first but easier in the long run! Good luck with finding your balance fellow blogger.
Post a Comment