So long story short, I essentially spend the last 1.5 years rotting at home in bed oscillating from mild to heavy depression, though abt 7months of them was intense studies before I burned out. But anyway I went to a college today, a decent one not amazing, just whatever I got, just to get a look. It starts next week. And to find places to live in a different city (though its only about 100kms apart from my home).
And yeah I am kinda scared now idk. I do not really have any meaningful friends or something or a mentor to ask advice, so well I would like to hear your stories! Or any tips? I am kinda introverted, well not kinda quite a bit. But I wont say I am under-confident, I do not have trouble talking to people or something, mostly I just find hard to relate with them. Even today I tried striking some casual convos but seniors have some attitude towards freshers i guess, and freshers were too busy completing their docs maybe.
Tbh here in india as well we all feel the same way. We have been fucked since all the way back in 2014 and even before that tbh but lets not get into that. And idk about the US but a lot of people here do not protest because most people literally work on daily wages and are shit scared of police brutality and losing their jobs. A single FIR can ruin your life even if it is a fake one. And the “government”(regime) is very good at dishing out polarizing narratives with its humongous IT cell that constantly shifts blame to minorities such as muslims, christians and lower caste Hindus, and immigrants from neighboring states.
The recent protest were a result a lot of things going right. As paper leaks are a pan India issue and effected everyone from lower to upper caste and of every religion. The amount of frustration simply outpaced any government narratives. As well as a very well organized movement by educated people and a very high profile engineer taking part in the protest. It is still a very hopeful thing overall. But thousands still die from basic issues like contaminated ground water, toxic air, a power grid incapable of handling modern 45C + summers (ACs are still a luxury here the average person and classroom does not have). Endless concrete hell where you can just die by a brick falling on you from a construction site in the middle of a busy road. Bridges just randomly collapsing and what not. And there are zero protests anywhere. Even if there are, all the media is owned by the government and you do not see it enough for it to get large enough.
Even rn they r actively arresting students from protests for no reasons at all and used violence against them back in July 20 to again just sow enough fear where people simply accept being miserable than dealing with the state.
As long as people believe risking their current way of life is not a good trade off there simply can not be a mass protest movement. The paper leak issue worked coz it already has about 1% of chance of you making it and if even that is bought by money, students have literally nothing as there are no mid level industrial jobs here. You are either working an office MNC/Doctoral job or are working in a field under disguised unemployment or washing dishes. Hence we got so many people out.