To: My Student Days

It's been few months that I considered the option of stop writing this blog as I'm going too busy (read depressed) these days. Somehow I decided otherwise. And here is the post which I talked about in the last to last post. (Life is weird! A few weeks back, I so wanted to write on this topic and now I had to convince myself to keep writing.)

Basically, this post is about my experience of the student life and some of the tiny details which I might forget after years. So here is the account.

I remember 7-8 years back, all I wanted was the end of my studying days. I would count the years left for my studies to get over on my fingers. It seemed like a long time. (No, I’m not going to say “and it flew like anything”. It’s clichéd as well as not so true). While the years took a long time to get over, but I had never imagined that I would even think about my student days, leave alone missing (which I did miss but that was for a few minutes only.)

Earlier it used to be, “Okay, I’ve passed ___ class now moving to the next class.”

But in the last year of my graduation, every third person pops up the question “What next?” and I used to be as clueless as them. This question often left me wondering and in the end would leave me tense about my future.

Leave me, even my parents are like me. I remember I asked my dad about my future plans, just a month before the call to decide about the future was due, that he replied, “Just give exams, we’ll see after it.” No wonder why I’m so indecisive in such matters.

It gets even tougher when you live around people who are doing well or have proper aims/goals to follow. You can’t be like ‘I don’t know, maybe this…. or that’ but I’ve always been like this. 

Even at the time of choosing a certain stream (after 10^th), I was so confused. I knew which streams I didn’t want to go to. As a result, I went for ‘Non-Medical’; attended a few classes (approximately a week). I was unable to study in that tuition-fed-stream (I need to have a reason to keep my ego intact). And now I’m almost a commerce graduate.

While all this was centered on me and my confusions, our education system was equally experimenting at our times. For instance, ours was the first batch to pass secondary school under Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system (CCE) aka Grading system (or semester system).

In simpler terms, the first batch whose marks the previous generations couldn’t understand anymore. 

In the era where your intelligence is judged on the basis of percentage of marks obtained by you who can decode heavier terms like CGPA. Each of us got a letter from the then HRD minister congratulating us.

Similarly, ours is the last batch to have graduated under the annual system. I so wanted semesters to get introduced at that time (given the lure of half syllabus) but as destiny would have it we ended the annual system.

Another thing which I don’t want to miss out is the major change in my attitude. Initially, I used to be out of those students who answer the regular questioning in the classes no matter if the answer is correct or not. Due to this the then characteristic of mine, I was labeled as a good student of a particular subject at which I was not so good.

Gradually (even I don’t know when and how), I turned into that stubborn kid who would not answer even if she is confident that this THE answer. Doesn’t matter how hardly the other person pushed me to answer, I used to answer only when specifically asked to answer (sometimes, not even at that time).

Unexpected college politics to participate in exciting events (excitement is very rare in my case so it hurt really bad when I couldn't get to participate), unplanned youth festival visits (against which I had planned as I always ended up watching some bhangra steps in which I’m least interested. I like little moonwalks, MJ Style etc) and the first and only annual day function attendance (where you have to wait for the chief guest to arrive after the normal ‘got late’ hours, clap continuously and all the students around clad in the set standard uniform) sum up the few last (hopefully) years of my student life.

Note: I've got nothing against bhangra; to add weight to it I must say I'm a Punjabi and I've even admitted that Bhangra is more energetic and is out of the best regional dances.

Hopefully, this long a post would compensate for the delay I made in posting this blog.