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I read this article a year ago and I believe it answers most of the questions that we ask ourselves and humiliate ourselves for having a low GPA.Link for the article: By the time I graduated, I had 10 A’s and 11 F’sBy the time I graduated, I had 10 A’s and 11 F’s"Everything that bothered me, everything that gave me shame or guilt, I had it discussed with at least one person; and people didn’t reject me. Today, I have a successful career with an MNC as Software Development Engineer.Academically, I went through a really tough time at IIT Kanpur. It is not an experience that I boast about or am comfortable sharing publicly. I have, therefore, concealed my identity so that my co-workers do not stop taking me seriously. I have not yet mustered enough courage to share the truth with many others who are very close to me. Still, there are enough details that I am willing to share so that the readers may find my story helpful in their own struggle.Humble beginningsI was a good student like most of you. In high school, I was a District topper in Bihar Board 10th exam and had topped School from 8th onwards. For the 12th grade, I received Rotary Scholarship, scholarship from local MLA, and my community also gave me monthly money for studies that I was to pay back without interest. I also tutored to support myself. My father, a 4th grade government employee, had limited income. I am the oldest of three boys. My mother is a house wife with little education. I wanted to get a job after 12th grade so that I could help my family. I applied for several jobs including a job as an Airman; but got rejected. I started studies in a BSc program but did not complete it. Someone advised me to take the IIT-JEE. I was successful on my second attempt and secured a rank of 1600. I got admission at IITK in metallurgy. Rotary and our MLA did not give me any financial assistance to go to IIT. Lion’s Club, however, provided me with some financial assistance and IITK gave me merit-cum-means (MCM) scholarship. Things were looking good.I could do it if I wanted to, but …At IITK, I was like a kid in a candy store. There were too many things to do and try. I joined the Book Club, played computer games all day, read dirty books, etc…. You get the picture. In the first semester I got an SPI of 6.6. In the 2nd semester I failed all Courses and got an SPI of 2.0 and was put on academic probation. I lost my MCM scholarship. I needed to improve my CPI to get back the scholarship without which I would not be able to continue in the program. I lied to my parents to get some money to survive. I also borrowed money from the Students Benefit Fund at IITK.I did very well in my 3rd semester and got a SPI of 9.1. This got me back the MCM scholarship. The late Prof. R. Balasubramaniam was especially very helpful to me. But in the 4th semester again, my SPI dropped to 5.1. I took summer courses, and failed 2 out of 6 courses.During the 4th semester, I developed romantic feelings for a local girl (not an IITK student). Things did not work out. It took me three years to get over the heartbreak. That did not help with my academics either.I failed the Engineering Graphics course 3 times (skipped the exam all 3 times) , had to drop it in my 9th semester because of a time table clash and was the only course left in the 10th semester to do and passed it with a D Grade. Engineering Graphics professor Dr. Banerjee explained the need to pass the course and went out of his way to allow me to complete the labs that I had missed. However, that was something which was offered to me by other professors too. I did not accept their offers as I felt that they were doing me favor and would think less of me because of those favors. However, Dr. Banerjee appeared to be an educationist first and a grader second, which was why I felt comfortable in attending the extra labs. When the F list came out and my name wasn’t there, I asked Dr. Banerjee if he had passed me out of mercy and he said, “No, you passed it on your own merit.” I felt good.I failed my B.Tech project thrice. (The professor failed everybody the first time. I didn’t appear for the presentation on the second attempt) and finally did both parts in the 9th semester. I wanted to do an excellent job on the B.Tech project and really put in some effort. Fortunately in the end I was able to find a topic which was interesting enough and a guide who was demanding but encouraging as well. Dr. Ashish Garg, my project advisor, was strict but was a perfectionist. Once I got interested in the project work, I realized that I too was a perfectionist. I enjoyed working with Prof. Garg. I did a great job on the project and got an A grade and also won best poster award in an international conference.There were so many conflicting thoughts wreaking havoc in my mind. There was a guilt that I was sucking up my family resources for an education at IITK instead of helping the family that could hardly afford to make ends meet. I was not able to guide my younger brothers while I needed guidance myself. I knew that a degree from IIT was important to me but I was failing all these courses. I needed favors from professors but did not want to accept those favors as I was too proud. I saw that there were students at IITK who were good at sports, academics, social skills and here I was with poor grades, little social skills, and few friends. Did I even deserve to be at IITK? Was I punishing myself by failing in all these courses?By the time I graduated with a BTech in MME, I had 10 A’s and 11 F’s and a grade sheet full of F * and FR * with a CGPA of 7.2/10. Failing courses at IIT was a nightmare and I barely managed to survive that. I couldn’t get a job on campus though getting F’s had less of a role than my inability to clear the interviews. I had little communication skills.What is surprising is not that I finally graduated in 5-years instead of 4, but how I kept going. How did I manage not to take the extreme step that some in my situation would have taken? What helped me? What can help others?I almost killed myself…….What kept me going?I got interested in Shiksha Sopan. The experience helped