Long time, no blogs. Just a
thought which crossed my mind. Jotted it down.
There are three words which form
a very simple question, which every child hears in his life and has an answer
to since his childhood. That answer varies from child to child. I hope you guys
would have understood which question I’m talking about. Yes it’s “What’s your
aim in life?”. There are very few people who actually get to be what they want in
life. People who actually become what they want to become in life, I salute you
guys.
It’s a very simple question, I agree.
But when it comes to India, it’s not a question which you get to answer. It’s a
question which either your parents or someone among your family members will
answer for you and you spend your whole life bringing that answer come to
reality. Yes, I agree that when you’re asked this question by anyone, you
answer with a doctor or engineer or whatever, but after you become that you
realise what you had done with your life. When someone asks you then, it’s like
you’re even confused in telling them that you’re an engineer.
When you enter school, you’re
told an answer to this question by your parents. You keep saying that
everywhere which forms a mindset that I have to become that. I don’t know why
but maybe to prove your parents that yes, we can make you proud. But in all
this you never realise what you actually wanted. Before 10th boards, everyone
is like this is a very crucial year of your life, study hard, everything
depends on you. It’s like if I don’t do excellent in my boards, the world is
gonna collapse or some shit. You come out with flying colours in your boards.
You face reporters for your excellent performance where they ask you this
question and you’re like numb for a moment and then you remember the answer
which was told to you and you say that and then everyone who reads the paper
gets to know that you want to grow up to be a doctor or an engineer.
In India, if you are a guy, you’re
destined to be an engineer and if a girl, then a doctor. I’m not saying it’s
always that, but that’s the maximum cases. I don’t know where people get this
mentality. If you tell your parents that you want be a footballer or an F1 racer or
in a girl’s case, a fashion designer or something, you’re gone for good. They’ll
tell you that you don’t have the skills to be that. You need a lot of practice
to become a footballer. You have to join coaching for that and there’s a lot of
competition in sports. My question is “Was I born engineer? Did I come into
this world with ohm’s law and mechanics engraved in my mind?” No, right. I
learnt all that. Something which I never knew. And on top of that I did
excellent in my boards. So why can’t I go for football or racing. Yes, there
are risks, I agree. But what worth is life if you play it safe forever. You get
your life only once, make it worth living for.
That’s not it. This is just 10th
boards. Then you have to choose your stream for 11th and 12th.
That’s another herculean task. That’s just a herculean task if it’s given to
you to choose. Or else it’s already chosen for you. There are just three
streams: Science, Arts and Commerce. That’s all you have in life. For me, Science
was fixed considering my 10th results. Then comes 12th
boards. Again you get to hear from everyone that it’s the most crucial stage of
your life which will decide whether you have to go for medical or engineering. I
mean how many crucial stages can be there. Here also once you take Science, you
have only two options.
My mom always wanted me to be a doctor. I studied
Biology for 3 months, I realized that I’m nowhere close to being a doctor. And
if by mistake I became a doctor, then people’s lives would be at great risk
from me. So I dropped it and took up engineering.
Now another great stage of your
life: choosing your engineering branch. That also, someone or the other from
your family or maybe your neighbor would choose for you. And you will be like “Maybe
they know better, let’s take that”. I’m not saying this is the case for
everyone. It’s the case with most of the students. Then when you start studying
in that branch, you realise how messed up your situation is, where you stand in
front of everyone else in that branch.
I joined engineering coming from
a small town where we were never taught any kind of programming, so I took
electronics and communication thinking that computer science won’t be my cup of
tea. Then I realise that it’s even worse. You’re neither in complete
electronics and neither in complete computer science. The best part comes when it’s
time for placements. You spend 4 years in engineering trying to maintain a good
CGPA learning core electronics so that you can sit for companies during campus
placements and then all of a sudden you realise that all your computer science
getting placed with amazing packages and you’re left with nothing. The few companies
that come for ECE include CSE and IT branches as well. And even if by mistake,
an ECE student manages to go the the interview round, they’ll ask him
programming questions where he’ll start to think whether he joined CSE or ECE.
I mean if you wanted a coder, then why allow ECE students. If I wanted to be a
coder, I would’ve joined CSE. What’s the use of taking ECE if I wanted an IT
job.
That’s what people here don’t understand.
People even after completing engineering, stand clueless as to how to proceed
in life. There’s no shortage of engineering colleges now-a-days in India. There
was once a time when an engineer was looked up with great respect. Now it’s
nothing.
I had a friend who made every
decision whatever she wanted with her life, didn’t matter how many branches or
fields she had to change. I know that’s hard, but I respect her for that.
I’ve been through many personal
experiences in life which have made me take this question so seriously.
Students aren’t just students. They can be anything they want to. Even if that
gives them very less income, it’s something they’ll enjoy doing in life. When
you make your hobby your job, that’s the life you want.
It’s just a normal topic of
discussion in the current scenario of Indian students. Hope you guys liked it.
