Did you flunk all of your entrance exams and are wondering if it’s a bright idea to join a liberal arts university as a STEM student? Or are you a fledgling first-year confused about what science at Ashoka looks like? Fret not, for Kalinga’s got your back! Here’s a guide to prepare you for everything that is to come.
Assignments and lab reports
As a STEM student at Ashoka, a majority of your time will be spent working on assignments, and the sooner you start working on them, the sooner you can give up and start hunting for solutions online. So, make sure you start working well ahead of the deadline. Consider investing all of your pocket money in Chegg subscriptions.
If you happen to have a liking for the fundamental sciences, you will often spend the latter half of your week writing a lab report. These should not take more than 40 hours each, and it is quite easy to squeeze them in between your three other overdue assignments. Familiarise yourself with Latex, so that you can make your incorrect calculations look as pretty as possible, and add badly formatted figures that you stole from the internet.
Getting to know your professors and TFs (you don’t have a choice)
Do you like being cold-called to the board to solve a difficult question? Or being in a class so small that one person doing well in an exam can completely skew the grading curve? How about all of your professors knowing exactly how much you scored in all of your previous courses? Well, you’re in luck! The fledgling STEM departments of Ashoka usually only host a handful of students in each course, allowing you to build lasting relationships with your professors. You will have ample opportunities to get to know them all personally, so that they may select the perfect template for your LOR after you send them a ChatGPT-ed email asking for one.
Dealing with FCs
The prevailing sentiment amongst STEM majors is that FCs are a waste of precious time, and do nothing but detract from the stuff that you are actually here for. While it may truly feel like that sometimes, do not let this stop you from genuinely engaging with your FCs. With the NEP axing our hopes and dreams of academic exploration, FCs might be your only chance to ever study history or literature or philosophy or whatever else you like in a formal setting. Besides that, of course, there is no need for science students to be aware of the major socio-political issues plaguing our society. As we all know, the second you graduate with a science degree, you’re strapped onto a rocket and flung off into outer space, where you’ll never have to be a functioning member of society ever again.
Making friends
As a STEM major at a mostly liberal arts focused University, you may feel a little isolated at times. When a majority of your peers spend their time studying the numerous complex and subjective issues that plague our times, it can be hard to find people who share, or at the very least, understand your passion for the strictly empirical sciences. But when you do finally meet them, it is impossible to not form lasting friendships. Fret not if you do not make too many friends during your first semester, because the shared trauma you experience over the next few months will undoubtedly bring you closer to your fellow STEM nuts. All you need is enough friends to split a Chegg subscription with.
As for making friends outside your major, here are some helpful tips:
The one good thing about those pesky FCs is that they allow you to meet people outside of your usual classes. As tempting as it can be to zone out for an hour and a half as you recoup from your other courses, or to sit at the back of the class and finish your lab report, poking your head up every now and then and interacting with your peers both inside and outside the classroom can be a great way to make friends. If your social skills are anything like mine, a class with more than two people probably freaks you out, so try talking in the Discussion Sections, which are usually much smaller.
Make sure to remind your non-STEM friends about how much harder a STEM major is every few minutes because who doesn’t like being told their field of study is pointless and baby-levels of difficulty? While you’re at it, try explaining a complicated concept from your previous class that you barely understand yourself, and when they ask a surprisingly well-thought out question, pretend you did not hear them.
Once you do make friends outside your major, make sure to stay in touch with them. Between their daily 500-page readings, and your seven assignments, it may be hard to find the time to do anything other than study together but do not shy away from talking about your academics. Conversations where you both rant about your work and sympathise with each other are still better than no conversation at all, of course.
Studying science at Ashoka can be a truly unique experience, and if you’re just getting started, all the best! There are probably not a lot of other places where you can run into a bunch of Biology majors using chromatographs to study DNA sequencing, and a History major talking about the influence of British colonists on the architecture of Hyderabad, all within 5 minutes of each other. So rest assured that you have a lot of interesting classes, concepts and conversations to look forward to, and all you need to be prepared for university is a Che-
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