“There are two ways to get experience in life…” – Student Ambassador Sumit understands the fear some international students may have about moving to a new country. In his new blog, he’s here to try and take some of that fear away, and leaves a few tips to help incoming students settle into life in Ireland!
Moving to a new country for better opportunities and career comes with a number of fears in mind, but when you get familiar with the new world, gradually all those fears start fading.
First day at NCI (photo: Sumit)
Being a passionate traveller who loves to visit and explore new destinations in new countries, I have always felt eager to visit a new country, but this time, the situation was not the same, as this was not just any other vacation, instead it was a beginning of a new life, starting of a new career, and meeting new people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds in a whole new nation. I, Sumit Gautam, coming from Delhi, the capital city of the world’s most culturally diverse country, India, am going to start a new chapter of life as a Master’s student in National College of Ireland, Dublin.
It is a well-known fact that even a new pair of shoes takes some days to adjust on your foot, likewise, moving to a new country also requires for a few weeks to get well adjusted. But, here in Ireland, it didn’t take much time to fit in as I felt very much connected to India. It’s all because of the strong, intrinsic people-to-people connection between Ireland and India.
Like most people, I was also having a good deal of unreasonable fears and a lot of turmoil before moving to study abroad in Ireland. For instance, I questioned myself how will I get adapted to colder climate? How will I manage my daily activities? How will I manage my expenses being a student? Will I be able to cope up with studies after the long gap of 4 years? All of these questions arises in every person’s mind as one moves to a new country for studies, but, after reaching Ireland, I got tremendous support from my friends who were here from previous years and from my college, where my queries and problems got solved within first few weeks.
There are two ways to get an experience in life, first is to deal with things on our own and get an adequate experience out of it, and the other way is to learn from the experiences from well-learned and experienced people. Here, I would say that the latter option was really very useful for me in Ireland.
Rainbow over Custom House (photo: Sumit)
There are a few tips which i want to give upcoming students:
- Don’t feel afraid of the change in life.
- Be ready for managing all of your daily activities on your own.
- Learn to cook for yourself before coming here.
- Never shy away from doing any kind of work.
- Most importantly, implement proper time management.
- Everything else will be sorted and you will not even realise how fast your one-year course will come to an end and you will get the job that you have dreamt of.
Sumit is pursuing an MSc in Data Analytics at the National College of Ireland.