humans-of-dit-blog

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I was in college before, I did architecture and then kind of out of the blue, I just decided I didn’t want to do that before. I do film and broadcasting with French, and I really, really wanted to do a language after school so I picked this and I knew I had a vague interest in broadcasting and radio so luckily it worked out. From third year on, you specialise in film, documentary or radio, and I chose radio. I like working with sound, sound production and presenting and all that.

I really, really like art, so I thought architecture was a lot more creative than it turned out to be. I do love architecture and building and design, but it wasn’t creatively liberating for me, but this course is much more creative and there’s a lot more positive feedback than architecture.

‘Be kinder than you have to be,’ is one piece of advice that I got and I always think about. You’ve got nothing to lose. If someone wants a favour, what would I lose by helping them?

I think we’re very worried what people think of us, and it kind of hits you at one point that people don’t actually think of you that much. Even with appearance, it’s a big thing in your teen years where you’re worried about what you’re wearing and what people are going to think, but people don’t actually look at you that much. If you’re comfortable with yourself, people don’t really think of you too much.

I think appearance wise, I used to really worry about what people thought, but like I said, I realised that people don’t think about you as much as you think they do. So when you realise that people don’t really care, it’s a lot easier.

My biggest dream is to be content with where I end up. I don’t mind if it’s not a super high paying job, as long as I’m happy with what I do and I don’t hate life.

I think it’s important to know that you don’t have to be happy all the time because that’s just an impossible thing for people to achieve, so I think you have to let yourself not be happy sometimes, and I think that’s okay.”  

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I have a bone condition that causes benign tumours, and it limits a lot of what I could do. Last year, I had to defer my exams, hence why I’m still in second year. Just dealing with that while also having college and other outside life experiences and trying to manage my time and keeping myself healthy and happy, that was a struggle.

The best way to deal with it is to prioritise your health first. If everything else falls into place afterwards, happy days, but if you prioritise your own health then anything else after that is sprinkles on the cake.

When I was a year and a half, I fell and broke my leg. They did an X-ray and found out something was wrong. And over the years they found more and more complications. Last year I had a tumour in my chest that had to be removed. So that took a lot of strain and time out of my second year in college and as a result, I had to defer my exams because I wasn’t well enough to take them, and I’m going to be taking those exams again come May.

It was very stressful because at the time I didn’t want to change the semester. I didn’t want it to impact my work at all. During the beginning, I thought it best to just do everything regardless of the impact it would have on my own health, my stress or anxiety levels. But in the end it went too far, I just had to cut out everything that wasn’t essential and so I decided the best way to do that was to defer my exams.

I gave myself the realisation of what it meant. As much as you disregard your physical health, it impacts so much of your life. Your mental health is linked to it and if you’re not physically healthy, there’s a good chance you’re not mentally healthy as well. Before that I was used to having the time to get involved in extracurricular activities and also devote time to my studies. But when this came along, it demanded attention, this wasn’t something that I could put off. It’s something that will stop everything else if you don’t prioritise it and when you look after yourself you’ll be able to look after everything else.

My grandmother, Ellen, is a huge influence in my life. Over the past few years, I’ve become very close to her. I heard about all the challenges she’s went through in her life, her own medical history and losing her children throughout the years. But she’s still incredibly healthy and active and she’s just got a childish-type attitude towards life and she tries to enjoy it and make the most of it. If I could be like anyone, I’d like to have that same attitude in my old age.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“Now this sounds like some sort of Oscars acceptance speech, but my mom is my main inspiration in life. In everything I’ve ever been through, she’s always told me to be myself, because as long as you believe in what you are and who you are, then what everyone thinks doesn’t really matter as much.

I’m from such a small town in Mayo, that if I were to wear what I’m wearing now, people would be looking at me funny and judging me for it. Living in the city is a lot different. When you’re in the country in a small town, everyone knows everyone’s business. You live your life through the stories you hear about yourself, which is mad. If I did anything, it’ll get back to my family. It’s strange, but being in a city, because it’s a huge population, everyone is just focused on themselves. And that’s something I really respect and appreciate.

