Point to Ponder

It is the last week of May 2010. More than a dozen students are sitting in ordered rows with silence dominating the room. Occasional rustling of papers and pens break the monotonous silence. Only moments remain and then it happens. The clock struck the hour and a nasal voice resonated through the room, “Pens down”, marking the end of the last examination. As we got up from our seats ready to exit the room, a sense of extreme happiness and delight dawned on us. We had just taken the “very” last exam of our formal education. The door of dull routines and last minute stress was bolted shut, albeit temporarily.

Without realizing the full extent of what saying goodbye means, we rush outside to celebrate the end of what we would often carelessly put as “tyranny”. Hugging our friends and autographing items of clothing, promising to stay in touch and wishing best of luck, we are completely prepared to say goodbye to this place.

And then it hits us. As the high of the last day wears off and we sober down, we realize the dark chasm that is our future staring back at us. Up till now we had always had the “next level” clear in our heads. Whether it was the next grade in our secondary institutions or whether it was the next semester, we always had our goals clear to us. We always knew what was coming next and one way or the other, by putting in just the right effort, we would get there.

Now standing on the edge of the professional world overlooking the chaos and anarchy we were left disappointed. We had no “next level” defined for us. From here on it was the survival of the fittest or the richest – as in our society. Those of us with modest and humble backgrounds begin to question themselves, “Are we fit? Are we ready for the real world? Where do we go now? Where do we bring the “strings” necessary to pull and tweak the system? “

After several hours of “net suffering” forwarding our CVs, or as I like to call them – our lives on a page, to a gazillion HR people and with no call backs, we finally give up. Sitting at home becoming couch potatoes, we look to blame someone for our misfortunes and then we see it with a bulls-eye painted on its back, NUST. We are quick to award the blame to the institution where we spent four of the best years of our lives. Maybe we should reconsider before pointing the finger.

Coming from sheltered limited environment, NUST exposed us to diverse varied surroundings. We were made familiar of different opinions and point of views. In its literal meaning, our vision and thinking was broadened. Though many can chose to deny it, the diversified interactions with peers coming from different backgrounds and social standings prepared us for the real world. We were – for want of a better word – “growing up” and becoming adults.

We never realized the privilege associated with the institution. We were the cream of the cream studying in the best institution of Pakistan. We were made available to the best instructors and teachers, not to mention the state-of-the-art facilities. We were here and we never realized its entirety. We always took it for granted. Having the NUST name associated with ours we always thought of it to be a free pass, little did we realize that to maximize the potential of name we had to apply ourselves to the fullest. We believed, soon after graduation industries would line up to hire us just because we had NUST insignia imprinted on our degrees. We never realized that the name NUST has, is because of what it gives to its students, the very same facilities we never used to the fullest and often skipped out on.

Coming out of NUST we believed ourselves to be leaders of the world, that everything was ours. Then when no jobs came our way we grew frustrated. We never stopped to think, whether engineering really is our cup of tea or not? We blamed our institution for not preparing us for the real world, for not providing us with ample career opportunities. We never for once thought that the reason we came into engineering might have been the social and parental pressure rather than our own aptitude for the subject. Hell bent on pointing the finger anywhere but ourselves, we blame the easy target – our institution. This is not the case; our institution gave us all the tools we needed to get ahead. If we are not getting ahead maybe we should ask ourselves, “Are we holding the right tools? Do I really have an aptitude for this field?” We, the alumni, represent our institution in the real world. Just to appease our own guilt we should abstain from slamming the place that holds countless precious memories.

These truly could not have been the best years had we not had the most important ingredient – our friends. As we left our secondary institutions and entered the universities of our choosing we were anxious, perhaps even sad about leaving our decade long friendships behind. However, we soon realized the error of our thoughts. Everyone here was going through the same thoughts and we took to each other almost immediately. It took us but a few hours to bond and realize that we had cultivated something special and long lasting. We stuck by each other through thick and thin, ready to lend a helping hand to our newfound friends or do I dare to call them – our brothers. The unity and solidarity we enjoyed amongst ourselves earned us our self appointed title of “Band of Brothers.” For those living away from homes, we truly became a family.

