An American Tale : Something I wish I had read before going off to college.

Some time in the early months of 2010, I received an e-mail that would change my life. I got an e-mail from Purdue University saying that I had been accepted into their engineering program. “Holy shit,” I thought. Purdue was a sort of a whim, a joke application. I didn’t really ever think I’d get in there. Soon other letters followed from other schools but I had already made up my mind.

I remember that afternoon telling my parents that I had gotten into the same school Neil Armstrong had studied at. See, that’s the only way my parents knew what Purdue was. They didn’t know about college rankings or where Indiana was. I had to show them on a map. Both my parents finished high school and went straight into life. It wasn’t for the lack of trying though. They never got the shot. The only universities available at the time were run by the government of Sri Lanka and they were, and still are, a disaster. Only a tiny fraction of the student population get to attend in the socialist paradise and if you’re a square peg in a round hole, you’re shit out of luck. My parents are two of the smartest, most hard working people I have ever met, and this includes the scientists and doctors I met in college. They are organized, deliberate, and calculating. They mastered the art of earning, saving, and living like stoics as soon as they were old enough to ride a bus. I have never met two people who are better at making the best out of a shitty situation. They came from absolutely nothing and put together a remarkable life for 30 years.

I remember that afternoon. I can feel the excitement when I was running out of my room to this day. I went downstairs and they were both outside in the garden. “I got in! I got into Purdue! Neil Armstrong’s school!.” They didn’t even have time to enjoy that moment. Maybe they did and I missed it. Maybe for a fraction of a second, they had a chance to enjoy it but all I saw was them looking at each other, wondering if they could afford it. I was too excited to worry about it at the time, and like everything else they had worked hard so to give me, I just assumed it was going to happen. It was part of the plan, right?

My entire life, I had wanted for nothing. I was such a happy kid. Things went wrong and we had problems but I was a happy kid, not a care in the world. I was and still am, the only child, and the center of my parents’ world. I am the master plan. The culmination of decades of dedication, sweat, tears, and blood. Sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. Their goal in life was to make mine incrementally better. I started off in a small school that you could only reach through a dark alley that was next to the restaurant behind which the school was built. That place always smelled awful because the fence next to the entrance was where the restaurant kept its garbage. It was still a private school and in Sri Lanka, that was better than most public schools and definitely more expensive. Some time during my fourth year at that school, one day they picked me up and drove me down the street to a massive grey building, which was one of the best schools in the country. They asked me how I would like to go there and they were so excited. I remember being annoyed that I would have to leave my friends. They rightfully ignored it. I hope they know how much I value it now even though I didn’t show it then. I can’t think about it without tears welling up in my eyes. They came from absolutely nothing. My mum basically raised her family of five siblings and her mum after her dad died in an accident, coming home from work on his bicycle. My dad, one of three brothers, worked his ass off with my grandfather, running marathons, bleeding across finish lines because he couldn’t afford shoes, and here I was, staring at the entrance of one of the most expensive private schools in the country.

The months went by and the start of my first fall semester was approaching. A week before I was to get on the plane, I met up with some friends to celebrate. We were all going off somewhere and we might not have met again for a long time, if at all. We went out and got wasted. I don’t remember much, but what I do remember is being woken up by my dad. I was sitting on the toilet, my pants around my ankles, puke on the toilet seat and me mid-shit. I had fallen asleep. The room was still spinning while I was looking at my dad. I can’t remember the look on his face, I imagine fury, but I do remember sitting on the living room couch and watching my mother cry across the coffee table. I didn’t get it then. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. I went out and got hammered with my friends, so what? It’s not a big deal! At that age, 18 years old, nothing matters. You don’t yet understand what it’s like to put your heart and soul into someone and have them let you down. To watch them show all the signs of implosion right under your very roof. If only they would take it seriously. “It’s not a joke,” you would say, “This is life or death.” What it means to do something like that to people that will always forgive you is knowing that my parents probably don’t even remember this day and I still feel like an asshole.

My first semester of college was no different from that shit-stained night. I drank and smoked pot as often as I could. I partied and stayed out all night because hey, that’s what college is about and everyone is doing it. I failed all my classes my first semester and added a semester to the bill, which my parents paid. For the rest of college I hobbled along to get my GPA up and half assed everything like most kids in college do just to pass and graduate.

If you’re reading this and your life was anything like mine with a family that did for you what mine did for me, you absolutely cannot do this. You are not like every other kid, and graduating for the sake of graduating, while it might be fine for an American citizen, it will be disastrous for you. I don’t think anyone should be doing that. No matter what you think, your family is paying for you to have an opportunity to upgrade your entire life. If you came from a third world country like me at least.

I met too many people that half assed college, Americans and not. It’s diluted the value of a college degree and what it means to be a college graduate. Colleges hand out degrees to anyone with a pulse that can answer a multiple choice question. So you have to show what is valuable about you to get companies to notice you. That’s right, you’re in college so you can be turned into something that is of value to a society and make returns on your investment. What did you think it was for? The school brand isn’t as valuable anymore. You have to have shit to show for it. Projects, research, writing a blog, reference letters, part time jobs, internships. You have to show the effort.

If you’re studying in America and paying dollars without earning dollars, meaning, like parents did with rupees, you need to step your game up. Your goal absolutely must be to earn that investment back by working in America for at least some time.

Maybe you’re the kid of some mogul and it’s just another gift from dad to you, in which case, you don’t need this but thanks for reading this far.

If you’re like me, if your parents put their heart and soul into giving you the best possible opportunity to succeed in life and upgrade not just your education but your country, you better damn well make use of that shot.

You have to work damn, damn hard. You can’t have the average “college experience”. You have everything to lose by going at college in mediocrity.

Pick a tough, valuable major. Work your ass off at it. Live in the library. Get a good night’s sleep. Speak to your professors at all the office hours. GET AT IT.

I didn’t. It was an amazing experience for me, it changed my life for the better, I am a better and smarter person but, I didn’t get the most out of my college education. I didn’t put the work in and coasted by. Even with that poor showing, I am far ahead and better than most. Imagine what you could do if you slept well, ate well, studied with a plan and chugged away at college?

America is amazing and you would be lucky to get a chance to live and work there. Don’t throw it all away. You have to work harder than everyone else around you and that might be lonely business but what you get in return is priceless. It’s only now I get what my parents were so worried about that day in my living room - that I didn’t appreciate the shot I was given. I was blessed and you have been too. Appreciate the gift that you have been given and make the most of it. If you want to stay in America, you have to earn it.