The thought of boarding schools and their nightmares has haunted us since our inception. The โintellect trainโ running wild in our brains was fueled by the adolescent movies featuring these institutions with a heinous warden chilling our hearts to our mouths.
The stage was set subconsciously, instilling in us the fear that the very first day in the hostel would alienate us from the world.
Our apprehension regarding hostel life was that it would be an inferno with a tormenting atmosphere not knowing the ways in which hostel life has a positive influence. Yes, you are entering an entirely new atmosphere but not everything is as dark as it may seem, and truly helps in your all-around development.
Here are 8 ways in which hostel life positively influences our lives, making it almost a necessity for an individual desiring an all-around development.
Ways in Which Hostel Life Has a Positive Influence
1. Sense of Togetherness
The sense of security and comfort at home eludes us as soon as we enter the hostel premises. A daily regime to obey, confined spaces, seemingly poisoned food, and a whole ball of wax do their best to persuade us to escape from this disheveled reality.
But solace perhaps lies in finding someone going through a similar crisis so that we donโt find ourselves alone during what seems to be the darkest and hardest time we are facing.
Itโs here that hostels coax the notion of friendship and communism in us. We learn to befriend people of diverse backgrounds during only a hostel life, forming a single community โ โhostel mates.โ
2. Sharing Is Caring
Hostel life demands us to morph our habits. Our human nature gets in the way when we are hesitant to share things in times of need. Slowly but steadily, a feeling of brotherhood rises which grows and, at times, goes beyond friendship as you spend quality time.
Intuitively, we attach ourselves to people, places, and things that leave an indelible mark on our minds; the safest haven there is for memories. Life becomes easier as you learn to care about your neighbors and all the other few disadvantages of hostel life fade away. Missing home soon becomes an abstract concept, for we find another home and family amidst the people we come across on this journey.
3. Psychological Growth
Hostel life plays a decisive liberator in our cognitive chrysalis. Problems and complications are detained inside the heart. Confiding in roommates and their counseling supports the lifeline.
We fathom othersโ distress and worldly experience complications, thus learning to handle real-life problems efficiently. Accentuating and sharing our emotions guide us in shaping and helping us learn the intricacies of life.
4. Discipline
There are relentless nights of assignments, surprise quizzes, sadistic teachers giving a flavor of the โreal world, and dominating seniors toughening you up the hard way; hostel life is a bittersweet cake mix that stays with us forever.
The 3 am gossip, late-night hangouts, and rooms turned into stadiums, clubs, and DJ nights are the stress busters. The freedom is limitless, but then we are reminded of the pending chores and deadlines. Thus, we learn to practice discipline in our lives without an external force always reminding us of our responsibilities.
5. Money Management
With all the freedom at our disposal, money management is one of the most important things hostel life teaches us. โJugaadโ is word of mouth. Beg-borrow-steal, (well, not really steal) becomes a habit along with false promises of future payment.
Debts are cleared off by distributing delicacies sent by parents among the lenders. At the end of the month, hostel rooms become amateur courtrooms, and all this is cleared by sentimental talks where we actually admit how poor we are with the limited pocket money we get.
Some would even consider this as one of the disadvantages of hostel life. Students spend money lavishly, but only in a hostel would you learn how to manage money and how to value it well. You go from being a careless and negligent student who would borrow money from parents or friends to a kind of responsible adult.
People tend to overlook so many advantages of hostel life over petty disadvantages that might or might not happen, like bad company, that unlimited freedom proves harmful, bad habits in children or evil habits, bad influence, and so on. The process of saving and spending judiciously is hard to administer. Still, we learn gradually with rebukes from parents and friends and find ourselves on stronger grounds than before when handling money is concerned.
6. Finding Yourself
Strangers often intimidate us. Hostel life makes us open to all that the world has to offer, given that we have never interacted with so many new people all at once. It opens a new world of information, making us realize how bleak our existence had been till then.
These new people fuel our hidden talents, encouraging us to go beyond our comfort zone. We become new people altogether, trying to hone all the skills that we had ignored before.
7. Immunization
The routine food served in a mess isnโt the best. And we all know that hostel food is a โmess.โ Students live on the edge of swallowing, macerating, and digesting everything reasonable. The 3 am Maggi is bliss. Immunization comes in handy, not only to materialistic things but to other odds and ends as well.
We become autodidacts in the profound subjects of crisis undertaking, contending every tussle and many more. We build up a moral and self-esteem to administer ourselves in the โbig bad worldโ without the aid of our family; the gains only hostel life can give at such an early stage of life. It is hence appropriate to say, โAb bachcha bada ho gya.โ
8. A Step Closer to Family
It is said that long-distance relationships become weak. Well, itโs a paradox. Contradicting this concept, the distance between our new and old addresses mitigates the distance we felt from our family members when we resided under a single roof.
Some parents may even feel like one has time only for all his hostel fellows, even if they live in the same town.
We engage in and savor family events and get-togethers instead of running away from them. Phone calls from home lighten up our faces. We feel and realize the significance of our family more than ever.
The hostel is our home away from home. Hardships, homesickness, and โcatastrophesโ are a part of this hostel life. But eventually, as the phoenix rises from its ashes, we arise as diamonds from the coal mines, and the memories are cherished throughout our lives.
Last Updated on by Sathi
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