Dwelling in the past and reminiscing for all the joyous occasions and the wild adventures I shared with my friends during our university life made me appreciate the blessing in disguise that NUST came as into my life. A bitter fact of life dawned upon me – that nothing in this world stays the way it is forever. Friendships are lost, hopes are broken, dreams are shattered, blissful events turn into old forgotten memories, and the carefree banter and laughter of a happy-go-lucky student become the sad ramblings of a bitter unemployed man, hell bent on spewing his anger and frustration on anyone he can blame. Soon after, however, another realization hit me (it was a day of epiphanies for me!). Everything changes and so do bad times. Someone much smarter than me once said that we are the architects of our own futures – or was it lives? Anyways the fact of the matter is that crying over spilt milk and playing the blame game does not do anyone any good. Our mistakes are what pave the path towards our triumphs. All we have to do is learn from them and try again. As they say that success is only achieved when we get up again and dust ourselves off one more time than we have fallen down. It is about time we stop pointing our fingers at others, get up, and start changing the world around us one bit at a time. Who knows tomorrow our juniors and our children would not have to face the same difficulties. Now that is a point to ponder upon.

Guest Post by our dear friend Syed Rafay Imran Zafar

A voice from H-12 Hostels .

Email from someone in the hostel of H-12 .

"I can withstand all the weirdness of nust. I can understand the reason of constructing barbed wires around schools and café`s. I can forgive the rector protocol. I can compromise not wearing sandals in my school. But I cannot withstand Hostel attendance. `Come one is this a boarding school`. Hostel attendance!!` Where in the earth this happens in universities`. I swear now I feel im in a kind of concentration study camp. Where there is nothing accept study, study, study. No no sports and above all no freedom. You cannot even have a cigarette. The environment is getting on my nerves. As night falls the place turns into a ghost town. And  for a retreat if you go to your MAMU`s you get phone calls from the warden who threatens you of an unknown case. There are other universities in Pakistan with good maintained discipline with freedom. Like lums, the whole university is open for you for the whole night. Not just for u but even your outside friends. And at nust you’re not even allowed to spend a night with your cousin in the other hostel block.

Until and unless we are not getting rid of army administration things not gonna change. Army just making this beautiful place even funnier and weird. Now why are there barbed wires inside nust even around café`s."

The truth about engineering in our part of the world.

You know I still remember how everyone pampered me everywhere that you will be an engineer and you will design these big machinery and buildings one day. And my question was always do all engineers design? The answer was always, “of course, engineers design and technicians operate”. Some couple of months earlier I found myself a job. The post designated to me was of an electrical engineer. And two weeks into it , I quitted . I quitted because I saw all my dreams (yes I am a dreamer) shattering in front of me second by second. I used to sit in the office whole day long awaiting something to happen. Nothing really did happen. What most one was to do was to “Operate”, ”Configure”. None of this stuff is wrong or “evil”. Everyone should do this, but there should come a point where you move from configuring to designing and I did not see that happening ever.  

When I left the job, I thought maybe I got stuck in the wrong place. I started looking around me and voila, I realized that most of what everyone was doing was very similar and they were enjoying doing that. The problem was of course related to the paradigm followed by many countries. As I reside in the gulf, the heavily oil dependent economy was the criminal. The gulf works like this : the governments gain revenue by selling oil , they then, through government entities, initiate projects , using of course the oil revenues. There is nothing wrong with this. The thing wrong is that this is the only thing they do ! The rest is taken care by western engineering and technology firms who have offices over there. These offices are primarily for sales purposes only. All the designing keeps taking place in their homelands. And this is where an individual like me, starts to observe the “contradiction” of being an engineer in our part of the world. The case is a bit better in Pakistan as the economy is not oil dependent (which also means they don’t have cash).  But whatever the scenario the truth is you are better of being a technician rather than an “engineer”. You do some certifications and you will work better than most engineers can. You keep learning, irrespective of the degree and you will see you have gained valuable knowledge that’s pretty relevant to what you want to do. Obviously the society does not fall in love with the term “technician” as it does with the term engineer, but who cares , Right ?

I guess the only way out of this mess is to change yourself and those around you and perhaps keep telling other people. But hey, don’t we all want to make a good living and support our families?

Yes we do and that is why we are still the way we are!

The road often less travelled by, is difficult but with a little wisdom, you know its the cure.