This article tells the experience of a student who chose to pursue their passion over another option that their parents recommended.
Here, I’d like to tell you about a student who spoke the entrance exam to Centre University and secured a 12th position in the entrance exam for the Forest Research Institute Dehradun.
This person fails the MBBS exam because he does not want to become a doctor but their parents do. After failing, he began following his passion, which is to love the environment.
You can learn so much from this article that if you feel life is disappointing you, don’t be disappointed because there are other options available to you.
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I`m happy I failed my enterence test
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I had no idea what to do after finishing Class 12. According to my parents, the only course that guarantees a “good” future was MBBS. So I joined a prestigious coaching institute a week after my results. I had to stay in a hostel with hundred of others, all hoping to crack the exam. It was indeed a ‘rat race’.
After 10 months of work and sleepless nights. I thought I was ready. But on the day, I wrote the entrance test, I knew I had got it all wrong.
I clearly remember the day the results were out. Even the neighbour, with whom I never had a conversation, wanted to know if I would be a doctor or not. I got call from every relative I know, and with every call, I felt like I had failed in life. The next couple of weeks were very difficult, I had to explain why I couldn’t clear the entrance exam to every person I met. I felt I had let my parents down; I started believing I wasn’t good enough; and that it was the end of my career. I did want to try again but I had lost all my confidence.
After some consolation, I gathered energy and applied for geology at Fergusson College,Pune. I got through. My life changed gears. New faces, new campus, new languages, new culture, and most importantly: new friends. I even joined the college film society and started travelling. Things started to change and because of all that time out-doors, I soon realised my true calling— the environment.
I then applied for a masters in environmental management at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, and also applied for entrance examinations for all Central universities Because I loved every thing about the environment. I prepared well. This time, instead of mugging up for 12 hours a day— as I had done during my MBBS preparation— I started enjoying what I was reading. I studied about three hours, every day and surfed the Web for matter.
Finally, the results were out. I had topped the entrance examination to Central Universities and secured 12th rank in the entrance exam for the Forest Research Institute. I chose FRI because my best friend too had been selected for the same college.
Coming to FRI opened up a whole range of opportunities for me. I was introduced to ways in which the environment was actually being managed- like the restoration of barren lands, concepts of waste management, conservation etc. I got to be closer to nature than I ever was. I realised I could choose any direction of my interest here.
So, all in all, I got to travel; make friends for life; got to do much more than study inside a room and discovered my interest.
Today, I am glad, I failed that medical entrance. It wasn’t the end, but the beginning of me.
The writer was final year student of FRI
Forest Research of Institute, Dehradun
—- By Upasana