Happiness to me is being comfortable in who you are. Happiness can be taken in so many different ways. Like if I get chocolate cake, that for me is happiness. It’s incredible. Cake!

I’ve come out of my shell a lot more. When I first came to college, they thought I was the quiet country girl, then when they meet me they think ‘she’s crazy, she’s crazy!’ but I’m just a really bubbly person, so I’m a bit whacko. I used to be really shy, I used to be really quiet and sometimes I would stutter. I think people thought I was quiet, but I’m not really.

Be true to you. I’ve gotten a lot more confident since I’ve come to college, because I’m happier with myself and who I am. I know sometimes lying to yourself is the worst thing you could possibly do in some cases, but if you’re thinking ‘if I looked like this, I’d be happy..If I had that, I’d be happy’ or ‘I could be beautiful if I looked like that’... I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m just looking at what I have no. I have this, I am this, and if you focus on that, you become a lot happier with yourself. When you're happy with yourself, your confidence develops and you can do anything you want.

I’m also running for the Grangegorman college officer, and I’m really, really excited for that. I want to include Grangegorman more. It would mean the world if I was the Grangegorman college officer. It sounds mad, but I’ve just gotten myself so involved and you might be like ‘oh it’s just a first year talking’ but no, it’s something I’d be really passionate about. I feel like a lot of the times Grangegorman has been excluded because it’s ‘so far away’. I want to try and get people to love college. I’m having the best experience of my life right now, and I want others to feel that way too. I want to be inclusive and make others have a great time. I want to make others as happy as I am.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“One of the most difficult times is when my grandad died because he was my best friend. So losing him was very weird. Not having that person around was difficult. I had a really good support system around but you kind of never get over it. That person that you thought was always going to be there is gone.

My grandad taught me to really not care what people thought of me. When I was in school, people had this really weird idea about me. I’m actually like a very quiet person but I come across as very loud and vibrant, but I’m actually really shy. People would kind of pick on me like ‘you’re so loud, what are you doing?’. My granddad was always like ‘no. this is who you are. You’re just a bubbly person. Don’t let people be mean to you. Don’t care what they say. It’s not worth it, they’re not going to be in your life forever, so why care?’

I really regretted not spending more time with him. He lived down the road from me, and I really took that for granted. I always thought oh he’s there, I could just see him whenever, and I just didn’t. And then one day I was in college, I got a call and they told me to come home and they’re like he’s gone.

That was really weird for me especially because I was with him a few days before for my debs and he was like ‘oh you look great, you look beautiful’ and I said aw, see you in a couple days and I just didn’t. I went on a road trip with my friend and he ended up passing away when I was back. So that was one thing that I really regret. We were meant to go out for dinner. Not spending that night for him and thinking I could do it whenever, but I couldn’t.

Even if the person isn’t necessarily gone, even if you just don’t speak to them anymore... The one piece of advice is: don’t regret anything. Just appreciate the time you spent with them because dwelling on not saying certain things and not spending more time with them, there’s no point. Like you’re not going to get that time back. So the one thing that really helped me was reminding myself of all the good times and all the times I did spend with my grandad and the people who aren’t in my life anymore. Just appreciate that time even when they’re gone, because there’s no point in dwelling on it.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I loved college. Honest to God, DIT has been good to me. I enjoyed every bit of it with my friends. Majority of the lecturers were so helpful and down to earth. I do remember being upset about the fact the my course is for 4 years as all my friends got into 3 year courses but now as I'm in my final year, with only 5 months to go till I graduate I'm just wondering what on earth happened to the years, they flew by! For anyone starting college, my advice to you is enjoy it! Live! But make sure you get your assignments and study done on time! Socialise with your friends, join societies, do as much as you can because you will never get this amount of freedom again because after this stage it's 9am to 5pm shifts and paying taxes for the rest of your life.

