10 Messages For Students

Summary – 10 important message to all students


If you can go back in time to meet your past self, What year will you go? And what will you say to him/her. Will you go to the day you get married and stop yourself from marrying? Or will you go to yesterday, and tell your past self what happen today?

Imaginative, yes. But it is still an interesting question to ask yourself occasionally. We have grown wiser over the years and sometimes there is this urge to share what you have learnt to someone else who may very well repeat all your mistakes.

Personally, I will go back to the first day I became a college student. And I will pass these 10 messages to my past self.

1) Backup all your notes in your hard disk.
I graduated from my college with almost no notes from my study. Somehow I lost almost all of them. It’s as if I had never been to one. What a waste. Some of them might not be very useful and relevant but still, I paid for the course, and I had to work hard to pass all of them. They are my asset and I lost half of them.

Word of advice – Scan your paper based note, or maybe snap some pictures of the notes with your digital camera. Don’t forget to organize them properly. You may forget which goes to which if you procrastinate.

2) Choose wisely which textbook to buy
This is another mistake I made when I first started college. I bought every textbook recommended by the lecturers. It turned out, some of them were not being used at all. That money can be put to better use.

Word of advice – Check with your seniors on what books to buy. Some may prove more useful than another. For the less useful ones, maybe you can share with a couple of friends to buy it. More money saved for you.

3) Money to be spent is money left at the end of the month.
I learnt this the hard way. Whenever I get my allowance early in the month, I will usually spend it immediately. I went ice skating (it was a new thing back then) or go to internet cafe. And I was living neck to neck from month to month financially.

Word of advice – Money received early of the month should be used in life and death situation ONLY. For example, you don’t eat, you die. So then it’s OK to eat. You should only use the extra money saved at the end of the month for leisure.

4) Save money for your job hunt
After I graduated, I just realized that I have no money to job hunt. No money to buy newspaper, or to go for interview, or to buy stamps or print resume. I had to work as a gift wrapper at a mall just to pay for my job hunt.

Word of advice – Spending money is fun. I know, I’ve been there. But you will need some money to get you started after college. Start saving some every month. You will not regret it. I wonder how many job interview I had to turn down just because I don’t have enough money to go to the interview.

5) Listen to the lectures the first time
Believe me when I tell you this. For a college student, there are only about 10 hours per day. You are busy going to class, doing assignments and projects, maintaining student organization, sports. And if that’s not all, you are dating a few girls at the same time. Seriously where will you find the time to restudy.

Word of advice – Listen to your lectures the first time. Listen carefully and try to understand them IN CLASS. You will never need to study them again. Imagine the time you saved.

6) Identify your destructive addiction
I was addicted to chatting over IRC back then. I almost failed a few subject just because I couldn’t find the time to do them. That’s me. You may find another form of addiction.

Word of advice – Identify your addiction. It’s actually easy to do. If you notice you are not doing your assignment, you miss deadline, that’s the signs that you are addicted to something. It can be blogging, IM or even stumbling interesting sites. Deal with that immediately. If not, it may be too late when you realized what has happened to you.

7) Enjoy your long holiday
I think I can say this on behalf of everyone that is currently working. Please enjoy your holiday. When you are working, there are no more long holiday for you. The boss will be smiling disapprovingly if you apply for leave longer than 4 days.

Word of advice – Enjoying holiday doesn’t mean that you need to be in your bed the whole time. Do everything you want to. Go travelling. See the world.

8] Try to know as many people possible.
Now that I am working, I found a lot of my college batch. I don’t even know the name of some of them but they know my name and instantaneously we become friends. Imagine if I made the effort to know more of my college batch. I will then have a bigger network of friends which will help each other out in any situation. For example, I can ask them if they are any vacancy in their company, etc.

Word of advice – You don’t need to be best friend to everyone. You just need to be able to say hi occasionally to everyone. At least after college, they will know that you used to study in the same college when you bump into each other.

9) Be in contact with your lecturers.
Your lecturers are basically your real live wikipedia. Whenever you have a problem later in your work, you can always give them a call asking for help. It’s like free lifetime consultation. It’s a priviledge given to you since you are their student. Term and condition apply of course. The TACs are that you must keep in touch with all the lecturers, and more importantly you must be nice to them during your college years.

Word of advice – lecturers are not enemies. They are not going all out to get you. They are actually really good people wanting to teach you all they know. And when you appreciate this, they will appreciate you even more.

