Day one in college

The first day of college is the ultimate day of torture and learning, where the seniors are our true tormentors… oops, mentors, says Shruti Moghe.

The first day of college is defined as the ultimate day of torture and learning, where the seniors are our true tormentors…

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oops

, mentors.

Until yesterday, you were almost a child, putting on a school uniform. Today, it's college and the world is more grown-up and you have to keep up. People narrate scary stories about their first day in college - mainly involving ragging and maybe not being able to fit in. So, it's okay to be nervous. But not all first days are unfavourable and not all seniors are demons.

Barring a minuscule percentage of unfortunates, most students experience nothing more than mild ragging, a few moments of self-doubt and maybe their first crush and the first snub.

At least, my first day was fine. Perhaps, my seniors took pity on me. But I must say that the action/reaction of seniors during ragging also depends on your own attitude. You need to get into the spirit of things and handle things with humour.

Being in an all-girls' college is a bit of a pain if you are at the receiving end of the ragging stick. In a co-ed college, the male seniors may pull some punches, but no such luck when it's girls versus girls. Our entire first-year batch was summoned to the chaupal of the college and the torture session began. The seniors, sitting on the stairs, asked us to fall in a line. We were then asked to shout our names at the top of our voice.

What other performances required of us cannot be described in a newspaper. Obviously, there were freshers who were offended and there were others, like me, who obliged.

My advice: do what they say Ragging is just a phase and this, too, shall pass.