Feature

Speaking as a student of Jahangirnagar University

Shwagota Sayeed

BEING a student of Jahangirnagar University I feel happy to witness my academic institution on its journey towards the 39th year since its establishment on 12 January 1971. I look at the students and my surroundings and I know that I belong here, and I feel one with the very existence of this university campus.

As a matter of fact, this is one particular emotion that most of the students of this university both present and former cherish in their hearts. Jahangirnagar being a total residential university, we have a better opportunity of communicating with each other, regardless of our subjects or batches, and the attachment is, therefore, obvious. I believe that I myself have received a great opportunity to know my country, its people, and its cultural milieu more minutely and intently while studying here, mixing with various kinds of people coming from different corners of the country, and interacting with their diversified points of view.

However, I know people who wonder how we survive our boring lives in the campus day after day! The ever-beautiful campus itself is quite enough to keep someone spell-bound. On the other hand, Jahangirnagar itself has a culture of its own. The charm of adda, having tea at tea stalls scattered throughout the campus, the smile on the familiar face of the rickshaw-mama or the hotel-mama- these matters, though apparently insignificant, are always at work to make our lives colorful. Apart from that, frequent cultural programs are held at our muktomoncho, auditorium, or at the foot of the shahid minar, performed by the different cultural groups of students of this campus. There are also the nattyo-shoptaho, debate competitions, film shows, concerts or melas.

It is, thereby, not only my disciplinary lessons that shape my identity and intellectuality. The environment and the people in this campus also enrich me. Lessons come to me not only in the classrooms from my teachers, but from the discussions at the tea-stall, from the slogans demanding truth and justice, or from the seminars held on some national or global issue. There may be vices here, but I have learned to identify them and stand for the righteous cause.

University indeed is the highest echelon for institutional education, not only in terms of the degree one earns here, but also because this is where one practices free-thinking, while structuring one's very own ideas and ideologies, principles and philosophies, mode and morale. I have acknowledged the true meaning of education during my academic life in Jahangirnagar.And the best part is that, my life in the university has shown me the path how to pursue knowledge and sagacity.

Jahangirnagar University is, therefore, where I stand and reach beyond the university arena, towards my nation and then the universe, merging with the whole humanity. During the years that I have traveled through the pitch black paths and the emerald green premises of the campus, this has become very much a part of my being, whereas I will always be a part of this university.

Department of English, Jahangirnagar University