The most inspiring thing I've been given to was from my dad. The background story of this advice is funny actually. I think it's safe to say that my dad is officially an old man. I have a lot of siblings and my parents worked hard for us, but my dad was different to any other dad. He cooked and cleaned for us regularly. I would wake up early morning and see my dad cleaning behind the cooker or the fridge. My dad is the parent we all hide from when he gets home because once he sees you, you know you'll be helping him with painting and redoing the whole house! I remember saying to my dad, "dad you always do extra things. The house is fine. We are fine! Just rest and relax. Don't stress yourself!" He looked at me and said "Asad, I've got my health now, I will use it to its advantage before I lose it. Just take my advice, if you ever do anything and I mean absolutely anything, even if it's small, do it with perfection. Do it to your fullest ability. Even if no one is watching or no one knows. God is and he knows." So ever since that day anything that I do, even if it's pointless, I remember my dad’s words and do it properly.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“Advice that I’ve been given that I cherish is anytime I’ve been told not to care what people actually think. I get a lot of preconceptions about myself because of my appearance, my hair and stuff. People tend to assume things about me so you learn to not care and be confident about it.

Once I finish college, I’ll have my game design degree. Hopefully go on and do a masters and then move to the US and become a game designer out there, because there’s not many prospects for it in Ireland. But once I’m finished that all I want to do is travel, just travel as much as possible see as many beautiful places as I can while I still can. I’d love to see the Philippines. I have some friends from there and it just looks like one of those amazing places on earth.

I’ve been to a lot of places. I was in Mexico for quite a while. I’ve been to Holland, France and the US. Mexico was my favourite place by far. The most interesting thing about Mexico is that watermelons grew everywhere!

People, especially in the US, seem to have ideas about Mexican people that they are, I suppose, inferior in a sense. But we met so many amazing people from the area. They were some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.

My advice to people who are dealing with preconceptions made about them. A lot of people are going to say to you to ‘just ignore it...just do this...just do that’ but the most powerful thing you can is to just learn not to care. Words can hurt. What people say about you can travel and can affect you really badly. I guess just learning not to care and not to let it get to you and kind of embrace the attention rather than what they’re actually saying.

I grew up in the middle of the country down in Wexford. It was not exactly very orthodox to look different. I used to dye my hair and stuff and it was the adults such as teachers and principals and stuff who bullied me more than the students did. They were quite traditionalist. It was a Christian school. They weren’t exactly very progressive. The one thing I could say is to not pay any attention and embrace the attention but not what they’re actually saying. Things change. It’s only one period of your life, things are going to get better from there.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I think a piece of advice that I’ve been given that I really cherish is to just be positive about what happens in your life. When it’s difficult, you have to always remember that something more positive will happen after that. You have to go on and things will get better.

Two or three years ago, all my grandparents died at around the same time. I thought that things could never get better and that the situation would keep getting worse and worse. But after 4 or 5 months, things began to change for the better. When you have positivity in your life, other things happen. It’s like a circle or a chain.

I was very close to my grandparents. My grandmother was like my mother, she raised me and taught me everything. We are a very close family. All the members of my family are very important to me, even more important than friends or boyfriends. I never thought anything bad could happen to my family, so losing all my grandparents at the same time, that was a big thing. I didn’t deal with it very well. I went through depression but my family and friends were there for me and helped me.

My advice to anyone who’s lost a loved one...I think it’s the order of life. They have to go and they have to go before you, so you just have to let them go. And when the pain is gone, when you remember them a few months later, sometimes a year later, they will be joyful memories. Now the memories of them are more happy than what they were at first, which was only pain and sadness.

I learnt from my grandparents to be strong... to be very strong. My grandmother was Polish and she was in Poland during World War II. She was 18 and lost all her family there. She was the strongest woman I knew. She was always strong. I want to be like her one day.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I was 12. Down on my luck. Gap-toothed and resembling the milky bar kid. Having gone through the “rap” phase and tragically been knocked for being the whitest white kid ever I needed a new niche.

