OIS Alumni Nandan Venkatesan On University Life

When I read all the posts below, I felt almost as though I could hear my friends’ voices. It’s been just over a month since uni started, and I already miss school (that’s something I thought none of us would say). I’m at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and there are SO MANY THINGS TO DO HEREE. Right from moving in with just two to three suitcases, to staying up late in your new friend’s dorm room, you’re going to have a blast. It’s gonna be all fun and games for a while, but that being said, classes don’t go slow. It’s not like the first week of school where everything is chill and no one does work and you sit talking to your friends while the teacher tries to calm down the entire class. No. This is different.

​This is a big change. You thought shifting schools and relocating from Bandra to Andheri was a big deal? Wait until you move 13,000 kilometers away to a place you’ve (maybe) never been to. A place that you’re excited, yet sad to go to. A place that you’re going to be for the next four years. A place that’s (literally) going to change the way you think, act, and behave. On move-in day, you’ll see so many Americans moving in, bringing ten whole cartons of things (idk why they pack in cartons but okay)... they even bring a sofa with them, I kid you not. It’s moments like those when you’re going to think to yourself “wow, I’m coming from 13,000 kilometers away and moving into a whole new place with only two suitcases of clothes and one suitcase of mom and Nani's food - again, I’m not kidding.

So, at uni, you’ll get a new email ID - the same way you do at OIS - but for the first month, when you sign in to your devices, you’re going to keep entering @oberoi-is.net. That’s when you know it’s a whole new journey. To be honest, this still keeps happening to me. When you go for extracurricular events - like club meetings, etc. - you’re asked to “sign in” and enter your email ID. I still mistakenly put my OIS email ID. There’s no one way to describe how the transition to uni is going to feel. It’s going to be exciting, tough, emotional, and fulfilling, all at the same time. But, that’s what this is about right? Growing as a person? Just know that no matter where you go, you’re challenging yourself. You’re moving away from your family, your friends, and everyone close to you to go to another country just to get a better education - and party (that’s way down on the list), because you will at some point, even if you’re not a party person. When you go to university, it’s just going to feel like a long vacation at first because most of you will be coming back in December. But I guess it’s only after that that it’ll really hit us that we’re finally at university, huh?

Nandan Venkatesan (Class of '18)