India. What comes to your mind on
hearing the word ‘India’? The mammoth population? Our vivid histories and
diverse cultures? Or maybe the monstrously increasing number of graduates we
produce. Our festivals? Or our countless successful space hauls? So basically,
nothing, yet everything! No wonder its better known as- Incredible India.
Although I have been talking about the diversity of India, I am here to speak
about something else, something extremely ironical to the diversity of Indian society,
something that really moves me - The unfortunate absurdity of Indians over a sheer
narrow range of career paths for the youth. India is one of the countries which
produce the most number of engineering graduates in a year. However the
country's always lingering at the bottom of the innovation index. Why is this happening? The
question has bugged me for a while now.
Despite boasting about being the most
diverse country in the world, the way the minds of the Indian students are
squeezed to try out a paltry number of professions they can contribute in,
KILLS ME. It really does! As soon as a student enters grade 9 or 10, the one
question that students are arguably asked the most number of times is that what
they aspire to become when they grow up. How can you expect a 14 year old, to
come up with a firm answer as to what he would love to when he would be 30. Our
interests are as short lived as a knee jerk reaction and you expect a mere
teenager to find his areas of interests for life! Is it that easy? If, by any
logic it was, students going to Kota wouldn’t commit suicide if they really
loved what they studied. If it was that easy, people won’t back out after cracking an IIT, as many of them do! But, I do believe that one can acquire a
broad sense of his/her passions provided he/she is supported by a lot of
assistance, 360 degree awareness, and a mind free from all the shackles of the
Indian society. When you grow up in India, you have a whole lot of career
options: you can become a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an
aeronautical engineer, an electrical engineer, a civil engineer, an automobile
engineer, a sound engineer, computer science
engineering OR you can also do wonders as – a family disappointment. Ouch, that
hurts. Doesn’t it? :’)
Also, at this point I would like to
make it clear that I am not against engineering, at all. I believe it’s
definitely a very interesting career, for those who find it interesting. There
is a lot to learn and to explore, for those who want to learn and for those who
want to explore. Because, when you want something, it is then that you start
giving in more than what you are even capable of! And we can’t even imagine the
potential of improvement in each and every field, if everyone starts
doing what they want to do, which almost seems to me as impractical, keeping in
mind our present situation.
Well, I have myself been a culprit of
this infliction, though I don’t blame anyone for it, but I guess that’s the way
our society works (Even though it is bizarre). I had enrolled in one of the
most decorated institutes of India, which prepares students for the IIT-JEE
exam – FIITJEE. I was really excited and motivated as I went to the first
class, but little did I know that all the motivation and excitement would fade
away so quickly. It didn’t take me much time to realize how the lectures
started getting boring and I realized that I didn’t gel. As I starting thinking
what was wrong with me, I looked what happened around me which assured me that
I wasn’t alone. Students around me focused more on memorizing the algorithms,
the short tricks, the tough questions then and there, rather than focusing on
the concepts and beauty of some of the most exploitable subjects like physics
and chemistry. But nobody gave it a second thought as to if they were really
interested in pursuing engineering for the next 40 years of their life. The
class seemed to be like the means to an end, light at the end of a 2 year long
tunnel as if after all the blood, sweat, and tears, all we could look forward to was a mere
college! And I realized all the
motivation was mock up.
I even started thinking what is it, that makes so many students run towards engineering careers, blindfoldedly. I
started asking my classmates, what makes them take up engineering, but it was
seldom that I found an answer even close to the periphery of logic and
rationality. Some answers that I found related to the handsome package that
many think, it offers. They legit said that they weren’t fascinated by
engineering or innovation as their passion, but the high salary it offers as
they blindly presumed, it does. But the reality is the average salary for the
engineering students of IIT, Bombay is not more than 11 lakh. Even the IITians
aren’t able to live up to their families' fat pay package dreams, forget about others. One
of the most hilarious reasons for selecting engineering that I have ever heard is
the hope to settle abroad. The reality however is that the passport is just
used as an address proof by most of these aspirants, lying in some old
briefcase, as single as Salman Khan.
