Boston calls

So I am here, finally — Boston, Harvard Business School. The whole place is like something out of a movie. It’s almost fall and the leaves are turning darker everyday; the scorching September sunlight has been reduced to a few warm spots on the sidewalk. My favorite place is the Charles River across from my dorm: that great blue water with its shimmering crystals and the sun so close behind. The view from my room is spectacular, displaying leaves of various shades brushed by a very meticulous artist.

Here we celebrate the sunny days that I’ve taken for granted back home, especially now that they come so far and few between. “It’s a beautiful day” means students will be lining up the lawns to play soccer or cricket, and stepping outside during 10-minute class breaks to bask in the rare presence of the sun. It’s going to be very cold very soon (Boston wind chill hits -20∞C in winter) and like heat camels, we’re storing all we can get before the drought of cold comes.

It’s like the happy beginning of a novel: our whole campus simply glows with academe that’s happy to be here. I swear, people are practically skipping around. Teachers teach because they love to — otherwise these legendary personalities would be somewhere else signing autographs. The students are ecstatic (I know I’m extremely happy) to be here; for us it’s a sweet nomadic rest after grueling years of work where we had to learn the hard way who we are — and after all, who we are not.

Everything is as I thought it would be, but my classmates surprised me. I thought I’d come here and meet different kinds of people of who grew up in opposite universes — but it seems the people I meet are not so different after all. True, they come from a different continent on the other side of the world, but we’re all in the same rickety boat: that transitory stage when we’re taking a step back before deciding what to do next.

There are the customary introductions, exchanging background information and past careers while lining up at the cafeteria (the one resembling Harry Potter’s dining hall is for undergrads only, but this one is just as amazing). After a while though, we forget where we come from, and focus on what the next person must probably be thinking too: where we are going. It takes five minutes to talk about the whole other life we left behind, but another two years to find out what we’re going to do next.

This is the part I love. During the first few days, it was natural to ask each other what we planned to do after school. Eventually, we stopped asking because we already knew what the answer would be: “Oh, I have a few plans but nothing definite. I have Plan A, B and C. Maybe D and E if those don’t work out. We’ll see how it goes. I’m still soul-searching.” That’s the response you’ll get 95 percent of the time. Soul-searching! It sounds childish, but I cannot think of a more pleasurable thing to do right here, right now — it’s an indulgence I never thought I’d have the chance to enjoy.

Even if many of us had an inkling of what we wanted to do, most of those plans will change simply because we unexpectedly find better opportunities here. I’m in a place where, finally, it’s okay to be in your early or mid-twenties and not really know what you want to do. Well, you sort of have an idea, but all those doors are not wide open so much as being ajar. Don’t get me wrong: there is incredible pressure to be the next big CEO, changing the world — but what I’ve come to realize is that we’re here because most of us want to do exactly that.

The best part of it is, when we finally discover what we want, we know there will be a way for it to happen. There are doors to open, people to talk to, internships to take. It’s a great feeling of freedom, to know that whatever we want to lie ahead is possible. The sheer possibility of anything is overwhelming, but every night I’m excited to see what the next day will bring — and I haven’t had that in a very long time. It’s enough to wake up at 6 a.m., knowing that today, you will discover something new and maybe finally find what you plan to do for the next 50 years of your life.

The funny thing about this place is that it’s so much like high school — the only difference is that everyone already knows what high school is like, so nothing is taken too seriously. There are parties regularly (at the very least your section goes out for drinks), after which people head home to read three case studies for the next day. Everyone has an iPhone, and people get a kick out of “bumping” each other’s contact details or sharing the latest apps. There are still those oh-so-identifiable cliques, those small groups of people bunching together in specific alcoves of the study lounge.

But unlike high school, you don’t need to have a group of friends with you all the time. It’s understood that we’re looking for the things we want to know more about, and often those things are very different from each other. There is nothing wrong with walking alone on campus, or attending a conference without someone to tag along with. We’re all solitary by nature here: we know what we’ve come to look for, and that’s a very personal mission. But we also know these are probably the friends we will have for life, because no one else understands us now the way we do each other.

The facilities are incredible. Our school gym that’s exclusive only to HBS people is a huge edifice with an interior running track built around the perimeter of four basketball courts. The dorm rooms are small but pretty, covered in wood panels and cabinets. The library is built in soft, musky wood, while the study lounge is this huge stream of leather couches surrounded by giant window panels overlooking a beautiful lawn.

We are assigned to sections of 90 and separate learning teams of six, a decision that was pored over by administration after considering our backgrounds and past industries. They make sure we find people who complement our weaknesses and will gain from our experiences. They know human nature dictates that we’ll be inclined towards people from the same background, so they wheel us around because they know for a fact that it’s the wrong decision. There is so much more to learn from people who are absolutely nothing like you.

When people ask me “How do you find Boston?” I’m not quite sure what to answer. The question should probably be “How do you find Harvard?” because, truly, it’s in a world all its own. It’s so beautiful here, every day, everywhere. There is so much to do — so much to take in, to appreciate and cherish. The only way to survive and flourish is to take one day at a time: case by case, one CEO speaker before another. I don’t know exactly what I will be doing in two years — heck, I don’t even know what I’ll be doing for Spring Break. All I know is that, for now, I’ve found the corner I’ve longed to be in for as long as I can remember — and it’s more than everything I’ve imagined it to be.