During her university days, Hana was not just a mechanical engineering student.
Beyond textbooks and lecture halls, she found her second home in PALAPES (ROTU) and the Recreation Club.
Almost every evening after lectures, while others rushed back to their hostels, Hana tied her shoelaces, put on her club shirt, and ran to the field.
Friends would often ask:
“Why spend so much time in clubs? It’s not academic.”
Hana would simply smile and reply:
"Because this is who I am. I enjoy doing what I love. Academic knowledge teaches you in class, but clubs and organizations teach you how to live with people."
🌟 Learning Beyond Grades
Through club activities, Hana learned to lead during parades, organize recreation programs, negotiate funding, and most importantly, listen to her teammates.
From these, she developed:
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Interpersonal skills – the courage to speak and engage with people of all levels.
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Social skills – the ability to adapt to diverse situations.
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Leadership qualities – not only to command, but also to guide and support [1].
Hana realized that university was not merely about chasing high grades (CGPA).
It was about shaping oneself to be a valuable contributor to the workplace and society.
🌴 Wisdom Is More Than Academics
For Hana, academic excellence alone was not enough to define wisdom.
"What use is being a top student," she often reminded her juniors, "if later at work you cannot socialize, cannot understand others, and cannot lead?"
She noticed that many of the most successful people were not necessarily the best academically.
They were those who failed repeatedly, but kept rising again, learning resilience through effort until they proved themselves stronger [2].
🌙 The Spiritual Dimension
Hana also drew wisdom from her faith.
"The wisest person is not the one with the highest GPA, but the one who remembers death and prepares for the Hereafter," she reflected [3].
For her, every activity at university — studying, leading, serving — was meaningful only when done with the intention for Allah’s pleasure (Redha Allah).
🌺 Hana’s Reflection
Later in life, when colleagues asked where her confidence and people skills came from, Hana would smile and say:
“I didn’t only learn in the classroom. I learned on the parade ground, in the club meetings, in the recreational forests with my friends.
That was the real university — not just a degree, but experiences that shaped me into someone useful, in this world and in preparation for the Hereafter.”
📚 References
[1] Astin, A. W. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 40(5), 518–529.
[2] Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Scribner.
[3] Al-Nawawi, Yahya ibn Sharaf. Riyadh al-Salihin – Chapter on Remembrance of Death and Preparing for the Hereafter.
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