I’m a computer science engineer. I dated a medical student from the beginning of my college days. I have been with this girl for past 4 years. Yes, the relationship went through ups and downs, but there some interesting things I learned from it.
Life experience
From my experience engineering is more like schooling. You go to college, attend classes and have fun with friends. It is more like an incubator or a closed environment. Most of your friends are from similar economic and family background.
Unlike engineers, medical students interact with patients from their first year itself. Many are from different social and economic states. It’s really tough to see the kind of experiences they are going through. You can’t easily relate these people to your life. But you will start seeing how most of people in this world live. That’s the greatest life learning. You will have empathy towards them, now you can feel how wonderful your profession will be.
Everyone is making a difference in how the world works. I sold apps to 50,000 people from 157 countries in the world, in reviews everyone says it helped them. Yet I haven’t seen a single person who bought my app face to face.. But if you are a doctor, you can see the light in the people’s eyes. I feel that’s something incredible.
Now you have two master degrees
I pretty much know about the medical syllabus. I know how hard the topics are and how the human body works. I’m the kind of guy who always worries about my health. Now I have a detailed explanation for my worries and thankfully I don’t have a serious disease. She said ‘It’s just a cold dear, have a long sleep and you will be fine’
I’m into apps development and entrepreneurship from my second year of college. I had an opportunity to work with most wonderful people in the startup ecosystem. I had a huge learning curve in the past three years. She has been a witness to all this. If I have something interesting shaping up, or when I have a lecture session the next day, I pitch it to her. She shares a good relationship with most of my mentors also. She experienced ‘Neyya’ a couple of times. Neyya is the first wearable IOT device from India, which ironically many of my startup friends are yet to see.
We both are into literature and arts. Having these varied interests, we never lacked topics for discussion. With each passing day, we have more interesting stories to share.
Perspectives and blind spots
One we are trained to think in one way, the brain connections get be hard wired. Almost all engineers think about a problem in a single way. It is needed to solve the engineering problems. Sad thing is that life is not an engineering problem, it’s your own problem. Once you are surrounded with people thinking on same lines and having similar opinions, you might think you are going on the correct path. Society is not just young engineers or doctors, it consists of people from different backgrounds. Having a friend or a couple of friend outside your thinking group will be a huge asset while dealing with life problems. At least you will try to understand the possibilities of different perspectives of the same problem. Having different viewpoints will actually helped you in various situations.
A lot more friends
Anjusha P, The most wonderful person I have ever met is a friend of her. It will be very hard to explain how awesome Anjusha is. When we went to NIT Calicut for ‘Ragam’, a cultural programme by NIT Calicut. Anjusha came along with her, I had a couple of my friends with me as well. Once the programme was over, we took the car and went to Wayand at midnight just to have a tea. Both my friends and hers are interested in meeting and socializing with new people. Since all of us are curious about the kind of things others learn, it lead to an interesting conversations.
Once we started dating I used to visit her college and vice versa. We went out with each other’s friends and had long chats. Our social circle expanded. Now I have more friends in her college than in my own college. I graduated this year. After leaving college most of my college friendships have started fading unlike the other friends. A piece of advice, dear friends, make friends outside your system, it will be awesome.
Mutual respect
In our case, we both live in different worlds. We do have a basic exposure to what other is up to. We both are good at what we do and we have seen the changes in each other life. I think knowing the wonderful things your partner is doing will add more reasons to be with them.
No matter what, your family loves her
Family and society are more curious about your relationship than either of you. In Kerala the doctor engineer ratio is an abysmal 1:96. Medical college is the nearest hospital for my family. So an insider in the hospital is considered as an advantage. While hanging out with a doctor, you are not just dating one, but also adding value to the system tongue emoticon
And a lot of ❤
Yeah, you know what it is.
Originally published in meharmp.in on January 31