The lowest point was when I was made to hoover the living room just to make a quick buck in order to keep buying packs of “Match attax” (I didn’t even like football). But it was that same moment where through vacuuming up the dirt, the nozzle struck a hard surface by the wall. I struck again to confirm. Reaching down to examine I picked up a square CD case that had been collecting dirt for I could only imagine was decades.

Wiping off the dust with my tears I could barely make out the inscribed words of ‘Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits’ “Who was this Boob Dolan”, I thought to myself?” I mean, he certainly didn’t look like Eazy E. But I was desperate and needed to find myself. I put on track 1, a little ditty called “Blowin’ in the Wind”. I was hooked. The opening guitar strums and Bob’s perfectly awful voice was all I needed to go out and buy a guitar of my own. I knew what I wanted to do.

Hours and days of practice, frustration, sore fingers and no girls to show for it could be disheartening but in times of doubt Bob’s mumbles of brilliance echoed in my head.

To this day, the inspiration has never stopped. Of course there’s days where you question what you’re doing and wonder if it’ll ever live up to your hero's work; but I will never stop trying.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“Something I struggled with growing up was definitely identity. I went to a Muslim primary school and that was fine but going into secondary school was where I struggled. I went to a school where I was the only Muslim up until maybe my third or fourth year. When you're entering your teen years and trying to figure yourself out in all aspects, it’s confusing. I was one of the only women of colour and surrounded by tall, blonde blue eyed beautiful girls. I wanted to fit in and questioned myself and who I was until fourth year.

Suddenly, I overcame this by trying to be something I wasn't being: myself. Having people appreciate you and love you for you is really refreshing. By doing this, I made more friends in fourth year and got even closer to my other friends in the school. I was proud of being a Muslim, a hijabi and most of all, I was comfortable in how I wasn't blonde, or had blue eyes or freckles. I was simply myself and my class loved me for it.

Over the years, someone let me down, even when I saw the best in them despite other people telling me not to. Over the passing years my eyes opened and I saw how that person was in other people's eyes and now I could relate to it. Their personality change let me down and it was a shock to get over. I overcame it by forgiving them. Forgiving makes you hold no grudges and also gives you peace of mind, as hard as it may be to achieve.

I have a lot of inspirations in life but one very close to me is my dad! I have never met a more patient and hard working man in my life and I aspire to work on those traits for myself!”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“It’s concerning as a journalism student in the current situation, in terms of distrust of the media, and the declining sales in newspapers. Everyone wants their news for free, and so there’s less and less people actually buying a paper or subscribing, and more people getting their news from Facebook.

This causes problems for budding journalists, because what we’re learning now could all change by the time we’re finished. The entire industry is in such a place of turmoil. Even in class, some of our lecturers have said something along the lines of  ‘yeah most of you won’t get a job, maybe in Public Relations, but only 5 or 6 of you will work in News’. My friend who’s doing Computer Science in Kevin St has already signed a contract with Amazon with a 60K+ salary. It makes you envious.

We’re told if we’re lucky we can work for free to try and even get a chance. This I think really makes Journalism a poison chalice, because once you get a taste of the possibilities and the adrenaline, you don’t want to stop, but it’s hard to actually make it.

I actually decided I wanted to get into media when I was about 10 or 11, I don’t even remember making the decision, so I can’t even tell people why I wanted to do journalism when people ask, which seems super dodgy. I’m doing an internship with AA Roadwatch doing traffic news bulletins on Lyric FM, and I never even wanted to be the one behind the mic, so each week I’m nearly sick with nerves in the studio just because I couldn’t pass up any kind of internship, they’re just so hard to come by. It’s been good though, because that’s one of the good things about this course, is that you’re always being pushed outside of your comfort zone, thrown in the deep end, and we always, despite how we feel at the time, come out better for it.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I was head girl in my school, the first Asian one as well, and I loved school so I knew I was going to love college and that’s why I took part in all of this. Starting college, the hardest struggle was trying to balance my physical health with everything else. I’m always constantly running around doing stuff for the Student Council as well doing my own work as well as trying to eat healthy, which I haven’t been able to do.

