In my first year of college, I treated attendance like a full-time mission. Every morning, I’d wake up before sunrise, travel 20 km, and reach college by 8:55 AM , not to build something, but just to mark attendance before 9. By the time I reached class, I had already lived three lives - student, commuter, and part-time philosopher wondering why I was doing this. And in our college, attendance isn’t taken once a day. It’s taken every single hour. Six hours. Six times. You miss one, you’re suddenly “absent for whole day .” 😭 The reward for all that dedication? A two-hour lecture read word-for-word from a PowerPoint older than half the students in class. And halfway through it, the professor would ask, “Any doubts?” Yes sir ! mainly about life. Still, I kept showing up. Every single hour. Every single day. Result? 98% attendance. Back then, I thought that was an achievement. Now I realize that I just trained myself for corporate punctuality before even getting a job. 😂 And If I could redo that year, I’d still wake up early but for something that actually mattered. I’d learn how to build things people actually use. How to turn ideas into something real. How to sell an idea. Because nobody cares how many times you marked “present.” They care about what you can create. The syllabus won’t teach you that. But the real world will , and it doesn’t take attendance. 😭 #CollegeLife #BuildInPublic #RealTalk #Tier2College #StudentLife #Storytelling #GrowthMindset