Isn’t all this so obvious? The
population of Switzerland equals the number of engineers we produce. The supply
of engineering in India graduates is almost double the demand. Even then, with
all the blood, sweat, chaos, tragedy, death, we have been able to produce 6
noble laureates in science, 6. After independence, industrial demand increased
and there was a need of engineers but now, after 70 years, the freshness of
engineering is almost obsolete. Now, with the population as an asset and good
education, one out of every six Indians has a chance to excel in each and every
field, you name it! So, do we need to really stick to one profession,
instead of exploring and discovering new options?
Another misconception prevalent is the
way the entrance examinations of a few courses are equated with the career of a
student. For instance, if a person clears the JEE exam, he/she will become a
successful engineer but if he doesn’t, then living is a waste of time (almost
literally). If this was true then Satya Nadela, a graduate of the Manipal institute
of technology, would not have become the CEO of Microsoft and hundreds of
IITians wouldn’t have been rendered unemployed.
Even, the parents are thumbed under the societal pressure, while choosing a career for their children. After all, if
the boy doesn’t pursue engineering, 'log kya kahenge?'. For instance, the
pleasure with which a father tells others about his child pursuing engineering
is over the top, relative to that when he tells about his child pursuing
photography. Nobody, in fact pays attention to what the child may really want.
When a child comes from school, most of the parents ask how many marks the
child had scored, rather than asking if he even learnt something new, something
fascinating, something which makes him ponder, at school. Remember my
classmates, trying to memorize everything in the class? They are the product of this system for the so called ‘education’.
The system has been and sadly, continues to be highly examination
oriented. Your worth is decided by a
chronological list of mere numbers in descending order. One of the main reasons
for it is the culture of public shaming/praising on marks. Is this all we
deserve? Why it is even called an
education system!? Examination system is what it really is. I am not against
examinations but the sky high value given to marks and only to the marks
obtained by a student is what bothers me. The whole point of our system is not
in assessing his strengths/weaknesses but to certify him as pass or fail. So, the people who are excelling in their
respective fields (who aren’t many in number) are the doing wonders, despite
the education system and not because of it.
Remember how I became the culprit of
the way our society works? That’s because of the way we have been educated. We
very well know how to score the highest marks but, we don’t know what
creativity is. We have no idea what it really means. Most students don’t. And
so, we can’t even analyze what we are creative at, which makes the process of
choosing a career even more cumbersome and confusing for students. And as a
result, all we can think of, at the end of the day is: engineering, our savior.
With 28 Olympic medals, all that the second most populated country in
the world can think of is- engineering. And if something revolutionary doesn’t
happen soon, we Indians will continue to do engineering first and then figure
out what to do in life.
Committing mistakes is something which
is treated as an offence in our current education system. Each time a teacher asks a question in the class, all the students start squirming and cringing in their seats, glancing at each
other. There are some students who ask even if the question is in their
syllabus. Why does this happen? Because we aren’t allowed to make a mistake!
And if by chance a student, not “properly grilled” by this education system (if
you know what I mean) answers the question and gets it wrong, what everyone
else does is to start laughing or frowning, including the teacher. When answer
sheets are checked in schools and the students question the reason marks are
cut, the most common replies from the teachers are- “Go read the textbook and then come to me” or ‘the marking is strict”. This is literally hilarious. Even the teachers’
rush towards marks, rather than explaining to the students what the concept
was, which the student got wrong. We learn not by doing everything right, but
by committing mistakes and that is what makes us creative and that’s what makes
us humans, in a broader sense.
Do not take your life lightly. Be
creative, be brave, learn new things, meet new people, learn to carve out your
own niche, figure out what makes you happy and do everything you can, to find
what you are actually made for, and most importantly, GO DO IT!
You might not be good
at one thing but you will definitely be better at three others. So, in the end, I would just reiterate my whole
talk by this quote from Albert Einstein “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life
believing that it is stupid.”
Thank you for paying heed. I am obliged.
- Akshit
.