10) Enjoy your student life
Word of advice – This is my last message to my past self. It can be stressful, depressing sometimes. You may feel like running to another country sometime from all the boredom. Still, college life is one of the best time in your life. Enjoy.

– I wonder –
What will your message to your past self be?

Photo Credit – Foundphotoslj

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This post has 15 comments.


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  1. 13 Aug 08 10:09 am

    Salam
    I’m in college nowadays. Perhaps can use some of your points here..-smile-

    I have to get better from the oldays..hehe

  2. 13 Aug 08 10:15 am

    one advice to myself….”choose courses according to ur interest not according to popular choice at the time… or because of the scholar” 😀

    somehow it is frustrating to see not only my self but most of my friends not doing what we studied in Uni.. not to say all the 4++ years in campus are wasted.. but almost wasted..kinda.. but of course we learnt other soft skills.

    and banji.. I totally agree with no 3 and 4.. I menganggur for a year and thanks to all the savings i manage tru..thankfully i did those 2..currently still practising no 3 and hopefully berpanjangan…..

    anyway banji.. nice advice.. so adik2.. ikut nasihat banji ini.. (eceh rasa cam tua plak)

  3. banji
    13 Aug 08 8:44 pm

    Brother – I prefer the words previous generation than old days heheh 🙂 I’m sure you will come up with better lesson later. Mistakes are usually the best teacher

    Nolee – That’s a wise advice. Even though with the current condition, where there are more geniuses with each generation, it will be hard to compete for what you really interested.

    Job hunting is really tough. At first we can be tougher. Trying everything that’s available. Rejection after rejection, the motivation quietly dies down. And it is up to us to pick us up. At least with the money we will have one thing less to worry about. right? 🙂

  4. 13 Aug 08 9:13 pm

    Good advice Banji! Play Station was my addiction in college. Boy, I would just lock myself for days. Being the number one in (whatever) game does not really pay off…

  5. That’s some very good advice for college students. Too bad you lost all those notes. I used to type up my notes right after class (mostly so I could read them better). I always used to basically just study my notes and I maintained a B average all through 6 years of college. I would suggest printing them out if one puts them on the computer.

  6. banji
    14 Aug 08 1:14 am

    Zul – Play station.. hm I have to say, the only game I play is Resident Evil. I got hooked up with the first version of the game. And when the second version only released in playstation format, I have to resort to renting a playstation to play huhu. RM4 per hour, and I must have spent about a day or two just to finish that game.

    Karen – Not all of them, but a majority of them. I just think of them as useless at the time, and will only contribute to my clutter. I’m so wrong….

    Typing them back for a soft copy is good exercise too, it will be some sort of a revision by itself 🙂 Good tips

  7. Av
    26 Sep 08 1:59 am

    I have to say though there are a bunch of things that went wrong for me all at once near the end of college and hence had to drop out 2 months before it finish I still wouldn’t go back and chance anything or leave any messages. The only thing I would like to do is go back to when I was between 3 and 5 and spend a day playing with a younger verison of myself and maybe my dad too. I just remember those years as fantastic and carefree and when I had a free and easygoing relationship with my dad and the chance to recapture that would be amazing. I don’t need for my younger self to remember any of it, this is purely for me now to enjoy.

  8. 26 Sep 08 8:14 pm

    Av – I bet that really is a fantastic year for you. In a way, I can understand your view. A mistake done in our life is instantly converted to experience if we learn from them. Without any mistake, how can we become any wiser.

    Still, the intention of this article is to convey the message to the students reading with the hope that they will benefit from the experience. Thanks for commenting Av. Appreciate it

  9. […] 10 Messages for All Students & One Named Banji @ Lesson In Life […]

  10. ummu alif
    30 Mar 09 12:30 pm

    nice post…..
    if i can go back to the past….i will change my course…definitely….
    but i’m not regret at all…..

  11. 31 Mar 09 12:25 am

    Ummu Alif – In the end, what we learnt is still knowledge and you can never go wrong with knowledge 🙂 Can I ask, why do you want to change your course?

  12. ummu alif
    31 Mar 09 4:00 pm

    Biarlah rahsia..hehe

  13. 31 Mar 09 5:26 pm

    Ummu Alif – I will respect that 🙂 If I’m not mistaken you have always been dreaming of becoming a doctor even since Form 4, right?

  14. ummu alif
    02 Apr 09 3:03 pm

    Yeah…you’re right.Actually..since Form 1.

  15. 12 Mar 10 2:37 pm

    Absorbing!

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