CHAPTER: 02

University never really happens the way we imagine.
It isn’t tidy. It isn’t always inspiring.

It’s louder. Messier. More alive.

It starts with uncertainty about new buildings, new rules, the quiet worry of not belonging.
We pretend to know what we are doing.
We pretend we have a plan.

Slowly, it becomes a world of its own.

There are nights when the campus feels electric:
Musical shows, concerts, festivals.

Thousands of students packed together,
voices gone, hearts racing in the same rhythm.

Lights flashing. Music shaking the ground.
Everyone shouting lyrics, laughing, dancing,
covered in sweat, joy, and exhaustion.

We walk back afterwards,
ears still ringing, feet aching
and somehow, life feels bigger.

Then real life returns again.

Exams.
Assignments.
Deadlines that arrive faster than we do.

Notes scattered everywhere.
Group chats full of panic and memes.
Late nights where the screen is too bright and our eyes are too tired.

We don’t always feel confident.
We don’t always feel ready.
But somehow, we keep showing up.

There’s the canteen: the unofficial meeting place.
We count coins, share plates, borrow money, promise to return it “next time.”

Laughing over cheap food.
Eating fast before the next class.
Knowing none of us really has enough
but together, it somehow works.

And then the friends.

Not just classmates.
People studying completely different degrees,
people we meet by accident who somehow become essential.

The ones we cannot imagine doing any of this without.

They turn into the people we text first.
They become our wingmen, our chaos partners, our emergency contacts.
We give them pep talks, they give us courage.

We joke like siblings.
We sit with them through heartbreaks and almost-love stories.
We become therapists we never trained to be:
listening, advising, or simply staying quiet when words aren’t needed.

And somewhere in between all of this,
some of us fall in love,
the quiet kind that feels like coming home.

Some meet the person they want to spend the rest of their lives with.

Others keep searching,
still figuring it out.

And some realize they are perfectly okay on their own,
building a life that doesn’t need to be shared
to be full.

All of it counts.
All of it is real.

Lecture halls turn into something familiar.
Sometimes, we learn deeply.
Sometimes, we stare out the window.
Sometimes, the important part is simply being there together.

University is not just about degrees.

It’s music that makes your voice disappear.
It’s laughter echoing through stairwells.
It’s exhaustion, stress, hope, hunger, and inside jokes.
It’s friendships stitched together with late nights and shared struggles.

And somewhere along the way…
we change.

Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.

Just slowly…
becoming braver, more honest, a little more us.

And when it’s all over,
we’ll forget some lectures, some marks, some dates…

but we won’t forget
the concerts that shook the night,
the canteen tables we crowded around,
the long talks that saved us quietly,
and the friends who turned into something that felt like home.

Because it was always more than just a degree.

Penned By:

Rtr. Chanithi Korala

Editorial Committee Member 25.26