A New Chapter begins
By: Vivek Unni
Tags: Boston, Study Abroad, University

Life is a long book with many chapters. Some chapters may be long, some may be boring, some may be really interesting while some may be really sad as well. There are some chapters that move the story in a whole new direction. In my life, there have been a few such chapters: chapters that redefined the way I used to think, which made me understand what I need to improve and which truly polished my personality. The first one was when I moved to Warangal after high school for college. The second was when I moved to Hyderabad to work. The third was when the lockdown started and I was in Kerala for an extended time. A now there is a new chapter in my life, my life in Boston. More than 3 months have passed and it has been a different and amazing journey so far.

For those who don’t know, I moved to Boston at the end of August to pursue my Master's degree. It was a long process no doubt about that. From GREs to university applications and finally the VISA process, all these steps which are individually challenging was made more excruciating due to the COVID rules and restrictions as well. But the fruit is labour is always the sweetest so when my VISA was finally approved in August, I was ready to go to Boston. Parents were worried because of the distance which is understandable. It is not an easy distance to cover in a flight, unlike Kuwait or Kerala where you can always reach within a few hours. I was worried for a different reason though. It has been 4 years since I started working, will I be able to shift back to student life easily? Will I find new connections there?

Fast forward to 3 months in I can say, it is hard to shift back to student life. There were a few things I frankly took for granted while I was working: the regular pay, the amenities you get while working, my teammates who used to look out for me and my sweet, sweet car (I miss my car 😭). I know, I know: in order to gain something, you will need to sacrifice something else. If your ambitions are great enough, any sacrifice might seem insignificant in front of it. But, what helped me to shift back was the people I found over these last months at Boston University. So let me do a very quick recap, what happened over the last few months.

The first thing after I landed in Boston was finding an apartment. Even though I had found a flatmate and finalized the apartment, a few days before boarding to Boston, we got a mail saying the landlord had already given the apartment to someone else. Thanks to my awesome friend Sreerag, I was able to crash at his place while I roamed around Boston finding an apartment, getting a sim, opening a bank account and the many things in the checklist of “Things a student studying abroad needs to get done”. The plus side of the whole ordeal was that I explored the area surrounding the university and slowly got used to the public transportation system here as well. Finally, after a week of classes started, we moved into a new apartment and started setting up to start the new life.

The education system here is really different. The whole “decide your courses” structure is very liberating but at the same time, I was a bit overwhelmed with the number of options that were in front of me. The ability to drop any class after a week of attending it if you didn’t like it or even taking courses from other departments gives a whole new perspective to the student and gives a clear message: your future is in your hands. One more thing I liked here, which I didn't find back home was the Office hours structure here: there is a fixed slot of time where you can approach the professors and talk to them regarding any issues, academically or personally, and they would try to help out. As the leaves turned yellow, I explored the various building in the vast university and found various areas where we can sit and study, I slowly realized I am finally getting back into student life.

An evening waiting for the train back home

In between all this, I found some fun folks which made staying in Boston all the more enjoyable. During our first get-together, we got to know that most of us are staying close by and I was not alone in this struggle to adjust. That get-together paved the way to have many more fun nights of exploring the city, playing board games and lots of dancing 😂 I met others who, just like me, was adjusting back from work life and talking to them helped me get through my fears and doubts as well. What people don’t realize is that because of the timezone difference, most of the people here cannot talk to anyone back home, parents and friends included, most of the time. We also don’t want people back home to worry about us. What happens because of this, we tend to bottle up a lot of our frustrations and our issues. Finding friends, people who you know are also in the same boat as you, to whom you can share these feelings is the only thing that can get you through. Focus, dedication and a clear sight of your goals will help you keep on track, no doubt about it, but I feel it is these friends you make along the way that help you not to fall off the path to those goals.

Now, as the first snowfall started yesterday, I realized, the semester is almost coming to an end. Over these past months, I learnt a lot, met a lot of people and above all made a lot of memories. And what is life if not a collection of these beautiful memories, memories that you can hold close to your heart even after years pass by.