University- a place where I have had a love-hate relationship over the past few years.
I have no shame admitting that I am a huge fan of teen rom-coms and during my high school life, my ultimate goal was to live the very university life shown in those rom-coms. Hanging out with friends, exciting new adventures, concerts, excelling in extra-curricular activities, or maybe falling in love were all the things in my ‘University Bucket List’. I was ready for it all - a new life, and a fresh start. But did the following years live up to my expectations? Well, maybe…
I didn’t get accepted to BUET. But before this failure, another window of opportunity had just opened for me- Islamic University of Technology. I opted for IUT mostly because my parents thought it would be the safest environment for me. They were not wrong, speaking honestly. Besides, there was this new Mars rover team there who just beat the BUET rover team at some international competition the previous year. If I get selected for the team, I’ll get an opportunity to feel a little less sad about not making it to BUET.
I can clearly remember the warning from a man in the registrar’s office at IUT, who had said that this place is like a high school. Everything follows a strict academic calendar and you have to be extremely studious if you aim for a decent CGPA. How hard could that be? I am going to cover everything taught throughout the entire semester during PL (preparatory leave which is common in most public universities of Bangladesh). Apparently, IUT did not have such a thing called PL! When the man in the registrar’s office said ‘high school’, he literally meant it! Well, if the other students can do it, so will I. However, as an introvert, I didn’t find the place quite suited for me at first. Everyone was making new friend circles while I couldn’t fit in any. Throughout my entire life, there was a strong support system behind me- my parents, my four special friends and the best mentor in the world. Suddenly, without them having my back, I became lonely and clueless about everything going on around me. As the mid-semester exams approached, I started to realize how poorly prepared I was. Top it off with the reassurance from a senior that mid-semester exams don’t affect your CGPA. Perhaps, I misunderstood what he said. I ended up getting the lowest marks, among the four residents of room no. 507, in all of the courses except for Electrical Circuit-1. That was my wake-up call. Luckily, by then I had got to know some amazing sophomores. I had to brush off the guilt and ask for help. With the guidance from the sophomores and my all-time mentor, I prepared strategically for the finals and I’m proud to say that I managed to acquire a pretty decent result. So, this was the story of the greatest comeback of my academics so far.
Now, let’s talk about the thing that ushered me to study engineering in the first place- hardware, in my case it happened to be robotics. If I had to give ten reasons to get admitted into IUT, the first one would be club activities. I’ll come up with the rest of the reasons later! We have a handful of clubs at IUT. But I can guarantee that each one of them will give you the environment to grow as a person and to acquire enough skills to get a head start in an engineering university. You will meet a bunch of amazing people here who are always ready to help. Whatever skills I have learned throughout the last two years, wouldn’t be so easily possible without them. IUT is not the best university out there. But here, you’ve got these people who are sailing in the same sea as you, if not on the same boat, and they are always willing to help you navigate through this rough journey. Yes, you don’t have much time to study for an exam but that also prepares you to be punctual and strategic about your tasks. You won’t get an enriched cultural environment here, but your seniors will give their best to arrange the ‘Freshers Reception of the Decade’ for you. Of course, Club Freshers have their own charm. You may not have the biggest campus in the country, but you get to live in this marvelous Red Fort with all its luxuries. Yeah, great meals three times a day, a spacious room with only three roommates, clean bathrooms, decent housekeeping, adequate free WLAN service, a monthly allowance of more than three thousand takas are luxuries for an average undergraduate student in Bangladesh. And if you are an IUTian girl, the sunset law might make you feel imprisoned but hey, Cinderella had a curfew after midnight. Relatable, right?
IUT has a lot to offer if you are willing to accept. After all, life is all about the opportunities you avail. So, did IUT live up to my expectations? Well, I got two more years to find out the answer. But for now, I think I have got everything I could ask for.
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