Travelling over 100-km to reach colleges and then going for tiring part-time jobs after spending five to six hours in colleges, students from Punjab are doing every bit to ensure a bright future.

Prabhjeet Singh Sandhu’s normal day starts at 4am with preparations for breakfast and lunch followed by a sprint to the nearby bus station to catch the 5.30 am bus to his college in Waterloo (115-km from Toronto). His daily struggle doesn’t end there. After returning to Toronto in the evening, Sandhu spends up to five hours in a bakery before winding up at around 11pm or sometimes past midnight.

“I have literally lost the track of dates and life has become mechanical. It seems that I work to a formula and the same routine every day. Five days in a week, I am spending nearly eight hours each day in commuting. I have no other option as there are no jobs for students in Waterloo so I am forced to live in Toronto’s suburb that is near to my workplace,” said Sandhu (24), a native of Punjab’s Ropar town, who is doing a graduate course in paramedics.

Sandhu is a not the lone case. There are tens of hundreds of Punjabi students, who are spending nearly two to three hours (one way) to reach college and then slogging at part-time jobs after the college hours and during the weekends.

Ankit Sharma (26), a student of project management course at Fleming College in the sleepy city of Peterborough in Central Ontario, has a similar tale to share.

“My college is nearly 125 km from my residence in Brampton and I have to switch two buses to reach there. I wake up at 3.30am as I have to revise previous day’s lectures and prepare my breakfast before stepping out at 5am. Yes, life is very tough here. But then you have to sacrifice something in case you want to leap big in future,” said Sharma, a resident from Punjab’s Zirakpur town.

Before coming to

in April this year, Sharma was working with a top French multinational as a software developer at their Noida office.

“Here every inch of your life is tough. Our friends sitting in India feel that Canada offers a lavish lifestyle and you can buy swanky cars, branded clothes and latest gadgets quite easily here. But this is not true. Here you have to do two-three part-time jobs and have to plan in advance for the next three months’ finances. One has to work really hard to make both ends meet,” said Tarwinder Singh(21), who hails from Fatehgarh Sahib town in Punjab and is doing a management course here. Before moving to Toronto in April, Singh completed his bachelors in science from Punjabi University, Patiala.

Irrespective of their college locations, most of the Punjabi students prefer to stay in Brampton and Mississauga (suburban towns near Toronto city) as these places offer economical accommodation options and also enough part-time jobs to students.

Abhinav Dua (26), who is pursuing a hotel management course from

in Toronto, feels all this hard work is worth it as the final results are quite encouraging.

“There is no doubt that as a student one has to do a lot hard work to survive. I have seen many cases where Punjabi youths could not sustain the pressure and returned to India, leaving their course inbetween. Here perseverance and patience are keys to success. If you manage to strike a balance between work and studies then sky is the limit,” pointed out Dua, who completed bachelors in commerce from Chandigarh’s DAV College before coming to Canada.