From childhood, we have often heard this saying from our adults, be it parents or teachers, that ‘Student life is a golden life’. This is because children don’t have to worry about anything but studies. This time phase of around 15-20 years not only determines your career, but also shapes your personality and character.

Like every child, I also used to hate school, getting up early in the morning, getting scolded for talking, sometimes detention and studying subjects that one hates the most, overlooking all the benefits school has.

But everything changed with the arrival of Covid-19. In the beginning of the pandemic, when schools were initially closed, that indeed was a time of joy for most of us. This was until online schooling showed us how important school life was for learning in a different environment other than home, for our social life, working with responsibility without using shortcuts and having a proper routine. If the pandemic hadn’t hit us this hard, we might have never realised the importance of school and student life.

School life plays an integral role in fostering leadership and enhance innovative thinking in students. Our teachers are the ones who encourage us, teach us manners, obedience and how to work hard.

We not only develop talent and teamwork, but also learn how to stand up after falling.

Student life allows us to detach ourselves from our domestic life, and be exposed to an environment where we slowly mature with friends of our age. We discover things such as sportsmanship, our interests, cooperation, strengths and weaknesses. We learn how to be more determined after failure.

During this era, we make friends, find likeminded people who we hang on to lifelong and come across fake people who are like passers-by on the street.

We make great memories, experience laughter and tears, take part in extra-curricular activities and make our parents proud. We learn to mingle with other people and turn out to be confident, motivated young men and women.

Despite all the struggles, sacrifices and hard work of blood, tear and sweat, I admit that this is still the best phase of my life. It was all worth it after all.

We enter the school weeping and exit the school weeping. But the tears at both instances are very different. Why? Because it is a phase of life that is unforgettable, no matter what.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 12th, 2022