What I Wish I Knew in College

I wish I knew these things when I was your age. I wish I could go back in time and do them over again but I can’t. So I want to give you feedback on what I wish I knew when I was 20 and in college. What I loved doing. What I wish I had done. What I do now that I wish I had known earlier.

College is a great time for self-discovery. It is a time where you have a lot of, well, time… You go to school and work but not much else. But I realized my time in college was filled with constrains. I had constraints of money helping support our parents and you. I had constraints of lack of life experience from going to a mediocre high school. I had constraints of not knowing anything other than what was in front of me. But you don’t really have many constraints. The only constraints you have is ones you set for yourself.

But I did a few things in college which were valuable. These are things I’ve done and I enjoyed immensely and you should think about doing:

Outdoor activities. Go on hikes and runs, go on long bike trips to achieve nothing but to talk to a close friend about life. Learn to do rock climbing. There is something freeing and relaxing about a random walk. All of these give you space to think and just be. It gives you time to reflect and see things for yourself. It teaches you to be with your thoughts.

Try different things. Take random classes outside your major. Things connect. Everything connects. The more you dig into something the more it is like something else. Accumulate as much knowledge as possible for knowledge is the only thing we may call our own. You may have claim to nothing else in life but that which is in your head. And if there is nothing there then we are always alone. Always be learning. Keep up with the news by reading a newspaper. Make it a regular habit to be curious about everything.

Meet a lot of different kinds of people. Know everyone. Everyone has a story. Their story may not be you own and their life may never be yours. But everyone has uncertainty. Even the best and carefree life has fears. Fears and doubts about where to go. The unknown future. You may think you are alone in your feelings but you realize everyone is going through different variations of what you are going through. This makes you feel less depressed.

Have a core group of friends who will always be there through thick and thin. These will the the people who will always be there in the future. No matter where you or they go they will be there.

Have your job match up with what you want to accomplish in the future. This gives you additional credibility in your future career. And if you don’t end up doing what you plan on doing well at least you will have experience in the field and know why you disliked it. You can then go do something else. My goal was to be an engineer so I found jobs where I could learn programming. You may not know how to do everything a job may ask but that is why you go—to learn. Treat your job as additional college experience. It should match up with what you want to do in the future. Find internships.

If you find someone to love then make sure that you can grow with them. College relationships are intense but it is important that you grow with that person. Your goals should be to mutually achieve the goals you set for yourselves. Understand that in achieving your goals you may part ways.

Now here are the things I wish I knew and wish I did.

Join clubs. There are a lot of different clubs and things to do in college. There is always something going on. It is a good way to learn different things and try out different things. The people you meet in these things may even help you get a job in the future or become good friends.

Exercise regularly. I wish I exercised a lot more. It is probably one of the main things that held me back mentally. Exercise just leads to a lot more mental energy. You will be able to handle the world that much more because you exercise. It is self-discipline to do so. You may hate it. You may not want to every do it. But you have to! You have to put in time for exercise: a run, a bike ride, a hike.

Make a yearly plan. Have a plan month by month on what you want to achieve. Have a goal for each month. Happiness from stuff is fickle. Once we have something that we really wanted it soon fades and our sense of happiness returns back to what it was before. The happiness we have when we have a new thing basically goes away. Happiness based on achieving goals on the other hand leads to pushing yourself so you can accomplish even more goals. Happiness becomes more consistent because it is based on achieving rather than accumulating. Making and meeting goals that you make for yourself is the best way to remain happy and have a purpose.

Have a plan for where you want to go. Have a plan for where you want to be in 5 years. Write it down. Without direction we become aimless. We flounder through life wondering who is going to give us the next steps. But having goals to aim to helps your mind get there. The goals that you want to achieve should be written down and should cover multiple aspects of your life. These include personal, professional/career, family, travel, hobby, etc. There are many things you should want to achieve in life. If you don’t then well you’re wasting the short time you have in this world. Have a goal for each of them. And to make them happen have a single thing per month that will lead you to achieve them. Break things down into the smallest actions which will lead you to your goals. And set deadlines for yourself.

College is the last chance where others give you a consistent deadline. Once you are out of college you have to make a lot of your own deadlines. You have to figure out you own schedule for achieving things. Yes, your bosses will give you deadlines and if you are going to be a doctor well you need to prepare for surgeries and what not. But most of the deadlines that you have are those that you make yourself. So figure out how to manage time.

The present is a place of comfort, the future is a place of uncertainty. But never get stuck in the present. If you stop your life in the present then your future is going to look the same as now. Always be aiming higher in your future. You should be able to look back in your past and know that you grew. You should know that you gave it your best shot. The future may hold failure as well. Don’t be sad or angry about failure. There is no success without failure. Treat failures as lessons. Why did you fail? Were you too ambitious in your goal? Did you not study the correct things? If you don’t reach a goal then maybe it was too ambitious or not clearly defined. Adjust your goals accordingly so that you can reach it. But in the same vein have big goals in mind. It is only when you think big that you can take the steps to move forward. You can’t run the marathon without running the half-marathon first. I wanted to be an engineer so I took steps to get there one small job, side project, self learning at a time.

Love family. Yes, it is easy to rebel in college, to do things which the family doesn’t like. It is especially easy for you since you can say brother did so and so why can’t I? But understand my circumstances were different. I didn’t have someone guiding me and calling out my stupidity until later in college. Our family grew up in different circumstances than most. We are an immigrant family. The values that we hold, that our mother and father have I hold dear to my heart. I know the family is not perfect but no family is ever perfect. They may get on our nerves because we’ve grown accustomed to having them get on our nerves. But at the end of the day family is the most important thing there is. The idiosyncrasies of each family is what makes each family unique. Take it as a game. The reason they are on you all the time is because they love you. They love you even if you rebel and are concerned because they didn’t grow up here. They were on me during college as well. They will be there when you leave and when you come back. To have the family show respect for you, you need to show that you are mature. Comparing yourself to someone else is not a sign of maturity. It is a sign that you are imitating the stupidities without imitating the successes. It is a sign that you haven’t lit your own fire and that you see yourself as the reflection of somebody else's shame.

Most of all be your own fire. Learn to be a good human being first and foremost. You must always work on yourself first. You must always be growing. Never put your hopes and ambitions on the support of someone else because your successes are your own and your failures are also your own. Others may applaud and yet others may take credit for your actions but know that whatever you achieve in life, whatever you may hold dear it is with your heart and mind. No one ever has claim to that.

With Love,

Your Brother