Dealing with stress with school was the hardest thing I’ve faced, honestly. I even fainted in school as well and got sent home, because you can’t be overworking. In DIT everyone’s friendly, everyone is going to reach out to you if you need help especially your College Officers, your class rep and all lecturers. The atmosphere here is just great, and you don’t have to worry about starting college. I know people that are nervous about it. I wasn’t ready either but once induction came, DITSU just did a great job.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I just went to one meeting for something that I didn’t know anything about. Going to lectures and all can be very boring, so I decided I’ll just go to see it and see what happens. And now I’ve just been sucked in. Every spare hour I have I’m doing all these crazy events. For example, there’s a pub crawl going on, there’s a sexy car wash planned, someone’s getting their whole head shaved and someone is dyeing their hair pink. And the best part is that half of it is for charity as well.

The craziest thing I’ve been involved in was this year at the Halloween Ball. I’m in the Drama Society. We went on stage and on 1 o’clock they turned the lights off and then turned them back on again. I was dressed as a priest and another girl was dressed as the girl from The Exorcist, so I had to pretend to perform an exorcism on stage. So she’s there on the mattress in convulsions and I’m there with a bible and a cross trying to exhume her. At the very end it turned to a very big rave on stage where we got about 50 people up on stage.”

[humans-of-dit-blog]

"Last year when I was 16 at around March, James Bay came out with an Album called Chaos on the Cam. There was a lot of guitar music and I really wanted to get a guitar to learn his songs. I learnt one or two of his songs and got used to playing them on the guitar and then ended up learning a lot more songs. I was a very big fan of James Bay. The main reason why I got a guitar was because of him. He always wears this cowboy hat. It was a really cool hat. And when my friends and I went to England over the summer, I went with only one mission and it was to find a hat just like that. And I did and it was very cool.

Since last week, I've been playing the piano in Kevin Street between classes. I always wanted to learn the piano. I guess even more than the guitar. It's a very beautiful instrument and it's a very different instrument. I always wanted to play the violin as well. I like listening to sad, emotional music. I'm just like my cousin, he likes listening to sad music as well. But I'm a very happy, jolly guy. I love making new friends. But the thing is, I made too many friends so I kind of have to tone it down.

I'm the coolest guy you'll ever meet, and that's no joke! I get along very well with very crazy people. The crazier you are, the more I'll get along with you.

My advice to college students would be to have as much fun as you can, make as many friends as you can and do crazy things because these are the things you will remember when you're older."

[humans-of-dit-blog]

"When  I first moved up, I was doing computer science in DIT. I was only about a month in before I quickly realised computer science was not for me. I felt a bit forced into that course, like my guidance counselor  back in school was telling me to get into more engineering and science-y stuff and my dad was telling me how there are jobs in that field and all that.

I came around to doing journalism because computer science made me realise I didn't want to do anything science-y or anything to do with computers. I looked at myself and I was like, what did I like in school? I was very fond of English but I didn't want to do an English degree. What made me come to journalism was that I still liked writing, with an interest in mainly sports at first, but I don't know my specific interests yet and journalism is a cool way of getting to know different aspects of the world and the different ways of thinking and demographics you can appeal to. But I found journalism is an important piece in society. When you say you're doing journalism, people say "well, anyone's a journalist now, you can be a blogger or whatnot", but it's still very important to have focused journalism. We need to know what's going on in the world whether it's politics, or what's going on abroad, or general day to day things. Even local newspapers, people want to know what's going on in their area. The course helps to guide you in a professional way.

For people that are repeating: don't get bogged down in losing a year. Don't think "I'm going to be such and such older when I get my degree. I'm being held back in the world..." I've come to realise that age is but a number - it sounds so cliché! But everyone moves at their own pace. It doesn't really matter. You can't look at someone else and think "oh they have their life figured out at like 20. How did they know how to do this?" You'll figure it out when it comes to it. At the end of the day, I just don't think it matters. Nobody actually has it figured out. You're in your course now and this is what you want to do, but maybe five years down the line you might think "hmm, maybe this isn't what I want to do." And maybe you can come back and do something else.