me understand that there are people who are in worse shape than I am. How can I give up? I have so much more. If they can see hope, I certainly can. I realized that I NEEDED an IITK degree. I deserved it! I could DO it. My conversations with Prof. H.C. Verma and my interaction with Shiksha Sopan kids kept me in touch with my roots. I never got frustrated enough to lose faith in myself. Besides Prof. Verma, Professor Banerjee and Prof. Brahm Deo were very sympathetic and understanding.During the 3rd semester I also attended the Art of Living course offered on campus on Yoga and Sudarshan Kriya. It gave me peace of mind.After our 7th semester, the whole department went for an industrial tour of 10 days to Mumbai and Pune as part of the curriculum. I had a near death experience in Mumbai when I tried to board a running train in which my classmates had already boarded. It wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a mistake which could have ended my life. I still remember it, train speeding up and I am trying to hold on to gate desperately trying to get in and suddenly I am thrown on the ground. Train is still running. Those few seconds, I thought I was under the train tracks and I was going to die. Those few seconds, my life flashed in front of me, my failings, my successes and my loved ones. All the cherished dreams and I remembered my mother, my family, the girl who had broken my heart and I realized I wanted to live. I was not ready for death. I loved my family and I wanted to see them, to go back home, to laugh with them and help them in their struggles. Who would be stupid enough to die when you have such loved ones to live for and so many dreams?The reality of it was an eye opener. Having been so near death, I was convinced for life that suicide is simply not an option for anyone and even those who do it must be terribly afraid in those last few moments of their life. But perhaps by that time it would have been too late for them. Regardless of my failures and whether or not I got the IIT degree, it was clear to me that I would never do anything to harm myself. My life wasn’t my own. I owed it to the people who brought me to this world, who trusted me and gave all they had so that I could have a better life and were counting on me to graduate and help them. I owed it to all those people who had enriched my life by just being there for me. I couldn’t die before I had fulfilled my duties to them, not even by accident, forget by suicide.When I went back home that year, I told my parents about the incident. Even before I told what I saw and remembered, my mother was in tears. My father told me that my mother had dreamed about it almost at the same time I had the accident. (It was about 8 pm in winters and people sleep early at my home) and I realized the world is connected in more ways than you can imagine and perhaps there is a God after all. I turned to God for my answers. Soon afterwards I joined ISKCON.My experience with ISKCON was very positive. It gave me emotional resilience. The philosophy of “leave results to Krishna, just do your best” encouraged me whenever I found myself in a hole. And I was in hole often! How can it get worse? I just have to stop digging the hole.I realized that everything changes. Nothing is permanent. I learned to keep going believing that this phase will pass too. Many who take extreme step of committing suicide remain bottled up. They take every failure too seriously. They take every failure as a reflection of poor self-worth. I never let my failures frustrate or depress me enough to give up believing in myself.There was one more reason why I didn’t take the extreme step. Everything that bothered me, everything that gave me shame or guilt, I had it discussed with at least one other person; and people didn’t reject me. There was one thing, that could have caused me to take extreme step … it wasn’t academics or grades. But it was a cause for my poor grades. I still cannot talk about it even to my closest family members. I discussed it with Dr. Alok Bajpai, the psychiatrist at the counseling service at IITK. He gave me a medical reason for my problem and said it was okay. While his acceptance didn’t take away the guilt, however, it gave me enough support that I didn’t think about taking the extreme step. Overall counseling service staff was very helpful especially Mrs. Sharmishtha Chakraborty and Dr. Onkar Dixit. However, my academic performance continued to be lackluster.Life after IITKLife did not go smoothly even after graduation from IITK. I felt maladjusted in my first job. I was not getting along with my co-workers and roommates. I changed 5 houses in 4 years. A friend recommended and agreed to pay for the Landmark Education coursehttp://www.landmarkeducation.co.in His condition was that he would pay for the course and I would return him the money only if I found the course useful. It proved to be a life saver. The course helped me to be at ease with myself no matter what the circumstances were. It gave me the power to effectively act in those areas that were important to me. It made me aware of my thinking process and guided me in my action plan. It released me from the clutches of my past and helped me look at the future. I felt like I could now move on.Didn’t employers care about my 11F’s?I couldn’t get a job on campus though getting F’s had less of role than my inability to clear the interviews. I had little communication skills. I sought friends’ help. They conducted mock interviews and helped me improve. A friend of mine who graduated from IIT Delhi, who himself found a job after being rejected 25 times, gave me an e-mail address of the CEO of his employer. I got hired because I demonstrated my analytical skills, logical thinking, and ability to learn fast. I could convince them that I was passionate about things that interested me and overall I am a hardworking individual.Many of my interviewers were not convinced by my explanations for why I ended up getting so many F’s. There were also several companies that did not care about grades — to them what mattered was that I had graduated from an IIT and had done well in the written test and interview. Most