I am suddenly thrown into a building with my peers, overwhelmed by a strange change of system in the educational process and baffled by the diversity I encountered on the first day. Many say that this is a natural process, a puzzling switch into adult life and a change in consciousness, allowing adolescents to discover a novel perspective on the world. A four-year-long road, full of mountains and pits where the final destination is a world of mystery and its name is the university.
Many of us, university or college students, might have mixed feelings about the entire process of adapting and surviving, especially for those leaving our homes to move to a different region or a country. Everything suddenly becomes questionable - identity, life choices, major - and a depressing wave of uncertainties seems to conquer our high-school individuum.
I am currently sitting in a noisy cafe and observing groups of people chattering, wondering if they agree with the points I made earlier. Inside I am boiling with jealousy: I can see the rain pouring from the turquoise sky and it does not care about ruining some people’s picnic date plans or making someone happy with its aesthetic flow. I wish I was like rain: not concerned about my actions.
My thoughts were randomly interrupted by a random sound of a person placing their backpack right on my table. I lift my head and see a man in his forties, with a worried look on his face while having a call with someone. He starts sweating, walking to and fro in an already crowded cafe and wiping the sweat off of his forehead with a tissue. Having circled the room infinitely many times, he finally sat at the table and started crying in the worst manner possible. Interestingly, his facial expressions transferred into a clumsy smile as he put down the phone.
“Small-size cappuccino, your order is ready!” - said the barista.
The man ran to grab his drink and I, as an extremely curious person, decided to listen to his conversation with the barista.
“Mark, you are finally shining, what lighted you up today?”
The man, whose name is Mark, responded:
“Lisa got in. Masters at Johns Hopkins!”
At this exact moment, a wheel-chaired person stopped. It was a girl aged around 18, with glasses and as I could detect, a hearing machine.
Barista started clapping and everyone around joined in the happy moment. Turns out she was Lisa, the daughter of Mark who just heard her acceptance news.
Later on, her father approached my table and gently apologized for not asking if he could sit next to me. I replied that it was okay, and told him that I would like to have a conversation with Lisa since her success fascinated me to learn more about her.
A little shy at first, Lisa seemed amiable, outgoing and open to sharing her life experience. I believe I exhausted her with my questions, but all the answers that I heard were like winning a jackpot - she responded with great enthusiasm, and most importantly, precision.
“Last question, how do I cope with this non-smooth transition between school and university?” - I asked.
She gave a little smirk and then responded:
“Well, it won’t be easy. I was no different than you in the very beginning: scared, and preoccupied about living alone and making new friends. Since you are a math major, I will explain it this way: imagine you are solving a challenging math problem, which does not seem as complicated at first. Straight up you are answering, without much analysis, and as you might guess, it turns out wrong. Then you ask yourself questions regarding separate parts of the problem and slowly understand the solution method, while struggling, making mistakes and desiring to give up at a certain point. However, you do get the final answer and it is different from the initial one.
So is university life. You start questioning concepts, people and most importantly, yourself. I was a person with no disabilities as a freshman, then I got into a car accident as a junior that paralyzed my legs and significantly impacted my hearing. This was when I started understanding what confused me so much in the past: disability opened a new perspective on the world. I gained more empathy towards everyone and discovered that I would love to continue my volunteer involvement in helping people with similar issues as mine.
Now, this is not to say that you need to sacrifice a piece of yourself while learning life, but rather try to pay more attention to what surrounds you and how you can make the best use of it before the time is gone.”
I finally became conscious of the ignorance that I had exactly 44 minutes ago. Yet now I understand that even ignorance is a part of perceiving the unknown and turning into a master of it.
Even the rain seems less straightforward now, considering what it went through before appearing in front of the public eye in a form of “experienced” liquid.
Written by Gulchin Aliyeva
10.10.2022
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