Edited by: Kavya Mittal
During my O-week as a UG’23 student, I remember my cohort leaders patiently answering several rounds of questions that, at their very core, revolved around one query – what is the campus like? We heard story after story about dorm room escapades, friendships, and so on. The ability to picture ourselves in someone else’s memories, in this hypothetical ‘college life’ was bizarre, but at the same time, it was the only thing we could do that made an online semester a tad bit easier.
And now, as the cohort leadership programme starts again this year and as I thought of applying (I did not, though), it seemed almost comical because I could picture myself trying to answer questions such as ‘how’s the campus?’, ‘are the dorms good?’, and ‘what do you guys do on Thursdays?’ and struggling to form a coherent answer or even a sentence.
Following the same line, this piece started out as a hypothetical scenario in which I give the fresh-faced first years a tour of the campus, with the description of almost everything being completely inaccurate – the buildings, the story behind the statues, the party scenes, stories about professors. But as I spent hours pondering over what I could write, I discovered that it was impossible for me to conjure up stories, or even imagine what campus might look like.
And it was with this that I realised that there’s nothing about Ashoka University that makes me feel at home. As of now, it’s just classes, awkward meetings, and conversations with a few friends, but nothing that sets it apart from any other online course. But what I find fascinating is that I am oddly comfortable with this. I cannot resist but to say – it is the new normal.
But with campus opening up, sort of, there is this hazy grey area where it is difficult to put my emotions into words. I am excited about a new experience, but I am apprehensive about it as well. I feel nostalgic for a place I have never been to before, but I am afraid to be in a new place as well. And as I move back and forth between all of this, I feel like I am stuck in a strange limbo with no solution.
An online learning experience has created a relationship between me and Ashoka University that is too murky to explore and I am not sure where I stand with it anymore. Because as I mentioned, there is no emotional connection, ‘AU‘23’ are just characters meant for my Instagram bio as of now. Despite this, it still feels like a new space for me, I thought that this merely extended to the physical environment but after a year, I feel as though my entire experience can be encapsulated in this as well. And I feel as though the absence of a physical campus has resulted in Ashoka feeling like a new space for me despite studying here for a year.
I remember all the first days of school after the summer vacation got over, and they were exciting because I was going to meet my friends, display the (later realised) horrible haircut I gave myself on a whim, but primarily, because I was getting back to something. And as my second year starts in less than a week, I thought that I would be looking forward to it, but admittedly, I am somewhat dreading it. The thought of having to sit in front of the screen for hours on end, multiple DS’s, presentations, projects, papers, take-home assignments is dreadful enough; because this is all that college is for me. This is not to say that I do not appreciate the brilliant course content and the professors who teach it, but in essence, it is merely more work. And I am not sure how I feel about that.
But with things looking up, for now, I am waiting for when I feel like college is more than just straight A’s and getting on the Dean’s List. I am waiting till I feel like I am truly a part of something.