Leave room to be surprised — Nahrizul Adib Kadri

JUNE 15 — Around this time of the year, campuses across the country begin to fill up again with new pre-university students (although UM’s Asasi starts slightly later this year). 

Students arrive carrying luggage, registration documents, and enough uncertainty to fill an entire lecture hall. 

Some are starting foundation programmes. Others are beginning matriculation, diploma studies, or A-Levels. 

Many are away from home for the first time. Some arrive excited. Others arrive nervous. Most are probably a mixture of both.

I often wonder what is going through their minds during those first few days. Perhaps they are thinking about the course they have chosen. Perhaps they are worried about making friends. Perhaps they are already imagining what life might look like three, five, or 10 years from now.

At that age, plans feel important. Very important, actually. I know they did for me.

When I was younger, there was never much doubt about what I was supposed to become. I did reasonably well in school, enjoyed science (Additional Mathematics, especially), and followed the path that many people expected someone like me to follow. 

Medicine seemed like the obvious destination. It was the plan. Or at least, it was the plan that made sense to everyone around me. 

Life, however, had other ideas. The medical school episode in Australia did not unfold the way I had imagined. At the time, it felt like a setback. 

Looking back, it was probably one of the most important surprises of my life.

I returned home and enrolled in biomedical engineering at UM. One thing led to another. 

A degree became postgraduate studies (Masters in Australia and later PhD in the UK), postgraduate studies became a lectureship, and eventually, many years later, a professorship. 

Along the way, I became a residential college fellow and principal. Then another. I even spent an 18-month stint as the corporate comms head. 

And more recently, I found myself leading a university press, something that never appeared in any version of my youthful career plans.

Yet some of the most important things that happened to me during those years never appeared in any career plan either. I met friends who are still part of my life today. 

I met mentors who changed how I think. And somewhere in those university years, I met the person who would eventually become my wife (right there sitting in the same class!).

If you had shown this trajectory to my 18-year-old self, he would probably have assumed you were talking about someone else. 

That is not because the journey was extraordinary. It is because life rarely follows the neat sequence we imagine at the beginning. And this is something I wish more students understood when they first arrive on campus.

By all means, dear children, have plans. Plans are useful. They provide direction and motivation. They help us take the next step. But hold them lightly; because some of the best things that will happen to you are probably not on your list.

The lecturer who changes the way you think may not be teaching your favourite subject. The friend who becomes part of your life for decades may be sitting quietly beside you during orientation. The skill that eventually defines your career may come from a course you initially considered irrelevant.

You see, the challenge is that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. We want certainty because uncertainty feels uncomfortable. 

We want to know that the choices we make today will lead exactly where we hope. We want reassurance that we are on the right path.

Unfortunately, life does not usually provide that kind of guarantee. Instead, it offers something else: possibility. And possibility only works if we leave room for it.

Perhaps that is why I feel a quiet sense of optimism whenever I see a new cohort of students beginning their journey.

Not because I know what lies ahead for them. Quite the opposite. Neither they nor I know what comes next, and that is precisely the point.

Right now, many of them believe they are choosing a programme. What they may not realise is that they are also beginning a conversation with a future version of themselves that does not exist yet.

A version shaped by people they have not met, opportunities they have not seen, and experiences they cannot yet imagine. 

So as they step into this new chapter, I hope they carry their ambitions with them. But I also hope they leave a little room to be surprised. 

Because life has a way of taking us places we never intended to go. And sometimes, that turns out to be exactly where we needed to be.

* Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, the Director of UM Press, and the Principal of Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College, Universiti Malaya. He may be reached at nahrizuladib@um.edu.my 

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.