<Foreign Community>
Dormitory: Home away from Home
By Rana Mukesh Kumar, Guest Reporter
Living in the hostel, where you learn to fend for yourself right from day one and where you meet people of different backgrounds and personalities, can broaden your horizon, boost your confidence, make you more independent and improve your interpersonal skills. You learn to be tactful and patient and make an attempt to look at things from another’s perspective. Since you have to take your own decisions, you learn by your mistakes. In short, life in a hostel teaches you all kinds of survival skills.
A hostel represents a cross-section of the population and the society. Young people is belonging to different states and regions, economic and social strata, speaking Different languages, eating and dressing differently, professing diverse faiths, all come together imbued with a common purpose: pursuit of academics or research. While residing in a hostel an individual must necessarily possess a broadened outlook on life, catholicity of taste and at least a moderate level of tolerance. One must be geared up to live in perfect amity and harmony with people from different cultural backgrounds; it would be worthwhile to imbibe new habits and customs, learn the vocabularies of other languages, garner information about religious practices, cuisine, festivals, marriages and so forth. Similarly you could disseminate information about your own cultural background to others. Such measure would help you to discover unknown (lands) places and people, which may not be possible otherwise.
In the eyes of some international students….
Ram Kumar Phuyal (Nepal) said, the social life in students hostel constitutes an important part of the learning experience on University. This life Intends to creat different opportunities to the students to interact with each other in a group setting, through which evey one should learn to respect others, and can develop the sense ofresponsibility, mutual cooperation and self discipline as well. This environment can also help students to discover their talents, increase their emotional maturity, and acquire social skills. All residents of students’ hostel are family members of the hostel community; as such, they should actively participate in hostel functions and help to promote an ideal hostel environment.
Tokomak (Japan) said that hostel life is totally different. Guys learn how to deal with different kinds of situations. In hostel we have to solve all the problems ourselves. Hostel life is very beautiful and good provides the opportunity to know a lot of people. Here we understand what unity is. Here there are some restrictions also by which we live in discipline. This life is very much different from house life.
Li Rung (China) said that Hostel life is very tough and challenging as well as golden life also. People have the freedom to lead independent lives, struggling at all steps of life. In the hostel we miss house made food, friends, relatives, brother and sister's love. But nostalgia is less important than our bright future.
Maruf (Bangladesh) said that hostel life is most essential part of individual life. It teaches us how acutely life should be lined as it gives us a platform to learn how to cop up with all situations in life. It teaches us how to become an independent person.
Hostel life has advantages unlimited. It makes you a more independent person. You learn to become your own friend, philosopher and guide. You figure out how to deal with emotional troubles be it not-so-great marks in college, turbulences in your premature love-life, or arguments with friends. Mastering money management is another big blessing that hostel life brings. You learn to make the most of finances how much ever limited they may seem. More importantly, you realize the value of savings money and utilizing time.