I learnt that from my dad, my mother and my sister. My dad was in the army for 27 years but he used it as more of a spring board. When he was in the army, he did a lot of courses, but now he's an addiction counselor.

Same with my sister, she didn't know she wanted to do in college. When she was in secondary school she wanted to do law, but she didn't get the points. She ended up doing an Arts degree in English and History, and then she ended up getting a job in a hotel. Now she's doing her masters in hospitality management.

My mother didn't go to college straight after school. Later in life, when she had us, she went back to do college and became a social worker.

Everyone goes at their own pace, it's not set in stone. When I was repeating, as I said at first I wanted to be a sports journalist, but now, I don't feel limited to that. You can go into anything. And you should definitely not let yourself have a one-track mind. You will have hiccups, and if that happens just take it on the chin and say "well, what's next? I can move on and go forward."

I would definitely say, if you are knocked on repeating, don't let it lose your focus. Don't throw away your degree being like "ah, I fucked this up now, I'll just leave it..." Finish your degree, then when you finish your degree you can go onto something else."

[humans-of-dit-blog]

"The lowest point for me was about two years ago. I had just finished my PLC course before I went to college and I was overwhelmed and scared about going to college and was still suffering with depression in the background. I remember just lying in bed for a whole day one of the days and I could not get out of it. I had hit such a low. A really, really bad low. I was seriously contemplating suicide. That was when I had to speak out more to my family and my friends and make them aware, especially my family because they weren't always tolerant, I suppose. Even though there were sufferers in the family, but because I'm young, "I should be fine" - this kind of an attitude that "there's nothing wrong with you" and "your stress is different than my stress and I don't even know what you're stressing about!" So it took a good while to convince the family that there's an issue here, I acknowledged the issue, you should as well because otherwise I wouldn't be getting any support.

I would say to the people struggling to get out of bed to make little goals for themselves, whether it be getting out of bed, making your bed, getting dressed, going for a shower, going for a walk. Make little goals for yourself because it's the little victories that will end up as big victories in the long run. You end up helping yourself because you acknowledge that you need a bit more support with certain areas of your life so you can then go and access that support.

I have always been a sufferer of depression. It has been the mental health condition that has constantly followed me. I have done an interview about mental health with The Edition in first year and I hadn't properly accepted that I had this condition and that it was affecting my life as much as I thought. When I was approached to do the interview in first year, I couldn't give my name, I couldn't give a picture of myself, I didn't want to identify myself because I was scared of the stigma that existed and still exists. But if you fast forward to third year, I have been through so much and I have got a lot of treatment for my depression both medication wise and talk therapy wise, so I'm much more confident now to speak out about it. I'm not just mentioning this for sympathy, but this is the thing that I'm extremely proud; that I'm able to talk openly about my mental health because there is usually someone out there who will read this and think "yes, I understand, I can completely relate and if she can do it and go get help and fight the stigma, so can I."

[humans-of-dit-blog]

“I find my mom to be the most inspiring person. ‘Do what you want to do and just don’t hold back,’ it’s what my mom told me. If you want to go to college, go. If you don’t, don’t. If you want to get a job, do. If you don’t, don’t. Just don’t listen to other people and do what makes you happy.

For me, the biggest struggle was concentrating and actually getting things done. I’d have to really, really push myself to sit in school and stay in it for a full day, go to work and actually concentrate and do what I’m meant to be doing. And I still struggle with it now but I just know that I forced myself to do it in the Leaving Cert and I ended up getting into college because of it so now I realised that if I keep pushing myself I’m going to get further in life by making myself work and concentrate.

My biggest dream I’d love to accomplish one day is just the general, have my own house, my car, my family, get married - what I think everyone’s dream is whether they say it or not.”