of my F’s were in the courses that I did not care about. I was good at software. That is what I wanted to do, but I could not change my branch at IITK. In interviews I emphasized what I was good at and did not try to explain my weaknesses. I submitted my grade sheet everywhere and HR or background verification team didn’t have an issue.Fast forward 6 years. I am currently working at a multi-national technology company. Drawing about the same salary as B.Tech CSE guys (I am from MME) with equivalent years of experience, performing the same roles. I also had a pretty satisfying stint at a startup which I joined as the 4th employee with one year of experience and stayed there for 3 years.What would I tell someone struggling for grades?Find what you are good at. Do well in those courses. Don’t invite Fs, Don’t purposely Fail Courses and do not think that getting an F is perfectly fine or a celebration time. However, if you do get F’s, do not despair. Do not take your failures too seriously. Even if you genuinely struggle, Remember, there is nothing permanent; this phase will pass too. Talk to people. Talk to even Mean professors. They are not as mean as they appear to be. Have faith in yourself. Connect with the community. Look at the people who are in much worse situations than you are in. Finish the degree. Get a job, any job. (specially in software field). Prove your worth. IITK has taught you more than you think. Switch to another job if you are not happy. You have to find your passion; you have to find what you are good at and go after it. Don’t worry what anybody else thinks about your “success”. Don’t get in the rat race.I found following books to be specially helpful. Reviews inline.1. The Reverse Journey by Vivek Kumar Singh (Rs 95)Packed in 124 pages with NO masala and true realism, The Reverse Journey is a novel where The Author an IITian of 1996 batch, takes the normal path taken by lakhs of Middle Class people in India, observes the society and people around him as they evolve and presents a compelling story, that most of us can relate to. The Reverse Journey is a novel which evolves through a series of seamless short stories and each story by itself is an inspiration in itself.Books Reviews : The Reverse Journey First Edition: Books ()Amazon: http://amzn.com/9381115354 ($6.00)Flipkart : The Reverse Journey First Edition - (Rs 95)HomeShop18 : The reverse journey Books2. The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life by Steve Zaffron.Flipkart : http://goo.gl/X8GZs (Rs. 301, 33% discount)Amazon : http://amzn.com/111804312X ($11.40)The laws of performance are universal. That is, any time people are involved in a situation, the laws apply. They aren’t steps or tips, but general principles that are always at work. They are also phrased in a precise way, to give maximum insight and applicability. The laws are:1. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.2. How situations occur arises in language.3. Future based language transforms how situations occur to people.3. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. RosenbergFlipkart : Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values 2nd Edition - Google Books : Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life ( Half of book in Preview)Amazon : A Language of Life: Marshall B. Rosenberg, Arun Gandhi: 9781892005038: Amazon.com: Books174 of 177 people found the following review helpful5.0 out of 5 stars Profound! The most important book I’ve ever read. December 17, 2003Initially I thought this book wouldn’t be relevant to me since I didn’t consider myself a “violent” communicator. A few pages into the book however, it became evident to me that despite my easy-going nature, I had much to learn about communication. Dr. Rosenberg identifies learned communication that disconnects us from each other and is at the very root of violence. He then offers a simple yet powerful 4 step model that leads to respectful and compassionate communication. One catch – while the model is simple, it can be challenging to apply, especially when we’re upset. That’s because most of us have learned to blame others when we’re upset and it’s hard to unlearn this behavior.133 of 139 people found the following review helpful5.0 out of 5 stars New edition’s chapter on self-compassion well worth readingDecember 27, 2003By “mindful-dot-com”This latest edition of Dr. Rosenberg’s book has a completely new chapter called, “Connecting Compassionately with Ourselves.” It’s about what he calls, “self-compassion.” He writes, “When we are internally violent towards ourselves, it is difficult to be genuinely compassionate towards others.” I enjoyed this chapter because it helped me translate my self-judgments into statements of my own unmet needs.Indian Edition Not Available. Imported only, but worth it.—————–The alumnus featured graduated from IITK with BTech in Metallurgy. He has still not resolved many issues in his life and therefore prefers to remain anonymous. We encourage you to post your comments on the blog or communicate with him via [email protected]"

"SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED"By Bill Waterson, curator, Calvin & Hobbes.One of the most candid and inspiring speech (Kenyon COllege Commencement, 1990) that had an impact on me!Also translated into a comic by Zen Pencils:Read on for the full transcript:I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going.As I walk up the steps to the postoffice, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? ...Wait, didn't I graduate already?? How old AM I?" Then I wake up.Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing.I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn't give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I'm emboldened by the fact that I can't remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won't remember of yours either.In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book.Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints, and I could work for several hours at a stretch.The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn't much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry.The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn't seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaborate picture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don't get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that's what I did.Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running.You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by: absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.I don't look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I'd have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it's too late.Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I'd drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.Boy, was I smug.As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me. By the end of the summer, I'd been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn't give refunds.Watching my career explode on the lauchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn't have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and I returned to my firs love, comic strips.For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job.A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it.It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.It's funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that's what it means to be in an ivory tower.Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli sci books that I'd somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don't care about what you're doing, and the only reason you're there is to pay the bills.Thoreau said,"the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."That's one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.I still haven't drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn't in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn't what I caught. I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted a piece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons.Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need.What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts.On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we've been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime.But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.I think you'll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know.With luck, you've also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you'd never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you'll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed.I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.

Bill Watterson, Kenyon College, 1990SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLEDBill WattersonKenyon College CommencementMay 20, 1990I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going. As I walk up the steps to the post office, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? ...Wait, didn't I graduate already?? How old AM I?" Then I wake up.Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing. I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn't give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I'm emboldened by the fact that I can't remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won't remember of yours either.In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book.Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints, and I could work for several hours at a stretch.The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn't much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry.The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn't seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaborate picture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don't get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that's what I did.Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running.You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by: absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.I don't look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I'd have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it's too late.Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I'd drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.Boy, was I smug.As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me. By the end of the summer, I'd been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn't give refunds.Watching my career explode on the lauchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn't have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and I returned to my firs love, comic strips.For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job.A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it.It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.It's funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that's what it means to be in an ivory tower.Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli sci books that I'd somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don't care about what you're doing, and the only reason you're there is to pay the bills.Thoreau said,"the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."That's one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.I still haven't drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn't in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn't what I caught. I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions.To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted a piece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons.Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need.What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts.On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we've been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime.But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.I think you'll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know.With luck, you've also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you'd never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you'll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed.I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.Bill Watterson