I Will not go to a girls' college!! That's what I recall thinking about while I was in high school. I ended up spending 13 years of my life at a girls' school, where I was frequently annoyed by the fact that few of my classmates were too competitive and toxic. Few of them were begging for grades and doing whatever they could to please teachers. I have a lot of amazing and not-so-excellent memories from these 13 years, from missing classes and spending free time on the ground, usually encountered with pals doing crazy things. Our life motto was to have fun in school while working our tail off in coaching. Many of my friends were lost in the hustle and bustle of their lives after we passed out, and we were all pulling our socks up for college life, expecting to socialize.

We were all hoping to enroll in a "co-ed" university to avoid all the drama, unhealthy competition, and toxicity. We expect college life to be as it is depicted in movies! I was ecstatic and ready to embark on our college journey, and with much zeal, I began looking for "co-ed" universities that offered the subject I desired. After a few days, the cut-off lists were released!! and, guess what? Nothing new, my expectations plummeted, and I was enrolled into a "girl's" engineering college! I stopped expecting anything from life and often got reoccurring nightmares about spending another four years with girls. With all the baggage decided to keep going because Not only did I wind up at the girl's university, but so did all of my pals!

I frequently heard about catfights in women’s colleges and witnessed a few verbal brawls during my school days. I was anxious as to how the girls would be in college and how I would deal with them, as well as the possibility of receiving unpleasant feelings, and my thoughts were looping and never-ending.

In the end, it was a blessing in disguise. During the pandemic, our university started providing online classes. We met through WhatsApp groups and gradually began speaking and making friends. We realized that everyone was afraid of going to a girls' college for the same reasons. However, in the swirl of online classes, offline exams, rescheduling classes, we found quite a few kids who were struggling to make an impression on the professors. During which I also encountered a few people who are prejudiced and give off bitter signals. However, I discovered genuine and helpful individuals in the vast majority of cases.

A good realization a year later is that things will not go as planned, but you must invest in yourself. You make friends, you lose few, but you should surround yourself with smarter people. Invest your effort and time in people who you feel are deserving of it. College seems to be the only place where you can openly admit that you don't know something but are eager to learn it, and no one will make judgments. Quite a few people would truly go out of their way to assist you.